But as he turned away from Ariel’s door, he was thinking of Joan. He felt that he knew to-night, definitely and forever, that she would never relent, never love him. Her indifference to Ariel and Ariel’s good had convinced him. It was as if in refusing to share some of his tenderness for Ariel, Joan had refused to give him a child. This was absurd, on the surface, he was aware, but it had deep roots of truth somewhere, strongly reaching down into reality. Chapter XV Thursday came, and Ariel was prepared to go to town with Hugh. They were breakfasting together. The day was clear and sunny. Ariel was wearing her green hat with the magic feather, and her fur coat was lying with her pocketbook on a near-by chair, ready to be snatched up when they had finished their toast and coffee. Ariel put down her cup suddenly. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “We want the address of Charlie’s studio. I forgot it.” They planned to look Mr. Frye up at his studio and invite him to lunch with them. His number might not be obtainable from the New York telephone book, so Hugh let Ariel run up to her room. He heard her humming on the stairs. His heart smote him a little. She was so gay, so expectant. An excursion to New York the cause! Why, he should have given her that excursion days ago,—and several of them! He heard her voice on the stairs but not her feet. Somehow that humming put him back five years, into the studio’s loggia, sitting there smoking with Gregory Clare, steeped in sunlight,—flower-light too, because the flowers in and around the Clare studio did give off light of their own. They were so still, Hugh and his friend, that butterflies crossed and recrossed close before their faces in their commerce with the flowers. It had been an adventure in friendship, and he, Hugh Weyman, had not lived up to the riches it offered him. He had failed. Since Ariel’s coming, and her and Grandam’s rescue of “Noon” from the attic, Hugh had realized poignantly how he had turned back at the very beginning of that adventure and let his friend go on alone with it. Gregory’s last letter to him had proved that he _had_ gone on with it, only half aware that his friend was not abreast of him in the golden realm of imagination and love. So it was from the Bermuda loggia that he was recalled by his mother surprisingly coming into the dining room at this unusual hour. He jumped up and pulled a chair from the table for her. “I didn’t see you, Mother, or hear you.” He was almost abashed at the completeness of his day-dreaming. “I’ve had the wretchedest night, Hugh. Hardly slept a wink. Miss Peters has thrown up her job, or Grandam has fired her. I can’t make out which. Anyway, she’s going this morning. She told me, quite casually, when I ran into her in the butler’s pantry last night. She was getting hot milk for Grandam. And she’s just told Ariel now. On the stairs.”