Suddenly Hugh, who had passed up the concert, put down the mystery story he had intended to substitute for it and went, three steps at a time, up to the attic apartment. He wanted society—Grandam’s and Ariel’s—and perhaps to sit down at Grandam’s piano and play the mists away from heart and mind. Yesterday, while he was lunching a man at the Waldorf, the orchestra had played something of César Franck’s which Hugh had never heard before. He thought he could remember bits of it, work them out for Grandam this afternoon. Hugh was musical in a temperamental, totally undisciplined way, and for years past he had played only for Grandam or himself. Not even his mother could persuade him. But, somehow, Ariel’s presence wouldn’t matter to him a bit, he knew. Or rather it would matter. The very thought of her listening made his fingers want the keys. Wood smoke mingled with the smell of the violets which bloomed perpetually in the glass bowl by the daybed. This mixture of smells had lifelong association for Hugh. It meant understanding and an atmosphere of exquisite harmony between two human beings. Grandam was draped in a red shawl—the red of wild poppies in June fields—and lying in the long chair under the western windows. Ariel was kneeling on the floor by her side, and they were reading from a book resting on the arm of the chair, “The Oxford Book of English Verse.” Ariel got up when Hugh came in. She looked strange to him, for a minute, because of a new frock she was wearing. It was the color of wood smoke, or dim violets. It was, Hugh thought, the mingled smell of violets and wood smoke run into color and form. It fell in soft pleats from a silver piping at the base of her throat, was gathered in at her waist by a silver cord, and from there, still thickly pleated, hung in dense thick chiffon folds down almost to her ankles. With it she was wearing the low-heeled silver slippers that went with her green evening frock, and silver stockings. So Grandam had already dressed her serving-maid in these first days of her service. Hugh recognized the material instantly as having come from one of Grandam’s most notable scarfs, a great square of loveliness with which he had been familiar from boyhood. “You’ve come to play, Hugh! Well, I wanted music. Ariel ought to run out and get the air. I’ve been working her rather hard.” But Ariel cried, “Not a bit of it! It’s wonderful up here, Hugh!” “Don’t I know! But have you been out of doors since you began the job? No? Well, then Grandam’s right and you’d better run along now. If you drove a car I’d offer you the roadster—” But he was disappointed, all the same. He really wanted her there, with himself and Grandam—and music. Then Rose knocked on Grandam’s door and interrupted their discussion of what Ariel’s outing should be. “A telephone for Mr. Weyman.”