While Ariel knelt again beside Grandam to finish “The Forsaken Merman,” he went down to his mother’s room to take the message on the extension telephone there. Joan was on the wire. And she surprised him by asking at once, “Is Ariel Clare still at Wild Acres with you, Hugh?” “Yes. Of course.” Did she think she was at the American Girls’ Club or the Working Girls’ Home? he asked himself. “She’s there now, this afternoon? All right. I’m bringing Michael over. He wants to see her.” “Well, that will be all right. I’ll tell her.” The receiver at the other end went up smartly. Thoughtfully, Hugh put his own instrument back on the table. What next? Well, it was quite in the course of things, he supposed, that Schwankovsky, having discovered from Frye or from Joan that the artist’s daughter was at Wild Acres, wanted to meet her. Hugh didn’t know why he had not thought of that probability when his mother at dinner had given him the information that Schwankovsky was week-ending at Holly. It was only Joan’s voice which puzzled him. So unnaturally crisp. Hugh didn’t believe for an instant that Joan was taking the trouble to keep up the pretense of being put out with him for his behavior at Schwankovsky’s the other night. But obviously she was put out about something. Chapter XVI “You want to discuss the exhibition with Ariel? She’ll be down in a minute.” Hugh shook hands with Michael Schwankovsky and lighted Joan’s cigarette for her. “The exhibition! No, not at all. It’s already entirely arranged for, and will be a magnificent success. Mr. Frye has given me _carte blanche_. It is the dancer I would see, not the lady who is to become rich from the sale. Yes, here to look with my own eyes on the soul of the paintings, the dancer herself. I palpitate for one glimpse of that spirit.... When you spoke to me of the exhibition, Mr. Weyman, at my house the other night, I did not know that the dancer was in this country, much less your guest. I knew nothing of your connection with the affair whatever. But can it be true? She is really here?” He turned in a full circle, his glance, his hands, sweeping the library with an amazed gesture. “In these bourgeois surroundings! _Mon Dieu!_ But how is it done? Have you stuck a pin through her head, Mr. Weyman? Is she mounted on cardboard?” Hugh chose to treat this, as he hoped it was intended, humorously. “Gregory Clare was my friend,” he explained what he had not been allowed a chance to explain at Schwankovsky’s house. “Naturally, I am delighted that you are interesting yourself in his work. But I do not quite understand why your enthusiasm should extend itself to his daughter whom you do not know.”