Schwankovsky shook off the quieting hand. “Companion-nurse!” he bellowed. “Good God!” Joan backed away from him, more disconcerted at his having ignored her hand than by his tone. Schwankovsky, seeing her expression, obviously made some effort to be more peaceful. “Forgive me, Joan, my dear. You see I forgot that _you_ had not yet seen the paintings. You’d know, if you had, what Mr. Weyman has no excuse for not knowing, that it is madness and folly to pretend that the dancer is a ‘companion-nurse.’ She simply isn’t anything of the sort. She’s the inspiration, soul, I can say it, of the greatest artist of our times. She’s the germinating force within the outward and visible expression of his art. And this force, this _Imagination_, inherent in all true art, has nowhere else that I know of ever taken form and showed itself through the actual medium—of paint, or music, or sculpture. So here we have the unique, the unheard-of. Imagination made visible! In Ariel, dancing.—But where is she? Why doesn’t she come?” She was already there, in the doorway. “Ha!” The Russian charged lumberingly upon her, and fell, kneeling, by her silver slippers. Grabbing up her hands he kissed them,—the palms, the backs. Hugh cried, but inaudibly, “Why doesn’t Ariel box his ears?” Joan languidly sank into a chair, lighting a fresh cigarette. “Well, Ariel,” she drawled. “The bear there on the rug is Mr. Michael Schwankovsky. Allow me to present him.” Schwankovsky bounded up,—turned on Joan. “A totally unnecessary waste of breath,” he expostulated, and seized Ariel’s hands again. “This divine child and I have known each other before the creation of the world. It was she who taught my soul the existence of form while it was yet chaos. ‘Ariel.’ Why did they name you that? It isn’t good enough. But then, you should be nameless. There _is_ no name.” Hugh asked of Joan in a low voice, with genuine concern, “Is it all right? Has he been drinking?” Joan laughed, but mirthlessly. “Not a bit of it! He’s merely been a little put out with me lately, and this is the reaction. He couldn’t take it in why I hadn’t told him Ariel was here. But how could I dream he’d be interested? That it meant anything to him? And why, in heaven’s name, Hugh Weyman, didn’t you tell me that he had seen the Clare pictures and was exhibiting them? I don’t understand your secretiveness. It wasn’t like you. It was horrid.” “But you were away. And I thought you knew, of course. I thought it was you yourself, Joan, who had got the old duffer interested. I was awfully grateful to you. I tried to tell you _how_ grateful when we danced, remember? I went over there that night all primed to bless you, and thank you, for what I supposed, of course, you’d done.”