Came a crash! The grizzly over by the windows had suddenly sprung to his feet, turning over a small table in the act. A china box and a marble figurine lay smashed to bits on the polished floor. Both the marble and the box were cherished, valuable possessions of Mrs. Weyman’s; but Schwankovsky’s only apology was a shrug of his great shoulders and a humorous arching of bushy eyebrows in unwarranted surprise at the destruction. He came rushing toward Joan and Hugh, sweeping Ariel with him by a great arm. “She says one of the pictures is here, upstairs,” he roared. “A picture that Clare thought the best of them all! It’s up in Grannie’s room she says, old Grannie’s room in the attic! We forgive Mr. Weyman his unique absence of perceptions, perhaps—but you, Joan Nevin—_You!_” His scorn choked out his utterance. “In Grandam’s room? Well, I haven’t seen it. I haven’t been up there for weeks,” Joan drawled, but her cheeks were dangerously flushed. “But they’ve had it for years, Ariel says. And you have told me about this Grannie, my friend,—this old lady. You call on her frequently. More than once in five years, if I remember. So you _must_ know this picture. And you never told me, your friend!” His hands were clawing his hair. Hugh spoke soothingly, “It’s been in the store-room until recently. Ariel rescued it for us out of the attic. I’d put it there. So Joan hasn’t seen it—not hung in my grandmother’s room.” He was giving Joan her way out, if she cared to take it. She could say now truly enough that she had never seen “Noon” hung, and in a good light. But Joan did not take advantage of the way out Hugh had so carefully prepared for her vanity. And Schwankovsky grew stormier. “In the attic! You put this picture in the attic? _You_ did? And you boast of it? Then, when Ariel finds it there, you very, very kindly let her hang it up in Grannie’s room? Wonderful! This is too wonderful! More and more wonderful, and still more so!” Joan kept a silence which masked itself as amusement. As for Hugh, he nodded, but did not pretend to be entertained by the vaudeville sketch in bad manners which was being imposed upon them.