“So it’s here?” Enderly was looking about as though actually expecting to find the picture on one of the library walls.
“In the attic. Hugh lost no time in stowing it way after Joan had laughed at it. He knew that she knew, you see. But Hugh is loyal to his friends. He doesn’t count the cost of friendship. And Ariel Clare may be charming, no matter how much a failure her father was as an artist.”
Mrs. Weyman got up, snapped on another light or two and started out to dress for dinner. But Enderly, clinging to his tactlessness, detained her by inquiring, “Where’d she go to school? Do you know? England?”
Mrs. Weyman turned in the doorway to answer but Anne, released from the restraining pressure of the maternal fingers, got ahead of her with: “We have no evidence of any education whatever having happened to Ariel. It’s one thing Hugh doesn’t try to claim. What she’s really been doing all these years is being a model—her father’s model, of course—and that may have taken all her time, poor thing. Hugh tells us that he never painted a picture without putting her in. Where most artists put their signature he put his daughter, do you see. Not the subject of the picture, just a sort of afterthought, off at the side, or in the air or in the water,—a kind of sprite or accompanying angel. Sweet idea. And—”
Mrs. Weyman interposed. “I wouldn’t go on embroidering, Anne. It’s time to dress for dinner, and Ariel is to be our guest. I mean to remember that, and you must, too. By the way, Joan’s back. Came on the Bermuda to-day, with Ariel Clare, but didn’t notice any one she thought would be she. I saw Holly lighted up and stopped in to say ‘Hello.’ She’s coming over after dinner—”
“Oh, that’s a shame!” Anne cried, persisting in clashing with her mother. “She’s been gone so long Hugh’s almost begun to take an interest in other things. And here she’s back to spoil it all. Why can’t she leave him alone?”
Enderly followed Mrs. Weyman into the hall. “Frankly, I’ve been palpitating to meet your Mrs. Joan Nevin for a long while,” he was saying. “In New York every one has promised it. Party after party they are almost sure of her, and then, for some reason or other, she isn’t there. I shall think myself in luck to-night, if she actually does come here, and isn’t, as I’d begun to suspect, a lady of fable merely,—an intriguing legend. Wild Acres is really a delicious place to visit!”
Enderly was working into Mrs. Weyman’s hands at last. She paused, turned back to him, and replied, “So nice of you to think so. And Mrs. Nevin is very worth meeting, of course. But one forgets her fame as a collector and all that. At least, I do. To me she’s just a very dear girl whom I’ve known practically all her life. A lovely person. She’s been away most of the winter, and I’ve missed her. All of us have.”
Anne, already at the foot of the stairs, put in, “Huh! I’d be willing to miss her permanently, for Hugh’s sake. But come along, Mum. Let’s not be caught downstairs by Hugh and his incuba. Better to take her first along with dinner. Food may sustain us over the first shocks.”
“I’ll go up too, and write a paragraph, perhaps,” Enderly said, behind Mrs. Weyman and her daughter on the stairs. “My publishers are tiresomely inconsiderate, keeping at me about the new book. They’re following me even here with urgent telegrams. They don’t hope for miracles—they expect ’em.”