And Hugh, after his first glorified look, when first he saw Joan, had returned to his reserve and silence. He looked at Joan less than at any one else, and he took almost no part in the quickening of the social atmosphere which followed her arrival. But Ariel perceived that he could be well aware of Mrs. Nevin without looking at her, aware of every rise and fall of her coppery eyelashes. Why, if he had a thousand eyes and ears he could not have known more of all she said and did, even if he didn’t look at her.
“Miss Clare? But you were on the Bermuda! Your chair was next to mine. Isn’t that so?”
Ariel remembered the way Mrs. Nevin had let her steward speak to her and had not offered a word to undo it. And Mrs. Nevin had the violets. But she, Ariel, should now have revenge. Strange to want revenge! She had never experienced this dark stab of evil desire before. But all the world was different lately,—without her father. In the old world, the world they had had together, revenge and hate had been nothing but words. Forever remote. But her father was dead, and this was another world, and she was alone. Besides, revenge would be strangely easy of attainment. For at dinner Ariel had learned that Mrs. Nevin was a connoisseur of paintings, and a close friend of Michael Schwankovsky—of whom Ariel had heard her father speak often; she had not needed the Weymans to tell her that he was a fabulously wealthy Russian, naturalized as an American, who not only had a sound taste in the arts, but expressed it in books and articles in which real artists, like her father, took delight. Well, since Ariel now took it for granted that both Mrs. Nevin and her friend, Michael Schwankovsky, knew “Noon,” it would naturally be something of a shock to her to learn that she had sat beside the artist’s daughter for two days, ignoring her, except for that one horrid rudeness. Telling her was to be Ariel’s revenge.
“Yes, it was I,” Ariel responded in her clear, flat voice. “We were just speaking of ‘Noon’ when you came in. I am Gregory Clare’s daughter.”
“Yes?”
Mrs. Weyman murmured quickly, “Joan dear, you remember I wrote you about it? Last week. Ariel is the—one I was telling you about, that she was coming to visit us.”
“Oh, of course! Only I didn’t put two and two together for a minute. Stupid of me. Yes, indeed, I do know all about you—Ariel? And do you know, I consider it rather clever of you to have picked Mr. Weyman for a guardian.” She just glanced at Hugh. “On the boat I thought you were only a little girl, truly. You practiced some witchcraft on my babies, did you know? They were gabbling about you when I tucked them in to-night.”
But Ariel said again, insisting on her revenge, “I’m Gregory Clare’s daughter. ‘Noon,’ you know.”
Joan was suddenly impressed by the somberness of Ariel’s tone, and her intent gaze,—almost disconcerted by it. “Gregory Clare?” she asked tentatively.
“The artist.”