“And I’m interested, of course. What’s she like?”
“Not bad. Well bred. Better bred than Anne, in fact. But that’s not putting it strongly enough, for Anne’s manners these days are barbarous. It’s nothing about Ariel herself that bothers me. It’s what we are to do with her! The only gauche thing about her is a seeming obsession about her father. She takes it for granted he was a great artist and that this exhibition of his paintings, when it comes off, will edify the entire art world. But Joan assures us it’s all nonsense. The exhibition, if it comes through, will be a farce. And what are we to do then? I don’t believe Ariel has enough actual cash to take her back to Bermuda when it’s all over. And even if she has, she probably won’t want to go. So far as one can discover she hasn’t a relative and hardly a friend in the world,—and no education, no training for anything in particular. That’s what’s so appalling, my dear.”
“But Hugh means to help her to something, doesn’t he? Her father surely expected—”
“Hugh! That’s just it! Oh, Mother Weyman! Why should Hugh have this absurd sense of responsibility toward a stranger! Hasn’t he enough on his shoulders, poor dear! And what can he do for her, anyway? He’s not wealthy. We spend pretty well what he makes each month. It’s dreadful.”
“But he might manage to send her to business school for a year or two. He spoke of that, I believe, if the exhibition should be a disappointment.”
“And where would she live? Here? And go in on the early train with Hugh, I suppose! But I won’t let such an absurdity happen. She can’t live here. And Hugh mustn’t finance her. Why should he? It’s too unfair!”
Grandam looked at her daughter-in-law with some surprise. Hortense was rarely so intense or emphatic about anything, even big things. And the present problem, if it was a problem, seemed so far, at least, not really serious.
“You’re rather crossing bridges, aren’t you?” she asked, but not without sympathy. “The exhibition has yet to prove itself a failure, no matter what Joan has said. How can she be so sure? She hasn’t anything to do with it, has she? It’s some one else entirely. One of the young Frye’s. I knew his father and his uncle, by the way.”
“Did you? But Joan says that he, this boy, doesn’t amount to anything. That Ariel can’t count on him. He’s a lightweight.”
“Oh? Well, Joan herself is in a position to do something, isn’t she? Why doesn’t she take the exhibition in hand? Make it a success? Or is she diffident about putting her influence to the actual test?”