Mrs. Weyman shrugged, ever so slightly. She said, archly, “Don’t be obtuse, dear boy. Joan isn’t interested in Ariel for Ariel’s sake. How could she be! Who could be? It’s us, Joan’s concerned for. Me—and you. Aren’t you grateful?”
“And she thinks she can really get Ariel into the American Girls’ Club? But she can’t be certain of it, of course. Aren’t they pretty exclusive down there?”
Mrs. Weyman answered in all good faith. She did not dream how much at cross purposes they had gotten in the last few seconds, she and her son. “Yes. They have to be exclusive, of course. Or they’d be overrun with immigrants. But Ariel’s parents were both American citizens. And morally she’s all right,—what’s termed in those places, ‘A good girl.’ So I think Joan can manage it. She can manage most things, you know. I’ll let Ariel help with Grandam to-day—since Miss Peters really insists on going—and by to-night you’ll have found a suitable woman. But I’m afraid you’ll have to get a later train, Hugh, for I do need you to do the persuading with Grandam. She’ll listen to you. She’ll have to. Why, it wouldn’t be safe to let her depend on Ariel for care.”
Here Ariel returned. She stood in the doorway and almost burst into song in Hugh’s direction. “I can’t go into town with you after all! I’ve got a job. The job I told you about. And it’s already begun.”
Hugh went toward her. “Mother has just told me about it. Is it a job you really like, Ariel? Think you want to give it a try?”
Ariel treated those questions as humor. “Isn’t it wonderful!” she cried. “Oh, I’m the luckiest girl!”
Hugh appeared to be joining in her transports. Mrs. Weyman was astounded by the inexplicable right-about-face in Hugh’s attitude she saw taking place before her eyes.
He was actually saying “I congratulate you. I think you’ll see it through too,—be a grand nurse and companion, and be as independent as blazes right up to the day of your picture exhibition, Ariel. After that, we’ll see what next. But now it appears to be just a matter of marking time.”
Ariel was standing directly in morning sunlight, where it made a fan on the floor and laced the door jambs with light. Was she on her toes, just hovering? It was only for an instant, and might have been illusion caused by too much white sunlight, but to him she was a spirit dancing on winter air—as her father would see her, were he here in the Weyman dining room instead of way off in that dream loggia with the dream butterflies over the dream sea. Her body seemed elongated, taller with its upward lift. She was reaching out her arms, not toward the snowy air and the sky, however, but simply to take the coat and pocketbook which Hugh had picked up for her from the chair where she had tossed them before breakfast in readiness for train-catching.
All that Mrs. Weyman felt was that Ariel was pleased over having stolen a march on herself and Hugh. Then the unaccountable girl was gone.