Joan’s playing gained in subtility of interpretation. “It’s funny, Hugh, but poor old Michael is madly jealous of Enderly. Last night he was quite boorish about it. And Pressy understood the situation perfectly. It was rather delicious, watching, but disgraceful of Michael, all the same. In some ways Prescott is more sophisticated than Michael. In spite of his background and youth. Perhaps the really sophisticated mind is an accident, like genius, and can appear out of nowhere.... Michael’s jealousy, though, does flatter the boy. How could it not! A man like that jealous of him!... And now, you see, Michael thinks he’s paying me out....” She dropped her hands from the keys.
“Come on,” she cried, jumping up. “I’ve duties to my other guests. So I shall have to gratify Michael to the extent of using violence to drag him home with me, I suppose. Unless he’s to walk, and he’s not so good at walking as you are, Hugh dear!”
Hugh could only go with her. He could hardly insist that Grandam, who had kept the noisy, ranting Schwankovsky with her for almost an hour, was not up to saying “good afternoon and good-by” to an old acquaintance like Joan.
But Joan was disconcerted almost to the point of awkwardness when they discovered Schwankovsky in the middle of tea with Grandam and Ariel, and looking as if he would like nothing better than to stay on all the afternoon.
Ariel, as they came in, was kneeling up straight at one side of the hearth, toasting a big slice of graham bread which in its very size and thickness proclaimed it had been ordered by Schwankovsky for himself. At the other side of the hearth, at Grandam’s knee, he crouched, waiting for it, like some giant Tartar on a cushion. Her scarf, falling from a shoulder, trailed down the giant’s back, and he had drawn the end across a great knee. It was bright in the firelight, very bright and vital. Ariel’s face was pure silver, and her eyes emerald green against the flames.
When Grandam saw the new arrivals she leaned farther back in the long chair and shut her eyes for an instant. Hugh said with quick concern, “You are getting too tired! We don’t want tea, Joan and I. Hers is waiting for her at home, along with a house full of guests who are expecting her and Mr. Schwankovsky back for it.”
“Well, you will let Michael Schwankovsky finish his fourth cup here, won’t you, Joan? Now he’s begun it? Do sit down, both of you. Ariel, please pass the sweets to Joan and Hugh. There’s cheese, Michael Schwankovsky, in that jar, if you like it on graham toast. Hugh, get a cup for yourself from the tray.”
Hugh preferred to smoke,—but nothing less than a pipe this time, for he felt Joan’s strain and confusion; and his well-worn, smooth and beautiful meerschaum at least gave a superficial air of peace to the gathering.
Joan sat looking over Grandam’s head to the western windows. She observed, with something like exasperation, that even out there, far, far in the western sky, the red-violet light of the clearing evening was turning the very heavens into a mere extension of Grandam’s apartment. In the smell of browning toast, the firelight, the laughter, Ariel’s silver slippers coming and going in Grandam’s hospitality, the smoke from Hugh’s meerschaum, and the shadows dancing on its bowl, she refused to take pleasure.
But Schwankovsky would not let her stay out of it whether she felt at home or not. He sprang to his feet, seized her by the elbows, pulled her up, and walked her backwards, away from the fireplace into the center of Grandam’s room. “You haven’t looked at ‘Noon’!” he shouted. “My Ariel was right. It is the jewel of them all. I admit it. Clare didn’t go beyond that even in ‘The Shell.’