But then she laughed abruptly, a delightful, crisp laugh, and drew a cup toward her. “Well, I’ve known Hugh Weyman many years longer than you have, you amusing girl. So you can’t tell me anything to surprise me about the lengths to which his altruism will take him, given a chance. He’s a martyr to every one, his mother, his grandmother, his brother and sister, and now I can very easily take your word for it, he is ready to play the heavy father to you. He thinks he was created to take care of people, poor dear. And if it comes to that, his Creator seems to think so too, by the burdens He has put on him. Cream? Lemon? Ah! When you are a middle-aged old dud like me, Ariel, you’ll take lemon and no sugar, thank you, just like that.”
She filled Ariel’s cup one third with cream, and added the two lumps of sugar which Ariel wanted. Then she passed across a dish of hot English muffins.
“A muffin too, and dripping with butter!” Joan murmured enviously. “My word, child! While I must content myself with a dry cracker.”
But Ariel, to Joan’s secret annoyance, showed no overt surprise that Joan’s beautiful figure needed any such disciplining. She ignored the opportunity for flattery and protested: “Hugh’s not playing father to me, not at all. He wouldn’t think of it, I’m sure. We’re very good, very wonderful friends, Mrs. Nevin.”
“Oh! Yes. Friends in a way! But that’s only a little of the story. I’ll take back the ‘heavy father,’ if you like, but only to change it for ‘grandfather.’ Hugh and I are pretty close, you see. So he has a way of confiding his joys and troubles to me. And I can tell you something about him you mayn’t have guessed in your rather brief acquaintance. It’s this: this guardian of yours is an extremely conventional person. He has almost great-grandfatherly ideas, in fact, of how young girls should—shouldn’t, rather—allow old men to pet them, for instance. The fact is, Ariel, it isn’t your physical health Hugh is concerned for. If it were, he wouldn’t let his grandmother work you like a slave, as anybody can see she is doing, would he? You do look dreadfully tired! It’s your manners and morals Hugh’s bashing himself about.”
Ariel said nothing. So Joan went on with it. “What I can’t make Hugh see, innocent dear that he is, is that all girls your age are like that now! Why, I suppose his own sister Anne isn’t so different. Petting may be as much a matter of course to her as brushing her teeth. But naturally I don’t drag Anne into things when discussing your situation with Hugh. I leave him to his illusions where his sister’s concerned. Why not! But with you it’s different. You’re not quite so vital to him—not so near home. Still, in spite of my most earnest defense of you, Ariel, the old dear wasn’t persuaded. He said he was going to arrange things so that you could have nothing to do with Michael from now on. And that’s the reason for the simple life and this picnic, and if you don’t call it grandfatherly, I do!”
This was hardly capturing Ariel’s admiration and affection as Joan had set out to do, nor was it a very successful method of sounding for Ariel’s own attractions. It was, of course, a mere baiting of the girl,—and cheap, really beneath her, Joan knew. But every instant since Ariel had told Joan about that picnic, when Ariel and Hugh were to be alone together until “after dark, I’m afraid,” Joan had forgotten her original direction and purpose in this tête-à-tête. If by using a pin and scratching or pricking Ariel’s smooth, silvery flesh, she could have drawn forth the secret of Ariel’s attraction for Hugh, she would happily have taken that trouble; but for any ways more devious of accomplishing the end, she simply couldn’t be bothered. She would exert herself now only to wound. Yet she thought that Ariel was escaping from even her malice, running through her very fingers as it were,—melting away on a background of light and air, for all that she had taken such pains about putting four walls around her.
As a matter of fact, Ariel had not escaped from Joan at all. She was there in that formal, straight chair, all of her there, cold, and shut up like a stone. It was quite a minute of silence before she asked, “Why shouldn’t I see Michael Schwankovsky? What do you and what does Hugh mean?”
She was looking at the frosted cakes on a Wedgwood plate as she asked this, and Joan thought, “She’d take one if I’d pass it. She’s thinking about cake like any greedy schoolgirl. Why am I spending time and attention like this on a mere chrysalis! If she’s to grow wings some day, be a woman worth even annoying, that day’s far off.”
“Why shouldn’t you see Michael? But you should, my dear. In fact, if he’s to go on with this exhibition of your father’s work, you must. It is only Hugh who thinks you shouldn’t. Though Hugh’s enough to spoil the chances for the exhibition, if he begins interfering.”