Hugh, who had failed in an effort to discover Ariel's whereabouts on her
first "Saturday off" and make a real holiday for her in New York as he
had intended, spoke for the following Saturday by the middle of the
week. But he was too late. It was already promised to Joan. This
surprised him and made him uneasy. He had lost his hope for Joan's
sympathy with Ariel days ago, and now he was past desiring it. For Ariel
and Joan, he had come to see, were essentially antithetical. Ariel had
been wiser than he in knowing it from the beginning. So it gave him no
particular pleasure to learn that Joan was taking Ariel to a Boston
Symphony concert, and afterwards to dine at Michael Schwankovsky's.
Even in Grandam's apartment it was not easy to see much of Ariel. For
when he went up there, evenings, she tactfully left him alone with his
grandmother. Monday night when he had protested, "But I've come to see
you too," she had surprisingly explained that she wanted to write a
letter to Anne and would come back if she finished it. But she had not
come back. And why was she writing to Anne? So far as Hugh knew, Anne
had paid literally no attention to Ariel at all when Hugh had wanted her
to, during the holidays.
Of Joan these days it appeared that he could see as much as he liked,
but in most unsatisfactory ways. He found himself hovering on the edges
of her hospitality to watch her dance and gossip with her
kaleidoscopically shifting groups of intimates. From an entire evening
spent in thus shadowing her he might be the richer for only one or two
alluring but enigmatical glances, or if he was supremely lucky, a few
minutes of one-sided intercourse, when Joan drew him out about his
business and his own progress, and he waked too late to realize that he
had not entered into her world of interests nor been encouraged to do
so.
To stay away from her altogether would be best. How often he had come to
this conclusion! But he was incapable of counting the cost of his love;
or at least incapable of acting frugally, once he had counted it. If
Joan wanted his friendship, she should have as much of it as she
requested. And who would not rather die of starvation one day than go
all one's life without an appetite?
While hungering for Joan, Hugh thought much of Ariel. The time when she
had been a responsibility peculiarly his seemed passing. For Grandam,
Schwankovsky, and now even Joan appeared, suddenly, all inside of a few
days, ready, even eager, to assume it on their own accounts. And twice
already since Monday Hugh had seen Anne's writing on envelopes addressed
to Ariel.
One morning in the next week, Hugh called Brenda Loring on the telephone
from his office to invite her to lunch with him. This girl, who from his
first meeting with her had made it plain that he interested her, was an
interior decorator with an astonishing vogue, considering her age and
experience. It was only two or three years since she had graduated from
Vassar, and already she had palatial offices of her own on Fifth Avenue,
a dozen or more eager assistants, and an income which must be several
times the size of Hugh's. Joan had had a hand in her success. But Miss
Loring had been worthy of that patronage, and now she was beyond need of
it.
Hugh could not fail to be gratified by the pleasure which colored Miss
Loring's voice when she discovered what he wanted of her, and by her
quick acceptance of his luncheon invitation, given in spite of the fact
that she must break a previously made engagement. He had been rather
driven to seeking feminine companionship to-day because he was feeling
particularly lonely and at loose ends. The reasons were various and not
all of them plain even to himself. The uppermost one seemed to be,
however, that it was Ariel's birthday and that everybody appeared to
have known it, except himself. Joan had, at any rate, and she had
bargained with Grandam for Ariel to have a half-holiday in which to
celebrate it. A party had been arranged and Hugh not been included. Joan
had made an attempt at explaining this anomaly by telling him that the
party was really Schwankovsky's whole plan and expense, and that she was
not in a position to suggest the guests.--And now Hugh was taking Miss
Loring to lunch.
He went to her offices to pick her up and suggest that she choose the
restaurant. At once she said, "The Jade Swan." It was in the Village,
she explained, but rather beyond anything the Village had ever produced
before.
"Magnificent, in fact. Every one's trying it, but it will be my first
try, Hugh. I'm going to call you Hugh, now that you've at last begun to
bother about me, and of course I'm Brenda. And let's have a table in the
balcony where we can see the whole circus. There'll be plenty of
celebrities to stare at. Writers--artists--editors. But just the
terribly successful ones. The other sort couldn't afford it, poor
dears!"
There were only half a dozen tables in the balcony, and Hugh and his
guest were lucky in securing the last of these. It stood against the
railing and afforded a view of the entire main floor of the restaurant.
All the tables down there were already occupied in spite of the newness
of the place, except one in the very center, which had the appearance of
being reserved for some particularly festive occasion. For while the
other tables all had their centerpieces of poets' narcissus, this table
flaunted a big shallow jade bowl filled with orchids and white roses.
"That little bouquet cost somebody a fortune," Brenda murmured. "And
it's not only expensive. It's lovely. It'll be interesting to see whom
it's to honor."
And almost simultaneously Hugh knew who had ordered it and in whose
honor, for Schwankovsky's big voice boomed under the balcony beneath
their feet, and he and his party entered from the street. Ariel and
Joan, and a frail blond young man, made up the group.
"I didn't know. Honestly I didn't know they were coming here," Hugh
exclaimed.
His companion laughed merrily. "But of course you didn't. Did you think
I was suspecting you of shadowing Joan Nevin, dear fellow? Wasn't it I
who chose the place?"
Joan had seated herself facing the balcony; but in spite of the
concentrated gaze of all the balcony lunchers on herself and her friends
she did not look up or appear to be aware that there was a balcony. Hugh
realized, as freshly, almost, as if he had never done so before, how
distinguished and unusual as well as beautiful Joan was. Her face glowed
with a purpose and light no other face in that crowded room possessed.
Perhaps it was the effect of the brilliant large eyes set wide under the
coppery-winged sweep of her brows. To-day the burnished hair was
concealed under a purple hat so _à la mode_ that not a glimmer of it
showed at brow or cheek. Few women could wear a hat so daring as that
and preserve at the same time a radiant and feminine beauty. And when
Joan spoke, leaning across the table toward Ariel, her lips moved with
such beauty of precision that one, without need to hear, knew that her
enunciation was perfect.
"Heavens! Joan Nevin is a stunning creature," Brenda ejaculated, all her
special gift of taste behind the generous words. "So it's the great
Michael Schwankovsky who invested in the floral piece. Well, if any one
in New York can afford it with the stock market what it is, I suppose he
can. Big blustering Midas! And it's Joan he's blustering around to-day.
But that's quite on the books, isn't it? The little man, the poor dear,
is Charlie Frye. Nobody of any importance, but amiable, and surprisingly
often seen in company with the great. The other person--" Brenda assumed
her lorgnette, a property she used with discretion and undeniable
distinction for one so young,--"The other person--Lady? Child? Flapper?
Russian Princess? Can't make out _what_ she is, and I don't know who she
is. Funny."
"That's Ariel Clare. And the party's in her honor, not Joan's. Because
it's her birthday," Hugh informed his companion--diffidently.
Ariel, thin of cheek and shoulders, emerging with Frye's help at this
instant from her coat of a princess, was pale and small in contrast with
the radiant Joan. Meager. Thin. Grandam was certainly--Hugh was sure of
it--letting her work far too hard. And so this was Charlie Frye!
But what was Brenda Loring saying with so much animation as she waved a
presumptuously impatient waiter back from Hugh's elbow. "Not really!
Ariel Clare! The dancer! But how too deliciously interesting to have
this early view of her, ahead of the mob. Getting within radius of Joan,
though, is as good as being behind the scenes, isn't it! She's so
frightfully in on everything! But this time you've beat Joan. You know
the model intimately. She works for you, doesn't she? Joan's awfully
entertaining on the subject. She declares it's so typical--your keeping
the girl on in that position at Wild Acres now that Schwankovsky himself
is her patron, and the exhibition's going to make her famous. Joan
thinks your Philistinism delightful. But of course you're not so
insensible as Joan fondly imagines! I should see through you!"
Joan was talking to the blond young man, while he visibly gloried in her
radiance. "But the radiance is all in herself," Hugh thought, looking
down on the scene, and for once in his life thinking about Joan
objectively, as a stranger might. Ever since she had come into the
restaurant it had been as if he were at a play, and the four people
sitting around the center table down there the players, to criticize
impersonally and make what one could of. "Yes, that radiance is all
enclosed. It doesn't light Frye's way to her, help him forward. It's not
sympathy. Not really. Now Ariel, although she's silent and no one is
looking at her, throws a radiance out from herself, all about her. She
stays dim. One hardly thinks of her. But if Frye turned now from Joan to
her, he'd find an illumination in the air between them. _Sympathy_."
He speculated about Schwankovsky. Had he tenderness for Ariel's self,
which was so poignantly accessible? Or was it merely self-dramatization
in the big creature that had thrown him to his knees at her feet when
she came into the drawing-room at Wild Acres that Sunday afternoon?
Well, if he had been genuine then--and Hugh thought he was probably much
too egocentric for that to be possible--his enthusiasm seemed to have
dwindled since, for he had looked only at Joan all this time, listened
to her speaking first to Ariel, then to Frye, openly absorbed in her and
proud of her. Hugh wondered what he meant to do with Ariel the rest of
the afternoon, now that he had usurped her birthday, if this was the
extent of his interest in her. "I'll excuse myself and go down and find
out," he decided. "Perhaps they'll hand her over to me after lunch.
She'll like seeing the office, I think, and our view of the Battery. She
can wait while I finish up the absolutely necessary business, and then
we can walk in the Park, or go to an exhibition, or do anything she'd
like. Joan and Schwankovsky can't, after all, enjoy playing around with
any one so simple and outside all their interests! My taking her on will
be a relief to them, I imagine."
But with the next breath his plan and his hope were shattered. For
Schwankovsky suddenly turned to Ariel, until now so unnoticed beside
him, and put his great, hairy hand close down on hers, which lay on the
white cloth, and they smiled at each other. It was over in an instant
but it told Hugh all that he had doubted of understanding and sympathy
between those two. Hugh perceived now--turned almost clairvoyant for the
instant--that although Schwankovsky might look at Joan and listen to
her, world without end, Ariel was all the while in his heart, and that
he was as aware of her as--yes, as a mother is aware of the child in her
arms while she converses with a caller.... So again Ariel had no need of
Hugh.
He returned his attention to Miss Loring, and tried to respond to
something she had been saying. "I don't exactly see why Joan should be
amused at Ariel's having a job and sticking at it, until the exhibition,
anyway," he exclaimed. "What's funny about that, Miss--I mean Brenda?"
"Nothing, if it were a respectable job, of course. But the idea was, you
see, her being a maid. An odd coat, that, for a maid to be wearing!"
"Oh, but she isn't a servant. She's my grandmother's companion-nurse,
and doing it very well too! You misunderstood Joan."
"Perhaps." Brenda had turned around in her chair, and continuing to
pretend that the impatient waiter did not exist, looked down at Ariel
with clever, narrowed eyes. Then she laughed, a keen little ripple of
pure pleasure, and continuing to squint through her lorgnette at the
unconscious Ariel, cried softly, "But I do begin to see--something in
her, anyway. _The dancer._ A cerise veil, a straight, very short purple
tunic. Sheer. Neck, arms, legs, bare. That clean line of shoulder blade
and thigh.... The face doesn't matter, you know, in dancing. _It's the
body._"
"_The dancer!_ What do you mean?" Hugh was suddenly as much revolted by
Brenda's narrowed, discerning eyes taking Ariel in from her head to her
feet as he had been revolted a minute ago by Schwankovsky's hand
swallowing Ariel's on the white tablecloth.
Brenda dropped her lorgnette and looked across at Hugh, surprised by his
tone. "Of course. The dancer. Why not? Joan's crowd are saying it now.
But soon all the world will be shouting it,--if Schwankovsky is right,
and the Clare pictures are all that he thinks them. Isn't this Ariel in
every one of them, dancing? Isadora Duncan stuff? May Morning stuff?
Well, there's all the publicity she needs, if she wants to go on the
stage, whether she has any actual talent or not. They say she's
untrained. But a few weeks of hard work would fix that. Æsthetic dancing
doesn't require the technique that ballet requires, you know, or even
the vaudeville dancing stunts. All that is necessary is a reasonably
pretty body, some gracefulness, and a lot of feeling. Given these, and a
cerise veil, that girl down there can go as far as she likes--providing
her father's paintings make a big enough stir. Haven't you even thought
of that, Hugh? After all, the girl's in your house, no matter in what
capacity. You might get just a little interested, I should think!"
Hugh peremptorily beckoned the waiter, by now almost hopeless, and took
up the matter of their lunch with him. After the business was settled to
Brenda's complete satisfaction, and even more to the waiter's, whose
respect for Hugh showed to almost a shocking degree in his face as he
received his orders, Hugh asked, "Did Joan put this nonsense into your
head, or Schwankovsky? Anyway, it is utterest nonsense." He could not
disguise from himself, and even less from Miss Loring, that he was angry
and uncomfortable.
"What? About Ariel Clare? Really, I don't remember. Why, it's so obvious
I may even have thought of it myself," Brenda retorted, laughing.
"Is it true, Hugh," she went on, still teasingly, "that you yourself
have had one of these Clare pictures for years, the best one at that,
the gem of them all, according to Schwankovsky, in your attic? And did
Schwankovsky and Joan and Ariel go on a still hunt for its recovery? And
is it now hanging in your grandmother's bedroom, because there's no
other place you want it at Wild Acres? Or are they only making a good
story?"
"It's quite true," Hugh replied seriously. "Except that Ariel got the
picture out herself when she came to us, without help. By the time
Schwankovsky had looked her up at Wild Acres, it was hung over my
grandmother's mantel. But it belongs to Ariel now, because I've given it
to her."
Brenda stopped laughing. She looked at Hugh with new seriousness and
exclaimed, "Do you know, I'm really, in my heart of hearts, quite
different from Joan and from most of the women she plays with. I'm
willing to have all the cultivation myself, and not expect my men
friends to play up to all that.... Art, you know. Taste. It doesn't
matter so much as one thinks! And I don't believe that we so-called
artistic people have all the imagination, either. Men like you, business
men, your imagination is the real thing. You create something out of
nothing. Fortunes out of ideas. Skyscrapers out of thin air. Who am I to
laugh when you show bad taste in judging a painting or prefer jazz to
Debussy? One can't have things both ways. And your way looks to me to be
the biggest, truly.
"Schwankovsky, for instance, is an entertaining person, and he certainly
has cultivated his taste to an extraordinary and sure degree, and he's
done a whole lot for art in our benighted country. But he inherited his
millions. His imagination never had to go into the making of _them_.
Only in the spending. He uses his imagination in the spending, you in
the making. Nobody would have time to do both.
"I'd be willing to bet quite a lot, Hugh, that you in this particular
case are the one who's right. Not about the picture. Schwankovsky's more
likely to be right about that. But about the girl. Your genius must be
in sizing up people. All business men, successful ones, have to be able
to size up people. That's obvious. And if you see that Ariel Clare is
just a simple, wholesome girl who happened to have an artist for a
father, but herself is a type to make a good nurse or maid, something
practical and useful, then I think you're right in sticking to it and
being disgusted at the idea of Joan and her friend Schwankovsky thinking
they can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.... I'd accept your
judgment on a person much quicker than anybody's down there."
She waved her cigarette in its long holder in the direction of the
Schwankovsky party.
"Have you _ever_ in your life tasted such onion soup?" she murmured
after a minute of rather stunned silence on Hugh's part. "How old is
she, by the way? To become a dancer one should start very young."
"Ariel, you mean? Yes, the soup is very good. She's twenty to-day. It's
her birthday."
As Hugh said this, Ariel caught sight of him for the first time, and
smiled up at the balcony. He bowed to her, and his own smile was rather
constrained. But he felt that a finger of sunshine had suddenly
traversed his heart. He said again, not realizing that he was repeating
himself, "To-day is her birthday. She is twenty."