Joan shook her head. “Schwankovsky happens to be hypnotized by the ways Gregory Clare found of putting light on canvas. But some other just as good critics are going to be even more hypnotized by how a great artist has been able to take one single model and by changing her postures make of her a whole symphony of the dance, a kaleidoscopic vision of the possibilities of beauty in movement of the feminine form.... If only Ariel had the beauty that Clare has imagined and created there! But she simply hasn’t any quality which will justify the free publicity she’ll be getting from all this.
“So I think she _will_ need protection. But _ours_, Hugh, not Schwankovsky’s. Whatever Michael’s talents are, protecting’s not one of them. I should think we’d be agreed on that, you and I. No, it’s up to us, if you think she’s worth the bother. And you do, I know. You’ve been a darling from the very first about this girl. You are the protector supreme, my dear. It’s quite your character! Would you be pleased if I helped a little, took her off your hands? I might even invite her to Switzerland with me next month. Would that help?”
Hugh knew at once that it would help, immensely. What better could happen to Ariel this summer than that a woman like Joan should take her in hand, travel with her? And wasn’t it very wonderful of Joan? Mightn’t Hugh take hope and heart from the fact that Joan was at last identifying her interests with his own in this sudden and generous way?
But oddly enough, he took neither hope nor heart. His heart, in fact, instead of responding joyously, had set up a lonely, almost sullen thud. He did not want Ariel to go to Switzerland, next month,—even with Joan.
As he was not responding to her wildly generous suggestion, Joan after a minute of waiting began talking fast, for her, and nervously. “Did you notice that in all these pictures Clare takes great care to paint Ariel turned away—or if her face is there, he blurs it with light, or throws a shadow across it, or bends it down. It seems that he wasn’t so oblivious of the limitations of his model, then, doesn’t it? Her face, at least, never touched his imagination. There’s a whole theme for a tragic novel in that! The tragedy of an artist,—_His muse, full face, is not beautiful_. Rather subtle, that! Too subtle for you, Hugh, I’m afraid. But it quite thrills me. Some day I may write it. It would be big, profound.... Do you remember, Hugh, how you said that Ariel made no impression on you in Bermuda? How shadowy she was?”