diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524-0.txt | 12493 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 224057 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 237482 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524-h/524-h.htm | 15319 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524.txt | 12492 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 524.zip | bin | 0 -> 222444 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/anver10.txt | 13267 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/anver10.zip | bin | 0 -> 222223 bytes |
11 files changed, 53587 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/524-0.txt b/524-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..096e399 --- /dev/null +++ b/524-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12493 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ann Veronica + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: March 18, 2006 [EBook #524] +Last Updated: September 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + + + + + +ANN VERONICA + +A MODERN LOVE STORY + +By H. G. Wells + + + + + + CONTENTSCHAP. + I. ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + II. ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + III. THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + IV. THE CRISIS + V. THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + VI. EXPOSTULATIONS + VII. IDEALS AND A REALITY + VIII. BIOLOGY + IX. DISCORDS + X. THE SUFFRAGETTES + XI. THOUGHTS IN PRISON + XII. ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + XIII. THE SAPPHIRE RING + XIV. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + XV. THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + XVI. IN THE MOUNTAINS + XVII. IN PERSPECTIVE + + + + “The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every + well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even + ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge.” + + + + +ANN VERONICA + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + + +Part 1 + + +One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came +down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to +have things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on +the verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely +she made it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had +been reached. She made up her mind in the train home that it should be +a decisive crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with +her there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of this +crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell. + +She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to Morningside +Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in an attitude that +would certainly have distressed her mother to see, and horrified her +grandmother beyond measure; she sat with her knees up to her chin and +her hands clasped before them, and she was so lost in thought that +she discovered with a start, from a lettered lamp, that she was at +Morningside Park, and thought she was moving out of the station, whereas +she was only moving in. “Lord!” she said. She jumped up at once, +caught up a leather clutch containing notebooks, a fat text-book, and +a chocolate-and-yellow-covered pamphlet, and leaped neatly from the +carriage, only to discover that the train was slowing down and that she +had to traverse the full length of the platform past it again as the +result of her precipitation. “Sold again,” she remarked. “Idiot!” She +raged inwardly while she walked along with that air of self-contained +serenity that is proper to a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty under +the eye of the world. + +She walked down the station approach, past the neat, obtrusive offices +of the coal merchant and the house agent, and so to the wicket-gate by +the butcher’s shop that led to the field path to her home. Outside the +post-office stood a no-hatted, blond young man in gray flannels, who was +elaborately affixing a stamp to a letter. At the sight of her he became +rigid and a singularly bright shade of pink. She made herself serenely +unaware of his existence, though it may be it was his presence that sent +her by the field detour instead of by the direct path up the Avenue. + +“Umph!” he said, and regarded his letter doubtfully before consigning it +to the pillar-box. “Here goes,” he said. Then he hovered undecidedly for +some seconds with his hands in his pockets and his mouth puckered to a +whistle before he turned to go home by the Avenue. + +Ann Veronica forgot him as soon as she was through the gate, and her +face resumed its expression of stern preoccupation. “It’s either now or +never,” she said to herself.... + +Morningside Park was a suburb that had not altogether, as people say, +come off. It consisted, like pre-Roman Gaul, of three parts. There was +first the Avenue, which ran in a consciously elegant curve from the +railway station into an undeveloped wilderness of agriculture, with big, +yellow brick villas on either side, and then there was the pavement, the +little clump of shops about the post-office, and under the railway arch +was a congestion of workmen’s dwellings. The road from Surbiton and +Epsom ran under the arch, and, like a bright fungoid growth in the +ditch, there was now appearing a sort of fourth estate of little +red-and-white rough-cast villas, with meretricious gables and very +brassy window-blinds. Behind the Avenue was a little hill, and an +iron-fenced path went over the crest of this to a stile under an +elm-tree, and forked there, with one branch going back into the Avenue +again. + +“It’s either now or never,” said Ann Veronica, again ascending this +stile. “Much as I hate rows, I’ve either got to make a stand or give in +altogether.” + +She seated herself in a loose and easy attitude and surveyed the +backs of the Avenue houses; then her eyes wandered to where the new +red-and-white villas peeped among the trees. She seemed to be making +some sort of inventory. “Ye Gods!” she said at last. “WHAT a place! + +“Stuffy isn’t the word for it. + +“I wonder what he takes me for?” + +When presently she got down from the stile a certain note of internal +conflict, a touch of doubt, had gone from her warm-tinted face. She had +now the clear and tranquil expression of one whose mind is made up. Her +back had stiffened, and her hazel eyes looked steadfastly ahead. + +As she approached the corner of the Avenue the blond, no-hatted man in +gray flannels appeared. There was a certain air of forced fortuity in +his manner. He saluted awkwardly. “Hello, Vee!” he said. + +“Hello, Teddy!” she answered. + +He hung vaguely for a moment as she passed. + +But it was clear she was in no mood for Teddys. He realized that he was +committed to the path across the fields, an uninteresting walk at the +best of times. + +“Oh, dammit!” he remarked, “dammit!” with great bitterness as he faced +it. + + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica Stanley was twenty-one and a half years old. She had black +hair, fine eyebrows, and a clear complexion; and the forces that had +modelled her features had loved and lingered at their work and made them +subtle and fine. She was slender, and sometimes she seemed tall, and +walked and carried herself lightly and joyfully as one who commonly +and habitually feels well, and sometimes she stooped a little and +was preoccupied. Her lips came together with an expression between +contentment and the faintest shadow of a smile, her manner was one of +quiet reserve, and behind this mask she was wildly discontented and +eager for freedom and life. + +She wanted to live. She was vehemently impatient--she did not clearly +know for what--to do, to be, to experience. And experience was slow in +coming. All the world about her seemed to be--how can one put it?--in +wrappers, like a house when people leave it in the summer. The blinds +were all drawn, the sunlight kept out, one could not tell what +colors these gray swathings hid. She wanted to know. And there was no +intimation whatever that the blinds would ever go up or the windows or +doors be opened, or the chandeliers, that seemed to promise such a blaze +of fire, unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted about her, +not only speaking but it would seem even thinking in undertones.... + +During her school days, especially her earlier school days, the world +had been very explicit with her, telling her what to do, what not to do, +giving her lessons to learn and games to play and interests of the most +suitable and various kinds. Presently she woke up to the fact that there +was a considerable group of interests called being in love and getting +married, with certain attractive and amusing subsidiary developments, +such as flirtation and “being interested” in people of the opposite sex. +She approached this field with her usual liveliness of apprehension. But +here she met with a check. These interests her world promptly, through +the agency of schoolmistresses, older school-mates, her aunt, and a +number of other responsible and authoritative people, assured her she +must on no account think about. Miss Moffatt, the history and moral +instruction mistress, was particularly explicit upon this score, and +they all agreed in indicating contempt and pity for girls whose minds +ran on such matters, and who betrayed it in their conversation or dress +or bearing. It was, in fact, a group of interests quite unlike any +other group, peculiar and special, and one to be thoroughly ashamed of. +Nevertheless, Ann Veronica found it a difficult matter not to think of +these things. However having a considerable amount of pride, she decided +she would disavow these undesirable topics and keep her mind away from +them just as far as she could, but it left her at the end of her school +days with that wrapped feeling I have described, and rather at loose +ends. + +The world, she discovered, with these matters barred had no particular +place for her at all, nothing for her to do, except a functionless +existence varied by calls, tennis, selected novels, walks, and dusting +in her father’s house. She thought study would be better. She was a +clever girl, the best of her year in the High School, and she made +a valiant fight for Somerville or Newnham but her father had met and +argued with a Somerville girl at a friend’s dinner-table and he thought +that sort of thing unsexed a woman. He said simply that he wanted her to +live at home. There was a certain amount of disputation, and meanwhile +she went on at school. They compromised at length on the science course +at the Tredgold Women’s College--she had already matriculated into +London University from school--she came of age, and she bickered with +her aunt for latch-key privileges on the strength of that and her season +ticket. Shamefaced curiosities began to come back into her mind, thinly +disguised as literature and art. She read voraciously, and presently, +because of her aunt’s censorship, she took to smuggling any books she +thought might be prohibited instead of bringing them home openly, and +she went to the theatre whenever she could produce an acceptable friend +to accompany her. She passed her general science examination with double +honors and specialized in science. She happened to have an acute sense +of form and unusual mental lucidity, and she found in biology, and +particularly in comparative anatomy, a very considerable interest, +albeit the illumination it cast upon her personal life was not +altogether direct. She dissected well, and in a year she found herself +chafing at the limitations of the lady B. Sc. who retailed a store of +faded learning in the Tredgold laboratory. She had already realized that +this instructress was hopelessly wrong and foggy--it is the test of the +good comparative anatomist--upon the skull. She discovered a desire to +enter as a student in the Imperial College at Westminster, where Russell +taught, and go on with her work at the fountain-head. + +She had asked about that already, and her father had replied, evasively: +“We’ll have to see about that, little Vee; we’ll have to see about +that.” In that posture of being seen about the matter hung until she +seemed committed to another session at the Tredgold College, and in the +mean time a small conflict arose and brought the latch-key question, and +in fact the question of Ann Veronica’s position generally, to an acute +issue. + +In addition to the various business men, solicitors, civil servants, +and widow ladies who lived in the Morningside Park Avenue, there was a +certain family of alien sympathies and artistic quality, the Widgetts, +with which Ann Veronica had become very friendly. Mr. Widgett was a +journalist and art critic, addicted to a greenish-gray tweed suit +and “art” brown ties; he smoked corncob pipes in the Avenue on Sunday +morning, travelled third class to London by unusual trains, and openly +despised golf. He occupied one of the smaller houses near the station. +He had one son, who had been co-educated, and three daughters with +peculiarly jolly red hair that Ann Veronica found adorable. Two of these +had been her particular intimates at the High School, and had done much +to send her mind exploring beyond the limits of the available literature +at home. It was a cheerful, irresponsible, shamelessly hard-up family in +the key of faded green and flattened purple, and the girls went on from +the High School to the Fadden Art School and a bright, eventful life of +art student dances, Socialist meetings, theatre galleries, talking about +work, and even, at intervals, work; and ever and again they drew Ann +Veronica from her sound persistent industry into the circle of these +experiences. They had asked her to come to the first of the two great +annual Fadden Dances, the October one, and Ann Veronica had accepted +with enthusiasm. And now her father said she must not go. + +He had “put his foot down,” and said she must not go. + +Going involved two things that all Ann Veronica’s tact had been +ineffectual to conceal from her aunt and father. Her usual dignified +reserve had availed her nothing. One point was that she was to wear +fancy dress in the likeness of a Corsair’s bride, and the other was that +she was to spend whatever vestiges of the night remained after the dance +was over in London with the Widgett girls and a select party in “quite a +decent little hotel” near Fitzroy Square. + +“But, my dear!” said Ann Veronica’s aunt. + +“You see,” said Ann Veronica, with the air of one who shares a +difficulty, “I’ve promised to go. I didn’t realize--I don’t see how I +can get out of it now.” + +Then it was her father issued his ultimatum. He had conveyed it to her, +not verbally, but by means of a letter, which seemed to her a singularly +ignoble method of prohibition. “He couldn’t look me in the face and say +it,” said Ann Veronica. + +“But of course it’s aunt’s doing really.” + +And thus it was that as Ann Veronica neared the gates of home, she said +to herself: “I’ll have it out with him somehow. I’ll have it out with +him. And if he won’t--” + +But she did not give even unspoken words to the alternative at that +time. + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica’s father was a solicitor with a good deal of company +business: a lean, trustworthy, worried-looking, neuralgic, clean-shaven +man of fifty-three, with a hard mouth, a sharp nose, iron-gray hair, +gray eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, circular baldness at the +crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at +irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as +a parent he came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and +inattentive; and he called her his “little Vee,” and patted her +unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of +any age between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good +deal, and what energy he had left over he spent partly in golf, a game +he treated very seriously, and partly in the practices of microscopic +petrography. + +He “went in” for microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian manner as +his “hobby.” A birthday present of a microscope had turned his mind to +technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and a chance friendship with +a Holborn microscope dealer had confirmed that bent. He had remarkably +skilful fingers and a love of detailed processes, and he had become one +of the most dexterous amateur makers of rock sections in the world. +He spent a good deal more money and time than he could afford upon the +little room at the top of the house, in producing new lapidary apparatus +and new microscopic accessories and in rubbing down slices of rock to +a transparent thinness and mounting them in a beautiful and dignified +manner. He did it, he said, “to distract his mind.” His chief successes +he exhibited to the Lowndean Microscopical Society, where their high +technical merit never failed to excite admiration. Their scientific +value was less considerable, since he chose rocks entirely with a +view to their difficulty of handling or their attractiveness at +conversaziones when done. He had a great contempt for the sections the +“theorizers” produced. They proved all sorts of things perhaps, but they +were thick, unequal, pitiful pieces of work. Yet an indiscriminating, +wrong-headed world gave such fellows all sorts of distinctions.... + +He read but little, and that chiefly healthy light fiction with +chromatic titles, The Red Sword, The Black Helmet, The Purple Robe, also +in order “to distract his mind.” He read it in winter in the evening +after dinner, and Ann Veronica associated it with a tendency to +monopolize the lamp, and to spread a very worn pair of dappled fawn-skin +slippers across the fender. She wondered occasionally why his mind +needed so much distraction. His favorite newspaper was the Times, which +he began at breakfast in the morning often with manifest irritation, and +carried off to finish in the train, leaving no other paper at home. + +It occurred to Ann Veronica once that she had known him when he was +younger, but day had followed day, and each had largely obliterated the +impression of its predecessor. But she certainly remembered that when +she was a little girl he sometimes wore tennis flannels, and also rode a +bicycle very dexterously in through the gates to the front door. And +in those days, too, he used to help her mother with her gardening, and +hover about her while she stood on the ladder and hammered creepers to +the scullery wall. + +It had been Ann Veronica’s lot as the youngest child to live in a home +that became less animated and various as she grew up. Her mother had +died when she was thirteen, her two much older sisters had married +off--one submissively, one insubordinately; her two brothers had gone +out into the world well ahead of her, and so she had made what she could +of her father. But he was not a father one could make much of. + +His ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and modest +quality; they were creatures, he thought, either too bad for a modern +vocabulary, and then frequently most undesirably desirable, or too pure +and good for life. He made this simple classification of a large and +various sex to the exclusion of all intermediate kinds; he held that +the two classes had to be kept apart even in thought and remote from one +another. Women are made like the potter’s vessels--either for worship +or contumely, and are withal fragile vessels. He had never wanted +daughters. Each time a daughter had been born to him he had concealed +his chagrin with great tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had +sworn unwontedly and with passionate sincerity in the bathroom. He was +a manly man, free from any strong maternal strain, and he had loved his +dark-eyed, dainty bright-colored, and active little wife with a real +vein of passion in his sentiment. But he had always felt (he had never +allowed himself to think of it) that the promptitude of their family +was a little indelicate of her, and in a sense an intrusion. He had, +however, planned brilliant careers for his two sons, and, with a certain +human amount of warping and delay, they were pursuing these. One was +in the Indian Civil Service and one in the rapidly developing motor +business. The daughters, he had hoped, would be their mother’s care. + +He had no ideas about daughters. They happen to a man. + +Of course a little daughter is a delightful thing enough. It runs about +gayly, it romps, it is bright and pretty, it has enormous quantities of +soft hair and more power of expressing affection than its brothers. It +is a lovely little appendage to the mother who smiles over it, and it +does things quaintly like her, gestures with her very gestures. It makes +wonderful sentences that you can repeat in the City and are good +enough for Punch. You call it a lot of nicknames--“Babs” and “Bibs” and +“Viddles” and “Vee”; you whack at it playfully, and it whacks you back. +It loves to sit on your knee. All that is jolly and as it should be. + +But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter quite another. There +one comes to a relationship that Mr. Stanley had never thought out. +When he found himself thinking about it, it upset him so that he at once +resorted to distraction. The chromatic fiction with which he relieved +his mind glanced but slightly at this aspect of life, and never with any +quality of guidance. Its heroes never had daughters, they borrowed other +people’s. The one fault, indeed, of this school of fiction for him was +that it had rather a light way with parental rights. His instinct was in +the direction of considering his daughters his absolute property, bound +to obey him, his to give away or his to keep to be a comfort in his +declining years just as he thought fit. About this conception of +ownership he perceived and desired a certain sentimental glamour, he +liked everything properly dressed, but it remained ownership. Ownership +seemed only a reasonable return for the cares and expenses of a +daughter’s upbringing. Daughters were not like sons. He perceived, +however, that both the novels he read and the world he lived in +discountenanced these assumptions. Nothing else was put in their place, +and they remained sotto voce, as it were, in his mind. The new and +the old cancelled out; his daughters became quasi-independent +dependents--which is absurd. One married as he wished and one against +his wishes, and now here was Ann Veronica, his little Vee, discontented +with her beautiful, safe, and sheltering home, going about with hatless +friends to Socialist meetings and art-class dances, and displaying a +disposition to carry her scientific ambitions to unwomanly lengths. She +seemed to think he was merely the paymaster, handing over the means +of her freedom. And now she insisted that she MUST leave the chastened +security of the Tredgold Women’s College for Russell’s unbridled +classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dances in pirate costume and +spend the residue of the night with Widgett’s ramshackle girls in some +indescribable hotel in Soho! + +He had done his best not to think about her at all, but the situation +and his sister had become altogether too urgent. He had finally put +aside The Lilac Sunbonnet, gone into his study, lit the gas fire, and +written the letter that had brought these unsatisfactory relations to a +head. + + +Part 4 + +MY DEAR VEE, he wrote. + +These daughters! He gnawed his pen and reflected, tore the sheet up, and +began again. + +“MY DEAR VERONICA,--Your aunt tells me you have involved yourself in +some arrangement with the Widgett girls about a Fancy Dress Ball in +London. I gather you wish to go up in some fantastic get-up, wrapped +about in your opera cloak, and that after the festivities you propose to +stay with these friends of yours, and without any older people in your +party, at an hotel. Now I am sorry to cross you in anything you have set +your heart upon, but I regret to say--” + +“H’m,” he reflected, and crossed out the last four words. + +“--but this cannot be.” + +“No,” he said, and tried again: “but I must tell you quite definitely +that I feel it to be my duty to forbid any such exploit.” + +“Damn!” he remarked at the defaced letter; and, taking a fresh sheet, he +recopied what he had written. A certain irritation crept into his manner +as he did so. + +“I regret that you should ever have proposed it,” he went on. + +He meditated, and began a new paragraph. + +“The fact of it is, and this absurd project of yours only brings it to +a head, you have begun to get hold of some very queer ideas about what a +young lady in your position may or may not venture to do. I do not think +you quite understand my ideals or what is becoming as between father and +daughter. Your attitude to me--” + +He fell into a brown study. It was so difficult to put precisely. + +“--and your aunt--” + +For a time he searched for the mot juste. Then he went on: + +“--and, indeed, to most of the established things in life is, frankly, +unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical with all +the crude unthinking criticism of youth. You have no grasp upon the +essential facts of life (I pray God you never may), and in your rash +ignorance you are prepared to dash into positions that may end in +lifelong regret. The life of a young girl is set about with prowling +pitfalls.” + +He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture of Veronica +reading this last sentence. But he was now too deeply moved to trace +a certain unsatisfactoriness to its source in a mixture of metaphors. +“Well,” he said, argumentatively, “it IS. That’s all about it. It’s time +she knew.” + +“The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls, from +which she must be shielded at all costs.” + +His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution. + +“So long as I am your father, so long as your life is entrusted to my +care, I feel bound by every obligation to use my authority to check this +odd disposition of yours toward extravagant enterprises. A day will come +when you will thank me. It is not, my dear Veronica, that I think there +is any harm in you; there is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil +but by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do +her as serious an injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please +believe that in this matter I am acting for the best.” + +He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door and +called “Mollie!” and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the +hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire. + +His sister appeared. + +She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all lace +and work and confused patternings of black and purple and cream about +the body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine version of the +same theme as himself. She had the same sharp nose--which, indeed, only +Ann Veronica, of all the family, had escaped. She carried herself well, +whereas her brother slouched, and there was a certain aristocratic +dignity about her that she had acquired through her long engagement to +a curate of family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died +before they married, and when her brother became a widower she had +come to his assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest +daughter. But from the first her rather old-fashioned conception of life +had jarred with the suburban atmosphere, the High School spirit and the +memories of the light and little Mrs. Stanley, whose family had been by +any reckoning inconsiderable--to use the kindliest term. Miss Stanley +had determined from the outset to have the warmest affection for her +youngest niece and to be a second mother in her life--a second and a +better one; but she had found much to battle with, and there was much in +herself that Ann Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an +air of reserved solicitude. + +Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from his +jacket pocket. “What do you think of that?” he asked. + +She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. He +filled his pipe slowly. + +“Yes,” she said at last, “it is firm and affectionate.” + +“I could have said more.” + +“You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me exactly +what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair.” + +She paused, and he waited for her to speak. + +“I don’t think she quite sees the harm of those people or the sort of +life to which they would draw her,” she said. “They would spoil every +chance.” + +“She has chances?” he said, helping her out. + +“She is an extremely attractive girl,” she said; and added, “to some +people. Of course, one doesn’t like to talk about things until there are +things to talk about.” + +“All the more reason why she shouldn’t get herself talked about.” + +“That is exactly what I feel.” + +Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully +for a time. “I’d give anything,” he remarked, “to see our little Vee +happily and comfortably married.” + +He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an inadvertent, +casual manner just as he was leaving the house to catch his London +train. When Ann Veronica got it she had at first a wild, fantastic idea +that it contained a tip. + + +Part 5 + + +Ann Veronica’s resolve to have things out with her father was not +accomplished without difficulty. + +He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and played +Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The atmosphere at +dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly amiable above a certain +tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a caller about the alarming +spread of marigolds that summer at the end of the garden, a sort of +Yellow Peril to all the smaller hardy annuals, while her father brought +some papers to table and presented himself as preoccupied with them. “It +really seems as if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next +year,” Aunt Molly repeated three times, “and do away with marguerites. +They seed beyond all reason.” Elizabeth, the parlormaid, kept coming in +to hand vegetables whenever there seemed a chance of Ann Veronica asking +for an interview. Directly dinner was over Mr. Stanley, having pretended +to linger to smoke, fled suddenly up-stairs to petrography, and when +Veronica tapped he answered through the locked door, “Go away, Vee! I’m +busy,” and made a lapidary’s wheel buzz loudly. + +Breakfast, too, was an impossible occasion. He read the Times with an +unusually passionate intentness, and then declared suddenly for the +earlier of the two trains he used. + +“I’ll come to the station,” said Ann Veronica. “I may as well come up by +this train.” + +“I may have to run,” said her father, with an appeal to his watch. + +“I’ll run, too,” she volunteered. + +Instead of which they walked sharply.... + +“I say, daddy,” she began, and was suddenly short of breath. + +“If it’s about that dance project,” he said, “it’s no good, Veronica. +I’ve made up my mind.” + +“You’ll make me look a fool before all my friends.” + +“You shouldn’t have made an engagement until you’d consulted your aunt.” + +“I thought I was old enough,” she gasped, between laughter and crying. + +Her father’s step quickened to a trot. “I won’t have you quarrelling and +crying in the Avenue,” he said. “Stop it!... If you’ve got anything +to say, you must say it to your aunt--” + +“But look here, daddy!” + +He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture. + +“It’s settled. You’re not to go. You’re NOT to go.” + +“But it’s about other things.” + +“I don’t care. This isn’t the place.” + +“Then may I come to the study to-night--after dinner?” + +“I’m--BUSY!” + +“It’s important. If I can’t talk anywhere else--I DO want an +understanding.” + +Ahead of them walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at their +present pace very speedily overtake. It was Ramage, the occupant of the +big house at the end of the Avenue. He had recently made Mr. Stanley’s +acquaintance in the train and shown him one or two trifling civilities. +He was an outside broker and the proprietor of a financial newspaper; he +had come up very rapidly in the last few years, and Mr. Stanley admired +and detested him in almost equal measure. It was intolerable to think +that he might overhear words and phrases. Mr. Stanley’s pace slackened. + +“You’ve no right to badger me like this, Veronica,” he said. “I can’t +see what possible benefit can come of discussing things that are +settled. If you want advice, your aunt is the person. However, if you +must air your opinions--” + +“To-night, then, daddy!” + +He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and then Ramage +glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited for them to +come up. He was a square-faced man of nearly fifty, with iron-gray hair +a mobile, clean-shaven mouth and rather protuberant black eyes that now +scrutinized Ann Veronica. He dressed rather after the fashion of the +West End than the City, and affected a cultured urbanity that somehow +disconcerted and always annoyed Ann Veronica’s father extremely. He +did not play golf, but took his exercise on horseback, which was also +unsympathetic. + +“Stuffy these trees make the Avenue,” said Mr. Stanley as they drew +alongside, to account for his own ruffled and heated expression. “They +ought to have been lopped in the spring.” + +“There’s plenty of time,” said Ramage. “Is Miss Stanley coming up with +us?” + +“I go second,” she said, “and change at Wimbledon.” + +“We’ll all go second,” said Ramage, “if we may?” + +Mr. Stanley wanted to object strongly, but as he could not immediately +think how to put it, he contented himself with a grunt, and the motion +was carried. “How’s Mrs. Ramage?” he asked. + +“Very much as usual,” said Ramage. “She finds lying up so much very +irksome. But, you see, she HAS to lie up.” + +The topic of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at once to Ann +Veronica. “And where are YOU going?” he said. “Are you going on again +this winter with that scientific work of yours? It’s an instance of +heredity, I suppose.” For a moment Mr. Stanley almost liked Ramage. +“You’re a biologist, aren’t you?” + +He began to talk of his own impressions of biology as a commonplace +magazine reader who had to get what he could from the monthly reviews, +and was glad to meet with any information from nearer the fountainhead. +In a little while he and she were talking quite easily and agreeably. +They went on talking in the train--it seemed to her father a slight want +of deference to him--and he listened and pretended to read the Times. He +was struck disagreeably by Ramage’s air of gallant consideration and Ann +Veronica’s self-possessed answers. These things did not harmonize with +his conception of the forthcoming (if unavoidable) interview. After +all, it came to him suddenly as a harsh discovery that she might be in +a sense regarded as grownup. He was a man who in all things classified +without nuance, and for him there were in the matter of age just two +feminine classes and no more--girls and women. The distinction lay +chiefly in the right to pat their heads. But here was a girl--she must +be a girl, since she was his daughter and pat-able--imitating the +woman quite remarkably and cleverly. He resumed his listening. She was +discussing one of those modern advanced plays with a remarkable, with an +extraordinary, confidence. + +“His love-making,” she remarked, “struck me as unconvincing. He seemed +too noisy.” + +The full significance of her words did not instantly appear to him. Then +it dawned. Good heavens! She was discussing love-making. For a time he +heard no more, and stared with stony eyes at a Book-War proclamation in +leaded type that filled half a column of the Times that day. Could she +understand what she was talking about? Luckily it was a second-class +carriage and the ordinary fellow-travellers were not there. Everybody, +he felt, must be listening behind their papers. + +Of course, girls repeat phrases and opinions of which they cannot +possibly understand the meaning. But a middle-aged man like Ramage ought +to know better than to draw out a girl, the daughter of a friend and +neighbor.... + +Well, after all, he seemed to be turning the subject. “Broddick is a +heavy man,” he was saying, “and the main interest of the play was the +embezzlement.” Thank Heaven! Mr. Stanley allowed his paper to drop +a little, and scrutinized the hats and brows of their three +fellow-travellers. + +They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss Stanley +to the platform as though she had been a duchess, and she descended as +though such attentions from middle-aged, but still gallant, merchants +were a matter of course. Then, as Ramage readjusted himself in a corner, +he remarked: “These young people shoot up, Stanley. It seems only +yesterday that she was running down the Avenue, all hair and legs.” + +Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something approaching +animosity. + +“Now she’s all hat and ideas,” he said, with an air of humor. + +“She seems an unusually clever girl,” said Ramage. + +Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor’s clean-shaven face almost warily. +“I’m not sure whether we don’t rather overdo all this higher education,” + he said, with an effect of conveying profound meanings. + + +Part 6 + + +He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as the +day wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his thoughts +all through the morning, and still more so in the afternoon. He saw her +young and graceful back as she descended from the carriage, severely +ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse he had of her face, bright and +serene, as his train ran out of Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating +perplexity her clear, matter-of-fact tone as she talked about +love-making being unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and +extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious +self-reliance that seemed to intimate her sense of absolute independence +of him, her absolute security without him. After all, she only LOOKED a +woman. She was rash and ignorant, absolutely inexperienced. Absolutely. +He began to think of speeches, very firm, explicit speeches, he would +make. + +He lunched in the Legal Club in Chancery Lane, and met Ogilvy. Daughters +were in the air that day. Ogilvy was full of a client’s trouble in +that matter, a grave and even tragic trouble. He told some of the +particulars. + +“Curious case,” said Ogilvy, buttering his bread and cutting it up in a +way he had. “Curious case--and sets one thinking.” + +He resumed, after a mouthful: “Here is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, +seventeen and a half to be exact, running about, as one might say, in +London. Schoolgirl. Her family are solid West End people, Kensington +people. Father--dead. She goes out and comes home. Afterward goes on to +Oxford. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Why doesn’t she marry? Plenty of money +under her father’s will. Charming girl.” + +He consumed Irish stew for some moments. + +“Married already,” he said, with his mouth full. “Shopman.” + +“Good God!” said Mr. Stanley. + +“Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing. Very romantic and all that. He +fixed it.” + +“But--” + +“He left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense on her part. Sheer +calculation on his. Went up to Somerset House to examine the will before +he did it. Yes. Nice position.” + +“She doesn’t care for him now?” + +“Not a bit. What a girl of sixteen cares for is hair and a high color +and moonlight and a tenor voice. I suppose most of our daughters would +marry organ-grinders if they had a chance--at that age. My son wanted +to marry a woman of thirty in a tobacconist’s shop. Only a son’s another +story. We fixed that. Well, that’s the situation. My people don’t know +what to do. Can’t face a scandal. Can’t ask the gent to go abroad and +condone a bigamy. He misstated her age and address; but you can’t get +home on him for a thing like that.... There you are! Girl spoilt for +life. Makes one want to go back to the Oriental system!” + +Mr. Stanley poured wine. “Damned Rascal!” he said. “Isn’t there a +brother to kick him?” + +“Mere satisfaction,” reflected Ogilvy. “Mere sensuality. I rather think +they have kicked him, from the tone of some of the letters. Nice, of +course. But it doesn’t alter the situation.” + +“It’s these Rascals,” said Mr. Stanley, and paused. + +“Always has been,” said Ogilvy. “Our interest lies in heading them off.” + +“There was a time when girls didn’t get these extravagant ideas.” + +“Lydia Languish, for example. Anyhow, they didn’t run about so much.” + +“Yes. That’s about the beginning. It’s these damned novels. All this +torrent of misleading, spurious stuff that pours from the press. These +sham ideals and advanced notions. Women who Dids, and all that kind of +thing....” + +Ogilvy reflected. “This girl--she’s really a very charming, frank +person--had had her imagination fired, so she told me, by a school +performance of Romeo and Juliet.” + +Mr. Stanley decided to treat that as irrelevant. “There ought to be a +Censorship of Books. We want it badly at the present time. Even WITH +the Censorship of Plays there’s hardly a decent thing to which a man can +take his wife and daughters, a creeping taint of suggestion everywhere. +What would it be without that safeguard?” + +Ogilvy pursued his own topic. “I’m inclined to think, Stanley, myself +that as a matter of fact it was the expurgated Romeo and Juliet did the +mischief. If our young person hadn’t had the nurse part cut out, eh? She +might have known more and done less. I was curious about that. All they +left it was the moon and stars. And the balcony and ‘My Romeo!’” + +“Shakespeare is altogether different from the modern stuff. Altogether +different. I’m not discussing Shakespeare. I don’t want to Bowdlerize +Shakespeare. I’m not that sort I quite agree. But this modern miasma--” + +Mr. Stanley took mustard savagely. + +“Well, we won’t go into Shakespeare,” said Ogilvy “What interests me +is that our young women nowadays are running about as free as air +practically, with registry offices and all sorts of accommodation round +the corner. Nothing to check their proceedings but a declining habit of +telling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And in that +respect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think +we ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other. +They’re too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom. +That’s my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? The +apple-tart’s been very good lately--very good!” + + + +Part 7 + + +At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: “Father!” + +Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave +deliberation; “If there is anything you want to say to me,” he said, +“you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and +then I shall go to the study. I don’t see what you can have to say. I +should have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers +I have to look through to-night--important papers.” + +“I won’t keep you very long, daddy,” said Ann Veronica. + +“I don’t see, Mollie,” he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on +the table as his sister and daughter rose, “why you and Vee shouldn’t +discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without bothering me.” + +It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all +three of them were shy by habit. + +He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for her +aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the room +with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her own +room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confused +her that the girl should not come to her. + +It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited +disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt. + +When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of a +carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had been +moved a little so as to face each other on either side of the +fender, and in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay, +conspicuously waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tied +with pink tape. Her father held some printed document in his hand, +and appeared not to observe her entry. “Sit down,” he said, and +perused--“perused” is the word for it--for some moments. Then he put +the paper by. “And what is it all about, Veronica?” he asked, with a +deliberate note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his +glasses. + +Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded +her father’s invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and +looked down on him. “Look here, daddy,” she said, in a tone of great +reasonableness, “I MUST go to that dance, you know.” + +Her father’s irony deepened. “Why?” he asked, suavely. + +Her answer was not quite ready. “Well, because I don’t see any reason +why I shouldn’t.” + +“You see I do.” + +“Why shouldn’t I go?” + +“It isn’t a suitable place; it isn’t a suitable gathering.” + +“But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?” + +“And it’s entirely out of order; it isn’t right, it isn’t correct; +it’s impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London--the idea is +preposterous. I can’t imagine what possessed you, Veronica.” + +He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and +looked at her over his glasses. + +“But why is it preposterous?” asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a +pipe on the mantel. + +“Surely!” he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal. + +“You see, daddy, I don’t think it IS preposterous. That’s really what +I want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to take care of +myself, or am I not?” + +“To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not.” + +“I think I am.” + +“As long as you remain under my roof--” he began, and paused. + +“You are going to treat me as though I wasn’t. Well, I don’t think +that’s fair.” + +“Your ideas of fairness--” he remarked, and discontinued that sentence. +“My dear girl,” he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, “you are a +mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of +its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, and so +forth. It isn’t. It isn’t. That’s where you go wrong. In some things, +in many things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more of +life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this matter. There +it is. You can’t go.” + +The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep hold of +a complicated situation and not lose her head. She had turned round +sideways, so as to look down into the fire. + +“You see, father,” she said, “it isn’t only this affair of the dance. +I want to go to that because it’s a new experience, because I think +it will be interesting and give me a view of things. You say I know +nothing. That’s probably true. But how am I to know of things?” + +“Some things I hope you may never know,” he said. + +“I’m not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can.” + +“Tut!” he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the pink +tape. + +“Well, I do. It’s just that I want to say. I want to be a human being; +I want to learn about things and know about things, and not to be +protected as something too precious for life, cooped up in one narrow +little corner.” + +“Cooped up!” he cried. “Did I stand in the way of your going to college? +Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable hour? You’ve got +a bicycle!” + +“H’m!” said Ann Veronica, and then went on “I want to be taken +seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with +my University work under proper conditions, now that I’ve done the +Intermediate. It isn’t as though I haven’t done well. I’ve never muffed +an exam yet. Roddy muffed two....” + +Her father interrupted. “Now look here, Veronica, let us be plain with +each other. You are not going to that infidel Russell’s classes. You are +not going anywhere but to the Tredgold College. I’ve thought that out, +and you must make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come +in. While you live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong +even about that man’s scientific position and his standard of work. +There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at him. +And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as being--well, +next door to shameful. There’s stories, too, about his demonstrator, +Capes Something or other. The kind of man who isn’t content with his +science, and writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it +is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE.” + +The girl received this intimation in silence, but the face that looked +down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought out +a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke, +her lips twitched. + +“Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?” + +“It seems the natural course--” + +“And do nothing?” + +“There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home.” + +“Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?” + +He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, and +he took up the papers. + +“Look here, father,” she said, with a change in her voice, “suppose I +won’t stand it?” + +He regarded her as though this was a new idea. + +“Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?” + +“You won’t.” + +“Well”--her breath failed her for a moment. “How would you prevent it?” + she asked. + +“But I have forbidden it!” he said, raising his voice. + +“Yes, I know. But suppose I go?” + +“Now, Veronica! No, no. This won’t do. Understand me! I forbid it. I +do not want to hear from you even the threat of disobedience.” He spoke +loudly. “The thing is forbidden!” + +“I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong.” + +“You will give up anything I wish you to give up.” + +They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were flushed +and obstinate. + +She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless gymnastics to +restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips quivered, and they +came. “I mean to go to that dance!” she blubbered. “I mean to go to +that dance! I meant to reason with you, but you won’t reason. You’re +dogmatic.” + +At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of +triumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an +arm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She produced a +handkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a simultaneous gulp had +abolished her fit of weeping. His voice now had lost its ironies. + +“Now, Veronica,” he pleaded, “Veronica, this is most unreasonable. All +we do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor I have any other thought +but what is best for you.” + +“Only you won’t let me live. Only you won’t let me exist!” + +Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly. + +“What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO live, you +DO exist! You have this home. You have friends, acquaintances, social +standing, brothers and sisters, every advantage! Instead of which, you +want to go to some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance +about at nights in wild costumes with casual art student friends and God +knows who. That--that isn’t living! You are beside yourself. You don’t +know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor logic. +I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your good. You +MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I put my foot down +like--like adamant. And a time will come, Veronica, mark my words, a +time will come when you will bless me for my firmness to-night. It goes +to my heart to disappoint you, but this thing must not be.” + +He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in +possession of the hearth-rug. + +“Well,” she said, “good-night, father.” + +“What!” he asked; “not a kiss?” + +She affected not to hear. + +The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained standing +before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat down and filled +his pipe slowly and thoughtfully.... + +“I don’t see what else I could have said,” he remarked. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + +Part 1 + + +“Are you coming to the Fadden Dance, Ann Veronica?” asked Constance +Widgett. + +Ann Veronica considered her answer. “I mean to,” she replied. + +“You are making your dress?” + +“Such as it is.” + +They were in the elder Widgett girl’s bedroom; Hetty was laid up, she +said, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was gossiping +away her tedium. It was a large, littered, self-forgetful apartment, +decorated with unframed charcoal sketches by various incipient masters; +and an open bookcase, surmounted by plaster casts and the half of a +human skull, displayed an odd miscellany of books--Shaw and Swinburne, +Tom Jones, Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. Constance +Widgett’s abundant copper-red hair was bent down over some dimly +remunerative work--stencilling in colors upon rough, white material--at +a kitchen table she had dragged up-stairs for the purpose, while on her +bed there was seated a slender lady of thirty or so in a dingy green +dress, whom Constance had introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss +Miniver. Miss Miniver looked out on the world through large emotional +blue eyes that were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and her +nose was pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her +glasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face. +She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for her +opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words “Votes +for Women.” Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the sufferer’s bed, while +Teddy Widgett, being something of an athlete, occupied the only +bed-room chair--a decadent piece, essentially a tripod and largely a +formality--and smoked cigarettes, and tried to conceal the fact that +he was looking all the time at Ann Veronica’s eyebrows. Teddy was the +hatless young man who had turned Ann Veronica aside from the Avenue two +days before. He was the junior of both his sisters, co-educated and +much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses, just brought by +Ann Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, and Ann Veronica was +particularly trim in preparation for a call she was to make with her +aunt later in the afternoon. + +Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. “I’ve been,” she said, +“forbidden to come.” + +“Hul-LO!” said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy remarked +with profound emotion, “My God!” + +“Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “and that complicates the situation.” + +“Auntie?” asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica’s +affairs. + +“No! My father. It’s--it’s a serious prohibition.” + +“Why?” asked Hetty. + +“That’s the point. I asked him why, and he hadn’t a reason.” + +“YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!” said Miss Miniver, with great +intensity. + +“Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn’t have it out.” Ann +Veronica reflected for an instant “That’s why I think I ought to come.” + +“You asked your father for a reason!” Miss Miniver repeated. + +“We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!” said Hetty. +“He’s got almost to like it.” + +“Men,” said Miss Miniver, “NEVER have a reason. Never! And they don’t +know it! They have no idea of it. It’s one of their worst traits, one of +their very worst.” + +“But I say, Vee,” said Constance, “if you come and you are forbidden to +come there’ll be the deuce of a row.” + +Ann Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her situation +was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and +sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. “It isn’t only the dance,” + she said. + +“There’s the classes,” said Constance, the well-informed. + +“There’s the whole situation. Apparently I’m not to exist yet. I’m not +to study, I’m not to grow. I’ve got to stay at home and remain in a +state of suspended animation.” + +“DUSTING!” said Miss Miniver, in a sepulchral voice. + +“Until you marry, Vee,” said Hetty. + +“Well, I don’t feel like standing it.” + +“Thousands of women have married merely for freedom,” said Miss Miniver. +“Thousands! Ugh! And found it a worse slavery.” + +“I suppose,” said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink petals, +“it’s our lot. But it’s very beastly.” + +“What’s our lot?” asked her sister. + +“Slavery! Downtroddenness! When I think of it I feel all over boot +marks--men’s boots. We hide it bravely, but so it is. Damn! I’ve +splashed.” + +Miss Miniver’s manner became impressive. She addressed Ann Veronica +with an air of conveying great open secrets to her. “As things are at +present,” she said, “it is true. We live under man-made institutions, +and that is what they amount to. Every girl in the world practically, +except a few of us who teach or type-write, and then we’re underpaid and +sweated--it’s dreadful to think how we are sweated!” She had lost her +generalization, whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then went +on, conclusively, “Until we have the vote that is how things WILL be.” + +“I’m all for the vote,” said Teddy. + +“I suppose a girl MUST be underpaid and sweated,” said Ann Veronica. “I +suppose there’s no way of getting a decent income--independently.” + +“Women have practically NO economic freedom,” said Miss Miniver, +“because they have no political freedom. Men have seen to that. The one +profession, the one decent profession, I mean, for a woman--except the +stage--is teaching, and there we trample on one another. Everywhere +else--the law, medicine, the Stock Exchange--prejudice bars us.” + +“There’s art,” said Ann Veronica, “and writing.” + +“Every one hasn’t the Gift. Even there a woman never gets a fair chance. +Men are against her. Whatever she does is minimized. All the best +novels have been written by women, and yet see how men sneer at the lady +novelist still! There’s only one way to get on for a woman, and that is +to please men. That is what they think we are for!” + +“We’re beasts,” said Teddy. “Beasts!” + +But Miss Miniver took no notice of his admission. + +“Of course,” said Miss Miniver--she went on in a regularly undulating +voice--“we DO please men. We have that gift. We can see round them and +behind them and through them, and most of us use that knowledge, in the +silent way we have, for our great ends. Not all of us, but some of us. +Too many. I wonder what men would say if we threw the mask aside--if +we really told them what WE thought of them, really showed them what WE +were.” A flush of excitement crept into her cheeks. + +“Maternity,” she said, “has been our undoing.” + +From that she opened out into a long, confused emphatic discourse on the +position of women, full of wonderful statements, while Constance worked +at her stencilling and Ann Veronica and Hetty listened, and Teddy +contributed sympathetic noises and consumed cheap cigarettes. As she +talked she made weak little gestures with her hands, and she thrust her +face forward from her bent shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann +Veronica and sometimes at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near +Fluelen, that hung upon the wall. Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely +sympathizing with her, vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency and +her convulsive movements, and the fine eyebrows were knit with a faint +perplexity. Essentially the talk was a mixture of fragments of sentences +heard, of passages read, or arguments indicated rather than stated, and +all of it was served in a sauce of strange enthusiasm, thin yet +intense. Ann Veronica had had some training at the Tredgold College in +disentangling threads from confused statements, and she had a curious +persuasion that in all this fluent muddle there was something--something +real, something that signified. But it was very hard to follow. She did +not understand the note of hostility to men that ran through it all, the +bitter vindictiveness that lit Miss Miniver’s cheeks and eyes, the +sense of some at last insupportable wrong slowly accumulated. She had no +inkling of that insupportable wrong. + +“We are the species,” said Miss Miniver, “men are only incidents. +They give themselves airs, but so it is. In all the species of animals +the females are more important than the males; the males have to please +them. Look at the cock’s feathers, look at the competition there is +everywhere, except among humans. The stags and oxen and things all +have to fight for us, everywhere. Only in man is the male made the +most important. And that happens through our maternity; it’s our very +importance that degrades us. + +“While we were minding the children they stole our rights and liberties. +The children made us slaves, and the men took advantage of it. +It’s--Mrs. Shalford says--the accidental conquering the essential. +Originally in the first animals there were no males, none at all. It +has been proved. Then they appear among the lower things”--she made +meticulous gestures to figure the scale of life; she seemed to be +holding up specimens, and peering through her glasses at them--“among +crustaceans and things, just as little creatures, ever so inferior to +the females. Mere hangers on. Things you would laugh at. And among human +beings, too, women to begin with were the rulers and leaders; they owned +all the property, they invented all the arts. + +“The primitive government was the Matriarchate. The Matriarchate! The +Lords of Creation just ran about and did what they were told.” + +“But is that really so?” said Ann Veronica. + +“It has been proved,” said Miss Miniver, and added, “by American +professors.” + +“But how did they prove it?” + +“By science,” said Miss Miniver, and hurried on, putting out a +rhetorical hand that showed a slash of finger through its glove. “And +now, look at us! See what we have become. Toys! Delicate trifles! A sex +of invalids. It is we who have become the parasites and toys.” + +It was, Ann Veronica felt, at once absurd and extraordinarily right. +Hetty, who had periods of lucid expression, put the thing for her +from her pillow. She charged boldly into the space of Miss Miniver’s +rhetorical pause. + +“It isn’t quite that we’re toys. Nobody toys with me. Nobody regards +Constance or Vee as a delicate trifle.” + +Teddy made some confused noise, a thoracic street row; some remark was +assassinated by a rival in his throat and buried hastily under a cough. + +“They’d better not,” said Hetty. “The point is we’re not toys, toys +isn’t the word; we’re litter. We’re handfuls. We’re regarded as +inflammable litter that mustn’t be left about. We are the species, and +maternity is our game; that’s all right, but nobody wants that admitted +for fear we should all catch fire, and set about fulfilling the purpose +of our beings without waiting for further explanations. As if we didn’t +know! The practical trouble is our ages. They used to marry us off at +seventeen, rush us into things before we had time to protest. They don’t +now. Heaven knows why! They don’t marry most of us off now until high up +in the twenties. And the age gets higher. We have to hang about in the +interval. There’s a great gulf opened, and nobody’s got any plans what +to do with us. So the world is choked with waste and waiting daughters. +Hanging about! And they start thinking and asking questions, and begin +to be neither one thing nor the other. We’re partly human beings and +partly females in suspense.” + +Miss Miniver followed with an expression of perplexity, her mouth shaped +to futile expositions. The Widgett method of thought puzzled her weakly +rhetorical mind. “There is no remedy, girls,” she began, breathlessly, +“except the Vote. Give us that--” + +Ann Veronica came in with a certain disregard of Miss Miniver. “That’s +it,” she said. “They have no plans for us. They have no ideas what to do +with us.” + +“Except,” said Constance, surveying her work with her head on one side, +“to keep the matches from the litter.” + +“And they won’t let us make plans for ourselves.” + +“We will,” said Miss Miniver, refusing to be suppressed, “if some of us +have to be killed to get it.” And she pressed her lips together in white +resolution and nodded, and she was manifestly full of that same passion +for conflict and self-sacrifice that has given the world martyrs since +the beginning of things. “I wish I could make every woman, every girl, +see this as clearly as I see it--just what the Vote means to us. Just +what it means....” + + + +Part 2 + + +As Ann Veronica went back along the Avenue to her aunt she became aware +of a light-footed pursuer running. Teddy overtook her, a little out of +breath, his innocent face flushed, his straw-colored hair disordered. He +was out of breath, and spoke in broken sentences. + +“I say, Vee. Half a minute, Vee. It’s like this: You want freedom. Look +here. You know--if you want freedom. Just an idea of mine. You know +how those Russian students do? In Russia. Just a formal marriage. Mere +formality. Liberates the girl from parental control. See? You marry me. +Simply. No further responsibility whatever. Without hindrance--present +occupation. Why not? Quite willing. Get a license--just an idea of mine. +Doesn’t matter a bit to me. Do anything to please you, Vee. Anything. +Not fit to be dust on your boots. Still--there you are!” + +He paused. + +Ann Veronica’s desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the +tremendous earnestness of his expression. “Awfully good of you, Teddy.” + she said. + +He nodded silently, too full for words. + +“But I don’t see,” said Ann Veronica, “just how it fits the present +situation.” + +“No! Well, I just suggested it. Threw it out. Of course, if at any +time--see reason--alter your opinion. Always at your service. No +offence, I hope. All right! I’m off. Due to play hockey. Jackson’s. +Horrid snorters! So long, Vee! Just suggested it. See? Nothing really. +Passing thought.” + +“Teddy,” said Ann Veronica, “you’re a dear!” + +“Oh, quite!” said Teddy, convulsively, and lifted an imaginary hat and +left her. + + + +Part 3 + + +The call Ann Veronica paid with her aunt that afternoon had at first +much the same relation to the Widgett conversation that a plaster statue +of Mr. Gladstone would have to a carelessly displayed interior on a +dissecting-room table. The Widgetts talked with a remarkable absence of +external coverings; the Palsworthys found all the meanings of life on +its surfaces. They seemed the most wrapped things in all Ann Veronica’s +wrappered world. The Widgett mental furniture was perhaps worn and +shabby, but there it was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an +almost pitiless sunlight. Lady Palsworthy was the widow of a knight +who had won his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was of good +seventeenth-century attorney blood, a county family, and distantly +related to Aunt Mollie’s deceased curate. She was the social leader of +Morningside Park, and in her superficial and euphuistic way an extremely +kind and pleasant woman. With her lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of +the Morningside Park doctor, and a very active and useful member of the +Committee of the Impoverished Gentlewomen’s Aid Society. Both ladies +were on easy and friendly terms with all that was best in Morningside +Park society; they had an afternoon once a month that was quite well +attended, they sometimes gave musical evenings, they dined out and gave +a finish to people’s dinners, they had a full-sized croquet lawn and +tennis beyond, and understood the art of bringing people together. +And they never talked of anything at all, never discussed, never even +encouraged gossip. They were just nice. + +Ann Veronica found herself walking back down the Avenue that had just +been the scene of her first proposal beside her aunt, and speculating +for the first time in her life about that lady’s mental attitudes. Her +prevailing effect was one of quiet and complete assurance, as though she +knew all about everything, and was only restrained by her instinctive +delicacy from telling what she knew. But the restraint exercised by her +instinctive delicacy was very great; over and above coarse or sexual +matters it covered religion and politics and any mention of money +matters or crime, and Ann Veronica found herself wondering whether these +exclusions represented, after all, anything more than suppressions. Was +there anything at all in those locked rooms of her aunt’s mind? Were +they fully furnished and only a little dusty and cobwebby and in need of +an airing, or were they stark vacancy except, perhaps, for a cockroach +or so or the gnawing of a rat? What was the mental equivalent of a rat’s +gnawing? The image was going astray. But what would her aunt think of +Teddy’s recent off-hand suggestion of marriage? What would she think of +the Widgett conversation? Suppose she was to tell her aunt quietly +but firmly about the parasitic males of degraded crustacea. The girl +suppressed a chuckle that would have been inexplicable. + +There came a wild rush of anthropological lore into her brain, a flare +of indecorous humor. It was one of the secret troubles of her mind, this +grotesque twist her ideas would sometimes take, as though they rebelled +and rioted. After all, she found herself reflecting, behind her aunt’s +complacent visage there was a past as lurid as any one’s--not, of +course, her aunt’s own personal past, which was apparently just that +curate and almost incredibly jejune, but an ancestral past with all +sorts of scandalous things in it: fire and slaughterings, exogamy, +marriage by capture, corroborees, cannibalism! Ancestresses with perhaps +dim anticipatory likenesses to her aunt, their hair less neatly done, +no doubt, their manners and gestures as yet undisciplined, but still +ancestresses in the direct line, must have danced through a brief and +stirring life in the woady buff. Was there no echo anywhere in Miss +Stanley’s pacified brain? Those empty rooms, if they were empty, were +the equivalents of astoundingly decorated predecessors. Perhaps it was +just as well there was no inherited memory. + +Ann Veronica was by this time quite shocked at her own thoughts, and yet +they would go on with their freaks. Great vistas of history opened, and +she and her aunt were near reverting to the primitive and passionate and +entirely indecorous arboreal--were swinging from branches by the +arms, and really going on quite dreadfully--when their arrival at +the Palsworthys’ happily checked this play of fancy, and brought Ann +Veronica back to the exigencies of the wrappered life again. + +Lady Palsworthy liked Ann Veronica because she was never awkward, +had steady eyes, and an almost invariable neatness and dignity in her +clothes. She seemed just as stiff and shy as a girl ought to be, Lady +Palsworthy thought, neither garrulous nor unready, and free from nearly +all the heavy aggressiveness, the overgrown, overblown quality, the +egotism and want of consideration of the typical modern girl. But then +Lady Palsworthy had never seen Ann Veronica running like the wind +at hockey. She had never seen her sitting on tables nor heard her +discussing theology, and had failed to observe that the graceful figure +was a natural one and not due to ably chosen stays. She took it for +granted Ann Veronica wore stays--mild stays, perhaps, but stays, and +thought no more of the matter. She had seen her really only at teas, +with the Stanley strain in her uppermost. There are so many girls +nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea, with their untrimmed +laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when they sit down, their +slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it is true, like the girls of +the eighties and nineties, nevertheless to a fine intelligence they have +the flavor of tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the +mellow surface of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and +Lady Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed +surfaces of things. Ann Veronica was one of the few young people--and +one must have young people just as one must have flowers--one could ask +to a little gathering without the risk of a painful discord. Then the +distant relationship to Miss Stanley gave them a slight but pleasant +sense of proprietorship in the girl. They had their little dreams about +her. + +Mrs. Pramlay received them in the pretty chintz drawing-room, which +opened by French windows on the trim garden, with its croquet lawn, its +tennis-net in the middle distance, and its remote rose alley lined +with smart dahlias and flaming sunflowers. Her eye met Miss Stanley’s +understandingly, and she was if anything a trifle more affectionate in +her greeting to Ann Veronica. Then Ann Veronica passed on toward the +tea in the garden, which was dotted with the elite of Morningside Park +society, and there she was pounced upon by Lady Palsworthy and given tea +and led about. Across the lawn and hovering indecisively, Ann Veronica +saw and immediately affected not to see Mr. Manning, Lady Palsworthy’s +nephew, a tall young man of seven-and-thirty with a handsome, +thoughtful, impassive face, a full black mustache, and a certain heavy +luxuriousness of gesture. The party resolved itself for Ann Veronica +into a game in which she manoeuvred unostentatiously and finally +unsuccessfully to avoid talking alone with this gentleman. + +Mr. Manning had shown on previous occasions that he found Ann Veronica +interesting and that he wished to interest her. He was a civil servant +of some standing, and after a previous conversation upon aesthetics of +a sententious, nebulous, and sympathetic character, he had sent her a +small volume, which he described as the fruits of his leisure and which +was as a matter of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with +fine aspects of Mr. Manning’s feelings, and as Ann Veronica’s mind +was still largely engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in +metrical forms, she had not as yet cut its pages. So that as she saw him +she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely, “Oh, golly!” and +set up a campaign of avoidance that Mr. Manning at last broke down by +coming directly at her as she talked with the vicar’s aunt about some of +the details of the alleged smell of the new church lamps. He did not so +much cut into this conversation as loom over it, for he was a tall, if +rather studiously stooping, man. + +The face that looked down upon Ann Veronica was full of amiable +intention. “Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley,” he said. +“How well and jolly you must be feeling.” + +He beamed over the effect of this and shook hands with effusion, and +Lady Palsworthy suddenly appeared as his confederate and disentangled +the vicar’s aunt. + +“I love this warm end of summer more than words can tell,” he said. +“I’ve tried to make words tell it. It’s no good. Mild, you know, and +boon. You want music.” + +Ann Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of her assent cover a +possible knowledge of a probable poem. + +“Splendid it must be to be a composer. Glorious! The Pastoral. +Beethoven; he’s the best of them. Don’t you think? Tum, tay, tum, tay.” + +Ann Veronica did. + +“What have you been doing since our last talk? Still cutting up +rabbits and probing into things? I’ve often thought of that talk of +ours--often.” + +He did not appear to require any answer to his question. + +“Often,” he repeated, a little heavily. + +“Beautiful these autumn flowers are,” said Ann Veronica, in a wide, +uncomfortable pause. + +“Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the garden,” said +Mr. Manning, “they’re a dream.” And Ann Veronica found herself being +carried off to an isolation even remoter and more conspicuous than the +corner of the lawn, with the whole of the party aiding and abetting and +glancing at them. “Damn!” said Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself +for a conflict. + +Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar admission +from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of beauty. He said that +for him beauty justified life, that he could not imagine a good action +that was not a beautiful one nor any beautiful thing that could be +altogether bad. Ann Veronica hazarded an opinion that as a matter of +history some very beautiful people had, to a quite considerable extent, +been bad, but Mr. Manning questioned whether when they were bad they +were really beautiful or when they were beautiful bad. Ann Veronica +found her attention wandering a little as he told her that he was not +ashamed to feel almost slavish in the presence of really beautiful +people, and then they came to the Michaelmas daisies. They were really +very fine and abundant, with a blaze of perennial sunflowers behind +them. + +“They make me want to shout,” said Mr. Manning, with a sweep of the arm. + +“They’re very good this year,” said Ann Veronica, avoiding controversial +matter. + +“Either I want to shout,” said Mr. Manning, “when I see beautiful +things, or else I want to weep.” He paused and looked at her, and said, +with a sudden drop into a confidential undertone, “Or else I want to +pray.” + +“When is Michaelmas Day?” said Ann Veronica, a little abruptly. + +“Heaven knows!” said Mr. Manning; and added, “the twenty-ninth.” + +“I thought it was earlier,” said Ann Veronica. “Wasn’t Parliament to +reassemble?” + +He put out his hand and leaned against a tree and crossed his legs. +“You’re not interested in politics?” he asked, almost with a note of +protest. + +“Well, rather,” said Ann Veronica. “It seems--It’s interesting.” + +“Do you think so? I find my interest in that sort of thing decline and +decline.” + +“I’m curious. Perhaps because I don’t know. I suppose an intelligent +person OUGHT to be interested in political affairs. They concern us +all.” + +“I wonder,” said Mr. Manning, with a baffling smile. + +“I think they do. After all, they’re history in the making.” + +“A sort of history,” said Mr. Manning; and repeated, “a sort of history. +But look at these glorious daisies!” + +“But don’t you think political questions ARE important?” + +“I don’t think they are this afternoon, and I don’t think they are to +you.” + +Ann Veronica turned her back on the Michaelmas daisies, and faced toward +the house with an air of a duty completed. + +“Just come to that seat now you are here, Miss Stanley, and look down +the other path; there’s a vista of just the common sort. Better even +than these.” + +Ann Veronica walked as he indicated. + +“You know I’m old-fashioned, Miss Stanley. I don’t think women need to +trouble about political questions.” + +“I want a vote,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Really!” said Mr. Manning, in an earnest voice, and waved his hand to +the alley of mauve and purple. “I wish you didn’t.” + +“Why not?” She turned on him. + +“It jars. It jars with all my ideas. Women to me are something so +serene, so fine, so feminine, and politics are so dusty, so sordid, +so wearisome and quarrelsome. It seems to me a woman’s duty to be +beautiful, to BE beautiful and to behave beautifully, and politics +are by their very nature ugly. You see, I--I am a woman worshipper. +I worshipped women long before I found any woman I might ever hope +to worship. Long ago. And--the idea of committees, of hustings, of +agenda-papers!” + +“I don’t see why the responsibility of beauty should all be shifted on +to the women,” said Ann Veronica, suddenly remembering a part of Miss +Miniver’s discourse. + +“It rests with them by the nature of things. Why should you who are +queens come down from your thrones? If you can afford it, WE can’t. We +can’t afford to turn our women, our Madonnas, our Saint Catherines, our +Mona Lisas, our goddesses and angels and fairy princesses, into a sort +of man. Womanhood is sacred to me. My politics in that matter wouldn’t +be to give women votes. I’m a Socialist, Miss Stanley.” + +“WHAT?” said Ann Veronica, startled. + +“A Socialist of the order of John Ruskin. Indeed I am! I would make this +country a collective monarchy, and all the girls and women in it should +be the Queen. They should never come into contact with politics or +economics--or any of those things. And we men would work for them and +serve them in loyal fealty.” + +“That’s rather the theory now,” said Ann Veronica. “Only so many men +neglect their duties.” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Manning, with an air of emerging from an elaborate +demonstration, “and so each of us must, under existing conditions, being +chivalrous indeed to all women, choose for himself his own particular +and worshipful queen.” + +“So far as one can judge from the system in practice,” said Ann +Veronica, speaking in a loud, common-sense, detached tone, and beginning +to walk slowly but resolutely toward the lawn, “it doesn’t work.” + +“Every one must be experimental,” said Mr. Manning, and glanced round +hastily for further horticultural points of interest in secluded +corners. None presented themselves to save him from that return. + +“That’s all very well when one isn’t the material experimented upon,” + Ann Veronica had remarked. + +“Women would--they DO have far more power than they think, as +influences, as inspirations.” + +Ann Veronica said nothing in answer to that. + +“You say you want a vote,” said Mr. Manning, abruptly. + +“I think I ought to have one.” + +“Well, I have two,” said Mr. Manning--“one in Oxford University and one +in Kensington.” He caught up and went on with a sort of clumsiness: “Let +me present you with them and be your voter.” + +There followed an instant’s pause, and then Ann Veronica had decided to +misunderstand. + +“I want a vote for myself,” she said. “I don’t see why I should take it +second-hand. Though it’s very kind of you. And rather unscrupulous. Have +you ever voted, Mr. Manning? I suppose there’s a sort of place like a +ticket-office. And a ballot-box--” Her face assumed an expression of +intellectual conflict. “What is a ballot-box like, exactly?” she asked, +as though it was very important to her. + +Mr. Manning regarded her thoughtfully for a moment and stroked his +mustache. “A ballot-box, you know,” he said, “is very largely just a +box.” He made quite a long pause, and went on, with a sigh: “You have a +voting paper given you--” + +They emerged into the publicity of the lawn. + +“Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “yes,” to his explanation, and saw across +the lawn Lady Palsworthy talking to her aunt, and both of them staring +frankly across at her and Mr. Manning as they talked. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + +Part 1 + +Two days after came the day of the Crisis, the day of the Fadden Dance. +It would have been a crisis anyhow, but it was complicated in Ann +Veronica’s mind by the fact that a letter lay on the breakfast-table +from Mr. Manning, and that her aunt focussed a brightly tactful +disregard upon this throughout the meal. Ann Veronica had come down +thinking of nothing in the world but her inflexible resolution to go to +the dance in the teeth of all opposition. She did not know Mr. Manning’s +handwriting, and opened his letter and read some lines before its import +appeared. Then for a time she forgot the Fadden affair altogether. +With a well-simulated unconcern and a heightened color she finished her +breakfast. + +She was not obliged to go to the Tredgold College, because as yet the +College had not settled down for the session. She was supposed to be +reading at home, and after breakfast she strolled into the vegetable +garden, and having taken up a position upon the staging of a disused +greenhouse that had the double advantage of being hidden from the +windows of the house and secure from the sudden appearance of any one, +she resumed the reading of Mr. Manning’s letter. + +Mr. Manning’s handwriting had an air of being clear without being easily +legible; it was large and rather roundish, with a lack of definition +about the letters and a disposition to treat the large ones as +liberal-minded people nowadays treat opinions, as all amounting to the +same thing really--a years-smoothed boyish rather than an adult hand. +And it filled seven sheets of notepaper, each written only on one side. + + +“MY DEAR MISS STANLEY,” it began,--“I hope you will forgive my +bothering you with a letter, but I have been thinking very much over our +conversation at Lady Palsworthy’s, and I feel there are things I want +to say to you so much that I cannot wait until we meet again. It is the +worst of talk under such social circumstances that it is always getting +cut off so soon as it is beginning; and I went home that afternoon +feeling I had said nothing--literally nothing--of the things I had meant +to say to you and that were coursing through my head. They were things I +had meant very much to talk to you about, so that I went home vexed and +disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses. +I wonder if you will mind very much when I tell you they were suggested +by you. You must forgive the poet’s license I take. Here is one verse. +The metrical irregularity is intentional, because I want, as it were, to +put you apart: to change the lilt and the mood altogether when I speak +of you. + + “‘A SONG OF LADIES AND MY LADY + + “‘Saintly white and a lily is Mary, + Margaret’s violets, sweet and shy; + Green and dewy is Nellie-bud fairy, + Forget-me-nots live in Gwendolen’s eye. + Annabel shines like a star in the darkness, + Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose; + But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather, + She gleams and gladdens, she warms--and goes.’ + +“Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret. All bad +verse--originally the epigram was Lang’s, I believe--is written in a +state of emotion. + +“My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon of work +and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the time resenting it +beyond measure. There we were discussing whether you should have a vote, +and I remembered the last occasion we met it was about your prospects of +success in the medical profession or as a Government official such as a +number of women now are, and all the time my heart was crying out within +me, ‘Here is the Queen of your career.’ I wanted, as I have never wanted +before, to take you up, to make you mine, to carry you off and set you +apart from all the strain and turmoil of life. For nothing will ever +convince me that it is not the man’s share in life to shield, to +protect, to lead and toil and watch and battle with the world at large. +I want to be your knight, your servant, your protector, your--I dare +scarcely write the word--your husband. So I come suppliant. I am +five-and-thirty, and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the +quality of life. I had a hard fight to begin with to win my way into the +Upper Division--I was third on a list of forty-seven--and since then I +have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening sphere of social +service. Before I met you I never met any one whom I felt I could +love, but you have discovered depths in my own nature I had scarcely +suspected. Except for a few early ebullitions of passion, natural to +a warm and romantic disposition, and leaving no harmful +after-effects--ebullitions that by the standards of the higher truth I +feel no one can justly cast a stone at, and of which I for one am by no +means ashamed--I come to you a pure and unencumbered man. I love you. +In addition to my public salary I have a certain private property and +further expectations through my aunt, so that I can offer you a life +of wide and generous refinement, travel, books, discussion, and easy +relations with a circle of clever and brilliant and thoughtful people +with whom my literary work has brought me into contact, and of which, +seeing me only as you have done alone in Morningside Park, you can have +no idea. I have a certain standing not only as a singer but as a critic, +and I belong to one of the most brilliant causerie dinner clubs of +the day, in which successful Bohemianism, politicians, men of affairs, +artists, sculptors, and cultivated noblemen generally, mingle together +in the easiest and most delightful intercourse. That is my real milieu, +and one that I am convinced you would not only adorn but delight in. + +“I find it very hard to write this letter. There are so many things +I want to tell you, and they stand on such different levels, that +the effect is necessarily confusing and discordant, and I find myself +doubting if I am really giving you the thread of emotion that should run +through all this letter. For although I must confess it reads very much +like an application or a testimonial or some such thing as that, I can +assure you I am writing this in fear and trembling with a sinking heart. +My mind is full of ideas and images that I have been cherishing and +accumulating--dreams of travelling side by side, of lunching quietly +together in some jolly restaurant, of moonlight and music and all that +side of life, of seeing you dressed like a queen and shining in some +brilliant throng--mine; of your looking at flowers in some old-world +garden, our garden--there are splendid places to be got down in Surrey, +and a little runabout motor is quite within my means. You know they say, +as, indeed, I have just quoted already, that all bad poetry is written +in a state of emotion, but I have no doubt that this is true of bad +offers of marriage. I have often felt before that it is only when one +has nothing to say that one can write easy poetry. Witness Browning. And +how can I get into one brief letter the complex accumulated desires of +what is now, I find on reference to my diary, nearly sixteen months of +letting my mind run on you--ever since that jolly party at Surbiton, +where we raced and beat the other boat. You steered and I rowed stroke. +My very sentences stumble and give way. But I do not even care if I am +absurd. I am a resolute man, and hitherto when I have wanted a thing I +have got it; but I have never yet wanted anything in my life as I have +wanted you. It isn’t the same thing. I am afraid because I love you, so +that the mere thought of failure hurts. If I did not love you so much I +believe I could win you by sheer force of character, for people tell me +I am naturally of the dominating type. Most of my successes in life have +been made with a sort of reckless vigor. + +“Well, I have said what I had to say, stumblingly and badly, and baldly. +But I am sick of tearing up letters and hopeless of getting what I have +to say better said. It would be easy enough for me to write an eloquent +letter about something else. Only I do not care to write about anything +else. Let me put the main question to you now that I could not put the +other afternoon. Will you marry me, Ann Veronica? + +“Very sincerely yours, + +“HUBERT MANNING.” + + +Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes. + +Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. Twice she +smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheets in +a search for particular passages. Finally she fell into reflection. + +“Odd!” she said. “I suppose I shall have to write an answer. It’s so +different from what one has been led to expect.” + +She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the greenhouse, +advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry +canes. + +“No you don’t!” said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and +business-like pace toward the house. + +“I’m going for a long tramp, auntie,” she said. + +“Alone, dear?” + +“Yes, aunt. I’ve got a lot of things to think about.” + +Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. She +thought her niece very hard and very self-possessed and self-confident. +She ought to be softened and tender and confidential at this phase of +her life. She seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states +that were becoming to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round +the garden thinking, and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann +Veronica’s slamming of the front door. + +“I wonder!” said Miss Stanley. + +For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as though +they offered an explanation. Then she went in and up-stairs, hesitated +on the landing, and finally, a little breathless and with an air of +great dignity, opened the door and walked into Ann Veronica’s room. It +was a neat, efficient-looking room, with a writing-table placed with a +business-like regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a +pig’s skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of +shiny, black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two +hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica, +by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss +Stanley took no notice of these things. She walked straight across to +the wardrobe and opened it. There, hanging among Ann Veronica’s more +normal clothing, was a skimpy dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap +and tawdry braid, and short--it could hardly reach below the knee. On +the same peg and evidently belonging to it was a black velvet Zouave +jacket. And then! a garment that was conceivably a secondary skirt. + +Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of the +constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it. + +The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. As she +raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy crimson masses. + +“TROUSERS!” she whispered. + +Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very chairs. + +Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish +slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She walked +over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to +examine them. They were ingenious disguises of gilt paper destructively +gummed, it would seem, to Ann Veronicas’ best dancing-slippers. + +Then she reverted to the trousers. + +“How CAN I tell him?” whispered Miss Stanley. + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. She walked +with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the proletarian +portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a +pretty overhung lane that led toward Caddington and the Downs. And +then her pace slackened. She tucked her stick under her arm and re-read +Manning’s letter. + +“Let me think,” said Ann Veronica. “I wish this hadn’t turned up to-day +of all days.” + +She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything +but clear what it was she had to think about. Practically it was most +of the chief interests in life that she proposed to settle in this +pedestrian meditation. Primarily it was her own problem, and in +particular the answer she had to give to Mr. Manning’s letter, but in +order to get data for that she found that she, having a logical and +ordered mind, had to decide upon the general relations of men to women, +the objects and conditions of marriage and its bearing upon the +welfare of the race, the purpose of the race, the purpose, if any, of +everything.... + +“Frightful lot of things aren’t settled,” said Ann Veronica. In +addition, the Fadden Dance business, all out of proportion, occupied +the whole foreground of her thoughts and threw a color of rebellion +over everything. She kept thinking she was thinking about Mr. Manning’s +proposal of marriage and finding she was thinking of the dance. + +For a time her efforts to achieve a comprehensive concentration were +dispersed by the passage of the village street of Caddington, the +passing of a goggled car-load of motorists, and the struggles of a +stable lad mounted on one recalcitrant horse and leading another. When +she got back to her questions again in the monotonous high-road that led +up the hill, she found the image of Mr. Manning central in her mind. +He stood there, large and dark, enunciating, in his clear voice from +beneath his large mustache, clear flat sentences, deliberately kindly. +He proposed, he wanted to possess her! He loved her. + +Ann Veronica felt no repulsion at the prospect. That Mr. Manning loved +her presented itself to her bloodlessly, stilled from any imaginative +quiver or thrill of passion or disgust. The relationship seemed to have +almost as much to do with blood and body as a mortgage. It was something +that would create a mutual claim, a relationship. It was in another +world from that in which men will die for a kiss, and touching hands +lights fires that burn up lives--the world of romance, the world of +passionately beautiful things. + +But that other world, in spite of her resolute exclusion of it, was +always looking round corners and peeping through chinks and crannies, +and rustling and raiding into the order in which she chose to live, +shining out of pictures at her, echoing in lyrics and music; it invaded +her dreams, it wrote up broken and enigmatical sentences upon the +passage walls of her mind. She was aware of it now as if it were a +voice shouting outside a house, shouting passionate verities in a hot +sunlight, a voice that cries while people talk insincerely in a darkened +room and pretend not to hear. Its shouting now did in some occult manner +convey a protest that Mr. Manning would on no account do, though he +was tall and dark and handsome and kind, and thirty-five and adequately +prosperous, and all that a husband should be. But there was, it +insisted, no mobility in his face, no movement, nothing about him that +warmed. If Ann Veronica could have put words to that song they +would have been, “Hot-blooded marriage or none!” but she was far too +indistinct in this matter to frame any words at all. + +“I don’t love him,” said Ann Veronica, getting a gleam. “I don’t see +that his being a good sort matters. That really settles about that.... +But it means no end of a row.” + +For a time she sat on a rail before leaving the road for the downland +turf. “But I wish,” she said, “I had some idea what I was really up to.” + +Her thoughts went into solution for a time, while she listened to a lark +singing. + +“Marriage and mothering,” said Ann Veronica, with her mind crystallizing +out again as the lark dropped to the nest in the turf. “And all the rest +of it perhaps is a song.” + + + +Part 3 + + +Her mind got back to the Fadden Ball. + +She meant to go, she meant to go, she meant to go. Nothing would stop +her, and she was prepared to face the consequences. Suppose her father +turned her out of doors! She did not care, she meant to go. She would +just walk out of the house and go.... + +She thought of her costume in some detail and with considerable +satisfaction, and particularly of a very jolly property dagger with +large glass jewels in the handle, that reposed in a drawer in her room. +She was to be a Corsair’s Bride. “Fancy stabbing a man for jealousy!” + she thought. “You’d have to think how to get in between his bones.” + +She thought of her father, and with an effort dismissed him from her +mind. + +She tried to imagine the collective effect of the Fadden Ball; she had +never seen a fancy-dress gathering in her life. Mr. Manning came into +her thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark, self-contained presence +at the Fadden. One might suppose him turning up; he knew a lot of clever +people, and some of them might belong to the class. What would he come +as? + +Presently she roused herself with a guilty start from the task of +dressing and re-dressing Mr. Manning in fancy costume, as though he +was a doll. She had tried him as a Crusader, in which guise he seemed +plausible but heavy--“There IS something heavy about him; I wonder if +it’s his mustache?”--and as a Hussar, which made him preposterous, and +as a Black Brunswicker, which was better, and as an Arab sheik. Also +she had tried him as a dragoman and as a gendarme, which seemed the most +suitable of all to his severely handsome, immobile profile. She felt +he would tell people the way, control traffic, and refuse admission +to public buildings with invincible correctness and the very finest +explicit feelings possible. For each costume she had devised a suitable +form of matrimonial refusal. “Oh, Lord!” she said, discovering what she +was up to, and dropped lightly from the fence upon the turf and went on +her way toward the crest. + +“I shall never marry,” said Ann Veronica, resolutely; “I’m not the sort. +That’s why it’s so important I should take my own line now.” + + +Part 4 + + +Ann Veronica’s ideas of marriage were limited and unsystematic. Her +teachers and mistresses had done their best to stamp her mind with an +ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously important, and on no +account to be thought about. Her first intimations of marriage as a fact +of extreme significance in a woman’s life had come with the marriage of +Alice and the elopement of her second sister, Gwen. + +These convulsions occurred when Ann Veronica was about twelve. There +was a gulf of eight years between her and the youngest of her brace of +sisters--an impassable gulf inhabited chaotically by two noisy brothers. +These sisters moved in a grown-up world inaccessible to Ann Veronica’s +sympathies, and to a large extent remote from her curiosity. She got +into rows through meddling with their shoes and tennis-rackets, and had +moments of carefully concealed admiration when she was privileged to see +them just before her bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in white or pink +or amber and prepared to go out with her mother. She thought Alice a bit +of a sneak, an opinion her brothers shared, and Gwen rather a snatch +at meals. She saw nothing of their love-making, and came home from her +boarding-school in a state of decently suppressed curiosity for Alice’s +wedding. + +Her impressions of this cardinal ceremony were rich and confused, +complicated by a quite transitory passion that awakened no reciprocal +fire for a fat curly headed cousin in black velveteen and a lace +collar, who assisted as a page. She followed him about persistently, and +succeeded, after a brisk, unchivalrous struggle (in which he pinched and +asked her to “cheese it”), in kissing him among the raspberries behind +the greenhouse. Afterward her brother Roddy, also strange in velveteen, +feeling rather than knowing of this relationship, punched this Adonis’s +head. + +A marriage in the house proved to be exciting but extremely +disorganizing. Everything seemed designed to unhinge the mind and +make the cat wretched. All the furniture was moved, all the meals were +disarranged, and everybody, Ann Veronica included, appeared in new, +bright costumes. She had to wear cream and a brown sash and a short +frock and her hair down, and Gwen cream and a brown sash and a long +skirt and her hair up. And her mother, looking unusually alert and +hectic, wore cream and brown also, made up in a more complicated manner. + +Ann Veronica was much impressed by a mighty trying on and altering and +fussing about Alice’s “things”--Alice was being re-costumed from garret +to cellar, with a walking-dress and walking-boots to measure, and a +bride’s costume of the most ravishing description, and stockings and +such like beyond the dreams of avarice--and a constant and increasing +dripping into the house of irrelevant remarkable objects, such as-- + +Real lace bedspread; + +Gilt travelling clock; + +Ornamental pewter plaque; + +Salad bowl (silver mounted) and servers; + +Madgett’s “English Poets” (twelve volumes), bound purple morocco; + +Etc., etc. + +Through all this flutter of novelty there came and went a solicitous, +preoccupied, almost depressed figure. It was Doctor Ralph, formerly +the partner of Doctor Stickell in the Avenue, and now with a thriving +practice of his own in Wamblesmith. He had shaved his side-whiskers and +come over in flannels, but he was still indisputably the same person +who had attended Ann Veronica for the measles and when she swallowed +the fish-bone. But his role was altered, and he was now playing the +bridegroom in this remarkable drama. Alice was going to be Mrs. Ralph. +He came in apologetically; all the old “Well, and how ARE we?” note +gone; and once he asked Ann Veronica, almost furtively, + +“How’s Alice getting on, Vee?” Finally, on the Day, he appeared like +his old professional self transfigured, in the most beautiful light gray +trousers Ann Veronica had ever seen and a new shiny silk hat with a most +becoming roll.... + +It was not simply that all the rooms were rearranged and everybody +dressed in unusual fashions, and all the routines of life abolished and +put away: people’s tempers and emotions also seemed strangely disturbed +and shifted about. Her father was distinctly irascible, and disposed +more than ever to hide away among the petrological things--the study was +turned out. At table he carved in a gloomy but resolute manner. On the +Day he had trumpet-like outbreaks of cordiality, varied by a watchful +preoccupation. Gwen and Alice were fantastically friendly, which seemed +to annoy him, and Mrs. Stanley was throughout enigmatical, with an +anxious eye on her husband and Alice. + +There was a confused impression of livery carriages and whips with white +favors, people fussily wanting other people to get in before them, +and then the church. People sat in unusual pews, and a wide margin of +hassocky emptiness intervened between the ceremony and the walls. + +Ann Veronica had a number of fragmentary impressions of Alice strangely +transfigured in bridal raiment. It seemed to make her sister downcast +beyond any precedent. The bridesmaids and pages got rather jumbled +in the aisle, and she had an effect of Alice’s white back and +sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some +incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also +she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, +drooping and spiritless, mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while +the Rev. Edward Bribble stood between them with an open book. Doctor +Ralph looked kind and large, and listened to Alice’s responses as though +he was listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole she was +progressing favorably. + +And afterward her mother and Alice kissed long and clung to each other. +And Doctor Ralph stood by looking considerate. He and her father shook +hands manfully. + +Ann Veronica had got quite interested in Mr. Bribble’s rendering of the +service--he had the sort of voice that brings out things--and was still +teeming with ideas about it when finally a wild outburst from the organ +made it clear that, whatever snivelling there might be down in the +chancel, that excellent wind instrument was, in its Mendelssohnian +way, as glad as ever it could be. “Pump, pump, per-um-pump, Pum, Pump, +Per-um....” + +The wedding-breakfast was for Ann Veronica a spectacle of the unreal +consuming the real; she liked that part very well, until she was +carelessly served against her expressed wishes with mayonnaise. She +was caught by an uncle, whose opinion she valued, making faces at Roddy +because he had exulted at this. + +Of the vast mass of these impressions Ann Veronica could make nothing +at the time; there they were--Fact! She stored them away in a mind +naturally retentive, as a squirrel stores away nuts, for further +digestion. Only one thing emerged with any reasonable clarity in her +mind at once, and that was that unless she was saved from drowning by +an unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is unavoidable, or totally +destitute of under-clothing, and so driven to get a trousseau, in which +hardship a trousseau would certainly be “ripping,” marriage was an +experience to be strenuously evaded. + +When they were going home she asked her mother why she and Gwen and +Alice had cried. + +“Ssh!” said her mother, and then added, “A little natural feeling, +dear.” + +“But didn’t Alice want to marry Doctor Ralph?” + +“Oh, ssh, Vee!” said her mother, with an evasion as patent as an +advertisement board. “I am sure she will be very happy indeed with +Doctor Ralph.” + +But Ann Veronica was by no means sure of that until she went over +to Wamblesmith and saw her sister, very remote and domestic and +authoritative, in a becoming tea-gown, in command of Doctor Ralph’s +home. Doctor Ralph came in to tea and put his arm round Alice and kissed +her, and Alice called him “Squiggles,” and stood in the shelter of his +arms for a moment with an expression of satisfied proprietorship. She +HAD cried, Ann Veronica knew. There had been fusses and scenes dimly +apprehended through half-open doors. She had heard Alice talking and +crying at the same time, a painful noise. Perhaps marriage hurt. But now +it was all over, and Alice was getting on well. It reminded Ann Veronica +of having a tooth stopped. + +And after that Alice became remoter than ever, and, after a time, ill. +Then she had a baby and became as old as any really grown-up person, or +older, and very dull. Then she and her husband went off to a Yorkshire +practice, and had four more babies, none of whom photographed well, and +so she passed beyond the sphere of Ann Veronica’s sympathies altogether. + + + +Part 5 + + +The Gwen affair happened when she was away at school at +Marticombe-on-Sea, a term before she went to the High School, and was +never very clear to her. + +Her mother missed writing for a week, and then she wrote in an unusual +key. “My dear,” the letter ran, “I have to tell you that your sister +Gwen has offended your father very much. I hope you will always love +her, but I want you to remember she has offended your father and married +without his consent. Your father is very angry, and will not have her +name mentioned in his hearing. She has married some one he could not +approve of, and gone right away....” + +When the next holidays came Ann Veronica’s mother was ill, and Gwen was +in the sick-room when Ann Veronica returned home. She was in one of her +old walking-dresses, her hair was done in an unfamiliar manner, she wore +a wedding-ring, and she looked as if she had been crying. + +“Hello, Gwen!” said Ann Veronica, trying to put every one at their ease. +“Been and married?... What’s the name of the happy man?” + +Gwen owned to “Fortescue.” + +“Got a photograph of him or anything?” said Ann Veronica, after kissing +her mother. + +Gwen made an inquiry, and, directed by Mrs. Stanley, produced a portrait +from its hiding-place in the jewel-drawer under the mirror. It presented +a clean-shaven face with a large Corinthian nose, hair tremendously +waving off the forehead and more chin and neck than is good for a man. + +“LOOKS all right,” said Ann Veronica, regarding him with her head first +on one side and then on the other, and trying to be agreeable. “What’s +the objection?” + +“I suppose she ought to know?” said Gwen to her mother, trying to alter +the key of the conversation. + +“You see, Vee,” said Mrs. Stanley, “Mr. Fortescue is an actor, and your +father does not approve of the profession.” + +“Oh!” said Ann Veronica. “I thought they made knights of actors?” + +“They may of Hal some day,” said Gwen. “But it’s a long business.” + +“I suppose this makes you an actress?” said Ann Veronica. + +“I don’t know whether I shall go on,” said Gwen, a novel note of +languorous professionalism creeping into her voice. “The other women +don’t much like it if husband and wife work together, and I don’t think +Hal would like me to act away from him.” + +Ann Veronica regarded her sister with a new respect, but the traditions +of family life are strong. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to do it +much,” said Ann Veronica. + +Later Gwen’s trouble weighed so heavily on Mrs. Stanley in her illness +that her husband consented to receive Mr. Fortescue in the drawing-room, +and actually shake hands with him in an entirely hopeless manner and +hope everything would turn out for the best. + +The forgiveness and reconciliation was a cold and formal affair, and +afterwards her father went off gloomily to his study, and Mr. Fortescue +rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian +nose upraised and his hands behind his back, pausing to look long and +hard at the fruit-trees against the wall. + +Ann Veronica watched him from the dining-room window, and after some +moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse +direction to Mr. Fortescue’s steps, and encountered him with an air of +artless surprise. + +“Hello!” said Ann Veronica, with arms akimbo and a careless, breathless +manner. “You Mr. Fortescue?” + +“At your service. You Ann Veronica?” + +“Rather! I say--did you marry Gwen?” + +“Yes.” + +“Why?” + +Mr. Fortescue raised his eyebrows and assumed a light-comedy expression. +“I suppose I fell in love with her, Ann Veronica.” + +“Rum,” said Ann Veronica. “Have you got to keep her now?” + +“To the best of my ability,” said Mr. Fortescue, with a bow. + +“Have you much ability?” asked Ann Veronica. + +Mr. Fortescue tried to act embarrassment in order to conceal its +reality, and Ann Veronica went on to ask a string of questions about +acting, and whether her sister would act, and was she beautiful enough +for it, and who would make her dresses, and so on. + +As a matter of fact Mr. Fortescue had not much ability to keep her +sister, and a little while after her mother’s death Ann Veronica +met Gwen suddenly on the staircase coming from her father’s study, +shockingly dingy in dusty mourning and tearful and resentful, and after +that Gwen receded from the Morningside Park world, and not even the +begging letters and distressful communications that her father and aunt +received, but only a vague intimation of dreadfulness, a leakage of +incidental comment, flashes of paternal anger at “that blackguard,” came +to Ann Veronica’s ears. + + + +Part 6 + + +These were Ann Veronica’s leading cases in the question of marriage. +They were the only real marriages she had seen clearly. For the rest, +she derived her ideas of the married state from the observed behavior of +married women, which impressed her in Morningside Park as being tied and +dull and inelastic in comparison with the life of the young, and from a +remarkably various reading among books. As a net result she had come to +think of all married people much as one thinks of insects that have +lost their wings, and of her sisters as new hatched creatures who had +scarcely for a moment had wings. She evolved a dim image of herself +cooped up in a house under the benevolent shadow of Mr. Manning. +Who knows?--on the analogy of “Squiggles” she might come to call him +“Mangles!” + +“I don’t think I can ever marry any one,” she said, and fell suddenly +into another set of considerations that perplexed her for a time. Had +romance to be banished from life?... + +It was hard to part with romance, but she had never thirsted so keenly +to go on with her University work in her life as she did that day. She +had never felt so acutely the desire for free initiative, for a life +unhampered by others. At any cost! Her brothers had it practically--at +least they had it far more than it seemed likely she would unless she +exerted herself with quite exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair, +far prospect of freedom and self-development manoeuvred Mr. Manning, her +aunt and father, neighbors, customs, traditions, forces. They seemed to +her that morning to be all armed with nets and prepared to throw them +over her directly her movements became in any manner truly free. + +She had a feeling as though something had dropped from her eyes, as +though she had just discovered herself for the first time--discovered +herself as a sleep-walker might do, abruptly among dangers, hindrances, +and perplexities, on the verge of a cardinal crisis. + +The life of a girl presented itself to her as something happy and +heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by others, and +going on amidst unsuspected screens and concealments. + +And in its way it was very well. Then suddenly with a rush came reality, +came “growing up”; a hasty imperative appeal for seriousness, for +supreme seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings and Fortescues came down +upon the raw inexperience, upon the blinking ignorance of the newcomer; +and before her eyes were fairly open, before she knew what had +happened, a new set of guides and controls, a new set of obligations and +responsibilities and limitations, had replaced the old. “I want to be +a Person,” said Ann Veronica to the downs and the open sky; “I will not +have this happen to me, whatever else may happen in its place.” + +Ann Veronica had three things very definitely settled by the time when, +a little after mid-day, she found herself perched up on a gate between a +bridle-path and a field that commanded the whole wide stretch of country +between Chalking and Waldersham. Firstly, she did not intend to marry at +all, and particularly she did not mean to marry Mr. Manning; secondly, +by some measure or other, she meant to go on with her studies, not at +the Tredgold Schools but at the Imperial College; and, thirdly, she was, +as an immediate and decisive act, a symbol of just exactly where she +stood, a declaration of free and adult initiative, going that night to +the Fadden Ball. + +But the possible attitude of her father she had still to face. So far +she had the utmost difficulty in getting on to that vitally important +matter. The whole of that relationship persisted in remaining obscure. +What would happen when next morning she returned to Morningside Park? + +He couldn’t turn her out of doors. But what he could do or might do she +could not imagine. She was not afraid of violence, but she was afraid of +something mean, some secondary kind of force. Suppose he stopped all her +allowance, made it imperative that she should either stay ineffectually +resentful at home or earn a living for herself at once.... It +appeared highly probable to her that he would stop her allowance. + +What can a girl do? + +Somewhere at this point Ann Veronica’s speculations were interrupted +and turned aside by the approach of a horse and rider. Mr. Ramage, that +iron-gray man of the world, appeared dressed in a bowler hat and a suit +of hard gray, astride of a black horse. He pulled rein at the sight of +her, saluted, and regarded her with his rather too protuberant eyes. The +girl’s gaze met his in interested inquiry. + +“You’ve got my view,” he said, after a pensive second. “I always get off +here and lean over that rail for a bit. May I do so to-day?” + +“It’s your gate,” she said, amiably; “you got it first. It’s for you to +say if I may sit on it.” + +He slipped off the horse. “Let me introduce you to Caesar,” he said; +and she patted Caesar’s neck, and remarked how soft his nose was, and +secretly deplored the ugliness of equine teeth. Ramage tethered the +horse to the farther gate-post, and Caesar blew heavily and began to +investigate the hedge. + +Ramage leaned over the gate at Ann Veronica’s side, and for a moment +there was silence. + +He made some obvious comments on the wide view warming toward its +autumnal blaze that spread itself in hill and valley, wood and village, +below. + +“It’s as broad as life,” said Mr. Ramage, regarding it and putting a +well-booted foot up on the bottom rail. + + + +Part 7 + + +“And what are you doing here, young lady,” he said, looking up at her +face, “wandering alone so far from home?” + +“I like long walks,” said Ann Veronica, looking down on him. + +“Solitary walks?” + +“That’s the point of them. I think over all sorts of things.” + +“Problems?” + +“Sometimes quite difficult problems.” + +“You’re lucky to live in an age when you can do so. Your mother, +for instance, couldn’t. She had to do her thinking at home--under +inspection.” + +She looked down on him thoughtfully, and he let his admiration of her +free young poise show in his face. + +“I suppose things have changed?” she said. + +“Never was such an age of transition.” + +She wondered what to. Mr. Ramage did not know. “Sufficient unto me is +the change thereof,” he said, with all the effect of an epigram. + +“I must confess,” he said, “the New Woman and the New Girl intrigue me +profoundly. I am one of those people who are interested in women, more +interested than I am in anything else. I don’t conceal it. And the +change, the change of attitude! The way all the old clingingness +has been thrown aside is amazing. And all the old--the old trick of +shrinking up like a snail at a touch. If you had lived twenty years ago +you would have been called a Young Person, and it would have been your +chief duty in life not to know, never to have heard of, and never to +understand.” + +“There’s quite enough still,” said Ann Veronica, smiling, “that one +doesn’t understand.” + +“Quite. But your role would have been to go about saying, ‘I beg your +pardon’ in a reproving tone to things you understood quite well in your +heart and saw no harm in. That terrible Young Person! she’s vanished. +Lost, stolen, or strayed, the Young Person!... I hope we may never +find her again.” + +He rejoiced over this emancipation. “While that lamb was about every man +of any spirit was regarded as a dangerous wolf. We wore invisible chains +and invisible blinkers. Now, you and I can gossip at a gate, and Honi +soit qui mal y pense. The change has given man one good thing he never +had before,” he said. “Girl friends. And I am coming to believe the best +as well as the most beautiful friends a man can have are girl friends.” + +He paused, and went on, after a keen look at her: + +“I had rather gossip to a really intelligent girl than to any man +alive.” + +“I suppose we ARE more free than we were?” said Ann Veronica, keeping +the question general. + +“Oh, there’s no doubt of it! Since the girls of the eighties broke +bounds and sailed away on bicycles--my young days go back to the very +beginnings of that--it’s been one triumphant relaxation.” + +“Relaxation, perhaps. But are we any more free?” + +“Well?” + +“I mean we’ve long strings to tether us, but we are bound all the same. +A woman isn’t much freer--in reality.” + +Mr. Ramage demurred. + +“One runs about,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Yes.” + +“But it’s on condition one doesn’t do anything.” + +“Do what?” + +“Oh!--anything.” + +He looked interrogation with a faint smile. + +“It seems to me it comes to earning one’s living in the long run,” said +Ann Veronica, coloring faintly. “Until a girl can go away as a son does +and earn her independent income, she’s still on a string. It may be a +long string, long enough if you like to tangle up all sorts of people; +but there it is! If the paymaster pulls, home she must go. That’s what I +mean.” + +Mr. Ramage admitted the force of that. He was a little impressed by +Ann Veronica’s metaphor of the string, which, indeed, she owed to Hetty +Widgett. “YOU wouldn’t like to be independent?” he asked, abruptly. “I +mean REALLY independent. On your own. It isn’t such fun as it seems.” + +“Every one wants to be independent,” said Ann Veronica. “Every one. Man +or woman.” + +“And you?” + +“Rather!” + +“I wonder why?” + +“There’s no why. It’s just to feel--one owns one’s self.” + +“Nobody does that,” said Ramage, and kept silence for a moment. + +“But a boy--a boy goes out into the world and presently stands on his +own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company, makes his +own way of living.” + +“You’d like to do that?” + +“Exactly.” + +“Would you like to be a boy?” + +“I wonder! It’s out of the question, any way.” + +Ramage reflected. “Why don’t you?” + +“Well, it might mean rather a row.” + +“I know--” said Ramage, with sympathy. + +“And besides,” said Ann Veronica, sweeping that aspect aside, “what +could I do? A boy sails out into a trade or profession. But--it’s one +of the things I’ve just been thinking over. Suppose--suppose a girl +did want to start in life, start in life for herself--” She looked him +frankly in the eyes. “What ought she to do?” + +“Suppose you--” + +“Yes, suppose I--” + +He felt that his advice was being asked. He became a little more +personal and intimate. “I wonder what you could do?” he said. “I should +think YOU could do all sorts of things.... + +“What ought you to do?” He began to produce his knowledge of the world +for her benefit, jerkily and allusively, and with a strong, rank flavor +of “savoir faire.” He took an optimist view of her chances. Ann Veronica +listened thoughtfully, with her eyes on the turf, and now and then she +asked a question or looked up to discuss a point. In the meanwhile, +as he talked, he scrutinized her face, ran his eyes over her careless, +gracious poise, wondered hard about her. He described her privately to +himself as a splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away from +home, that she was impatient to get away from home. Why? While the front +of his mind was busy warning her not to fall into the hopeless miseries +of underpaid teaching, and explaining his idea that for women of +initiative, quite as much as for men, the world of business had by far +the best chances, the back chambers of his brain were busy with the +problem of that “Why?” + +His first idea as a man of the world was to explain her unrest by a +lover, some secret or forbidden or impossible lover. But he dismissed +that because then she would ask her lover and not him all these things. +Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple restlessness: home bored +her. He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored +and feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions +of something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young lady +impatient for experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he +did not think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more than +a mask. Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept. If it +was not an actual personal lover, it still might be the lover not yet +incarnate, not yet perhaps suspected.... + +He had diverged only a little from the truth when he said that his +chief interest in life was women. It wasn’t so much women as Woman that +engaged his mind. His was the Latin turn of thinking; he had fallen +in love at thirteen, and he was still capable--he prided himself--of +falling in love. His invalid wife and her money had been only the thin +thread that held his life together; beaded on that permanent relation +had been an inter-weaving series of other feminine experiences, +disturbing, absorbing, interesting, memorable affairs. Each one had +been different from the others, each had had a quality all its own, a +distinctive freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how +men could live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful +research into personality and the possibilities of pleasing, these +complex, fascinating expeditions that began in interest and mounted to +the supremest, most passionate intimacy. All the rest of his existence +was subordinate to this pursuit; he lived for it, worked for it, kept +himself in training for it. + +So while he talked to this girl of work and freedom, his slightly +protuberant eyes were noting the gracious balance of her limbs and body +across the gate, the fine lines of her chin and neck. Her grave fine +face, her warm clear complexion, had already aroused his curiosity as he +had gone to and fro in Morningside Park, and here suddenly he was +near to her and talking freely and intimately. He had found her in +a communicative mood, and he used the accumulated skill of years in +turning that to account. + +She was pleased and a little flattered by his interest and sympathy. She +became eager to explain herself, to show herself in the right light. He +was manifestly exerting his mind for her, and she found herself fully +disposed to justify his interest. + +She, perhaps, displayed herself rather consciously as a fine +person unduly limited. She even touched lightly on her father’s +unreasonableness. + +“I wonder,” said Ramage, “that more girls don’t think as you do and want +to strike out in the world.” + +And then he speculated. “I wonder if you will?” + +“Let me say one thing,” he said. “If ever you do and I can help you +in any way, by advice or inquiry or recommendation--You see, I’m no +believer in feminine incapacity, but I do perceive there is such a thing +as feminine inexperience. As a sex you’re a little under-trained--in +affairs. I’d take it--forgive me if I seem a little urgent--as a sort of +proof of friendliness. I can imagine nothing more pleasant in life than +to help you, because I know it would pay to help you. There’s something +about you, a little flavor of Will, I suppose, that makes one feel--good +luck about you and success....” + +And while he talked and watched her as he talked, she answered, and +behind her listening watched and thought about him. She liked the +animated eagerness of his manner. + +His mind seemed to be a remarkably full one; his knowledge of detailed +reality came in just where her own mind was most weakly equipped. +Through all he said ran one quality that pleased her--the quality of a +man who feels that things can be done, that one need not wait for the +world to push one before one moved. Compared with her father and Mr. +Manning and the men in “fixed” positions generally that she knew, +Ramage, presented by himself, had a fine suggestion of freedom, of +power, of deliberate and sustained adventure.... + +She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It was really +very jolly to talk to a man in this way--who saw the woman in her and +did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps +for a girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a +man beyond the range of anything “nonsensical,” was, perhaps, the most +interesting sort of friend one could meet. But in that reservation it +may be she went a little beyond the converse of his view.... + +They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the better part +of an hour, and at last walked together to the junction of highroad +and the bridle-path. There, after protestations of friendliness and +helpfulness that were almost ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and +rode off at an amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with +his riding gaiters, smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned +northward and so came to Micklechesil. There, in a little tea and +sweet-stuff shop, she bought and consumed slowly and absent-mindedly the +insufficient nourishment that is natural to her sex on such occasions. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE CRISIS + + +Part 1 + + +We left Miss Stanley with Ann Veronica’s fancy dress in her hands and +her eyes directed to Ann Veronica’s pseudo-Turkish slippers. + +When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six--an earlier train by +fifteen minutes than he affected--his sister met him in the hall with +a hushed expression. “I’m so glad you’re here, Peter,” she said. “She +means to go.” + +“Go!” he said. “Where?” + +“To that ball.” + +“What ball?” The question was rhetorical. He knew. + +“I believe she’s dressing up-stairs--now.” + +“Then tell her to undress, confound her!” The City had been thoroughly +annoying that day, and he was angry from the outset. + +Miss Stanley reflected on this proposal for a moment. + +“I don’t think she will,” she said. + +“She must,” said Mr. Stanley, and went into his study. His sister +followed. “She can’t go now. She’ll have to wait for dinner,” he said, +uncomfortably. + +“She’s going to have some sort of meal with the Widgetts down the +Avenue, and go up with them. + +“She told you that?” + +“Yes.” + +“When?” + +“At tea.” + +“But why didn’t you prohibit once for all the whole thing? How dared she +tell you that?” + +“Out of defiance. She just sat and told me that was her arrangement. +I’ve never seen her quite so sure of herself.” + +“What did you say?” + +“I said, ‘My dear Veronica! how can you think of such things?’” + +“And then?” + +“She had two more cups of tea and some cake, and told me of her walk.” + +“She’ll meet somebody one of these days--walking about like that.” + +“She didn’t say she’d met any one.” + +“But didn’t you say some more about that ball?” + +“I said everything I could say as soon as I realized she was trying to +avoid the topic. I said, ‘It is no use your telling me about this walk +and pretend I’ve been told about the ball, because you haven’t. Your +father has forbidden you to go!’” + +“Well?” + +“She said, ‘I hate being horrid to you and father, but I feel it my duty +to go to that ball!’” + +“Felt it her duty!” + +“‘Very well,’ I said, ‘then I wash my hands of the whole business. Your +disobedience be upon your own head.’” + +“But that is flat rebellion!” said Mr. Stanley, standing on the +hearthrug with his back to the unlit gas-fire. “You ought at once--you +ought at once to have told her that. What duty does a girl owe to any +one before her father? Obedience to him, that is surely the first law. +What CAN she put before that?” His voice began to rise. “One would think +I had said nothing about the matter. One would think I had agreed to +her going. I suppose this is what she learns in her infernal London +colleges. I suppose this is the sort of damned rubbish--” + +“Oh! Ssh, Peter!” cried Miss Stanley. + +He stopped abruptly. In the pause a door could be heard opening and +closing on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became audible, +descending the staircase with a certain deliberation and a faint rustle +of skirts. + +“Tell her,” said Mr. Stanley, with an imperious gesture, “to come in +here.” + + + +Part 2 + + +Miss Stanley emerged from the study and stood watching Ann Veronica +descend. + +The girl was flushed with excitement, bright-eyed, and braced for a +struggle; her aunt had never seen her looking so fine or so pretty. +Her fancy dress, save for the green-gray stockings, the pseudo-Turkish +slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to a Corsair’s bride, +was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood +it was evident that her rebellious hair was bound up with red silk, and +fastened by some device in her ears (unless she had them pierced, which +was too dreadful a thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings. + +“I’m just off, aunt,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Your father is in the study and wishes to speak to you.” + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and then stood in the open doorway and regarded +her father’s stern presence. She spoke with an entirely false note of +cheerful off-handedness. “I’m just in time to say good-bye before I go, +father. I’m going up to London with the Widgetts to that ball.” + +“Now look here, Ann Veronica,” said Mr. Stanley, “just a moment. You are +NOT going to that ball!” + +Ann Veronica tried a less genial, more dignified note. + +“I thought we had discussed that, father.” + +“You are not going to that ball! You are not going out of this house in +that get-up!” + +Ann Veronica tried yet more earnestly to treat him, as she would treat +any man, with an insistence upon her due of masculine respect. “You +see,” she said, very gently, “I AM going. I am sorry to seem to disobey +you, but I am. I wish”--she found she had embarked on a bad sentence--“I +wish we needn’t have quarrelled.” + +She stopped abruptly, and turned about toward the front door. In a +moment he was beside her. “I don’t think you can have heard me, Vee,” + he said, with intensely controlled fury. “I said you were”--he +shouted--“NOT TO GO!” + +She made, and overdid, an immense effort to be a princess. She tossed +her head, and, having no further words, moved toward the door. Her +father intercepted her, and for a moment she and he struggled with their +hands upon the latch. A common rage flushed their faces. “Let go!” she +gasped at him, a blaze of anger. + +“Veronica!” cried Miss Stanley, warningly, and, “Peter!” + +For a moment they seemed on the verge of an altogether desperate +scuffle. Never for a moment had violence come between these two since +long ago he had, in spite of her mother’s protest in the background, +carried her kicking and squalling to the nursery for some forgotten +crime. With something near to horror they found themselves thus +confronted. + +The door was fastened by a catch and a latch with an inside key, to +which at night a chain and two bolts were added. Carefully abstaining +from thrusting against each other, Ann Veronica and her father began an +absurdly desperate struggle, the one to open the door, the other to keep +it fastened. She seized the key, and he grasped her hand and squeezed +it roughly and painfully between the handle and the ward as she tried to +turn it. His grip twisted her wrist. She cried out with the pain of it. + +A wild passion of shame and self-disgust swept over her. Her spirit +awoke in dismay to an affection in ruins, to the immense undignified +disaster that had come to them. + +Abruptly she desisted, recoiled, and turned and fled up-stairs. + +She made noises between weeping and laughter as she went. She gained her +room, and slammed her door and locked it as though she feared violence +and pursuit. + +“Oh God!” she cried, “Oh God!” and flung aside her opera-cloak, and for +a time walked about the room--a Corsair’s bride at a crisis of emotion. +“Why can’t he reason with me,” she said, again and again, “instead of +doing this?” + + + +Part 3 + + +There presently came a phase in which she said: “I WON’T stand it even +now. I will go to-night.” + +She went as far as her door, then turned to the window. She opened +this and scrambled out--a thing she had not done for five long years of +adolescence--upon the leaded space above the built-out bath-room on the +first floor. Once upon a time she and Roddy had descended thence by the +drain-pipe. + +But things that a girl of sixteen may do in short skirts are not +things to be done by a young lady of twenty-one in fancy dress and +an opera-cloak, and just as she was coming unaided to an adequate +realization of this, she discovered Mr. Pragmar, the wholesale druggist, +who lived three gardens away, and who had been mowing his lawn to get +an appetite for dinner, standing in a fascinated attitude beside the +forgotten lawn-mower and watching her intently. + +She found it extremely difficult to infuse an air of quiet correctitude +into her return through the window, and when she was safely inside she +waved clinched fists and executed a noiseless dance of rage. + +When she reflected that Mr. Pragmar probably knew Mr. Ramage, and might +describe the affair to him, she cried “Oh!” with renewed vexation, and +repeated some steps of her dance in a new and more ecstatic measure. + + + +Part 4 + + +At eight that evening Miss Stanley tapped at Ann Veronica’s bedroom +door. + +“I’ve brought you up some dinner, Vee,” she said. + +Ann Veronica was lying on her bed in a darkling room staring at the +ceiling. She reflected before answering. She was frightfully hungry. +She had eaten little or no tea, and her mid-day meal had been worse than +nothing. + +She got up and unlocked the door. + +Her aunt did not object to capital punishment or war, or the industrial +system or casual wards, or flogging of criminals or the Congo Free +State, because none of these things really got hold of her imagination; +but she did object, she did not like, she could not bear to think of +people not having and enjoying their meals. It was her distinctive test +of an emotional state, its interference with a kindly normal digestion. +Any one very badly moved choked down a few mouthfuls; the symptom of +supreme distress was not to be able to touch a bit. So that the thought +of Ann Veronica up-stairs had been extremely painful for her through all +the silent dinner-time that night. As soon as dinner was over she went +into the kitchen and devoted herself to compiling a tray--not a tray +merely of half-cooled dinner things, but a specially prepared “nice” + tray, suitable for tempting any one. With this she now entered. + +Ann Veronica found herself in the presence of the most disconcerting +fact in human experience, the kindliness of people you believe to be +thoroughly wrong. She took the tray with both hands, gulped, and gave +way to tears. + +Her aunt leaped unhappily to the thought of penitence. + +“My dear,” she began, with an affectionate hand on Ann Veronica’s +shoulder, “I do SO wish you would realize how it grieves your father.” + +Ann Veronica flung away from her hand, and the pepper-pot on the tray +upset, sending a puff of pepper into the air and instantly filling them +both with an intense desire to sneeze. + +“I don’t think you see,” she replied, with tears on her cheeks, and her +brows knitting, “how it shames and, ah!--disgraces me--AH TISHU!” + +She put down the tray with a concussion on her toilet-table. + +“But, dear, think! He is your father. SHOOH!” + +“That’s no reason,” said Ann Veronica, speaking through her handkerchief +and stopping abruptly. + +Niece and aunt regarded each other for a moment over their +pocket-handkerchiefs with watery but antagonistic eyes, each far too +profoundly moved to see the absurdity of the position. + +“I hope,” said Miss Stanley, with dignity, and turned doorward with +features in civil warfare. “Better state of mind,” she gasped.... + +Ann Veronica stood in the twilight room staring at the door that had +slammed upon her aunt, her pocket-handkerchief rolled tightly in her +hand. Her soul was full of the sense of disaster. She had made her first +fight for dignity and freedom as a grown-up and independent Person, and +this was how the universe had treated her. It had neither succumbed +to her nor wrathfully overwhelmed her. It had thrust her back with an +undignified scuffle, with vulgar comedy, with an unendurable, scornful +grin. + +“By God!” said Ann Veronica for the first time in her life. “But I will! +I will!” + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica had an impression that she did not sleep at all that night, +and at any rate she got through an immense amount of feverish feeling +and thinking. + +What was she going to do? + +One main idea possessed her: she must get away from home, she must +assert herself at once or perish. “Very well,” she would say, “then I +must go.” To remain, she felt, was to concede everything. And she would +have to go to-morrow. It was clear it must be to-morrow. If she delayed +a day she would delay two days, if she delayed two days she would delay +a week, and after a week things would be adjusted to submission forever. +“I’ll go,” she vowed to the night, “or I’ll die!” She made plans and +estimated means and resources. These and her general preparations had +perhaps a certain disproportion. She had a gold watch, a very good gold +watch that had been her mother’s, a pearl necklace that was also pretty +good, some unpretending rings, some silver bangles and a few other such +inferior trinkets, three pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her +dress and book allowance and a few good salable books. So equipped, she +proposed to set up a separate establishment in the world. + +And then she would find work. + +For most of a long and fluctuating night she was fairly confident that +she would find work; she knew herself to be strong, intelligent, and +capable by the standards of most of the girls she knew. She was not +quite clear how she should find it, but she felt she would. Then +she would write and tell her father what she had done, and put their +relationship on a new footing. + +That was how she projected it, and in general terms it seemed plausible +and possible. But in between these wider phases of comparative +confidence were gaps of disconcerting doubt, when the universe was +presented as making sinister and threatening faces at her, defying her +to defy, preparing a humiliating and shameful overthrow. “I don’t care,” + said Ann Veronica to the darkness; “I’ll fight it.” + +She tried to plan her proceedings in detail. The only difficulties that +presented themselves clearly to her were the difficulties of getting +away from Morningside Park, and not the difficulties at the other end +of the journey. These were so outside her experience that she found it +possible to thrust them almost out of sight by saying they would be “all +right” in confident tones to herself. But still she knew they were not +right, and at times they became a horrible obsession as of something +waiting for her round the corner. She tried to imagine herself “getting +something,” to project herself as sitting down at a desk and writing, +or as returning after her work to some pleasantly equipped and free and +independent flat. For a time she furnished the flat. But even with +that furniture it remained extremely vague, the possible good and the +possible evil as well! + +The possible evil! “I’ll go,” said Ann Veronica for the hundredth time. +“I’ll go. I don’t care WHAT happens.” + +She awoke out of a doze, as though she had never been sleeping. It was +time to get up. + +She sat on the edge of her bed and looked about her, at her room, at the +row of black-covered books and the pig’s skull. “I must take them,” + she said, to help herself over her own incredulity. “How shall I get my +luggage out of the house?...” + +The figure of her aunt, a little distant, a little propitiatory, behind +the coffee things, filled her with a sense of almost catastrophic +adventure. Perhaps she might never come back to that breakfast-room +again. Never! Perhaps some day, quite soon, she might regret that +breakfast-room. She helped herself to the remainder of the slightly +congealed bacon, and reverted to the problem of getting her luggage +out of the house. She decided to call in the help of Teddy Widgett, or, +failing him, of one of his sisters. + + + +Part 2 + + +She found the younger generation of the Widgetts engaged in languid +reminiscences, and all, as they expressed it, a “bit decayed.” Every +one became tremendously animated when they heard that Ann Veronica had +failed them because she had been, as she expressed it, “locked in.” + +“My God!” said Teddy, more impressively than ever. + +“But what are you going to do?” asked Hetty. + +“What can one do?” asked Ann Veronica. “Would you stand it? I’m going to +clear out.” + +“Clear out?” cried Hetty. + +“Go to London,” said Ann Veronica. + +She had expected sympathetic admiration, but instead the whole Widgett +family, except Teddy, expressed a common dismay. “But how can you?” + asked Constance. “Who will you stop with?” + +“I shall go on my own. Take a room!” + +“I say!” said Constance. “But who’s going to pay for the room?” + +“I’ve got money,” said Ann Veronica. “Anything is better than this--this +stifled life down here.” And seeing that Hetty and Constance were +obviously developing objections, she plunged at once into a demand for +help. “I’ve got nothing in the world to pack with except a toy size +portmanteau. Can you lend me some stuff?” + +“You ARE a chap!” said Constance, and warmed only slowly from the idea +of dissuasion to the idea of help. But they did what they could for her. +They agreed to lend her their hold-all and a large, formless bag which +they called the communal trunk. And Teddy declared himself ready to go +to the ends of the earth for her, and carry her luggage all the way. + +Hetty, looking out of the window--she always smoked her after-breakfast +cigarette at the window for the benefit of the less advanced section of +Morningside Park society--and trying not to raise objections, saw Miss +Stanley going down toward the shops. + +“If you must go on with it,” said Hetty, “now’s your time.” And Ann +Veronica at once went back with the hold-all, trying not to hurry +indecently but to keep up her dignified air of being a wronged person +doing the right thing at a smart trot, to pack. Teddy went round by the +garden backs and dropped the bag over the fence. All this was exciting +and entertaining. Her aunt returned before the packing was done, and +Ann Veronica lunched with an uneasy sense of bag and hold-all packed +up-stairs and inadequately hidden from chance intruders by the valance +of the bed. She went down, flushed and light-hearted, to the Widgetts’ +after lunch to make some final arrangements and then, as soon as her +aunt had retired to lie down for her usual digestive hour, took the +risk of the servants having the enterprise to report her proceedings +and carried her bag and hold-all to the garden gate, whence Teddy, in +a state of ecstatic service, bore them to the railway station. Then she +went up-stairs again, dressed herself carefully for town, put on her +most businesslike-looking hat, and with a wave of emotion she found it +hard to control, walked down to catch the 3.17 up-train. + +Teddy handed her into the second-class compartment her season-ticket +warranted, and declared she was “simply splendid.” “If you want +anything,” he said, “or get into any trouble, wire me. I’d come back +from the ends of the earth. I’d do anything, Vee. It’s horrible to think +of you!” + +“You’re an awful brick, Teddy!” she said. + +“Who wouldn’t be for you?” + +The train began to move. “You’re splendid!” said Teddy, with his hair +wild in the wind. “Good luck! Good luck!” + +She waved from the window until the bend hid him. + +She found herself alone in the train asking herself what she must do +next, and trying not to think of herself as cut off from home or any +refuge whatever from the world she had resolved to face. She felt +smaller and more adventurous even than she had expected to feel. “Let +me see,” she said to herself, trying to control a slight sinking of the +heart, “I am going to take a room in a lodging-house because that is +cheaper.... But perhaps I had better get a room in an hotel to-night +and look round.... + +“It’s bound to be all right,” she said. + +But her heart kept on sinking. What hotel should she go to? If she told +a cabman to drive to an hotel, any hotel, what would he do--or say? He +might drive to something dreadfully expensive, and not at all the quiet +sort of thing she required. Finally she decided that even for an hotel +she must look round, and that meanwhile she would “book” her luggage at +Waterloo. She told the porter to take it to the booking-office, and it +was only after a disconcerting moment or so that she found she ought to +have directed him to go to the cloak-room. But that was soon put right, +and she walked out into London with a peculiar exaltation of mind, an +exaltation that partook of panic and defiance, but was chiefly a sense +of vast unexampled release. + +She inhaled a deep breath of air--London air. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dismissed the first hotels she passed, she scarcely knew why, mainly +perhaps from the mere dread of entering them, and crossed Waterloo +Bridge at a leisurely pace. It was high afternoon, there was no great +throng of foot-passengers, and many an eye from omnibus and pavement +rested gratefully on her fresh, trim presence as she passed young +and erect, with the light of determination shining through the quiet +self-possession of her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress +for town, without either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse +confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her dark +hair waved loosely and graciously over her ears.... + +It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all time to her, +and perhaps the thrill of her excitement did add a distinctive and +culminating keenness to the day. The river, the big buildings on the +north bank, Westminster, and St. Paul’s, were rich and wonderful with +the soft sunshine of London, the softest, the finest grained, the most +penetrating and least emphatic sunshine in the world. The very carts +and vans and cabs that Wellington Street poured out incessantly upon +the bridge seemed ripe and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious barges +slumbered over the face of the river-barges either altogether stagnant +or dreaming along in the wake of fussy tugs; and above circled, urbanely +voracious, the London seagulls. She had never been there before at that +hour, in that light, and it seemed to her as if she came to it all for +the first time. And this great mellow place, this London, now was hers, +to struggle with, to go where she pleased in, to overcome and live in. +“I am glad,” she told herself, “I came.” + +She marked an hotel that seemed neither opulent nor odd in a little side +street opening on the Embankment, made up her mind with an effort, and, +returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, took a cab to this chosen +refuge with her two pieces of luggage. There was just a minute’s +hesitation before they gave her a room. + +The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire, and Ann Veronica, +while she affected to read the appeal on a hospital collecting-box upon +the bureau counter, had a disagreeable sense of being surveyed from +behind by a small, whiskered gentleman in a frock-coat, who came out of +the inner office and into the hall among a number of equally observant +green porters to look at her and her bags. But the survey was +satisfactory, and she found herself presently in Room No. 47, +straightening her hat and waiting for her luggage to appear. + +“All right so far,” she said to herself.... + + + +Part 4 + + +But presently, as she sat on the one antimacassared red silk chair +and surveyed her hold-all and bag in that tidy, rather vacant, and +dehumanized apartment, with its empty wardrobe and desert toilet-table +and pictureless walls and stereotyped furnishings, a sudden blankness +came upon her as though she didn’t matter, and had been thrust away into +this impersonal corner, she and her gear.... + +She decided to go out into the London afternoon again and get something +to eat in an Aerated Bread shop or some such place, and perhaps find a +cheap room for herself. Of course that was what she had to do; she had +to find a cheap room for herself and work! + +This Room No. 47 was no more than a sort of railway compartment on the +way to that. + +How does one get work? + +She walked along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, and by the +Haymarket to Piccadilly, and so through dignified squares and palatial +alleys to Oxford Street; and her mind was divided between a speculative +treatment of employment on the one hand, and breezes--zephyr breezes--of +the keenest appreciation for London, on the other. The jolly part of it +was that for the first time in her life so far as London was concerned, +she was not going anywhere in particular; for the first time in her life +it seemed to her she was taking London in. + +She tried to think how people get work. Ought she to walk into some +of these places and tell them what she could do? She hesitated at the +window of a shipping-office in Cockspur Street and at the Army and +Navy Stores, but decided that perhaps there would be some special and +customary hour, and that it would be better for her to find this out +before she made her attempt. And, besides, she didn’t just immediately +want to make her attempt. + +She fell into a pleasant dream of positions and work. Behind every one +of these myriad fronts she passed there must be a career or careers. Her +ideas of women’s employment and a modern woman’s pose in life were based +largely on the figure of Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren’s Profession. She +had seen Mrs. Warren’s Profession furtively with Hetty Widgett from the +gallery of a Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most of +it had been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way that +checked further curiosity, but the figure of Vivien, hard, capable, +successful, and bullying, and ordering about a veritable Teddy in the +person of Frank Gardner, appealed to her. She saw herself in very much +Vivie’s position--managing something. + +Her thoughts were deflected from Vivie Warren by the peculiar behavior +of a middle-aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared suddenly from +the infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington Arcade, crossing +the pavement toward her and with his eyes upon her. He seemed to her +indistinguishably about her father’s age. He wore a silk hat a little +tilted, and a morning coat buttoned round a tight, contained figure; +and a white slip gave a finish to his costume and endorsed the quiet +distinction of his tie. His face was a little flushed perhaps, and his +small, brown eyes were bright. He stopped on the curb-stone, not facing +her but as if he was on his way to cross the road, and spoke to her +suddenly over his shoulder. + +“Whither away?” he said, very distinctly in a curiously wheedling voice. +Ann Veronica stared at his foolish, propitiatory smile, his hungry gaze, +through one moment of amazement, then stepped aside and went on her way +with a quickened step. But her mind was ruffled, and its mirror-like +surface of satisfaction was not easily restored. + +Queer old gentleman! + +The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every well-bred +girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her own +thoughts and her own knowledge. Ann Veronica could at the same time ask +herself what this queer old gentleman could have meant by speaking to +her, and know--know in general terms, at least--what that accosting +signified. About her, as she had gone day by day to and from the +Tredgold College, she had seen and not seen many an incidental aspect +of those sides of life about which girls are expected to know nothing, +aspects that were extraordinarily relevant to her own position and +outlook on the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For all +that she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never +yet considered these things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed them +askance, and without exchanging ideas with any one else in the world +about them. + +She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but +disturbed and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serene +contentment. + +That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone. + +As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman +approaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at the +first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came along with +the fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as she drew nearer +paint showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose behind the quiet +expression of her open countenance, and a sort of unreality in her +splendor betrayed itself for which Ann Veronica could not recall the +right word--a word, half understood, that lurked and hid in her mind, +the word “meretricious.” Behind this woman and a little to the side +of her, walked a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in his +eyes. Something insisted that those two were mysteriously linked--that +the woman knew the man was there. + +It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free and +untrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was true +that a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor ever has +gone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad and dangers, and +petty insults more irritating than dangers, lurk. + +It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street that +it first came into her head disagreeably that she herself was being +followed. She observed a man walking on the opposite side of the way and +looking toward her. + +“Bother it all!” she swore. “Bother!” and decided that this was not so, +and would not look to right or left again. + +Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table Company +shop to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her tea to come she +saw this man again. Either it was an unfortunate recovery of a trail, or +he had followed her from Mayfair. There was no mistaking his intentions +this time. He came down the shop looking for her quite obviously, and +took up a position on the other side against a mirror in which he was +able to regard her steadfastly. + +Beneath the serene unconcern of Ann Veronica’s face was a boiling +tumult. She was furiously angry. She gazed with a quiet detachment +toward the window and the Oxford Street traffic, and in her heart she +was busy kicking this man to death. He HAD followed her! What had he +followed her for? He must have followed her all the way from beyond +Grosvenor Square. + +He was a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were rather +protuberant, and long white hands of which he made a display. He had +removed his silk hat, and now sat looking at Ann Veronica over an +untouched cup of tea; he sat gloating upon her, trying to catch her eye. +Once, when he thought he had done so, he smiled an ingratiating smile. +He moved, after quiet intervals, with a quick little movement, and ever +and again stroked his small mustache and coughed a self-conscious cough. + +“That he should be in the same world with me!” said Ann Veronica, +reduced to reading the list of good things the British Tea-Table Company +had priced for its patrons. + +Heaven knows what dim and tawdry conceptions of passion and desire were +in that blond cranium, what romance-begotten dreams of intrigue and +adventure! but they sufficed, when presently Ann Veronica went out +into the darkling street again, to inspire a flitting, dogged pursuit, +idiotic, exasperating, indecent. + +She had no idea what she should do. If she spoke to a policeman she did +not know what would ensue. Perhaps she would have to charge this man and +appear in a police-court next day. + +She became angry with herself. She would not be driven in by this +persistent, sneaking aggression. She would ignore him. Surely she could +ignore him. She stopped abruptly, and looked in a flower-shop window. He +passed, and came loitering back and stood beside her, silently looking +into her face. + +The afternoon had passed now into twilight. The shops were lighting +up into gigantic lanterns of color, the street lamps were glowing +into existence, and she had lost her way. She had lost her sense of +direction, and was among unfamiliar streets. She went on from street to +street, and all the glory of London had departed. Against the sinister, +the threatening, monstrous inhumanity of the limitless city, there was +nothing now but this supreme, ugly fact of a pursuit--the pursuit of the +undesired, persistent male. + +For a second time Ann Veronica wanted to swear at the universe. + +There were moments when she thought of turning upon this man and +talking to him. But there was something in his face at once stupid and +invincible that told her he would go on forcing himself upon her, that +he would esteem speech with her a great point gained. In the twilight +he had ceased to be a person one could tackle and shame; he had become +something more general, a something that crawled and sneaked toward her +and would not let her alone.... + +Then, when the tension was getting unendurable, and she was on the verge +of speaking to some casual passer-by and demanding help, her follower +vanished. For a time she could scarcely believe he was gone. He had. The +night had swallowed him up, but his work on her was done. She had lost +her nerve, and there was no more freedom in London for her that night. +She was glad to join in the stream of hurrying homeward workers that was +now welling out of a thousand places of employment, and to imitate their +driven, preoccupied haste. She had followed a bobbing white hat and gray +jacket until she reached the Euston Road corner of Tottenham Court Road, +and there, by the name on a bus and the cries of a conductor, she made +a guess of her way. And she did not merely affect to be driven--she felt +driven. She was afraid people would follow her, she was afraid of the +dark, open doorways she passed, and afraid of the blazes of light; she +was afraid to be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared. + +It was past seven when she got back to her hotel. She thought then that +she had shaken off the man of the bulging blue eyes forever, but that +night she found he followed her into her dreams. He stalked her, he +stared at her, he craved her, he sidled slinking and propitiatory +and yet relentlessly toward her, until at last she awoke from the +suffocating nightmare nearness of his approach, and lay awake in fear +and horror listening to the unaccustomed sounds of the hotel. + +She came very near that night to resolving that she would return to +her home next morning. But the morning brought courage again, and those +first intimations of horror vanished completely from her mind. + + + +Part 5 + + +She had sent her father a telegram from the East Strand post-office +worded thus: + + | All | is | well | with | me | + |---------|-----------|----------|----------|---------| + | and | quite | safe | Veronica | | + ----------------------------------------------------- + +and afterward she had dined a la carte upon a cutlet, and had then set +herself to write an answer to Mr. Manning’s proposal of marriage. But +she had found it very difficult. + + +“DEAR MR. MANNING,” she had begun. So far it had been plain sailing, +and it had seemed fairly evident to go on: “I find it very difficult to +answer your letter.” + +But after that neither ideas nor phrases had come and she had fallen +thinking of the events of the day. She had decided that she would spend +the next morning answering advertisements in the papers that abounded in +the writing-room; and so, after half an hour’s perusal of back numbers +of the Sketch in the drawing-room, she had gone to bed. + +She found next morning, when she came to this advertisement answering, +that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In the first place +there were not so many suitable advertisements as she had expected. +She sat down by the paper-rack with a general feeling of resemblance +to Vivie Warren, and looked through the Morning Post and Standard and +Telegraph, and afterward the half-penny sheets. The Morning Post was +hungry for governesses and nursery governesses, but held out no other +hopes; the Daily Telegraph that morning seemed eager only for skirt +hands. She went to a writing-desk and made some memoranda on a sheet of +note-paper, and then remembered that she had no address as yet to which +letters could be sent. + +She decided to leave this matter until the morrow and devote the morning +to settling up with Mr. Manning. At the cost of quite a number of torn +drafts she succeeded in evolving this: + +“DEAR MR. MANNING,--I find it very difficult to answer your letter. +I hope you won’t mind if I say first that I think it does me an +extraordinary honor that you should think of any one like myself +so highly and seriously, and, secondly, that I wish it had not been +written.” + +She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on. “I wonder,” + she said, “why one writes him sentences like that? It’ll have to go,” + she decided, “I’ve written too many already.” She went on, with a +desperate attempt to be easy and colloquial: + +“You see, we were rather good friends, I thought, and now perhaps it +will be difficult for us to get back to the old friendly footing. But if +that can possibly be done I want it to be done. You see, the plain fact +of the case is that I think I am too young and ignorant for marriage. +I have been thinking these things over lately, and it seems to me that +marriage for a girl is just the supremest thing in life. It isn’t just +one among a number of important things; for her it is the important +thing, and until she knows far more than I know of the facts of life, +how is she to undertake it? So please; if you will, forget that you +wrote that letter, and forgive this answer. I want you to think of me +just as if I was a man, and quite outside marriage altogether. + +“I do hope you will be able to do this, because I value men friends. +I shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for a friend. I think that +there is no better friend for a girl than a man rather older than +herself. + +“Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the step I have taken in +leaving my home. Very likely you will disapprove highly of what I have +done--I wonder? You may, perhaps, think I have done it just in a fit of +childish petulance because my father locked me in when I wanted to go +to a ball of which he did not approve. But really it is much more +than that. At Morningside Park I feel as though all my growing up was +presently to stop, as though I was being shut in from the light of life, +and, as they say in botany, etiolated. I was just like a sort of dummy +that does things as it is told--that is to say, as the strings are +pulled. I want to be a person by myself, and to pull my own strings. I +had rather have trouble and hardship like that than be taken care of by +others. I want to be myself. I wonder if a man can quite understand that +passionate feeling? It is quite a passionate feeling. So I am already +no longer the girl you knew at Morningside Park. I am a young person +seeking employment and freedom and self-development, just as in quite +our first talk of all I said I wanted to be. + +“I do hope you will see how things are, and not be offended with me or +frightfully shocked and distressed by what I have done. + +“Very sincerely yours, + +“ANN VERONICA STANLEY.” + + + +Part 6 + + +In the afternoon she resumed her search for apartments. The intoxicating +sense of novelty had given place to a more business-like mood. She +drifted northward from the Strand, and came on some queer and dingy +quarters. + +She had never imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to her in +the beginning of these investigations. She found herself again in the +presence of some element in life about which she had been trained not +to think, about which she was perhaps instinctively indisposed to think; +something which jarred, in spite of all her mental resistance, with +all her preconceptions of a clean and courageous girl walking out from +Morningside Park as one walks out of a cell into a free and spacious +world. One or two landladies refused her with an air of conscious virtue +that she found hard to explain. “We don’t let to ladies,” they said. + +She drifted, via Theobald’s Road, obliquely toward the region about +Titchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either scandalously +dirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were adorned with +engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and undesirable than +anything she had ever seen in her life. Ann Veronica loved beautiful +things, and the beauty of undraped loveliness not least among them; but +these were pictures that did but insist coarsely upon the roundness of +women’s bodies. The windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, +their floors a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels +were of a class apart. After the first onset several of the women who +had apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in effect +dismissed her. This also struck her as odd. + +About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of something +weakly and commonly and dustily evil; the women who negotiated the rooms +looked out through a friendly manner as though it was a mask, with hard, +defiant eyes. Then one old crone, short-sighted and shaky-handed, called +Ann Veronica “dearie,” and made some remark, obscure and slangy, of +which the spirit rather than the words penetrated to her understanding. + +For a time she looked at no more apartments, and walked through +gaunt and ill-cleaned streets, through the sordid under side of life, +perplexed and troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness. + +She had something of the feeling a Hindoo must experience who has been +into surroundings or touched something that offends his caste. She +passed people in the streets and regarded them with a quickening +apprehension, once or twice came girls dressed in slatternly finery, +going toward Regent Street from out these places. It did not occur to +her that they at least had found a way of earning a living, and had that +much economic superiority to herself. It did not occur to her that save +for some accidents of education and character they had souls like her +own. + +For a time Ann Veronica went on her way gauging the quality of sordid +streets. At last, a little way to the northward of Euston Road, the +moral cloud seemed to lift, the moral atmosphere to change; clean blinds +appeared in the windows, clean doorsteps before the doors, a different +appeal in the neatly placed cards bearing the word + + -------------------------- + | APARTMENTS | + -------------------------- + +in the clear bright windows. At last in a street near the Hampstead Road +she hit upon a room that had an exceptional quality of space and order, +and a tall woman with a kindly face to show it. “You’re a student, +perhaps?” said the tall woman. “At the Tredgold Women’s College,” said +Ann Veronica. She felt it would save explanations if she did not state +she had left her home and was looking for employment. The room was +papered with green, large-patterned paper that was at worst a trifle +dingy, and the arm-chair and the seats of the other chairs were covered +with the unusual brightness of a large-patterned chintz, which also +supplied the window-curtain. There was a round table covered, not with +the usual “tapestry” cover, but with a plain green cloth that went +passably with the wall-paper. In the recess beside the fireplace +were some open bookshelves. The carpet was a quiet drugget and not +excessively worn, and the bed in the corner was covered by a white +quilt. There were neither texts nor rubbish on the walls, but only a +stirring version of Belshazzar’s feast, a steel engraving in the early +Victorian manner that had some satisfactory blacks. And the woman who +showed this room was tall, with an understanding eye and the quiet +manner of the well-trained servant. + +Ann Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel; she tipped the +hotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman eighteenpence, unpacked +some of her books and possessions, and so made the room a little +homelike, and then sat down in a by no means uncomfortable arm-chair +before the fire. She had arranged for a supper of tea, a boiled egg, and +some tinned peaches. She had discussed the general question of supplies +with the helpful landlady. “And now,” said Ann Veronica surveying her +apartment with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, “what is the +next step?” + +She spent the evening in writing--it was a little difficult--to her +father and--which was easier--to the Widgetts. She was greatly heartened +by doing this. The necessity of defending herself and assuming a +confident and secure tone did much to dispell the sense of being +exposed and indefensible in a huge dingy world that abounded in sinister +possibilities. She addressed her letters, meditated on them for a time, +and then took them out and posted them. Afterward she wanted to get her +letter to her father back in order to read it over again, and, if it +tallied with her general impression of it, re-write it. + +He would know her address to-morrow. She reflected upon that with a +thrill of terror that was also, somehow, in some faint remote way, +gleeful. + +“Dear old Daddy,” she said, “he’ll make a fearful fuss. Well, it had to +happen somewhen.... Somehow. I wonder what he’ll say?” + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +EXPOSTULATIONS + + +Part 1 + + +The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own room, +her very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and read the +advertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations, +preluded by a telegram and headed by her aunt. The telegram reminded +Ann Veronica that she had no place for interviews except her +bed-sitting-room, and she sought her landlady and negotiated hastily for +the use of the ground floor parlor, which very fortunately was vacant. +She explained she was expecting an important interview, and asked that +her visitor should be duly shown in. Her aunt arrived about half-past +ten, in black and with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised this +with the air of a conspirator unmasking, and displayed a tear-flushed +face. For a moment she remained silent. + +“My dear,” she said, when she could get her breath, “you must come home +at once.” + +Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still. + +“This has almost killed your father.... After Gwen!” + +“I sent a telegram.” + +“He cares so much for you. He did so care for you.” + +“I sent a telegram to say I was all right.” + +“All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on. I +had no idea!” She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists limply upon the +table. “Oh, Veronica!” she said, “to leave your home!” + +She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was overcome by +this amount of emotion. + +“Why did you do it?” her aunt urged. “Why could you not confide in us?” + +“Do what?” said Ann Veronica. + +“What you have done.” + +“But what have I done?” + +“Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a pride in +you, such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the happiest girl. +Everything I could do! Your father sat up all night. Until at last I +persuaded him to go to bed. He wanted to put on his overcoat and come +after you and look for you--in London. We made sure it was just like +Gwen. Only Gwen left a letter on the pincushion. You didn’t even do that +Vee; not even that.” + +“I sent a telegram, aunt,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Like a stab. You didn’t even put the twelve words.” + +“I said I was all right.” + +“Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn’t even +know you were gone. He was just getting cross about your being late for +dinner--you know his way--when it came. He opened it--just off-hand, and +then when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoon +flying and splashing on to the tablecloth. ‘My God!’ he said, ‘I’ll go +after them and kill him. I’ll go after them and kill him.’ For the +moment I thought it was a telegram from Gwen.” + +“But what did father imagine?” + +“Of course he imagined! Any one would! ‘What has happened, Peter?’ I +asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He +used a most awful word! Then he said, ‘It’s Ann Veronica gone to join +her sister!’ ‘Gone!’ I said. ‘Gone!’ he said. ‘Read that,’ and threw the +telegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I tried +to get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat +down again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be +strung up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of the +house there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl have +I seen your father so moved. ‘Oh! little Vee!’ he cried, ‘little Vee!’ +and put his face between his hands and sat still for a long time before +he broke out again.” + +Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke. + +“Do you mean, aunt,” she asked, “that my father thought I had gone +off--with some man?” + +“What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as to +go off alone?” + +“After--after what had happened the night before?” + +“Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, his +poor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He was +for coming up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said to +him, ‘Wait for the letters,’ and there, sure enough, was yours. He could +hardly open the envelope, he trembled so. Then he threw the letter at +me. ‘Go and fetch her home,’ he said; ‘it isn’t what we thought! It’s +just a practical joke of hers.’ And with that he went off to the City, +stern and silent, leaving his bacon on his plate--a great slice of bacon +hardly touched. No breakfast, he’s had no dinner, hardly a mouthful of +soup--since yesterday at tea.” + +She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently. + +“You must come home to him at once,” said Miss Stanley. + +Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-colored +table-cloth. Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid picture +of her father as the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental, +noisy, aimless. Why on earth couldn’t he leave her to grow in her own +way? Her pride rose at the bare thought of return. + +“I don’t think I CAN do that,” she said. She looked up and said, a +little breathlessly, “I’m sorry, aunt, but I don’t think I can.” + + +Part 2 + + +Then it was the expostulations really began. + +From first to last, on this occasion, her aunt expostulated for about +two hours. “But, my dear,” she began, “it is Impossible! It is quite out +of the Question. You simply can’t.” And to that, through vast rhetorical +meanderings, she clung. It reached her only slowly that Ann Veronica was +standing to her resolution. “How will you live?” she appealed. “Think +of what people will say!” That became a refrain. “Think of what Lady +Palsworthy will say! Think of what”--So-and-so--“will say! What are we +to tell people? + +“Besides, what am I to tell your father?” + +At first it had not been at all clear to Ann Veronica that she would +refuse to return home; she had had some dream of a capitulation that +should leave her an enlarged and defined freedom, but as her aunt put +this aspect and that of her flight to her, as she wandered illogically +and inconsistently from one urgent consideration to another, as she +mingled assurances and aspects and emotions, it became clearer and +clearer to the girl that there could be little or no change in the +position of things if she returned. “And what will Mr. Manning think?” + said her aunt. + +“I don’t care what any one thinks,” said Ann Veronica. + +“I can’t imagine what has come over you,” said her aunt. “I can’t +conceive what you want. You foolish girl!” + +Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim and yet +disconcerting, was the perception that she herself did not know what she +wanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to call her a foolish girl. + +“Don’t you care for Mr. Manning?” said her aunt. + +“I don’t see what he has to do with my coming to London?” + +“He--he worships the ground you tread on. You don’t deserve it, but he +does. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And here you are!” + +Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a rhetorical +gesture. “It seems to me all madness--madness! Just because your +father--wouldn’t let you disobey him!” + + + +Part 3 + + +In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanley +in person. Her father’s ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and +forcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas +chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace in +Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She +had intended to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage +from the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than +flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and that she +was coming home submissively. In his desire to be emphatic and to avenge +himself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became brutal, more +brutal than she had ever known him before. + +“A nice time of anxiety you’ve given me, young lady,” he said, as he +entered the room. “I hope you’re satisfied.” + +She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in her +resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to what +she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She said she hoped +she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, +and he told her not to be a fool. She tried to keep her side up by +declaring that he had put her into an impossible position, and he +replied by shouting, “Nonsense! Nonsense! Any father in my place would +have done what I did.” + +Then he went on to say: “Well, you’ve had your little adventure, and I +hope now you’ve had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get your things +together while I look out for a hansom.” + +To which the only possible reply seemed to be, “I’m not coming home.” + +“Not coming home!” + +“No!” And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica began +to weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always doomed to weep +when she talked to her father. But he was always forcing her to say and +do such unexpectedly conclusive things. She feared he might take her +tears as a sign of weakness. So she said: “I won’t come home. I’d rather +starve!” + +For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then Mr. +Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather of a +barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through his +glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, “And may I presume to +inquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you propose to live?” + +“I shall live,” sobbed Ann Veronica. “You needn’t be anxious about that! +I shall contrive to live.” + +“But I AM anxious,” said Mr. Stanley, “I am anxious. Do you think it’s +nothing to me to have my daughter running about London looking for odd +jobs and disgracing herself?” + +“Sha’n’t get odd jobs,” said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes. + +And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering wrangle. +Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann Veronica to come home, +to which, of course, she said she wouldn’t; and then he warned her not +to defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again. +He then said that if she would not obey him in this course she should +“never darken his doors again,” and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. +This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs +and vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time both +talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she understood what +she was saying, and went on to say still more precisely that she should +never touch a penny of his money until she came home again--not one +penny. Ann Veronica said she didn’t care. + +Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. “You poor child!” he said; +“don’t you see the infinite folly of these proceedings? Think! Think of +the love and affection you abandon! Think of your aunt, a second mother +to you. Think if your own mother was alive!” + +He paused, deeply moved. + +“If my own mother was alive,” sobbed Ann Veronica, “she would +understand.” + +The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann Veronica +found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding on +desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling with +him, wrangling with him, thinking of repartees--almost as if he was a +brother. It was horrible, but what could she do? She meant to live +her own life, and he meant, with contempt and insults, to prevent her. +Anything else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or +diversion from that. + +In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to pieces, +for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home again upon +terms. While waiting for his coming she had stated her present +and future relations with him with what had seemed to her the most +satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had looked forward to an +explanation. Instead had come this storm, this shouting, this weeping, +this confusion of threats and irrelevant appeals. It was not only that +her father had said all sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, +but that by some incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in +the same vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at +issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole alternative was +obedience, and she had fallen in with that assumption until rebellion +seemed a sacred principle. Moreover, atrociously and inexorably, he +allowed it to appear ever and again in horrible gleams that he suspected +there was some man in the case.... Some man! + +And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the doorway, +giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his umbrella in the +other, shaken at her to emphasize his point. + +“You understand, then,” he was saying, “you understand?” + +“I understand,” said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a +reciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that amazed +even herself, “I understand.” She controlled a sob. “Not a penny--not +one penny--and never darken your doors again!” + + + +Part 4 + + +The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just saying +it was “an unheard-of thing” for a girl to leave her home as Ann +Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown in by the +pleasant-faced landlady. + +Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and +umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica +firmly. + +“Now,” he said, quietly, “it’s time we stopped this nonsense.” + +Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still more +deadly quiet: “I am not here to bandy words with you. Let us have no +more of this humbug. You are to come home.” + +“I thought I explained--” + +“I don’t think you can have heard me,” said her father; “I have told you +to come home.” + +“I thought I explained--” + +“Come home!” + +Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders. + +“Very well,” said her father. + +“I think this ends the business,” he said, turning to his sister. + +“It’s not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn wisdom--as God +pleases.” + +“But, my dear Peter!” said Miss Stanley. + +“No,” said her brother, conclusively, “it’s not for a parent to go on +persuading a child.” + +Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl stood with +her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and intelligent, a strand +of her black hair over one eye and looking more than usually +delicate-featured, and more than ever like an obdurate child. + +“She doesn’t know.” + +“She does.” + +“I can’t imagine what makes you fly out against everything like this,” + said Miss Stanley to her niece. + +“What is the good of talking?” said her brother. “She must go her own +way. A man’s children nowadays are not his own. That’s the fact of the +matter. Their minds are turned against him.... Rubbishy novels and +pernicious rascals. We can’t even protect them from themselves.” + +An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he said +these words. + +“I don’t see,” gasped Ann Veronica, “why parents and children... +shouldn’t be friends.” + +“Friends!” said her father. “When we see you going through disobedience +to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way. I’ve tried to use my +authority. And she defies me. What more is there to be said? She defies +me!” + +It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of tremendous +pathos; she would have given anything to have been able to frame and +make some appeal, some utterance that should bridge this bottomless +chasm that had opened between her and her father, and she could find +nothing whatever to say that was in the least sincere and appealing. + +“Father,” she cried, “I have to live!” + +He misunderstood her. “That,” he said, grimly, with his hand on the +door-handle, “must be your own affair, unless you choose to live at +Morningside Park.” + +Miss Stanley turned to her. “Vee,” she said, “come home. Before it is +too late.” + +“Come, Molly,” said Mr. Stanley, at the door. + +“Vee!” said Miss Stanley, “you hear what your father says!” + +Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement toward +her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down something lumpy +on the table and turned to follow her brother. Ann Veronica stared for a +moment in amazement at this dark-green object that clashed as it was +put down. It was a purse. She made a step forward. “Aunt!” she said, “I +can’t--” + +Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt’s blue eye, halted, and the +door clicked upon them. + +There was a pause, and then the front door slammed.... + +Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And this time +the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She had to resist an +impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them and give in. + +“Gods,” she said, at last, “I’ve done it this time!” + +“Well!” She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and examined the +contents. + +It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a +small key, and her aunt’s return half ticket to Morningside Park. + + + +Part 5 + + +After the interview Ann Veronica considered herself formally cut off +from home. If nothing else had clinched that, the purse had. + +Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her brother Roddy, +who was in the motor line, came to expostulate; her sister Alice wrote. +And Mr. Manning called. + +Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away there +in Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann Veronica’s +mind. She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of “those unsexed +intellectuals, neither man nor woman.” + +Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. “That’s HIM,” said Ann +Veronica, in sound, idiomatic English. “Poor old Alice!” + +Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to state +a case. “Bit thick on the old man, isn’t it?” said Roddy, who had +developed a bluff, straightforward style in the motor shop. + +“Mind my smoking?” said Roddy. “I don’t see quite what your game is, +Vee, but I suppose you’ve got a game on somewhere. + +“Rummy lot we are!” said Roddy. “Alice--Alice gone dotty, and all over +kids. Gwen--I saw Gwen the other day, and the paint’s thicker than ever. +Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas and Theosophy and Higher Thought and +rot--writes letters worse than Alice. And now YOU’RE on the war-path. I +believe I’m the only sane member of the family left. The G.V.’s as mad +as any of you, in spite of all his respectability; not a bit of him +straight anywhere, not one bit.” + +“Straight?” + +“Not a bit of it! He’s been out after eight per cent. since the +beginning. Eight per cent.! He’ll come a cropper one of these days, +if you ask me. He’s been near it once or twice already. That’s got his +nerves to rags. I suppose we’re all human beings really, but what price +the sacred Institution of the Family! Us as a bundle! Eh?... I don’t +half disagree with you, Vee, really; only thing is, I don’t see +how you’re going to pull it off. A home MAY be a sort of cage, but +still--it’s a home. Gives you a right to hang on to the old man until he +busts--practically. Jolly hard life for a girl, getting a living. Not MY +affair.” + +He asked questions and listened to her views for a time. + +“I’d chuck this lark right off if I were you, Vee,” he said. “I’m five +years older than you, and no end wiser, being a man. What you’re after +is too risky. It’s a damned hard thing to do. It’s all very handsome +starting out on your own, but it’s too damned hard. That’s my opinion, +if you ask me. There’s nothing a girl can do that isn’t sweated to the +bone. You square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That’s my +advice. If you don’t eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse +later. _I_ can’t help you a cent. Life’s hard enough nowadays for an +unprotected male. Let alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, +and the only possible trade for a girl that isn’t sweated is to get hold +of a man and make him do it for her. It’s no good flying out at that, +Vee; _I_ didn’t arrange it. It’s Providence. That’s how things are; +that’s the order of the world. Like appendicitis. It isn’t pretty, but +we’re made so. Rot, no doubt; but we can’t alter it. You go home and +live on the G.V., and get some other man to live on as soon as possible. +It isn’t sentiment but it’s horse sense. All this Woman-who-Diddery--no +damn good. After all, old P.--Providence, I mean--HAS arranged it so +that men will keep you, more or less. He made the universe on those +lines. You’ve got to take what you can get.” + +That was the quintessence of her brother Roddy. + +He played variations on this theme for the better part of an hour. + +“You go home,” he said, at parting; “you go home. It’s all very fine and +all that, Vee, this freedom, but it isn’t going to work. The world isn’t +ready for girls to start out on their own yet; that’s the plain fact of +the case. Babies and females have got to keep hold of somebody or go +under--anyhow, for the next few generations. You go home and wait a +century, Vee, and then try again. Then you may have a bit of a chance. +Now you haven’t the ghost of one--not if you play the game fair.” + + + +Part 6 + + +It was remarkable to Ann Veronica how completely Mr. Manning, in his +entirely different dialect, indorsed her brother Roddy’s view of things. +He came along, he said, just to call, with large, loud apologies, +radiantly kind and good. Miss Stanley, it was manifest, had given him +Ann Veronica’s address. The kindly faced landlady had failed to catch +his name, and said he was a tall, handsome gentleman with a great black +mustache. Ann Veronica, with a sigh at the cost of hospitality, made a +hasty negotiation for an extra tea and for a fire in the ground-floor +apartment, and preened herself carefully for the interview. In the +little apartment, under the gas chandelier, his inches and his stoop +were certainly very effective. In the bad light he looked at once +military and sentimental and studious, like one of Ouida’s guardsmen +revised by Mr. Haldane and the London School of Economics and finished +in the Keltic school. + +“It’s unforgivable of me to call, Miss Stanley,” he said, shaking hands +in a peculiar, high, fashionable manner; “but you know you said we might +be friends.” + +“It’s dreadful for you to be here,” he said, indicating the yellow +presence of the first fog of the year without, “but your aunt told me +something of what had happened. It’s just like your Splendid Pride to do +it. Quite!” + +He sat in the arm-chair and took tea, and consumed several of the +extra cakes which she had sent out for and talked to her and expressed +himself, looking very earnestly at her with his deep-set eyes, and +carefully avoiding any crumbs on his mustache the while. Ann Veronica +sat firelit by her tea-tray with, quite unconsciously, the air of an +expert hostess. + +“But how is it all going to end?” said Mr. Manning. + +“Your father, of course,” he said, “must come to realize just how +Splendid you are! He doesn’t understand. I’ve seen him, and he doesn’t +a bit understand. _I_ didn’t understand before that letter. It makes me +want to be just everything I CAN be to you. You’re like some splendid +Princess in Exile in these Dreadful Dingy apartments!” + +“I’m afraid I’m anything but a Princess when it comes to earning a +salary,” said Ann Veronica. “But frankly, I mean to fight this through +if I possibly can.” + +“My God!” said Manning, in a stage-aside. “Earning a salary!” + +“You’re like a Princess in Exile!” he repeated, overruling her. “You +come into these sordid surroundings--you mustn’t mind my calling them +sordid--and it makes them seem as though they didn’t matter.... I +don’t think they do matter. I don’t think any surroundings could throw a +shadow on you.” + +Ann Veronica felt a slight embarrassment. “Won’t you have some more tea, +Mr. Manning?” she asked. + +“You know--,” said Mr. Manning, relinquishing his cup without answering +her question, “when I hear you talk of earning a living, it’s as if I +heard of an archangel going on the Stock Exchange--or Christ selling +doves.... Forgive my daring. I couldn’t help the thought.” + +“It’s a very good image,” said Ann Veronica. + +“I knew you wouldn’t mind.” + +“But does it correspond with the facts of the case? You know, Mr. +Manning, all this sort of thing is very well as sentiment, but does it +correspond with the realities? Are women truly such angelic things and +men so chivalrous? You men have, I know, meant to make us Queens and +Goddesses, but in practice--well, look, for example, at the stream of +girls one meets going to work of a morning, round-shouldered, cheap, and +underfed! They aren’t queens, and no one is treating them as queens. +And look, again, at the women one finds letting lodgings.... I was +looking for rooms last week. It got on my nerves--the women I saw. Worse +than any man. Everywhere I went and rapped at a door I found behind it +another dreadful dingy woman--another fallen queen, I suppose--dingier +than the last, dirty, you know, in grain. Their poor hands!” + +“I know,” said Mr. Manning, with entirely suitable emotion. + +“And think of the ordinary wives and mothers, with their anxiety, their +limitations, their swarms of children!” + +Mr. Manning displayed distress. He fended these things off from him with +the rump of his fourth piece of cake. “I know that our social order is +dreadful enough,” he said, “and sacrifices all that is best and most +beautiful in life. I don’t defend it.” + +“And besides, when it comes to the idea of queens,” Ann Veronica went +on, “there’s twenty-one and a half million women to twenty million men. +Suppose our proper place is a shrine. Still, that leaves over a million +shrines short, not reckoning widows who re-marry. And more boys die than +girls, so that the real disproportion among adults is even greater.” + +“I know,” said Mr Manning, “I know these Dreadful Statistics. I know +there’s a sort of right in your impatience at the slowness of Progress. +But tell me one thing I don’t understand--tell me one thing: How can you +help it by coming down into the battle and the mire? That’s the thing +that concerns me.” + +“Oh, I’m not trying to help it,” said Ann Veronica. “I’m only arguing +against your position of what a woman should be, and trying to get +it clear in my own mind. I’m in this apartment and looking for work +because--Well, what else can I do, when my father practically locks me +up?” + +“I know,” said Mr. Manning, “I know. Don’t think I can’t sympathize and +understand. Still, here we are in this dingy, foggy city. Ye gods! what +a wilderness it is! Every one trying to get the better of every one, +every one regardless of every one--it’s one of those days when every one +bumps against you--every one pouring coal smoke into the air and making +confusion worse confounded, motor omnibuses clattering and smelling, +a horse down in the Tottenham Court Road, an old woman at the corner +coughing dreadfully--all the painful sights of a great city, and here +you come into it to take your chances. It’s too valiant, Miss Stanley, +too valiant altogether!” + +Ann Veronica meditated. She had had two days of employment-seeking now. +“I wonder if it is.” + +“It isn’t,” said Mr. Manning, “that I mind Courage in a Woman--I love +and admire Courage. What could be more splendid than a beautiful girl +facing a great, glorious tiger? Una and the Lion again, and all that! +But this isn’t that sort of thing; this is just a great, ugly, endless +wilderness of selfish, sweating, vulgar competition!” + +“That you want to keep me out of?” + +“Exactly!” said Mr. Manning. + +“In a sort of beautiful garden-close--wearing lovely dresses and picking +beautiful flowers?” + +“Ah! If one could!” + +“While those other girls trudge to business and those other women let +lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close resolves itself +into a villa at Morningside Park and my father being more and more +cross and overbearing at meals--and a general feeling of insecurity and +futility.” + +Mr. Manning relinquished his cup, and looked meaningly at Ann Veronica. +“There,” he said, “you don’t treat me fairly, Miss Stanley. My +garden-close would be a better thing than that.” + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +IDEALS AND A REALITY + + +Part 1 + + +And now for some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value in the +world. She went about in a negligent November London that had become +very dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, and tried to find +that modest but independent employment she had so rashly assumed. She +went about, intent-looking and self-possessed, trim and fine, concealing +her emotions whatever they were, as the realities of her position opened +out before her. Her little bed-sitting-room was like a lair, and she +went out from it into this vast, dun world, with its smoke-gray houses, +its glaring streets of shops, its dark streets of homes, its orange-lit +windows, under skies of dull copper or muddy gray or black, much as an +animal goes out to seek food. She would come back and write letters, +carefully planned and written letters, or read some book she had fetched +from Mudie’s--she had invested a half-guinea with Mudie’s--or sit over +her fire and think. + +Slowly and reluctantly she came to realize that Vivie Warren was what +is called an “ideal.” There were no such girls and no such positions. No +work that offered was at all of the quality she had vaguely postulated +for herself. With such qualifications as she possessed, two chief +channels of employment lay open, and neither attracted her, neither +seemed really to offer a conclusive escape from that subjection to +mankind against which, in the person of her father, she was rebelling. +One main avenue was for her to become a sort of salaried accessory wife +or mother, to be a governess or an assistant schoolmistress, or a very +high type of governess-nurse. The other was to go into business--into a +photographer’s reception-room, for example, or a costumer’s or hat-shop. +The first set of occupations seemed to her to be altogether too domestic +and restricted; for the latter she was dreadfully handicapped by her +want of experience. And also she didn’t like them. She didn’t like the +shops, she didn’t like the other women’s faces; she thought the +smirking men in frock-coats who dominated these establishments the +most intolerable persons she had ever had to face. One called her very +distinctly “My dear!” + +Two secretarial posts did indeed seem to offer themselves in which, at +least, there was no specific exclusion of womanhood; one was under +a Radical Member of Parliament, and the other under a Harley Street +doctor, and both men declined her proffered services with the utmost +civility and admiration and terror. There was also a curious interview +at a big hotel with a middle-aged, white-powdered woman, all covered +with jewels and reeking of scent, who wanted a Companion. She did not +think Ann Veronica would do as her companion. + +And nearly all these things were fearfully ill-paid. They carried no +more than bare subsistence wages; and they demanded all her time and +energy. She had heard of women journalists, women writers, and so +forth; but she was not even admitted to the presence of the editors she +demanded to see, and by no means sure that if she had been she could +have done any work they might have given her. One day she desisted from +her search and went unexpectedly to the Tredgold College. Her place +was not filled; she had been simply noted as absent, and she did a +comforting day of admirable dissection upon the tortoise. She was so +interested, and this was such a relief from the trudging anxiety of her +search for work, that she went on for a whole week as if she was still +living at home. Then a third secretarial opening occurred and renewed +her hopes again: a position as amanuensis--with which some of the +lighter duties of a nurse were combined--to an infirm gentleman of means +living at Twickenham, and engaged upon a great literary research to +prove that the “Faery Queen” was really a treatise upon molecular +chemistry written in a peculiar and picturesquely handled cipher. + + + +Part 2 + + +Now, while Ann Veronica was taking these soundings in the industrial +sea, and measuring herself against the world as it is, she was also +making extensive explorations among the ideas and attitudes of a number +of human beings who seemed to be largely concerned with the world as it +ought to be. She was drawn first by Miss Miniver, and then by her own +natural interest, into a curious stratum of people who are busied with +dreams of world progress, of great and fundamental changes, of a New Age +that is to replace all the stresses and disorders of contemporary life. + +Miss Miniver learned of her flight and got her address from the +Widgetts. She arrived about nine o’clock the next evening in a state of +tremulous enthusiasm. She followed the landlady half way up-stairs, and +called up to Ann Veronica, “May I come up? It’s me! You know--Nettie +Miniver!” She appeared before Ann Veronica could clearly recall who +Nettie Miniver might be. + +There was a wild light in her eye, and her straight hair was out +demonstrating and suffragetting upon some independent notions of its +own. Her fingers were bursting through her gloves, as if to get at once +into touch with Ann Veronica. “You’re Glorious!” said Miss Miniver in +tones of rapture, holding a hand in each of hers and peering up into Ann +Veronica’s face. “Glorious! You’re so calm, dear, and so resolute, so +serene! + +“It’s girls like you who will show them what We are,” said Miss Miniver; +“girls whose spirits have not been broken!” + +Ann Veronica sunned herself a little in this warmth. + +“I was watching you at Morningside Park, dear,” said Miss Miniver. “I am +getting to watch all women. I thought then perhaps you didn’t care, that +you were like so many of them. NOW it’s just as though you had grown up +suddenly.” + +She stopped, and then suggested: “I wonder--I should love--if it was +anything _I_ said.” + +She did not wait for Ann Veronica’s reply. She seemed to assume that it +must certainly be something she had said. “They all catch on,” she said. +“It spreads like wildfire. This is such a grand time! Such a glorious +time! There never was such a time as this! Everything seems so close to +fruition, so coming on and leading on! The Insurrection of Women! They +spring up everywhere. Tell me all that happened, one sister-woman to +another.” + +She chilled Ann Veronica a little by that last phrase, and yet the +magnetism of her fellowship and enthusiasm was very strong; and it was +pleasant to be made out a heroine after so much expostulation and so +many secret doubts. + +But she did not listen long; she wanted to talk. She sat, crouched +together, by the corner of the hearthrug under the bookcase that +supported the pig’s skull, and looked into the fire and up at Ann +Veronica’s face, and let herself go. “Let us put the lamp out,” she +said; “the flames are ever so much better for talking,” and Ann Veronica +agreed. “You are coming right out into life--facing it all.” + +Ann Veronica sat with her chin on her hand, red-lit and saying little, +and Miss Miniver discoursed. As she talked, the drift and significance +of what she was saying shaped itself slowly to Ann Veronica’s +apprehension. It presented itself in the likeness of a great, gray, dull +world--a brutal, superstitious, confused, and wrong-headed world, +that hurt people and limited people unaccountably. In remote times and +countries its evil tendencies had expressed themselves in the form of +tyrannies, massacres, wars, and what not; but just at present in England +they shaped as commercialism and competition, silk hats, suburban +morals, the sweating system, and the subjection of women. So far the +thing was acceptable enough. But over against the world Miss Miniver +assembled a small but energetic minority, the Children of Light--people +she described as “being in the van,” or “altogether in the van,” about +whom Ann Veronica’s mind was disposed to be more sceptical. + +Everything, Miss Miniver said, was “working up,” everything was “coming +on”--the Higher Thought, the Simple Life, Socialism, Humanitarianism, it +was all the same really. She loved to be there, taking part in it all, +breathing it, being it. Hitherto in the world’s history there had been +precursors of this Progress at great intervals, voices that had spoken +and ceased, but now it was all coming on together in a rush. She +mentioned, with familiar respect, Christ and Buddha and Shelley and +Nietzsche and Plato. Pioneers all of them. Such names shone brightly in +the darkness, with black spaces of unilluminated emptiness about them, +as stars shine in the night; but now--now it was different; now it was +dawn--the real dawn. + +“The women are taking it up,” said Miss Miniver; “the women and the +common people, all pressing forward, all roused.” + +Ann Veronica listened with her eyes on the fire. + +“Everybody is taking it up,” said Miss Miniver. “YOU had to come in. You +couldn’t help it. Something drew you. Something draws everybody. From +suburbs, from country towns--everywhere. I see all the Movements. As +far as I can, I belong to them all. I keep my finger on the pulse of +things.” + +Ann Veronica said nothing. + +“The dawn!” said Miss Miniver, with her glasses reflecting the fire like +pools of blood-red flame. + +“I came to London,” said Ann Veronica, “rather because of my own +difficulty. I don’t know that I understand altogether.” + +“Of course you don’t,” said Miss Miniver, gesticulating triumphantly +with her thin hand and thinner wrist, and patting Ann Veronica’s knee. +“Of course you don’t. That’s the wonder of it. But you will, you +will. You must let me take you to things--to meetings and things, to +conferences and talks. Then you will begin to see. You will begin to see +it all opening out. I am up to the ears in it all--every moment I can +spare. I throw up work--everything! I just teach in one school, one good +school, three days a week. All the rest--Movements! I can live now on +fourpence a day. Think how free that leaves me to follow things up! I +must take you everywhere. I must take you to the Suffrage people, and +the Tolstoyans, and the Fabians.” + +“I have heard of the Fabians,” said Ann Veronica. + +“It’s THE Society!” said Miss Miniver. “It’s the centre of the +intellectuals. Some of the meetings are wonderful! Such earnest, +beautiful women! Such deep-browed men!... And to think that there +they are making history! There they are putting together the plans of a +new world. Almost light-heartedly. There is Shaw, and Webb, and Wilkins +the author, and Toomer, and Doctor Tumpany--the most wonderful people! +There you see them discussing, deciding, planning! Just think--THEY ARE +MAKING A NEW WORLD!” + +“But ARE these people going to alter everything?” said Ann Veronica. + +“What else can happen?” asked Miss Miniver, with a little weak gesture +at the glow. “What else can possibly happen--as things are going now?” + + + +Part 3 + + +Miss Miniver let Ann Veronica into her peculiar levels of the world +with so enthusiastic a generosity that it seemed ingratitude to remain +critical. Indeed, almost insensibly Ann Veronica became habituated to +the peculiar appearance and the peculiar manners of the people “in the +van.” The shock of their intellectual attitude was over, usage robbed +it of the first quaint effect of deliberate unreason. They were in many +respects so right; she clung to that, and shirked more and more the +paradoxical conviction that they were also somehow, and even in direct +relation to that rightness, absurd. + +Very central in Miss Miniver’s universe were the Goopes. The Goopes were +the oddest little couple conceivable, following a fruitarian career upon +an upper floor in Theobald’s Road. They were childless and servantless, +and they had reduced simple living to the finest of fine arts. Mr. +Goopes, Ann Veronica gathered, was a mathematical tutor and visited +schools, and his wife wrote a weekly column in New Ideas upon vegetarian +cookery, vivisection, degeneration, the lacteal secretion, appendicitis, +and the Higher Thought generally, and assisted in the management of +a fruit shop in the Tottenham Court Road. Their very furniture had +mysteriously a high-browed quality, and Mr. Goopes when at home dressed +simply in a pajama-shaped suit of canvas sacking tied with brown +ribbons, while his wife wore a purple djibbah with a richly +embroidered yoke. He was a small, dark, reserved man, with a large +inflexible-looking convex forehead, and his wife was very pink and +high-spirited, with one of those chins that pass insensibly into a full, +strong neck. Once a week, every Saturday, they had a little gathering +from nine till the small hours, just talk and perhaps reading aloud and +fruitarian refreshments--chestnut sandwiches buttered with nut tose, +and so forth--and lemonade and unfermented wine; and to one of these +symposia Miss Miniver after a good deal of preliminary solicitude, +conducted Ann Veronica. + +She was introduced, perhaps a little too obviously for her taste, as +a girl who was standing out against her people, to a gathering that +consisted of a very old lady with an extremely wrinkled skin and a deep +voice who was wearing what appeared to Ann Veronica’s inexperienced +eye to be an antimacassar upon her head, a shy, blond young man with a +narrow forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts +and blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. +and Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. +These were seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very copper-adorned +fireplace, surmounted by a carved wood inscription: + +“DO IT NOW.” + +And to them were presently added a roguish-looking young man, with +reddish hair, an orange tie, and a fluffy tweed suit, and others who, +in Ann Veronica’s memory, in spite of her efforts to recall details, +remained obstinately just “others.” + +The talk was animated, and remained always brilliant in form even when +it ceased to be brilliant in substance. There were moments when Ann +Veronica rather more than suspected the chief speakers to be, as +school-boys say, showing off at her. + +They talked of a new substitute for dripping in vegetarian cookery that +Mrs. Goopes was convinced exercised an exceptionally purifying influence +on the mind. And then they talked of Anarchism and Socialism, and +whether the former was the exact opposite of the latter or only a higher +form. The reddish-haired young man contributed allusions to the Hegelian +philosophy that momentarily confused the discussion. Then Alderman +Dunstable, who had hitherto been silent, broke out into speech and went +off at a tangent, and gave his personal impressions of quite a number +of his fellow-councillors. He continued to do this for the rest of the +evening intermittently, in and out, among other topics. He addressed +himself chiefly to Goopes, and spoke as if in reply to long-sustained +inquiries on the part of Goopes into the personnel of the Marylebone +Borough Council. “If you were to ask me,” he would say, “I should say +Blinders is straight. An ordinary type, of course--” + +Mrs. Dunstable’s contributions to the conversation were entirely in the +form of nods; whenever Alderman Dunstable praised or blamed she nodded +twice or thrice, according to the requirements of his emphasis. And +she seemed always to keep one eye on Ann Veronica’s dress. Mrs. +Goopes disconcerted the Alderman a little by abruptly challenging the +roguish-looking young man in the orange tie (who, it seemed, was the +assistant editor of New Ideas) upon a critique of Nietzsche and Tolstoy +that had appeared in his paper, in which doubts had been cast upon the +perfect sincerity of the latter. Everybody seemed greatly concerned +about the sincerity of Tolstoy. + +Miss Miniver said that if once she lost her faith in Tolstoy’s +sincerity, nothing she felt would really matter much any more, and she +appealed to Ann Veronica whether she did not feel the same; and Mr. +Goopes said that we must distinguish between sincerity and irony, which +was often indeed no more than sincerity at the sublimated level. + +Alderman Dunstable said that sincerity was often a matter of +opportunity, and illustrated the point to the fair young man with an +anecdote about Blinders on the Dust Destructor Committee, during which +the young man in the orange tie succeeded in giving the whole discussion +a daring and erotic flavor by questioning whether any one could be +perfectly sincere in love. + +Miss Miniver thought that there was no true sincerity except in love, +and appealed to Ann Veronica, but the young man in the orange tie went +on to declare that it was quite possible to be sincerely in love with +two people at the same time, although perhaps on different planes with +each individual, and deceiving them both. But that brought Mrs. Goopes +down on him with the lesson Titian teaches so beautifully in his “Sacred +and Profane Love,” and became quite eloquent upon the impossibility of +any deception in the former. + +Then they discoursed on love for a time, and Alderman Dunstable, turning +back to the shy, blond young man and speaking in undertones of the +utmost clearness, gave a brief and confidential account of an unfounded +rumor of the bifurcation of the affections of Blinders that had led to a +situation of some unpleasantness upon the Borough Council. + +The very old lady in the antimacassar touched Ann Veronica’s arm +suddenly, and said, in a deep, arch voice: + +“Talking of love again; spring again, love again. Oh! you young people!” + +The young man with the orange tie, in spite of Sisyphus-like efforts +on the part of Goopes to get the topic on to a higher plane, displayed +great persistence in speculating upon the possible distribution of the +affections of highly developed modern types. + +The old lady in the antimacassar said, abruptly, “Ah! you young people, +you young people, if you only knew!” and then laughed and then mused in +a marked manner; and the young man with the narrow forehead and glasses +cleared his throat and asked the young man in the orange tie whether he +believed that Platonic love was possible. Mrs. Goopes said she believed +in nothing else, and with that she glanced at Ann Veronica, rose a +little abruptly, and directed Goopes and the shy young man in the +handing of refreshments. + +But the young man with the orange tie remained in his place, disputing +whether the body had not something or other which he called its +legitimate claims. And from that they came back by way of the Kreutzer +Sonata and Resurrection to Tolstoy again. + +So the talk went on. Goopes, who had at first been a little reserved, +resorted presently to the Socratic method to restrain the young man with +the orange tie, and bent his forehead over him, and brought out at last +very clearly from him that the body was only illusion and everything +nothing but just spirit and molecules of thought. It became a sort of +duel at last between them, and all the others sat and listened--every +one, that is, except the Alderman, who had got the blond young man into +a corner by the green-stained dresser with the aluminum things, and was +sitting with his back to every one else, holding one hand over his mouth +for greater privacy, and telling him, with an accent of confidential +admission, in whispers of the chronic struggle between the natural +modesty and general inoffensiveness of the Borough Council and the +social evil in Marylebone. + +So the talk went on, and presently they were criticising novelists, and +certain daring essays of Wilkins got their due share of attention, +and then they were discussing the future of the theatre. Ann Veronica +intervened a little in the novelist discussion with a defence of Esmond +and a denial that the Egoist was obscure, and when she spoke every one +else stopped talking and listened. Then they deliberated whether Bernard +Shaw ought to go into Parliament. And that brought them to vegetarianism +and teetotalism, and the young man in the orange tie and Mrs. Goopes +had a great set-to about the sincerity of Chesterton and Belloc that was +ended by Goopes showing signs of resuming the Socratic method. + +And at last Ann Veronica and Miss Miniver came down the dark staircase +and out into the foggy spaces of the London squares, and crossed Russell +Square, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, making an oblique route to Ann +Veronica’s lodging. They trudged along a little hungry, because of the +fruitarian refreshments, and mentally very active. And Miss Miniver fell +discussing whether Goopes or Bernard Shaw or Tolstoy or Doctor Tumpany +or Wilkins the author had the more powerful and perfect mind in +existence at the present time. She was clear there were no other minds +like them in all the world. + + + +Part 4 + + +Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the back seats +of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the giant leaders of the +Fabian Society who are re-making the world: Bernard Shaw and Toomer and +Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the author, all displayed upon a platform. +The place was crowded, and the people about her were almost equally +made up of very good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great +variety of Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest +mixture of things that were personal and petty with an idealist devotion +that was fine beyond dispute. In nearly every speech she heard was the +same implication of great and necessary changes in the world--changes +to be won by effort and sacrifice indeed, but surely to be won. And +afterward she saw a very much larger and more enthusiastic gathering, +a meeting of the advanced section of the woman movement in Caxton Hall, +where the same note of vast changes in progress sounded; and she went +to a soiree of the Dress Reform Association and visited a Food Reform +Exhibition, where imminent change was made even alarmingly visible. +The women’s meeting was much more charged with emotional force than the +Socialists’. Ann Veronica was carried off her intellectual and critical +feet by it altogether, and applauded and uttered cries that subsequent +reflection failed to endorse. “I knew you would feel it,” said Miss +Miniver, as they came away flushed and heated. “I knew you would begin +to see how it all falls into place together.” + +It did begin to fall into place together. She became more and more +alive, not so much to a system of ideas as to a big diffused +impulse toward change, to a great discontent with and criticism of +life as it is lived, to a clamorous confusion of ideas for +reconstruction--reconstruction of the methods of business, of economic +development, of the rules of property, of the status of children, of the +clothing and feeding and teaching of every one; she developed a quite +exaggerated consciousness of a multitude of people going about the +swarming spaces of London with their minds full, their talk and gestures +full, their very clothing charged with the suggestion of the urgency of +this pervasive project of alteration. Some indeed carried themselves, +dressed themselves even, rather as foreign visitors from the land +of “Looking Backward” and “News from Nowhere” than as the indigenous +Londoners they were. For the most part these were detached people: men +practising the plastic arts, young writers, young men in employment, a +very large proportion of girls and women--self-supporting women or girls +of the student class. They made a stratum into which Ann Veronica was +now plunged up to her neck; it had become her stratum. + +None of the things they said and did were altogether new to Ann +Veronica, but now she got them massed and alive, instead of by glimpses +or in books--alive and articulate and insistent. The London backgrounds, +in Bloomsbury and Marylebone, against which these people went to +and fro, took on, by reason of their gray facades, their implacably +respectable windows and window-blinds, their reiterated unmeaning iron +railings, a stronger and stronger suggestion of the flavor of her father +at his most obdurate phase, and of all that she felt herself fighting +against. + +She was already a little prepared by her discursive reading and +discussion under the Widgett influence for ideas and “movements,” though +temperamentally perhaps she was rather disposed to resist and criticise +than embrace them. But the people among whom she was now thrown through +the social exertions of Miss Miniver and the Widgetts--for Teddy and +Hetty came up from Morningside Park and took her to an eighteen-penny +dinner in Soho and introduced her to some art students, who were also +Socialists, and so opened the way to an evening of meandering talk in a +studio--carried with them like an atmosphere this implication, not only +that the world was in some stupid and even obvious way WRONG, with which +indeed she was quite prepared to agree, but that it needed only a +few pioneers to behave as such and be thoroughly and indiscriminately +“advanced,” for the new order to achieve itself. + +When ninety per cent. out of the ten or twelve people one meets in a +month not only say but feel and assume a thing, it is very hard not +to fall into the belief that the thing is so. Imperceptibly almost Ann +Veronica began to acquire the new attitude, even while her mind still +resisted the felted ideas that went with it. And Miss Miniver began to +sway her. + +The very facts that Miss Miniver never stated an argument clearly, that +she was never embarrassed by a sense of self-contradiction, and had +little more respect for consistency of statement than a washerwoman +has for wisps of vapor, which made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at +their first encounter in Morningside Park, became at last with constant +association the secret of Miss Miniver’s growing influence. The brain +tires of resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently +active, the same phrases, the same ideas that it has already slain, +exposed and dissected and buried, it becomes less and less energetic to +repeat the operation. There must be something, one feels, in ideas that +achieve persistently a successful resurrection. What Miss Miniver would +have called the Higher Truth supervenes. + +Yet through these talks, these meetings and conferences, these movements +and efforts, Ann Veronica, for all that she went with her friend, and +at times applauded with her enthusiastically, yet went nevertheless with +eyes that grew more and more puzzled, and fine eyebrows more and more +disposed to knit. She was with these movements--akin to them, she felt +it at times intensely--and yet something eluded her. Morningside Park +had been passive and defective; all this rushed about and was active, +but it was still defective. It still failed in something. It did seem +germane to the matter that so many of the people “in the van” were plain +people, or faded people, or tired-looking people. It did affect the +business that they all argued badly and were egotistical in their +manners and inconsistent in their phrases. There were moments when she +doubted whether the whole mass of movements and societies and gatherings +and talks was not simply one coherent spectacle of failure protecting +itself from abjection by the glamour of its own assertions. It happened +that at the extremest point of Ann Veronica’s social circle from the +Widgetts was the family of the Morningside Park horse-dealer, a company +of extremely dressy and hilarious young women, with one equestrian +brother addicted to fancy waistcoats, cigars, and facial spots. These +girls wore hats at remarkable angles and bows to startle and kill; they +liked to be right on the spot every time and up to everything that +was it from the very beginning and they rendered their conception of +Socialists and all reformers by the words “positively frightening” + and “weird.” Well, it was beyond dispute that these words did convey +a certain quality of the Movements in general amid which Miss Miniver +disported herself. They WERE weird. And yet for all that-- + +It got into Ann Veronica’s nights at last and kept her awake, the +perplexing contrast between the advanced thought and the advanced +thinker. The general propositions of Socialism, for example, struck her +as admirable, but she certainly did not extend her admiration to any +of its exponents. She was still more stirred by the idea of the equal +citizenship of men and women, by the realization that a big and growing +organization of women were giving form and a generalized expression +to just that personal pride, that aspiration for personal freedom and +respect which had brought her to London; but when she heard Miss Miniver +discoursing on the next step in the suffrage campaign, or read of women +badgering Cabinet Ministers, padlocked to railings, or getting up in a +public meeting to pipe out a demand for votes and be carried out kicking +and screaming, her soul revolted. She could not part with dignity. +Something as yet unformulated within her kept her estranged from all +these practical aspects of her beliefs. + +“Not for these things, O Ann Veronica, have you revolted,” it said; “and +this is not your appropriate purpose.” + +It was as if she faced a darkness in which was something very beautiful +and wonderful as yet unimagined. The little pucker in her brows became +more perceptible. + + + +Part 5 + + +In the beginning of December Ann Veronica began to speculate privately +upon the procedure of pawning. She had decided that she would begin +with her pearl necklace. She spent a very disagreeable afternoon and +evening--it was raining fast outside, and she had very unwisely left +her soundest pair of boots in the boothole of her father’s house in +Morningside Park--thinking over the economic situation and planning a +course of action. Her aunt had secretly sent on to Ann Veronica some new +warm underclothing, a dozen pairs of stockings, and her last winter’s +jacket, but the dear lady had overlooked those boots. + +These things illuminated her situation extremely. Finally she decided +upon a step that had always seemed reasonable to her, but that hitherto +she had, from motives too faint for her to formulate, refrained from +taking. She resolved to go into the City to Ramage and ask for his +advice. And next morning she attired herself with especial care and +neatness, found his address in the Directory at a post-office, and went +to him. + +She had to wait some minutes in an outer office, wherein three young +men of spirited costume and appearance regarded her with ill-concealed +curiosity and admiration. Then Ramage appeared with effusion, and +ushered her into his inner apartment. The three young men exchanged +expressive glances. + +The inner apartment was rather gracefully furnished with a thick, fine +Turkish carpet, a good brass fender, a fine old bureau, and on the walls +were engravings of two young girls’ heads by Greuze, and of some modern +picture of boys bathing in a sunlit pool. + +“But this is a surprise!” said Ramage. “This is wonderful! I’ve been +feeling that you had vanished from my world. Have you been away from +Morningside Park?” + +“I’m not interrupting you?” + +“You are. Splendidly. Business exists for such interruptions. There you +are, the best client’s chair.” + +Ann Veronica sat down, and Ramage’s eager eyes feasted on her. + +“I’ve been looking out for you,” he said. “I confess it.” + +She had not, she reflected, remembered how prominent his eyes were. + +“I want some advice,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Yes?” + +“You remember once, how we talked--at a gate on the Downs? We talked +about how a girl might get an independent living.” + +“Yes, yes.” + +“Well, you see, something has happened at home.” + +She paused. + +“Nothing has happened to Mr. Stanley?” + +“I’ve fallen out with my father. It was about--a question of what I +might do or might not do. He--In fact, he--he locked me in my room. +Practically.” + +Her breath left her for a moment. + +“I SAY!” said Mr. Ramage. + +“I wanted to go to an art-student ball of which he disapproved.” + +“And why shouldn’t you?” + +“I felt that sort of thing couldn’t go on. So I packed up and came to +London next day.” + +“To a friend?” + +“To lodgings--alone.” + +“I say, you know, you have some pluck. You did it on your own?” + +Ann Veronica smiled. “Quite on my own,” she said. + +“It’s magnificent!” He leaned back and regarded her with his head a +little on one side. “By Jove!” he said, “there is something direct about +you. I wonder if I should have locked you up if I’d been your father. +Luckily I’m not. And you started out forthwith to fight the world and be +a citizen on your own basis?” He came forward again and folded his hands +under him on his desk. + +“How has the world taken it?” he asked. “If I was the world I think I +should have put down a crimson carpet, and asked you to say what you +wanted, and generally walk over me. But the world didn’t do that.” + +“Not exactly.” + +“It presented a large impenetrable back, and went on thinking about +something else.” + +“It offered from fifteen to two-and-twenty shillings a week--for +drudgery.” + +“The world has no sense of what is due to youth and courage. It never +has had.” + +“Yes,” said Ann Veronica. “But the thing is, I want a job.” + +“Exactly! And so you came along to me. And you see, I don’t turn my +back, and I am looking at you and thinking about you from top to toe.” + +“And what do you think I ought to do?” + +“Exactly!” He lifted a paper-weight and dabbed it gently down again. +“What ought you to do?” + +“I’ve hunted up all sorts of things.” + +“The point to note is that fundamentally you don’t want particularly to +do it.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“You want to be free and so forth, yes. But you don’t particularly +want to do the job that sets you free--for its own sake. I mean that it +doesn’t interest you in itself.” + +“I suppose not.” + +“That’s one of our differences. We men are like children. We can get +absorbed in play, in games, in the business we do. That’s really why +we do them sometimes rather well and get on. But women--women as a rule +don’t throw themselves into things like that. As a matter of fact it +isn’t their affair. And as a natural consequence, they don’t do so well, +and they don’t get on--and so the world doesn’t pay them. They don’t +catch on to discursive interests, you see, because they are more +serious, they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a +little impatient of its--its outer aspects. At least that, I think, is +what makes a clever woman’s independent career so much more difficult +than a clever man’s.” + +“She doesn’t develop a specialty.” Ann Veronica was doing her best to +follow him. + +“She has one, that’s why. Her specialty is the central thing in life, it +is life itself, the warmth of life, sex--and love.” + +He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with his +eyes on Ann Veronica’s face. He had an air of having told her a deep, +personal secret. She winced as he thrust the fact at her, was about to +answer, and checked herself. She colored faintly. + +“That doesn’t touch the question I asked you,” she said. “It may be +true, but it isn’t quite what I have in mind.” + +“Of course not,” said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep +preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like way upon +the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made. He displayed +none of the airy optimism of their previous talk over the downland gate. +He was helpful, but gravely dubious. “You see,” he said, “from my point +of view you’re grown up--you’re as old as all the goddesses and the +contemporary of any man alive. But from the--the economic point of view +you’re a very young and altogether inexperienced person.” + +He returned to and developed that idea. “You’re still,” he said, “in the +educational years. From the point of view of most things in the world +of employment which a woman can do reasonably well and earn a living +by, you’re unripe and half-educated. If you had taken your degree, for +example.” + +He spoke of secretarial work, but even there she would need to be able +to do typing and shorthand. He made it more and more evident to her that +her proper course was not to earn a salary but to accumulate equipment. +“You see,” he said, “you are like an inaccessible gold-mine in all this +sort of matter. You’re splendid stuff, you know, but you’ve got nothing +ready to sell. That’s the flat business situation.” + +He thought. Then he slapped his hand on his desk and looked up with +the air of a man struck by a brilliant idea. “Look here,” he said, +protruding his eyes; “why get anything to do at all just yet? Why, if +you must be free, why not do the sensible thing? Make yourself worth +a decent freedom. Go on with your studies at the Imperial College, +for example, get a degree, and make yourself good value. Or become a +thorough-going typist and stenographer and secretarial expert.” + +“But I can’t do that.” + +“Why not?” + +“You see, if I do go home my father objects to the College, and as for +typing--” + +“Don’t go home.” + +“Yes, but you forget; how am I to live?” + +“Easily. Easily.... Borrow.... From me.” + +“I couldn’t do that,” said Ann Veronica, sharply. + +“I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” + +“It’s impossible.” + +“As one friend to another. Men are always doing it, and if you set up to +be a man--” + +“No, it’s absolutely out of the question, Mr. Ramage.” And Ann +Veronica’s face was hot. + +Ramage pursed his rather loose lips and shrugged his shoulders, with +his eyes fixed steadily upon her. “Well anyhow--I don’t see the force of +your objection, you know. That’s my advice to you. Here I am. Consider +you’ve got resources deposited with me. Perhaps at the first blush--it +strikes you as odd. People are brought up to be so shy about money. As +though it was indelicate--it’s just a sort of shyness. But here I am to +draw upon. Here I am as an alternative either to nasty work--or going +home.” + +“It’s very kind of you--” began Ann Veronica. + +“Not a bit. Just a friendly polite suggestion. I don’t suggest any +philanthropy. I shall charge you five per cent., you know, fair and +square.” + +Ann Veronica opened her lips quickly and did not speak. But the five per +cent. certainly did seem to improve the aspect of Ramage’s suggestion. + +“Well, anyhow, consider it open.” He dabbed with his paper-weight again, +and spoke in an entirely indifferent tone. “And now tell me, please, how +you eloped from Morningside Park. How did you get your luggage out of +the house? Wasn’t it--wasn’t it rather in some respects--rather a lark? +It’s one of my regrets for my lost youth. I never ran away from anywhere +with anybody anywhen. And now--I suppose I should be considered too +old. I don’t feel it.... Didn’t you feel rather EVENTFUL--in the +train--coming up to Waterloo?” + + + +Part 6 + + +Before Christmas Ann Veronica had gone to Ramage again and accepted this +offer she had at first declined. + +Many little things had contributed to that decision. The chief influence +was her awakening sense of the need of money. She had been forced to buy +herself that pair of boots and a walking-skirt, and the pearl necklace +at the pawnbrokers’ had yielded very disappointingly. And, also, she +wanted to borrow that money. It did seem in so many ways exactly what +Ramage said it was--the sensible thing to do. There it was--to be +borrowed. It would put the whole adventure on a broader and better +footing; it seemed, indeed, almost the only possible way in which she +might emerge from her rebellion with anything like success. If only for +the sake of her argument with her home, she wanted success. And why, +after all, should she not borrow money from Ramage? + +It was so true what he said; middle-class people WERE ridiculously +squeamish about money. Why should they be? + +She and Ramage were friends, very good friends. If she was in a position +to help him she would help him; only it happened to be the other way +round. He was in a position to help her. What was the objection? + +She found it impossible to look her own diffidence in the face. So she +went to Ramage and came to the point almost at once. + +“Can you spare me forty pounds?” she said. + +Mr. Ramage controlled his expression and thought very quickly. + +“Agreed,” he said, “certainly,” and drew a checkbook toward him. + +“It’s best,” he said, “to make it a good round sum. + +“I won’t give you a check though--Yes, I will. I’ll give you an +uncrossed check, and then you can get it at the bank here, quite close +by.... You’d better not have all the money on you; you had better +open a small account in the post-office and draw it out a fiver at a +time. That won’t involve references, as a bank account would--and all +that sort of thing. The money will last longer, and--it won’t bother +you.” + +He stood up rather close to her and looked into her eyes. He seemed to +be trying to understand something very perplexing and elusive. “It’s +jolly,” he said, “to feel you have come to me. It’s a sort of guarantee +of confidence. Last time--you made me feel snubbed.” + +He hesitated, and went off at a tangent. “There’s no end of things I’d +like to talk over with you. It’s just upon my lunch-time. Come and have +lunch with me.” + +Ann Veronica fenced for a moment. “I don’t want to take up your time.” + +“We won’t go to any of these City places. They’re just all men, and no +one is safe from scandal. But I know a little place where we’ll get a +little quiet talk.” + +Ann Veronica for some indefinable reason did not want to lunch with him, +a reason indeed so indefinable that she dismissed it, and Ramage went +through the outer office with her, alert and attentive, to the vivid +interest of the three clerks. The three clerks fought for the only +window, and saw her whisked into a hansom. Their subsequent conversation +is outside the scope of our story. + +“Ritter’s!” said Ramage to the driver, “Dean Street.” + +It was rare that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was itself +eventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing of the thing +over its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the horse, the passage +of the teeming streets. She admitted her pleasure to Ramage. + +And Ritter’s, too, was very amusing and foreign and discreet; a little +rambling room with a number of small tables, with red electric light +shades and flowers. It was an overcast day, albeit not foggy, and +the electric light shades glowed warmly, and an Italian waiter with +insufficient English took Ramage’s orders, and waited with an appearance +of affection. Ann Veronica thought the whole affair rather jolly. Ritter +sold better food than most of his compatriots, and cooked it better, and +Ramage, with a fine perception of a feminine palate, ordered Vero Capri. +It was, Ann Veronica felt, as a sip or so of that remarkable blend +warmed her blood, just the sort of thing that her aunt would not +approve, to be lunching thus, tete-a-tete with a man; and yet at the +same time it was a perfectly innocent as well as agreeable proceeding. + +They talked across their meal in an easy and friendly manner about Ann +Veronica’s affairs. He was really very bright and clever, with a sort of +conversational boldness that was just within the limits of permissible +daring. She described the Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave him +a sketch of her landlady; and he talked in the most liberal and +entertaining way of a modern young woman’s outlook. He seemed to know +a great deal about life. He gave glimpses of possibilities. He roused +curiosities. He contrasted wonderfully with the empty showing-off of +Teddy. His friendship seemed a thing worth having.... + +But when she was thinking it over in her room that evening vague and +baffling doubts came drifting across this conviction. She doubted how +she stood toward him and what the restrained gleam of his face might +signify. She felt that perhaps, in her desire to play an adequate part +in the conversation, she had talked rather more freely than she ought to +have done, and given him a wrong impression of herself. + + + +Part 7 + + +That was two days before Christmas Eve. The next morning came a compact +letter from her father. + + +“MY DEAR DAUGHTER,” it ran,--“Here, on the verge of the season +of forgiveness I hold out a last hand to you in the hope of a +reconciliation. I ask you, although it is not my place to ask you, to +return home. This roof is still open to you. You will not be taunted +if you return and everything that can be done will be done to make you +happy. + +“Indeed, I must implore you to return. This adventure of yours has gone +on altogether too long; it has become a serious distress to both your +aunt and myself. We fail altogether to understand your motives in doing +what you are doing, or, indeed, how you are managing to do it, or what +you are managing on. If you will think only of one trifling aspect--the +inconvenience it must be to us to explain your absence--I think you may +begin to realize what it all means for us. I need hardly say that your +aunt joins with me very heartily in this request. + +“Please come home. You will not find me unreasonable with you. + +“Your affectionate + +“FATHER.” + + +Ann Veronica sat over her fire with her father’s note in her hand. +“Queer letters he writes,” she said. “I suppose most people’s letters +are queer. Roof open--like a Noah’s Ark. I wonder if he really wants me +to go home. It’s odd how little I know of him, and of how he feels and +what he feels.” + +“I wonder how he treated Gwen.” + +Her mind drifted into a speculation about her sister. “I ought to look +up Gwen,” she said. “I wonder what happened.” + +Then she fell to thinking about her aunt. “I would like to go home,” she +cried, “to please her. She has been a dear. Considering how little he +lets her have.” + +The truth prevailed. “The unaccountable thing is that I wouldn’t go home +to please her. She is, in her way, a dear. One OUGHT to want to please +her. And I don’t. I don’t care. I can’t even make myself care.” + +Presently, as if for comparison with her father’s letter, she got out +Ramage’s check from the box that contained her papers. For so far she +had kept it uncashed. She had not even endorsed it. + +“Suppose I chuck it,” she remarked, standing with the mauve slip in her +hand--“suppose I chuck it, and surrender and go home! Perhaps, after +all, Roddy was right! + +“Father keeps opening the door and shutting it, but a time will come-- + +“I could still go home!” + +She held Ramage’s check as if to tear it across. “No,” she said at last; +“I’m a human being--not a timid female. What could I do at home? The +other’s a crumple-up--just surrender. Funk! I’ll see it out.” + + + +CHAPTER THE EIGHTH + +BIOLOGY + + +Part 1 + + +January found Ann Veronica a student in the biological laboratory of the +Central Imperial College that towers up from among the back streets in +the angle between Euston Road and Great Portland Street. She was working +very steadily at the Advanced Course in Comparative Anatomy, wonderfully +relieved to have her mind engaged upon one methodically developing theme +in the place of the discursive uncertainties of the previous two months, +and doing her utmost to keep right in the back of her mind and out +of sight the facts, firstly, that she had achieved this haven of +satisfactory activity by incurring a debt to Ramage of forty pounds, +and, secondly, that her present position was necessarily temporary and +her outlook quite uncertain. + +The biological laboratory had an atmosphere that was all its own. + +It was at the top of the building, and looked clear over a clustering +mass of inferior buildings toward Regent’s Park. It was long and narrow, +a well-lit, well-ventilated, quiet gallery of small tables and sinks, +pervaded by a thin smell of methylated spirit and of a mitigated +and sterilized organic decay. Along the inner side was a wonderfully +arranged series of displayed specimens that Russell himself had +prepared. The supreme effect for Ann Veronica was its surpassing +relevance; it made every other atmosphere she knew seem discursive and +confused. The whole place and everything in it aimed at one thing--to +illustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make ever +plainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure. +It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with the Theory of the +Forms of Life; the very duster by the blackboard was there to do its +share in that work, the very washers in the taps; the room was more +simply concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, a +large part of its satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confused +movement and presences of a Fabian meeting, or the inexplicable +enthusiasm behind the suffrage demand, with the speeches that were +partly egotistical displays, partly artful manoeuvres, and partly +incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with the +comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were like the +eddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, methodical +chamber shone like a star seen through clouds. + +Day after day for a measured hour in the lecture-theatre, with elaborate +power and patience, Russell pieced together difficulty and suggestion, +instance and counter-instance, in the elaborate construction of the +family tree of life. And then the students went into the long laboratory +and followed out these facts in almost living tissue with microscope and +scalpel, probe and microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care, +making now and then a raid into the compact museum of illustration next +door, in which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplined +ranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was a couple +of blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and at these Capes, +with quick and nervous speech that contrasted vividly with Russell’s +slow, definitive articulation, directed the dissection and made +illuminating comments on the structures under examination. Then he +would come along the laboratory, sitting down by each student in +turn, checking the work and discussing its difficulties, and answering +questions arising out of Russell’s lecture. + +Ann Veronica had come to the Imperial College obsessed by the +great figure of Russell, by the part he had played in the Darwinian +controversies, and by the resolute effect of the grim-lipped, yellow, +leonine face beneath the mane of silvery hair. Capes was rather a +discovery. Capes was something superadded. Russell burned like a beacon, +but Capes illuminated by darting flashes and threw light, even if it +was but momentary light, into a hundred corners that Russell left +steadfastly in the shade. + +Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two or three-and-thirty, so +ruddily blond that it was a mercy he had escaped light eyelashes, and +with a minor but by no means contemptible reputation of his own. He +talked at the blackboard in a pleasant, very slightly lisping voice with +a curious spontaneity, and was sometimes very clumsy in his exposition, +and sometimes very vivid. He dissected rather awkwardly and hurriedly, +but, on the whole, effectively, and drew with an impatient directness +that made up in significance what it lacked in precision. Across the +blackboard the colored chalks flew like flights of variously tinted +rockets as diagram after diagram flickered into being. + +There happened that year to be an unusual proportion of girls and women +in the advanced laboratory, perhaps because the class as a whole was an +exceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four of these were women +students. As a consequence of its small size, it was possible to get +along with the work on a much easier and more colloquial footing than +a larger class would have permitted. And a custom had grown up of a +general tea at four o’clock, under the auspices of a Miss Garvice, a +tall and graceful girl of distinguished intellectual incompetence, in +whom the hostess instinct seemed to be abnormally developed. + +Capes would come to these teas; he evidently liked to come, and he +would appear in the doorway of the preparation-room, a pleasing note of +shyness in his manner, hovering for an invitation. + +From the first, Ann Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man. +To begin with, he struck her as being the most variable person she had +ever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful, talked round +and over every one, and would have been domineering if he had not +been extraordinarily kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, and +defeated Miss Garvice’s most skilful attempts to draw him out. Sometimes +he was obviously irritable and uncomfortable and unfortunate in his +efforts to seem at ease. And sometimes he overflowed with a peculiarly +malignant wit that played, with devastating effect, upon any topics that +had the courage to face it. Ann Veronica’s experiences of men had been +among more stable types--Teddy, who was always absurd; her father, +who was always authoritative and sentimental; Manning, who was always +Manning. And most of the others she had met had, she felt, the same +steadfastness. Goopes, she was sure was always high-browed and slow and +Socratic. And Ramage too--about Ramage there would always be that air of +avidity, that air of knowledge and inquiry, the mixture of things in his +talk that were rather good with things that were rather poor. But one +could not count with any confidence upon Capes. + +The five men students were a mixed company. There was a very white-faced +youngster of eighteen who brushed back his hair exactly in Russell’s +manner, and was disposed to be uncomfortably silent when he was +near her, and to whom she felt it was only Christian kindness to be +consistently pleasant; and a lax young man of five-and-twenty in navy +blue, who mingled Marx and Bebel with the more orthodox gods of the +biological pantheon. There was a short, red-faced, resolute youth who +inherited an authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father; +a Japanese student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and had +an imperfect knowledge of English; and a dark, unwashed Scotchman +with complicated spectacles, who would come every morning as a sort of +volunteer supplementary demonstrator, look very closely at her work +and her, tell her that her dissections were “fairish,” or “very fairish +indeed,” or “high above the normal female standard,” hover as if for +some outbreak of passionate gratitude and with admiring retrospects +that made the facetted spectacles gleam like diamonds, return to his own +place. + +The women, Ann Veronica thought, were not quite so interesting as the +men. There were two school-mistresses, one of whom--Miss Klegg--might +have been a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so many Miniver +traits; there was a preoccupied girl whose name Ann Veronica never +learned, but who worked remarkably well; and Miss Garvice, who began +by attracting her very greatly--she moved so beautifully--and ended by +giving her the impression that moving beautifully was the beginning and +end of her being. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next few weeks were a time of the very liveliest thought and growth +for Ann Veronica. The crowding impressions of the previous weeks seemed +to run together directly her mind left the chaotic search for employment +and came into touch again with a coherent and systematic development +of ideas. The advanced work at the Central Imperial College was in the +closest touch with living interests and current controversies; it drew +its illustrations and material from Russell’s two great researches--upon +the relation of the brachiopods to the echinodermata, and upon the +secondary and tertiary mammalian and pseudo-mammalian factors in the +free larval forms of various marine organisms. Moreover, a vigorous fire +of mutual criticism was going on now between the Imperial College and +the Cambridge Mendelians and echoed in the lectures. From beginning to +end it was first-hand stuff. + +But the influence of the science radiated far beyond its own special +field--beyond those beautiful but highly technical problems with which +we do not propose for a moment to trouble the naturally terrified +reader. Biology is an extraordinarily digestive science. It throws out a +number of broad experimental generalizations, and then sets out to +bring into harmony or relation with these an infinitely multifarious +collection of phenomena. The little streaks upon the germinating area +of an egg, the nervous movements of an impatient horse, the trick of +a calculating boy, the senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of a +garden flower, and the slime upon a sea-wet rock--ten thousand such +things bear their witness and are illuminated. And not only did these +tentacular generalizations gather all the facts of natural history and +comparative anatomy together, but they seemed always stretching out +further and further into a world of interests that lay altogether +outside their legitimate bounds. + +It came to Ann Veronica one night after a long talk with Miss Miniver, +as a sudden remarkable thing, as a grotesque, novel aspect, that this +slowly elaborating biological scheme had something more than an academic +interest for herself. And not only so, but that it was after all, a more +systematic and particular method of examining just the same questions +that underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of the +West Central Arts Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, the +bottomless discussions of the simple-life homes. It was the same Bios +whose nature and drift and ways and methods and aspects engaged +them all. And she, she in her own person too, was this eternal Bios, +beginning again its recurrent journey to selection and multiplication +and failure or survival. + +But this was but a momentary gleam of personal application, and at this +time she followed it up no further. + +And now Ann Veronica’s evenings were also becoming very busy. She +pursued her interest in the Socialist movement and in the Suffragist +agitation in the company of Miss Miniver. They went to various central +and local Fabian gatherings, and to a number of suffrage meetings. Teddy +Widgett hovered on the fringe of all these gatherings, blinking at Ann +Veronica and occasionally making a wildly friendly dash at her, and +carrying her and Miss Miniver off to drink cocoa with a choice diversity +of other youthful and congenial Fabians after the meetings. Then Mr. +Manning loomed up ever and again into her world, full of a futile +solicitude, and almost always declaring she was splendid, splendid, and +wishing he could talk things out with her. Teas he contributed to the +commissariat of Ann Veronica’s campaign--quite a number of teas. He +would get her to come to tea with him, usually in a pleasant tea-room +over a fruit-shop in Tottenham Court Road, and he would discuss his own +point of view and hint at a thousand devotions were she but to command +him. And he would express various artistic sensibilities and aesthetic +appreciations in carefully punctuated sentences and a large, clear +voice. At Christmas he gave her a set of a small edition of Meredith’s +novels, very prettily bound in flexible leather, being guided in the +choice of an author, as he intimated, rather by her preferences than his +own. + +There was something markedly and deliberately liberal-minded in his +manner in all their encounters. He conveyed not only his sense of the +extreme want of correctitude in their unsanctioned meetings, but also +that, so far as he was concerned, this irregularity mattered not at +all, that he had flung--and kept on flinging--such considerations to the +wind. + +And, in addition, she was now seeing and talking to Ramage almost +weekly, on a theory which she took very gravely, that they were +exceptionally friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with him in +some little Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the district toward +Soho, or in one of the more stylish and magnificent establishments about +Piccadilly Circus, and for the most part she did not care to refuse. +Nor, indeed, did she want to refuse. These dinners, from their lavish +display of ambiguous hors d’oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes of +frilled paper, with their Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and their +polyglot waiters and polyglot clientele, were very funny and bright; +and she really liked Ramage, and valued his help and advice. It was +interesting to see how different and characteristic his mode of approach +was to all sorts of questions that interested her, and it was amusing to +discover this other side to the life of a Morningside Park inhabitant. +She had thought that all Morningside Park householders came home before +seven at the latest, as her father usually did. Ramage talked always +about women or some woman’s concern, and very much about Ann Veronica’s +own outlook upon life. He was always drawing contrasts between a woman’s +lot and a man’s, and treating her as a wonderful new departure in this +comparison. Ann Veronica liked their relationship all the more because +it was an unusual one. + +After these dinners they would have a walk, usually to the Thames +Embankment to see the two sweeps of river on either side of Waterloo +Bridge; and then they would part at Westminster Bridge, perhaps, and +he would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they should go to a +music-hall and see a wonderful new dancer, but Ann Veronica did not feel +she cared to see a new dancer. So, instead, they talked of dancing +and what it might mean in a human life. Ann Veronica thought it was +a spontaneous release of energy expressive of well-being, but Ramage +thought that by dancing, men, and such birds and animals as dance, come +to feel and think of their bodies. + +This intercourse, which had been planned to warm Ann Veronica to a +familiar affection with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to a +constantly deepening interest in Ann Veronica. He felt that he was +getting on with her very slowly indeed, but he did not see how he could +get on faster. He had, he felt, to create certain ideas and vivify +certain curiosities and feelings in her. Until that was done a certain +experience of life assured him that a girl is a locked coldness against +a man’s approach. She had all the fascination of being absolutely +perplexing in this respect. On the one hand, she seemed to think plainly +and simply, and would talk serenely and freely about topics that most +women have been trained either to avoid or conceal; and on the other she +was unconscious, or else she had an air of being unconscious--that was +the riddle--to all sorts of personal applications that almost any girl +or woman, one might have thought, would have made. He was always doing +his best to call her attention to the fact that he was a man of spirit +and quality and experience, and she a young and beautiful woman, and +that all sorts of constructions upon their relationship were possible, +trusting her to go on from that to the idea that all sorts of +relationships were possible. She responded with an unfaltering +appearance of insensibility, and never as a young and beautiful woman +conscious of sex; always in the character of an intelligent girl +student. + +His perception of her personal beauty deepened and quickened with each +encounter. Every now and then her general presence became radiantly +dazzling in his eyes; she would appear in the street coming toward him, +a surprise, so fine and smiling and welcoming was she, so expanded and +illuminated and living, in contrast with his mere expectation. Or he +would find something--a wave in her hair, a little line in the contour +of her brow or neck, that made an exquisite discovery. + +He was beginning to think about her inordinately. He would sit in +his inner office and compose conversations with her, penetrating, +illuminating, and nearly conclusive--conversations that never proved to +be of the slightest use at all with her when he met her face to face. +And he began also at times to wake at night and think about her. + +He thought of her and himself, and no longer in that vein of incidental +adventure in which he had begun. He thought, too, of the fretful invalid +who lay in the next room to his, whose money had created his business +and made his position in the world. + +“I’ve had most of the things I wanted,” said Ramage, in the stillness of +the night. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time Ann Veronica’s family had desisted from direct offers of a +free pardon; they were evidently waiting for her resources to come to +an end. Neither father, aunt, nor brothers made a sign, and then +one afternoon in early February her aunt came up in a state between +expostulation and dignified resentment, but obviously very anxious for +Ann Veronica’s welfare. “I had a dream in the night,” she said. “I saw +you in a sort of sloping, slippery place, holding on by your hands and +slipping. You seemed to me to be slipping and slipping, and your face +was white. It was really most vivid, most vivid! You seemed to be +slipping and just going to tumble and holding on. It made me wake up, +and there I lay thinking of you, spending your nights up here all alone, +and no one to look after you. I wondered what you could be doing and +what might be happening to you. I said to myself at once, ‘Either this +is a coincidence or the caper sauce.’ But I made sure it was you. I felt +I MUST do something anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I could to see +you.” + +She had spoken rather rapidly. “I can’t help saying it,” she said, with +the quality of her voice altering, “but I do NOT think it is right for +an unprotected girl to be in London alone as you are.” + +“But I’m quite equal to taking care of myself, aunt.” + +“It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable for every +one concerned.” + +She spoke with a certain asperity. She felt that Ann Veronica had duped +her in that dream, and now that she had come up to London she might as +well speak her mind. + +“No Christmas dinner,” she said, “or anything nice! One doesn’t even +know what you are doing.” + +“I’m going on working for my degree.” + +“Why couldn’t you do that at home?” + +“I’m working at the Imperial College. You see, aunt, it’s the only +possible way for me to get a good degree in my subjects, and father +won’t hear of it. There’d only be endless rows if I was at home. And how +could I come home--when he locks me in rooms and all that?” + +“I do wish this wasn’t going on,” said Miss Stanley, after a pause. “I +do wish you and your father could come to some agreement.” + +Ann Veronica responded with conviction: “I wish so, too.” + +“Can’t we arrange something? Can’t we make a sort of treaty?” + +“He wouldn’t keep it. He would get very cross one evening and no one +would dare to remind him of it.” + +“How can you say such things?” + +“But he would!” + +“Still, it isn’t your place to say so.” + +“It prevents a treaty.” + +“Couldn’t _I_ make a treaty?” + +Ann Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty that would +leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramage +or go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with Miss +Miniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so far +she had not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly was +something in the idea of a treaty. + +“I don’t see at all how you can be managing,” said Miss Stanley, and Ann +Veronica hastened to reply, “I do on very little.” Her mind went back to +that treaty. + +“And aren’t there fees to pay at the Imperial College?” her aunt was +saying--a disagreeable question. + +“There are a few fees.” + +“Then how have you managed?” + +“Bother!” said Ann Veronica to herself, and tried not to look guilty. “I +was able to borrow the money.” + +“Borrow the money! But who lent you the money?” + +“A friend,” said Ann Veronica. + +She felt herself getting into a corner. She sought hastily in her mind +for a plausible answer to an obvious question that didn’t come. Her aunt +went off at a tangent. “But my dear Ann Veronica, you will be getting +into debt!” + +Ann Veronica at once, and with a feeling of immense relief, took refuge +in her dignity. “I think, aunt,” she said, “you might trust to my +self-respect to keep me out of that.” + +For the moment her aunt could not think of any reply to this +counterstroke, and Ann Veronica followed up her advantage by a sudden +inquiry about her abandoned boots. + +But in the train going home her aunt reasoned it out. + +“If she is borrowing money,” said Miss Stanley, “she MUST be getting +into debt. It’s all nonsense....” + + + +Part 4 + + +It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in Ann +Veronica’s thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, at last, +strides to something more and more like predominance. She began by being +interested in his demonstrations and his biological theory, then she was +attracted by his character, and then, in a manner, she fell in love with +his mind. + +One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion sprang up +about the question of women’s suffrage. The movement was then in its +earlier militant phases, and one of the women only, Miss Garvice, +opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm. But a man’s +opposition always inclined her to the suffrage side; she had a curious +feeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive women through. Capes +was irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in +which case one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but +tepidly sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous +attack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost something +infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussion +wandered, and was punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclined +to support Miss Klegg until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting him +against himself, and citing a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in +which, following Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack +on Lester Ward’s case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant +importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom. + +Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher; she had +a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice’s advantage. Afterwards +she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed to her quite +delightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffected +writing, coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to follow +his written thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with a +perfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to read +more of him, and the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and +hunted first among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then +through various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The +ordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, is apt +to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was delighted to find +the same easy and confident luminosity that distinguished his work for +the general reader. She returned to these latter, and at the back of +her mind, as she looked them over again, was a very distinct resolve +to quote them after the manner of Miss Garvice at the very first +opportunity. + +When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with +something like surprise upon her half-day’s employment, and decided +that it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really very +interesting person indeed. + +And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was so +distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some +time that this might be because she was falling in love with him. + + + +Part 5 + + +Yet Ann Veronica was thinking a very great deal about love. A dozen +shynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked or broken +down in her mind. All the influences about her worked with her own +predisposition and against all the traditions of her home and upbringing +to deal with the facts of life in an unabashed manner. Ramage, by a +hundred skilful hints had led her to realize that the problem of her own +life was inseparably associated with, and indeed only one special case +of, the problems of any woman’s life, and that the problem of a woman’s +life is love. + +“A young man comes into life asking how best he may place himself,” + Ramage had said; “a woman comes into life thinking instinctively how +best she may give herself.” + +She noted that as a good saying, and it germinated and spread tentacles +of explanation through her brain. The biological laboratory, perpetually +viewing life as pairing and breeding and selection, and again pairing +and breeding, seemed only a translated generalization of that assertion. +And all the talk of the Miniver people and the Widgett people seemed +always to be like a ship in adverse weather on the lee shore of love. +“For seven years,” said Ann Veronica, “I have been trying to keep myself +from thinking about love.... + +“I have been training myself to look askance at beautiful things.” + +She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She made +herself a private declaration of liberty. “This is mere nonsense, mere +tongue-tied fear!” she said. “This is the slavery of the veiled life. +I might as well be at Morningside Park. This business of love is the +supreme affair in life, it is the woman’s one event and crisis that +makes up for all her other restrictions, and I cower--as we all +cower--with a blushing and paralyzed mind until it overtakes me!... + +“I’ll be hanged if I do.” + +But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all that +manumission. + +Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing for +openings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. But something +instinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be +“silly” and prudish she found that whenever he became at all bold +in this matter she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost +entomological indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he made +it and pinned it out for examination. In the biological laboratory that +was their invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her own +mental austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her friend, +who evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic and was +willing to give her the benefit of his experiences! Why should not she +be at her ease with him? Why should not she know things? It is hard +enough anyhow for a human being to learn, she decided, but it is a dozen +times more difficult than it need be because of all this locking of the +lips and thoughts. + +She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in one +direction, and talked one night of love and the facts of love with Miss +Miniver. + +But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of Mrs. +Goopes’s: “Advanced people,” she said, with an air of great elucidation, +“tend to GENERALIZE love. ‘He prayeth best who loveth best--all things +both great and small.’ For my own part I go about loving.” + +“Yes, but men;” said Ann Veronica, plunging; “don’t you want the love of +men?” + +For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this question. + +Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost balefully. +“NO!” she said, at last, with something in her voice that reminded Ann +Veronica of a sprung tennis-racket. + +“I’ve been through all that,” she went on, after a pause. + +She spoke slowly. “I have never yet met a man whose intellect I could +respect.” + +Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided to +persist on principle. + +“But if you had?” she said. + +“I can’t imagine it,” said Miss Miniver. “And think, think”--her voice +sank--“of the horrible coarseness!” + +“What coarseness?” said Ann Veronica. + +“My dear Vee!” Her voice became very low. “Don’t you know?” + +“Oh! I know--” + +“Well--” Her face was an unaccustomed pink. + +Ann Veronica ignored her friend’s confusion. + +“Don’t we all rather humbug about the coarseness? All we women, I mean,” + said she. She decided to go on, after a momentary halt. “We pretend +bodies are ugly. Really they are the most beautiful things in the world. +We pretend we never think of everything that makes us what we are.” + +“No,” cried Miss Miniver, almost vehemently. “You are wrong! I did not +think you thought such things. Bodies! Bodies! Horrible things! We are +souls. Love lives on a higher plane. We are not animals. If ever I +did meet a man I could love, I should love him”--her voice dropped +again--“platonically.” + +She made her glasses glint. “Absolutely platonically,” she said. + +“Soul to soul.” + +She turned her face to the fire, gripped her hands upon her elbows, and +drew her thin shoulders together in a shrug. “Ugh!” she said. + +Ann Veronica watched her and wondered about her. + +“We do not want the men,” said Miss Miniver; “we do not want them, with +their sneers and loud laughter. Empty, silly, coarse brutes. Brutes! +They are the brute still with us! Science some day may teach us a way +to do without them. It is only the women matter. It is not every sort of +creature needs--these males. Some have no males.” + +“There’s green-fly,” admitted Ann Veronica. “And even then--” + +The conversation hung for a thoughtful moment. + +Ann Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand. “I wonder which of us is +right,” she said. “I haven’t a scrap--of this sort of aversion.” + +“Tolstoy is so good about this,” said Miss Miniver, regardless of her +friend’s attitude. “He sees through it all. The Higher Life and the +Lower. He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts, coarse ways of living +cruelties. Simply because they are hardened by--by bestiality, +and poisoned by the juices of meat slain in anger and fermented +drinks--fancy! drinks that have been swarmed in by thousands and +thousands of horrible little bacteria!” + +“It’s yeast,” said Ann Veronica--“a vegetable.” + +“It’s all the same,” said Miss Miniver. “And then they are swollen up +and inflamed and drunken with matter. They are blinded to all fine +and subtle things--they look at life with bloodshot eyes and dilated +nostrils. They are arbitrary and unjust and dogmatic and brutish and +lustful.” + +“But do you really think men’s minds are altered by the food they eat?” + +“I know it,” said Miss Miniver. “Experte credo. When I am leading a true +life, a pure and simple life free of all stimulants and excitements, I +think--I think--oh! with pellucid clearness; but if I so much as take a +mouthful of meat--or anything--the mirror is all blurred.” + + + +Part 6 + + +Then, arising she knew not how, like a new-born appetite, came a craving +in Ann Veronica for the sight and sound of beauty. + +It was as if her aesthetic sense had become inflamed. Her mind turned +and accused itself of having been cold and hard. She began to look for +beauty and discover it in unexpected aspects and places. Hitherto she +had seen it chiefly in pictures and other works of art, incidentally, +and as a thing taken out of life. Now the sense of beauty was spreading +to a multitude of hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her. + +The thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with her +biological work. She found herself asking more and more curiously, “Why, +on the principle of the survival of the fittest, have I any sense of +beauty at all?” That enabled her to go on thinking about beauty when it +seemed to her right that she should be thinking about biology. + +She was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values--the two +series of explanations that her comparative anatomy on the one hand and +her sense of beauty on the other, set going in her thoughts. She could +not make up her mind which was the finer, more elemental thing, which +gave its values to the other. Was it that the struggle of things +to survive produced as a sort of necessary by-product these intense +preferences and appreciations, or was it that some mystical outer thing, +some great force, drove life beautyward, even in spite of expediency, +regardless of survival value and all the manifest discretions of life? +She went to Capes with that riddle and put it to him very carefully and +clearly, and he talked well--he always talked at some length when she +took a difficulty to him--and sent her to a various literature upon the +markings of butterflies, the incomprehensible elaboration and splendor +of birds of Paradise and humming-birds’ plumes, the patterning of +tigers, and a leopard’s spots. He was interesting and inconclusive, and +the original papers to which he referred her discursive were at best +only suggestive. Afterward, one afternoon, he hovered about her, and +came and sat beside her and talked of beauty and the riddle of beauty +for some time. He displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism in +the matter. He contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were, +so to speak, sceptically dogmatic. Their talk drifted to the beauty of +music, and they took that up again at tea-time. + +But as the students sat about Miss Garvice’s tea-pot and drank tea or +smoked cigarettes, the talk got away from Capes. The Scotchman informed +Ann Veronica that your view of beauty necessarily depended on your +metaphysical premises, and the young man with the Russell-like hair +became anxious to distinguish himself by telling the Japanese student +that Western art was symmetrical and Eastern art asymmetrical, and that +among the higher organisms the tendency was toward an external symmetry +veiling an internal want of balance. Ann Veronica decided she would have +to go on with Capes another day, and, looking up, discovered him sitting +on a stool with his hands in his pockets and his head a little on one +side, regarding her with a thoughtful expression. She met his eye for a +moment in curious surprise. + +He turned his eyes and stared at Miss Garvice like one who wakes from +a reverie, and then got up and strolled down the laboratory toward his +refuge, the preparation-room. + + + +Part 7 + + +Then one day a little thing happened that clothed itself in +significance. + +She had been working upon a ribbon of microtome sections of the +developing salamander, and he came to see what she had made of them. She +stood up and he sat down at the microscope, and for a time he was busy +scrutinizing one section after another. She looked down at him and saw +that the sunlight was gleaming from his cheeks, and that all over +his cheeks was a fine golden down of delicate hairs. And at the sight +something leaped within her. + +Something changed for her. + +She became aware of his presence as she had never been aware of any +human being in her life before. She became aware of the modelling of his +ear, of the muscles of his neck and the textures of the hair that came +off his brow, the soft minute curve of eyelid that she could just see +beyond his brow; she perceived all these familiar objects as though +they were acutely beautiful things. They WERE, she realized, acutely +beautiful things. Her sense followed the shoulders under his coat, down +to where his flexible, sensitive-looking hand rested lightly upon the +table. She felt him as something solid and strong and trustworthy beyond +measure. The perception of him flooded her being. + +He got up. “Here’s something rather good,” he said, and with a start and +an effort she took his place at the microscope, while he stood beside +her and almost leaning over her. + +She found she was trembling at his nearness and full of a thrilling +dread that he might touch her. She pulled herself together and put her +eye to the eye-piece. + +“You see the pointer?” he asked. + +“I see the pointer,” she said. + +“It’s like this,” he said, and dragged a stool beside her and sat down +with his elbow four inches from hers and made a sketch. Then he got up +and left her. + +She had a feeling at his departure as of an immense cavity, of something +enormously gone; she could not tell whether it was infinite regret or +infinite relief.... + +But now Ann Veronica knew what was the matter with her. + + + +Part 8 + + +And as she sat on her bed that night, musing and half-undressed, she +began to run one hand down her arm and scrutinize the soft flow of +muscle under her skin. She thought of the marvellous beauty of skin, +and all the delightfulness of living texture. Oh the back of her arm she +found the faintest down of hair in the world. “Etherialized monkey,” she +said. She held out her arm straight before her, and turned her hand this +way and that. + +“Why should one pretend?” she whispered. “Why should one pretend? + +“Think of all the beauty in the world that is covered up and overlaid.” + +She glanced shyly at the mirror above her dressing-table, and then about +her at the furniture, as though it might penetrate to the thoughts that +peeped in her mind. + +“I wonder,” said Ann Veronica at last, “if I am beautiful? I wonder if I +shall ever shine like a light, like a translucent goddess?-- + +“I wonder-- + +“I suppose girls and women have prayed for this, have come to this--In +Babylon, in Nineveh. + +“Why shouldn’t one face the facts of one’s self?” + +She stood up. She posed herself before her mirror and surveyed herself +with gravely thoughtful, gravely critical, and yet admiring eyes. “And, +after all, I am just one common person!” + +She watched the throb of the arteries in the stem of her neck, and +put her hand at last gently and almost timidly to where her heart beat +beneath her breast. + + + +Part 9 + + +The realization that she was in love flooded Ann Veronica’s mind, and +altered the quality of all its topics. + +She began to think persistently of Capes, and it seemed to her now that +for some weeks at least she must have been thinking persistently of +him unawares. She was surprised to find how stored her mind was with +impressions and memories of him, how vividly she remembered his gestures +and little things that he had said. It occurred to her that it was +absurd and wrong to be so continuously thinking of one engrossing topic, +and she made a strenuous effort to force her mind to other questions. + +But it was extraordinary what seemingly irrelevant things could restore +her to the thought of Capes again. And when she went to sleep, then +always Capes became the novel and wonderful guest of her dreams. + +For a time it really seemed all-sufficient to her that she should love. +That Capes should love her seemed beyond the compass of her imagination. +Indeed, she did not want to think of him as loving her. She wanted to +think of him as her beloved person, to be near him and watch him, +to have him going about, doing this and that, saying this and that, +unconscious of her, while she too remained unconscious of herself. To +think of him as loving her would make all that different. Then he would +turn his face to her, and she would have to think of herself in his +eyes. She would become defensive--what she did would be the thing that +mattered. He would require things of her, and she would be passionately +concerned to meet his requirements. Loving was better than that. Loving +was self-forgetfulness, pure delighting in another human being. She felt +that with Capes near to her she would be content always to go on loving. + +She went next day to the schools, and her world seemed all made of +happiness just worked up roughly into shapes and occasions and duties. +She found she could do her microscope work all the better for being in +love. She winced when first she heard the preparation-room door open and +Capes came down the laboratory; but when at last he reached her she was +self-possessed. She put a stool for him at a little distance from her +own, and after he had seen the day’s work he hesitated, and then plunged +into a resumption of their discussion about beauty. + +“I think,” he said, “I was a little too mystical about beauty the other +day.” + +“I like the mystical way,” she said. + +“Our business here is the right way. I’ve been thinking, you know--I’m +not sure that primarily the perception of beauty isn’t just intensity +of feeling free from pain; intensity of perception without any tissue +destruction.” + +“I like the mystical way better,” said Ann Veronica, and thought. + +“A number of beautiful things are not intense.” + +“But delicacy, for example, may be intensely perceived.” + +“But why is one face beautiful and another not?” objected Ann Veronica; +“on your theory any two faces side by side in the sunlight ought to be +equally beautiful. One must get them with exactly the same intensity.” + +He did not agree with that. “I don’t mean simply intensity of sensation. +I said intensity of perception. You may perceive harmony, proportion, +rhythm, intensely. They are things faint and slight in themselves, as +physical facts, but they are like the detonator of a bomb: they +let loose the explosive. There’s the internal factor as well as the +external.... I don’t know if I express myself clearly. I mean that +the point is that vividness of perception is the essential factor of +beauty; but, of course, vividness may be created by a whisper.” + +“That brings us back,” said Ann Veronica, “to the mystery. Why should +some things and not others open the deeps?” + +“Well, that might, after all, be an outcome of selection--like the +preference for blue flowers, which are not nearly so bright as yellow, +of some insects.” + +“That doesn’t explain sunsets.” + +“Not quite so easily as it explains an insect alighting on colored +paper. But perhaps if people didn’t like clear, bright, healthy +eyes--which is biologically understandable--they couldn’t like precious +stones. One thing may be a necessary collateral of the others. And, +after all, a fine clear sky of bright colors is the signal to come out +of hiding and rejoice and go on with life.” + +“H’m!” said Ann Veronica, and shook her head. + +Capes smiled cheerfully with his eyes meeting hers. “I throw it out +in passing,” he said. “What I am after is that beauty isn’t a special +inserted sort of thing; that’s my idea. It’s just life, pure life, life +nascent, running clear and strong.” + +He stood up to go on to the next student. + +“There’s morbid beauty,” said Ann Veronica. + +“I wonder if there is!” said Capes, and paused, and then bent down over +the boy who wore his hair like Russell. + +Ann Veronica surveyed his sloping back for a moment, and then drew her +microscope toward her. Then for a time she sat very still. She felt that +she had passed a difficult corner, and that now she could go on talking +with him again, just as she had been used to do before she understood +what was the matter with her.... + +She had one idea, she found, very clear in her mind--that she would get +a Research Scholarship, and so contrive another year in the laboratory. + +“Now I see what everything means,” said Ann Veronica to herself; and it +really felt for some days as though the secret of the universe, that had +been wrapped and hidden from her so obstinately, was at last altogether +displayed. + + + +CHAPTER THE NINTH + +DISCORDS + +Part 1 + +One afternoon, soon after Ann Veronica’s great discovery, a telegram +came into the laboratory for her. It ran: + + --------------------------------------------------- + | Bored | and | nothing | to | do | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | will | you | dine | with | me | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | to-night | somewhere | and | talk | I | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | shall | be | grateful | Ramage | | + --------------------------------------------------- + +Ann Veronica was rather pleased by this. She had not seen Ramage for ten +or eleven days, and she was quite ready for a gossip with him. And now +her mind was so full of the thought that she was in love--in love!--that +marvellous state! that I really believe she had some dim idea of talking +to him about it. At any rate, it would be good to hear him saying the +sort of things he did--perhaps now she would grasp them better--with +this world-shaking secret brandishing itself about inside her head +within a yard of him. + +She was sorry to find Ramage a little disposed to be melancholy. + +“I have made over seven hundred pounds in the last week,” he said. + +“That’s exhilarating,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Not a bit of it,” he said; “it’s only a score in a game.” + +“It’s a score you can buy all sorts of things with.” + +“Nothing that one wants.” + +He turned to the waiter, who held a wine-card. “Nothing can cheer me,” + he said, “except champagne.” He meditated. “This,” he said, and then: +“No! Is this sweeter? Very well.” + +“Everything goes well with me,” he said, folding his arms under him and +regarding Ann Veronica with the slightly projecting eyes wide open. “And +I’m not happy. I believe I’m in love.” + +He leaned back for his soup. + +Presently he resumed: “I believe I must be in love.” + +“You can’t be that,” said Ann Veronica, wisely. + +“How do you know?” + +“Well, it isn’t exactly a depressing state, is it?” + +“YOU don’t know.” + +“One has theories,” said Ann Veronica, radiantly. + +“Oh, theories! Being in love is a fact.” + +“It ought to make one happy.” + +“It’s an unrest--a longing--What’s that?” The waiter had intervened. +“Parmesan--take it away!” + +He glanced at Ann Veronica’s face, and it seemed to him that she really +was exceptionally radiant. He wondered why she thought love made people +happy, and began to talk of the smilax and pinks that adorned the table. +He filled her glass with champagne. “You MUST,” he said, “because of my +depression.” + +They were eating quails when they returned to the topic of love. “What +made you think” he said, abruptly, with the gleam of avidity in his +face, “that love makes people happy?” + +“I know it must.” + +“But how?” + +He was, she thought, a little too insistent. “Women know these things by +instinct,” she answered. + +“I wonder,” he said, “if women do know things by instinct? I have +my doubts about feminine instinct. It’s one of our conventional +superstitions. A woman is supposed to know when a man is in love with +her. Do you think she does?” + +Ann Veronica picked among her salad with a judicial expression of face. +“I think she would,” she decided. + +“Ah!” said Ramage, impressively. + +Ann Veronica looked up at him and found him regarding her with eyes that +were almost woebegone, and into which, indeed, he was trying to throw +much more expression than they could carry. There was a little pause +between them, full for Ann Veronica of rapid elusive suspicions and +intimations. + +“Perhaps one talks nonsense about a woman’s instinct,” she said. “It’s +a way of avoiding explanations. And girls and women, perhaps, are +different. I don’t know. I don’t suppose a girl can tell if a man is in +love with her or not in love with her.” Her mind went off to Capes. Her +thoughts took words for themselves. “She can’t. I suppose it depends on +her own state of mind. If one wants a thing very much, perhaps one is +inclined to think one can’t have it. I suppose if one were to love some +one, one would feel doubtful. And if one were to love some one very +much, it’s just so that one would be blindest, just when one wanted most +to see.” + +She stopped abruptly, afraid that Ramage might be able to infer Capes +from the things she had said, and indeed his face was very eager. + +“Yes?” he said. + +Ann Veronica blushed. “That’s all,” she said “I’m afraid I’m a little +confused about these things.” + +Ramage looked at her, and then fell into deep reflection as the waiter +came to paragraph their talk again. + +“Have you ever been to the opera, Ann Veronica?” said Ramage. + +“Once or twice.” + +“Shall we go now?” + +“I think I would like to listen to music. What is there?” + +“Tristan.” + +“I’ve never heard Tristan and Isolde.” + +“That settles it. We’ll go. There’s sure to be a place somewhere.” + +“It’s rather jolly of you,” said Ann Veronica. + +“It’s jolly of you to come,” said Ramage. + +So presently they got into a hansom together, and Ann Veronica sat back +feeling very luxurious and pleasant, and looked at the light and stir +and misty glitter of the street traffic from under slightly drooping +eyelids, while Ramage sat closer to her than he need have done, and +glanced ever and again at her face, and made to speak and said nothing. +And when they got to Covent Garden Ramage secured one of the little +upper boxes, and they came into it as the overture began. + +Ann Veronica took off her jacket and sat down in the corner chair, and +leaned forward to look into the great hazy warm brown cavity of the +house, and Ramage placed his chair to sit beside her and near her, +facing the stage. The music took hold of her slowly as her eyes wandered +from the indistinct still ranks of the audience to the little busy +orchestra with its quivering violins, its methodical movements of brown +and silver instruments, its brightly lit scores and shaded lights. She +had never been to the opera before except as one of a congested mass of +people in the cheaper seats, and with backs and heads and women’s hats +for the frame of the spectacle; there was by contrast a fine large sense +of space and ease in her present position. The curtain rose out of the +concluding bars of the overture and revealed Isolde on the prow of the +barbaric ship. The voice of the young seaman came floating down from the +masthead, and the story of the immortal lovers had begun. She knew +the story only imperfectly, and followed it now with a passionate and +deepening interest. The splendid voices sang on from phase to phase of +love’s unfolding, the ship drove across the sea to the beating rhythm of +the rowers. The lovers broke into passionate knowledge of themselves and +each other, and then, a jarring intervention, came King Mark amidst the +shouts of the sailormen, and stood beside them. + +The curtain came festooning slowly down, the music ceased, the lights +in the auditorium glowed out, and Ann Veronica woke out of her confused +dream of involuntary and commanding love in a glory of sound and colors +to discover that Ramage was sitting close beside her with one hand +resting lightly on her waist. She made a quick movement, and the hand +fell away. + +“By God! Ann Veronica,” he said, sighing deeply. “This stirs one.” + +She sat quite still looking at him. + +“I wish you and I had drunk that love potion,” he said. + +She found no ready reply to that, and he went on: “This music is the +food of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure. Life! Life and +love! It makes me want to be always young, always strong, always +devoting my life--and dying splendidly.” + +“It is very beautiful,” said Ann Veronica in a low tone. + +They said no more for a moment, and each was now acutely aware of the +other. Ann Veronica was excited and puzzled, with a sense of a strange +and disconcerting new light breaking over her relations with Ramage. +She had never thought of him at all in that way before. It did not shock +her; it amazed her, interested her beyond measure. But also this must +not go on. She felt he was going to say something more--something +still more personal and intimate. She was curious, and at the same time +clearly resolved she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talking +upon some impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. +“What is the exact force of a motif?” she asked at random. “Before I +heard much Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic descriptions of it from +a mistress I didn’t like at school. She gave me an impression of a sort +of patched quilt; little bits of patterned stuff coming up again and +again.” + +She stopped with an air of interrogation. + +Ramage looked at her for a long and discriminating interval without +speaking. He seemed to be hesitating between two courses of action. “I +don’t know much about the technique of music,” he said at last, with his +eyes upon her. “It’s a matter of feeling with me.” + +He contradicted himself by plunging into an exposition of motifs. + +By a tacit agreement they ignored the significant thing between them, +ignored the slipping away of the ground on which they had stood together +hitherto.... + +All through the love music of the second act, until the hunting horns of +Mark break in upon the dream, Ann Veronica’s consciousness was flooded +with the perception of a man close beside her, preparing some new thing +to say to her, preparing, perhaps, to touch her, stretching hungry +invisible tentacles about her. She tried to think what she should do in +this eventuality or that. Her mind had been and was full of the thought +of Capes, a huge generalized Capes-lover. And in some incomprehensible +way, Ramage was confused with Capes; she had a grotesque disposition to +persuade herself that this was really Capes who surrounded her, as it +were, with wings of desire. The fact that it was her trusted friend +making illicit love to her remained, in spite of all her effort, an +insignificant thing in her mind. The music confused and distracted her, +and made her struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam. +That was the inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The music +throbbed into the warnings that preceded the king’s irruption. + +Abruptly he gripped her wrist. “I love you, Ann Veronica. I love +you--with all my heart and soul.” + +She put her face closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of his. +“DON’T!” she said, and wrenched her wrist from his retaining hand. + +“My God! Ann Veronica,” he said, struggling to keep his hold upon her; +“my God! Tell me--tell me now--tell me you love me!” + +His expression was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered in +whispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next box peeping +beyond the partition within a yard of him. + +“My hand! This isn’t the place.” + +He released her hand and talked in eager undertones against an auditory +background of urgency and distress. + +“Ann Veronica,” he said, “I tell you this is love. I love the soles of +your feet. I love your very breath. I have tried not to tell you--tried +to be simply your friend. It is no good. I want you. I worship you. I +would do anything--I would give anything to make you mine.... Do you +hear me? Do you hear what I am saying?... Love!” + +He held her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive movement. +For a long time neither spoke again. + +She sat drawn together in her chair in the corner of the box, at a loss +what to say or do--afraid, curious, perplexed. It seemed to her that +it was her duty to get up and clamor to go home to her room, to protest +against his advances as an insult. But she did not in the least want +to do that. These sweeping dignities were not within the compass of her +will; she remembered she liked Ramage, and owed things to him, and she +was interested--she was profoundly interested. He was in love with +her! She tried to grasp all the welter of values in the situation +simultaneously, and draw some conclusion from their disorder. + +He began to talk again in quick undertones that she could not clearly +hear. + +“I have loved you,” he was saying, “ever since you sat on that gate and +talked. I have always loved you. I don’t care what divides us. I don’t +care what else there is in the world. I want you beyond measure or +reckoning....” + +His voice rose and fell amidst the music and the singing of Tristan and +King Mark, like a voice heard in a badly connected telephone. She stared +at his pleading face. + +She turned to the stage, and Tristan was wounded in Kurvenal’s arms, +with Isolde at his feet, and King Mark, the incarnation of masculine +force and obligation, the masculine creditor of love and beauty, stood +over him, and the second climax was ending in wreaths and reek of +melodies; and then the curtain was coming down in a series of short +rushes, the music had ended, and the people were stirring and breaking +out into applause, and the lights of the auditorium were resuming. The +lighting-up pierced the obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped his +urgent flow of words abruptly and sat back. This helped to restore Ann +Veronica’s self-command. + +She turned her eyes to him again, and saw her late friend and pleasant +and trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to change into a lover, +babbling interesting inacceptable things. He looked eager and flushed +and troubled. His eyes caught at hers with passionate inquiries. “Tell +me,” he said; “speak to me.” She realized it was possible to be sorry +for him--acutely sorry for the situation. Of course this thing was +absolutely impossible. But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed. +She remembered abruptly that she was really living upon his money. She +leaned forward and addressed him. + +“Mr. Ramage,” she said, “please don’t talk like this.” + +He made to speak and did not. + +“I don’t want you to do it, to go on talking to me. I don’t want to hear +you. If I had known that you had meant to talk like this I wouldn’t have +come here.” + +“But how can I help it? How can I keep silence?” + +“Please!” she insisted. “Please not now.” + +“I MUST talk with you. I must say what I have to say!” + +“But not now--not here.” + +“It came,” he said. “I never planned it--And now I have begun--” + +She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and as acutely +that explanations were impossible that night. She wanted to think. + +“Mr. Ramage,” she said, “I can’t--Not now. Will you please--Not now, or +I must go.” + +He stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of her thoughts. + +“You don’t want to go?” + +“No. But I must--I ought--” + +“I MUST talk about this. Indeed I must.” + +“Not now.” + +“But I love you. I love you--unendurably.” + +“Then don’t talk to me now. I don’t want you to talk to me now. There is +a place--This isn’t the place. You have misunderstood. I can’t explain--” + +They regarded one another, each blinded to the other. “Forgive me,” he +decided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver of emotion, +and he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. “I am the most foolish of +men. I was stupid--stupid and impulsive beyond measure to burst upon +you in this way. I--I am a love-sick idiot, and not accountable for my +actions. Will you forgive me--if I say no more?” + +She looked at him with perplexed, earnest eyes. + +“Pretend,” he said, “that all I have said hasn’t been said. And let us +go on with our evening. Why not? Imagine I’ve had a fit of hysteria--and +that I’ve come round.” + +“Yes,” she said, and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt this +was the sensible way out of this oddly sinister situation. + +He still watched her and questioned her. + +“And let us have a talk about this--some other time. Somewhere, where we +can talk without interruption. Will you?” + +She thought, and it seemed to him she had never looked so +self-disciplined and deliberate and beautiful. “Yes,” she said, “that +is what we ought to do.” But now she doubted again of the quality of the +armistice they had just made. + +He had a wild impulse to shout. “Agreed,” he said with queer exaltation, +and his grip tightened on her hand. “And to-night we are friends?” + +“We are friends,” said Ann Veronica, and drew her hand quickly away from +him. + +“To-night we are as we have always been. Except that this music we have +been swimming in is divine. While I have been pestering you, have you +heard it? At least, you heard the first act. And all the third act is +love-sick music. Tristan dying and Isolde coming to crown his death. +Wagner had just been in love when he wrote it all. It begins with that +queer piccolo solo. Now I shall never hear it but what this evening will +come pouring back over me.” + +The lights sank, the prelude to the third act was beginning, the +music rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers separated--lovers +separated with scars and memories between them, and the curtain went +reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch and the +shepherd crouching with his pipe. + + + +Part 2 + + +They had their explanations the next evening, but they were explanations +in quite other terms than Ann Veronica had anticipated, quite other and +much more startling and illuminating terms. Ramage came for her at her +lodgings, and she met him graciously and kindly as a queen who knows she +must needs give sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually soft +and gentle in her manner to him. He was wearing a new silk hat, with a +slightly more generous brim than its predecessor, and it suited his type +of face, robbed his dark eyes a little of their aggressiveness and gave +him a solid and dignified and benevolent air. A faint anticipation of +triumph showed in his manner and a subdued excitement. + +“We’ll go to a place where we can have a private room,” he said. +“Then--then we can talk things out.” + +So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and up-stairs +to a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with whiskers like a +French admiral and discretion beyond all limits in his manner. He seemed +to have expected them. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into a +minute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa, +and a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers. + +“Odd little room,” said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusive +sofa. + +“One can talk without undertones, so to speak,” said Ramage. +“It’s--private.” He stood looking at the preparations before them with +an unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to take her +jacket, a little awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter who hung it in the +corner of the room. It appeared he had already ordered dinner and +wine, and the whiskered waiter waved in his subordinate with the soup +forthwith. + +“I’m going to talk of indifferent themes,” said Ramage, a little +fussily, “until these interruptions of the service are over. Then--then +we shall be together.... How did you like Tristan?” + +Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply came. + +“I thought much of it amazingly beautiful.” + +“Isn’t it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest little +love-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of it?” + +“Never.” + +“It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get +this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately in +love with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, a +tapestry of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who love +in spite of all that is wise and respectable and right.” + +Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink from +conversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through her +mind. “I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so careless of other +considerations?” + +“The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief thing in +life.” He stopped and said earnestly: “It is the chief thing in +life, and everything else goes down before it. Everything, my dear, +everything!... But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes until +we have done with this blond young gentleman from Bavaria....” + +The dinner came to an end at last, and the whiskered waiter presented +his bill and evacuated the apartment and closed the door behind him with +an almost ostentatious discretion. Ramage stood up, and suddenly turned +the key in the door in an off-hand manner. “Now,” he said, “no one can +blunder in upon us. We are alone and we can say and do what we please. +We two.” He stood still, looking at her. + +Ann Veronica tried to seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of the +key startled her, but she did not see how she could make an objection. +She felt she had stepped into a world of unknown usages. + +“I have waited for this,” he said, and stood quite still, looking at her +until the silence became oppressive. + +“Won’t you sit down,” she said, “and tell me what you want to say?” Her +voice was flat and faint. Suddenly she had become afraid. She struggled +not to be afraid. After all, what could happen? + +He was looking at her very hard and earnestly. “Ann Veronica,” he said. + +Then before she could say a word to arrest him he was at her side. +“Don’t!” she said, weakly, as he had bent down and put one arm about her +and seized her hands with his disengaged hand and kissed her--kissed her +almost upon her lips. He seemed to do ten things before she could think +to do one, to leap upon her and take possession. + +Ann Veronica’s universe, which had never been altogether so respectful +to her as she could have wished, gave a shout and whirled head over +heels. Everything in the world had changed for her. If hate could kill, +Ramage would have been killed by a flash of hate. “Mr. Ramage!” she +cried, and struggled to her feet. + +“My darling!” he said, clasping her resolutely in his arms, “my +dearest!” + +“Mr. Ramage!” she began, and his mouth sealed hers and his breath was +mixed with her breath. Her eye met his four inches away, and his was +glaring, immense, and full of resolution, a stupendous monster of an +eye. + +She shut her lips hard, her jaw hardened, and she set herself to +struggle with him. She wrenched her head away from his grip and got her +arm between his chest and hers. They began to wrestle fiercely. Each +became frightfully aware of the other as a plastic energetic body, +of the strong muscles of neck against cheek, of hands gripping +shoulder-blade and waist. “How dare you!” she panted, with her world +screaming and grimacing insult at her. “How dare you!” + +They were both astonished at the other’s strength. Perhaps Ramage was +the more astonished. Ann Veronica had been an ardent hockey player and +had had a course of jiu-jitsu in the High School. Her defence ceased +rapidly to be in any sense ladylike, and became vigorous and effective; +a strand of black hair that had escaped its hairpins came athwart +Ramage’s eyes, and then the knuckles of a small but very hardly clinched +fist had thrust itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness under +his jawbone and ear. + +“Let go!” said Ann Veronica, through her teeth, strenuously inflicting +agony, and he cried out sharply and let go and receded a pace. + +“NOW!” said Ann Veronica. “Why did you dare to do that?” + + + +Part 3 + + +Each of them stared at the other, set in a universe that had changed its +system of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. She was flushed, and +her eyes were bright and angry; her breath came sobbing, and her hair +was all abroad in wandering strands of black. He too was flushed and +ruffled; one side of his collar had slipped from its stud and he held a +hand to the corner of his jaw. + +“You vixen!” said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought of his +heart. + +“You had no right--” panted Ann Veronica. + +“Why on earth,” he asked, “did you hurt me like that?” + +Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately attempted to +cause him pain. She ignored his question. + +“I never dreamt!” she said. + +“What on earth did you expect me to do, then?” he asked. + + + +Part 4 + + +Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; she +understood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She +understood. She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of furtive base +realizations. She wanted to cry out upon herself for the uttermost fool +in existence. + +“I thought you wanted to have a talk to me,” she said. + +“I wanted to make love to you. + +“You knew it,” he added, in her momentary silence. + +“You said you were in love with me,” said Ann Veronica; “I wanted to +explain--” + +“I said I loved and wanted you.” The brutality of his first astonishment +was evaporating. “I am in love with you. You know I am in love with you. +And then you go--and half throttle me.... I believe you’ve crushed a +gland or something. It feels like it.” + +“I am sorry,” said Ann Veronica. “What else was I to do?” + +For some seconds she stood watching him and both were thinking very +quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether discreditable to +her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed to faint and scream at +all these happenings; she ought to have maintained a front of outraged +dignity to veil the sinking of her heart. I would like to have to tell +it so. But indeed that is not at all a good description of her attitude. +She was an indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted +within limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some +low adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at least if +base, going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent meeting-places +of her mind declaring that the whole affair was after all--they are the +only words that express it--a very great lark indeed. At the bottom +of her heart she was not a bit afraid of Ramage. She had unaccountable +gleams of sympathy with and liking for him. And the grotesquest fact +was that she did not so much loathe, as experience with a quite critical +condemnation this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before had +any human being kissed her lips.... + +It was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements evaporated +and vanished and loathing came, and she really began to be thoroughly +sick and ashamed of the whole disgraceful quarrel and scuffle. + +He, for his part, was trying to grasp the series of unexpected reactions +that had so wrecked their tete-a-tete. He had meant to be master of his +fate that evening and it had escaped him altogether. It had, as it were, +blown up at the concussion of his first step. It dawned upon him that he +had been abominably used by Ann Veronica. + +“Look here,” he said, “I brought you here to make love to you.” + +“I didn’t understand--your idea of making love. You had better let me go +again.” + +“Not yet,” he said. “I do love you. I love you all the more for the +streak of sheer devil in you.... You are the most beautiful, the most +desirable thing I have ever met in this world. It was good to kiss you, +even at the price. But, by Jove! you are fierce! You are like those +Roman women who carry stilettos in their hair.” + +“I came here to talk reasonably, Mr. Ramage. It is abominable--” + +“What is the use of keeping up this note of indignation, Ann Veronica? +Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean to have you! Don’t +frown me off now. Don’t go back into Victorian respectability and +pretend you don’t know and you can’t think and all the rest of it. One +comes at last to the step from dreams to reality. This is your moment. +No one will ever love you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of +your body and you night after night. I have been imaging--” + +“Mr. Ramage, I came here--I didn’t suppose for one moment you would +dare--” + +“Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You want to +do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses. You are afraid +of the warmth in your blood. It’s just because all that side of your +life hasn’t fairly begun.” + +He made a step toward her. + +“Mr. Ramage,” she said, sharply, “I have to make it plain to you. I +don’t think you understand. I don’t love you. I don’t. I can’t love you. +I love some one else. It is repulsive. It disgusts me that you should +touch me.” + +He stared in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. “You love +some one else?” he repeated. + +“I love some one else. I could not dream of loving you.” + +And then he flashed his whole conception of the relations of men and +women upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went with an almost +instinctive inquiry to his jawbone again. “Then why the devil,” he +demanded, “do you let me stand you dinners and the opera--and why do you +come to a cabinet particuliar with me?” + +He became radiant with anger. “You mean to tell me” he said, “that you +have a lover? While I have been keeping you! Yes--keeping you!” + +This view of life he hurled at her as if it were an offensive missile. +It stunned her. She felt she must fly before it and could no longer do +so. She did not think for one moment what interpretation he might put +upon the word “lover.” + +“Mr. Ramage,” she said, clinging to her one point, “I want to get out of +this horrible little room. It has all been a mistake. I have been stupid +and foolish. Will you unlock that door?” + +“Never!” he said. “Confound your lover! Look here! Do you really think +I am going to run you while he makes love to you? No fear! I never heard +of anything so cool. If he wants you, let him get you. You’re mine. I’ve +paid for you and helped you, and I’m going to conquer you somehow--if +I have to break you to do it. Hitherto you’ve seen only my easy, kindly +side. But now confound it! how can you prevent it? I will kiss you.” + +“You won’t!” said Ann Veronica; with the clearest note of determination. + +He seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped back quickly, and +her hand knocked a wine-glass from the table to smash noisily on the +floor. She caught at the idea. “If you come a step nearer to me,” she +said, “I will smash every glass on this table.” + +“Then, by God!” he said, “you’ll be locked up!” + +Ann Veronica was disconcerted for a moment. She had a vision of +policemen, reproving magistrates, a crowded court, public disgrace. She +saw her aunt in tears, her father white-faced and hard hit. “Don’t come +nearer!” she said. + +There was a discreet knocking at the door, and Ramage’s face changed. + +“No,” she said, under her breath, “you can’t face it.” And she knew that +she was safe. + +He went to the door. “It’s all right,” he said, reassuringly to the +inquirer without. + +Ann Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and dishevelled +disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of her hair, while +Ramage parleyed with inaudible interrogations. “A glass slipped from the +table,” he explained.... “Non. Fas du tout. Non.... Niente.... Bitte!... +Oui, dans la note.... Presently. Presently.” That conversation ended and +he turned to her again. + +“I am going,” she said grimly, with three hairpins in her mouth. + +She took her hat from the peg in the corner and began to put it on. He +regarded that perennial miracle of pinning with wrathful eyes. + +“Look here, Ann Veronica,” he began. “I want a plain word with you about +all this. Do you mean to tell me you didn’t understand why I wanted you +to come here?” + +“Not a bit of it,” said Ann Veronica stoutly. + +“You didn’t expect that I should kiss you?” + +“How was I to know that a man would--would think it was possible--when +there was nothing--no love?” + +“How did I know there wasn’t love?” + +That silenced her for a moment. “And what on earth,” he said, “do you +think the world is made of? Why do you think I have been doing things +for you? The abstract pleasure of goodness? Are you one of the members +of that great white sisterhood that takes and does not give? The good +accepting woman! Do you really suppose a girl is entitled to live at +free quarters on any man she meets without giving any return?” + +“I thought,” said Ann Veronica, “you were my friend.” + +“Friend! What have a man and a girl in common to make them friends? Ask +that lover of yours! And even with friends, would you have it all Give +on one side and all Take on the other?... Does HE know I keep you?... +You won’t have a man’s lips near you, but you’ll eat out of his hand +fast enough.” + +Ann Veronica was stung to helpless anger. + +“Mr. Ramage,” she cried, “you are outrageous! You understand nothing. +You are--horrible. Will you let me go out of this room?” + +“No,” cried Ramage; “hear me out! I’ll have that satisfaction, anyhow. +You women, with your tricks of evasion, you’re a sex of swindlers. +You have all the instinctive dexterity of parasites. You make yourself +charming for help. You climb by disappointing men. This lover of +yours--” + +“He doesn’t know!” cried Ann Veronica. + +“Well, you know.” + +Ann Veronica could have wept with vexation. Indeed, a note of weeping +broke her voice for a moment as she burst out, “You know as well as I do +that money was a loan!” + +“Loan!” + +“You yourself called it a loan!” + +“Euphuism. We both understood that.” + +“You shall have every penny of it back.” + +“I’ll frame it--when I get it.” + +“I’ll pay you if I have to work at shirt-making at threepence an hour.” + +“You’ll never pay me. You think you will. It’s your way of glossing over +the ethical position. It’s the sort of way a woman always does gloss +over her ethical positions. You’re all dependents--all of you. By +instinct. Only you good ones--shirk. You shirk a straightforward and +decent return for what you get from us--taking refuge in purity and +delicacy and such-like when it comes to payment.” + +“Mr. Ramage,” said Ann Veronica, “I want to go--NOW!” + + + +Part 5 + + +But she did not get away just then. + +Ramage’s bitterness passed as abruptly as his aggression. “Oh, +Ann Veronica!” he cried, “I cannot let you go like this! You don’t +understand. You can’t possibly understand!” + +He began a confused explanation, a perplexing contradictory apology for +his urgency and wrath. He loved Ann Veronica, he said; he was so mad +to have her that he defeated himself, and did crude and alarming and +senseless things. His vicious abusiveness vanished. He suddenly became +eloquent and plausible. He did make her perceive something of the acute, +tormenting desire for her that had arisen in him and possessed him. +She stood, as it were, directed doorward, with her eyes watching every +movement, listening to him, repelled by him and yet dimly understanding. + +At any rate he made it very clear that night that there was an +ineradicable discord in life, a jarring something that must shatter all +her dreams of a way of living for women that would enable them to be +free and spacious and friendly with men, and that was the passionate +predisposition of men to believe that the love of women can be earned +and won and controlled and compelled. + +He flung aside all his talk of help and disinterested friendship as +though it had never been even a disguise between them, as though +from the first it was no more than a fancy dress they had put quite +understandingly upon their relationship. He had set out to win her, and +she had let him start. And at the thought of that other lover--he was +convinced that that beloved person was a lover, and she found herself +unable to say a word to explain to him that this other person, the +person she loved, did not even know of her love--Ramage grew angry +and savage once more, and returned suddenly to gibe and insult. Men do +services for the love of women, and the woman who takes must pay. Such +was the simple code that displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left +that arid rule clear of the least mist of refinement or delicacy. + +That he should pay forty pounds to help this girl who preferred another +man was no less in his eyes than a fraud and mockery that made her +denial a maddening and outrageous disgrace to him. And this though he +was evidently passionately in love with her. + +For a while he threatened her. “You have put all your life in my hands,” + he declared. “Think of that check you endorsed. There it is--against +you. I defy you to explain it away. What do you think people will make +of that? What will this lover of yours make of that?” + +At intervals Ann Veronica demanded to go, declaring her undying resolve +to repay him at any cost, and made short movements doorward. + +But at last this ordeal was over, and Ramage opened the door. She +emerged with a white face and wide-open eyes upon a little, red-lit +landing. She went past three keenly observant and ostentatiously +preoccupied waiters down the thick-carpeted staircase and out of the +Hotel Rococo, that remarkable laboratory of relationships, past a tall +porter in blue and crimson, into a cool, clear night. + + + +Part 6 + + +When Ann Veronica reached her little bed-sitting-room again, every nerve +in her body was quivering with shame and self-disgust. + +She threw hat and coat on the bed and sat down before the fire. + +“And now,” she said, splintering the surviving piece of coal into +indignant flame-spurting fragments with one dexterous blow, “what am I +to do? + +“I’m in a hole!--mess is a better word, expresses it better. I’m in a +mess--a nasty mess! a filthy mess! Oh, no end of a mess! + +“Do you hear, Ann Veronica?--you’re in a nasty, filthy, unforgivable +mess! + +“Haven’t I just made a silly mess of things? + +“Forty pounds! I haven’t got twenty!” + +She got up, stamped with her foot, and then, suddenly remembering the +lodger below, sat down and wrenched off her boots. + +“This is what comes of being a young woman up to date. By Jove! I’m +beginning to have my doubts about freedom! + +“You silly young woman, Ann Veronica! You silly young woman! The +smeariness of the thing! + +“The smeariness of this sort of thing!... Mauled about!” + +She fell to rubbing her insulted lips savagely with the back of her +hand. “Ugh!” she said. + +“The young women of Jane Austen’s time didn’t get into this sort of +scrape! At least--one thinks so.... I wonder if some of them did--and +it didn’t get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet moments. Most of +them didn’t, anyhow. They were properly brought up, and sat still and +straight, and took the luck fate brought them as gentlewomen should. +And they had an idea of what men were like behind all their nicety. They +knew they were all Bogey in disguise. I didn’t! I didn’t! After all--” + +For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its defensive restraints +as though it was the one desirable thing. That world of fine printed +cambrics and escorted maidens, of delicate secondary meanings and +refined allusiveness, presented itself to her imagination with the +brightness of a lost paradise, as indeed for many women it is a lost +paradise. + +“I wonder if there is anything wrong with my manners,” she said. “I +wonder if I’ve been properly brought up. If I had been quite quiet and +white and dignified, wouldn’t it have been different? Would he have +dared?...” + +For some creditable moments in her life Ann Veronica was utterly +disgusted with herself; she was wrung with a passionate and belated +desire to move gently, to speak softly and ambiguously--to be, in +effect, prim. + +Horrible details recurred to her. + +“Why, among other things, did I put my knuckles in his +neck--deliberately to hurt him?” + +She tried to sound the humorous note. + +“Are you aware, Ann Veronica, you nearly throttled that gentleman?” + +Then she reviled her own foolish way of putting it. + +“You ass and imbecile, Ann Veronica! You female cad! Cad! Cad!... Why +aren’t you folded up clean in lavender--as every young woman ought to +be? What have you been doing with yourself?...” + +She raked into the fire with the poker. + +“All of which doesn’t help me in the slightest degree to pay back that +money.” + +That night was the most intolerable one that Ann Veronica had ever +spent. She washed her face with unwonted elaboration before she went +to bed. This time, there was no doubt, she did not sleep. The more +she disentangled the lines of her situation the deeper grew her +self-disgust. Occasionally the mere fact of lying in bed became +unendurable, and she rolled out and marched about her room and whispered +abuse of herself--usually until she hit against some article of +furniture. + +Then she would have quiet times, in which she would say to herself, “Now +look here! Let me think it all out!” + +For the first time, it seemed to her, she faced the facts of a woman’s +position in the world--the meagre realities of such freedom as it +permitted her, the almost unavoidable obligation to some individual man +under which she must labor for even a foothold in the world. She had +flung away from her father’s support with the finest assumption of +personal independence. And here she was--in a mess because it had +been impossible for her to avoid leaning upon another man. She had +thought--What had she thought? That this dependence of women was but +an illusion which needed only to be denied to vanish. She had denied it +with vigor, and here she was! + +She did not so much exhaust this general question as pass from it to her +insoluble individual problem again: “What am I to do?” + +She wanted first of all to fling the forty pounds back into Ramage’s +face. But she had spent nearly half of it, and had no conception of how +such a sum could be made good again. She thought of all sorts of odd and +desperate expedients, and with passionate petulance rejected them all. + +She took refuge in beating her pillow and inventing insulting epithets +for herself. She got up, drew up her blind, and stared out of window at +a dawn-cold vision of chimneys for a time, and then went and sat on the +edge of her bed. What was the alternative to going home? No alternative +appeared in that darkness. + +It seemed intolerable that she should go home and admit herself beaten. +She did most urgently desire to save her face in Morningside Park, and +for long hours she could think of no way of putting it that would not be +in the nature of unconditional admission of defeat. + +“I’d rather go as a chorus-girl,” she said. + +She was not very clear about the position and duties of a chorus-girl, +but it certainly had the air of being a last desperate resort. +There sprang from that a vague hope that perhaps she might extort a +capitulation from her father by a threat to seek that position, and then +with overwhelming clearness it came to her that whatever happened she +would never be able to tell her father about her debt. The completest +capitulation would not wipe out that trouble. And she felt that if she +went home it was imperative to pay. She would always be going to and fro +up the Avenue, getting glimpses of Ramage, seeing him in trains.... + +For a time she promenaded the room. + +“Why did I ever take that loan? An idiot girl in an asylum would have +known better than that! + +“Vulgarity of soul and innocence of mind--the worst of all conceivable +combinations. I wish some one would kill Ramage by accident!... + +“But then they would find that check endorsed in his bureau.... + +“I wonder what he will do?” She tried to imagine situations that might +arise out of Ramage’s antagonism, for he had been so bitter and savage +that she could not believe that he would leave things as they were. + +The next morning she went out with her post-office savings bank-book, +and telegraphed for a warrant to draw out all the money she had in the +world. It amounted to two-and-twenty pounds. She addressed an envelope +to Ramage, and scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, “The rest shall +follow.” The money would be available in the afternoon, and she would +send him four five-pound notes. The rest she meant to keep for +her immediate necessities. A little relieved by this step toward +reinstatement, she went on to the Imperial College to forget her muddle +of problems for a time, if she could, in the presence of Capes. + + + +Part 7 + + +For a time the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue. Her +sleepless night had left her languid but not stupefied, and for an hour +or so the work distracted her altogether from her troubles. + +Then, after Capes had been through her work and had gone on, it came to +her that the fabric of this life of hers was doomed to almost immediate +collapse; that in a little while these studies would cease, and perhaps +she would never set eyes on him again. After that consolations fled. + +The overnight nervous strain began to tell; she became inattentive +to the work before her, and it did not get on. She felt sleepy and +unusually irritable. She lunched at a creamery in Great Portland Street, +and as the day was full of wintry sunshine, spent the rest of the +lunch-hour in a drowsy gloom, which she imagined to be thought upon the +problems of her position, on a seat in Regent’s Park. A girl of fifteen +or sixteen gave her a handbill that she regarded as a tract until she +saw “Votes for Women” at the top. That turned her mind to the more +generalized aspects of her perplexities again. She had never been so +disposed to agree that the position of women in the modern world is +intolerable. + +Capes joined the students at tea, and displayed himself in an impish +mood that sometimes possessed him. He did not notice that Ann Veronica +was preoccupied and heavy-eyed. Miss Klegg raised the question of +women’s suffrage, and he set himself to provoke a duel between her and +Miss Garvice. The youth with the hair brushed back and the spectacled +Scotchman joined in the fray for and against the women’s vote. + +Ever and again Capes appealed to Ann Veronica. He liked to draw her in, +and she did her best to talk. But she did not talk readily, and in +order to say something she plunged a little, and felt she plunged. +Capes scored back with an uncompromising vigor that was his way of +complimenting her intelligence. But this afternoon it discovered an +unusual vein of irritability in her. He had been reading Belfort Bax, +and declared himself a convert. He contrasted the lot of women in +general with the lot of men, presented men as patient, self-immolating +martyrs, and women as the pampered favorites of Nature. A vein of +conviction mingled with his burlesque. + +For a time he and Miss Klegg contradicted one another. + +The question ceased to be a tea-table talk, and became suddenly +tragically real for Ann Veronica. There he sat, cheerfully friendly +in his sex’s freedom--the man she loved, the one man she cared +should unlock the way to the wide world for her imprisoned feminine +possibilities, and he seemed regardless that she stifled under his eyes; +he made a jest of all this passionate insurgence of the souls of women +against the fate of their conditions. + +Miss Garvice repeated again, and almost in the same words she used at +every discussion, her contribution to the great question. + +She thought that women were not made for the struggle and turmoil of +life--their place was the little world, the home; that their power lay +not in votes but in influence over men and in making the minds of their +children fine and splendid. + +“Women should understand men’s affairs, perhaps,” said Miss Garvice, +“but to mingle in them is just to sacrifice that power of influencing +they can exercise now.” + +“There IS something sound in that position,” said Capes, intervening as +if to defend Miss Garvice against a possible attack from Ann Veronica. +“It may not be just and so forth, but, after all, it is how things are. +Women are not in the world in the same sense that men are--fighting +individuals in a scramble. I don’t see how they can be. Every home is a +little recess, a niche, out of the world of business and competition, in +which women and the future shelter.” + +“A little pit!” said Ann Veronica; “a little prison!” + +“It’s just as often a little refuge. Anyhow, that is how things are.” + +“And the man stands as the master at the mouth of the den.” + +“As sentinel. You forget all the mass of training and tradition and +instinct that go to make him a tolerable master. Nature is a mother; her +sympathies have always been feminist, and she has tempered the man to +the shorn woman.” + +“I wish,” said Ann Veronica, with sudden anger, “that you could know +what it is to live in a pit!” + +She stood up as she spoke, and put down her cup beside Miss Garvice’s. +She addressed Capes as though she spoke to him alone. + +“I can’t endure it,” she said. + +Every one turned to her in astonishment. + +She felt she had to go on. “No man can realize,” she said, “what that +pit can be. The way--the way we are led on! We are taught to believe we +are free in the world, to think we are queens.... Then we find out. +We find out no man will treat a woman fairly as man to man--no man. He +wants you--or he doesn’t; and then he helps some other woman against +you.... What you say is probably all true and necessary.... But +think of the disillusionment! Except for our sex we have minds like men, +desires like men. We come out into the world, some of us--” + +She paused. Her words, as she said them, seemed to her to mean nothing, +and there was so much that struggled for expression. “Women are mocked,” + she said. “Whenever they try to take hold of life a man intervenes.” + +She felt, with a sudden horror, that she might weep. She wished she had +not stood up. She wondered wildly why she had stood up. No one spoke, +and she was impelled to flounder on. “Think of the mockery!” she said. +“Think how dumb we find ourselves and stifled! I know we seem to have +a sort of freedom.... Have you ever tried to run and jump in +petticoats, Mr. Capes? Well, think what it must be to live in them--soul +and mind and body! It’s fun for a man to jest at our position.” + +“I wasn’t jesting,” said Capes, abruptly. + +She stood face to face with him, and his voice cut across her speech +and made her stop abruptly. She was sore and overstrung, and it was +intolerable to her that he should stand within three yards of her +unsuspectingly, with an incalculably vast power over her happiness. She +was sore with the perplexities of her preposterous position. She was +sick of herself, of her life, of everything but him; and for him all her +masked and hidden being was crying out. + +She stopped abruptly at the sound of his voice, and lost the thread +of what she was saying. In the pause she realized the attention of the +others converged upon her, and that the tears were brimming over her +eyes. She felt a storm of emotion surging up within her. She became +aware of the Scotch student regarding her with stupendous amazement, +a tea-cup poised in one hairy hand and his faceted glasses showing a +various enlargement of segments of his eye. + +The door into the passage offered itself with an irresistible +invitation--the one alternative to a public, inexplicable passion of +weeping. + +Capes flashed to an understanding of her intention, sprang to his feet, +and opened the door for her retreat. + + + +Part 8 + + +“Why should I ever come back?” she said to herself, as she went down the +staircase. + +She went to the post-office and drew out and sent off her money +to Ramage. And then she came out into the street, sure only of one +thing--that she could not return directly to her lodgings. She wanted +air--and the distraction of having moving and changing things about her. +The evenings were beginning to draw out, and it would not be dark for +an hour. She resolved to walk across the Park to the Zoological gardens, +and so on by way of Primrose Hill to Hampstead Heath. There she would +wander about in the kindly darkness. And think things out.... + +Presently she became aware of footsteps hurrying after her, and glanced +back to find Miss Klegg, a little out of breath, in pursuit. + +Ann Veronica halted a pace, and Miss Klegg came alongside. + +“Do YOU go across the Park?” + +“Not usually. But I’m going to-day. I want a walk.” + +“I’m not surprised at it. I thought Mr. Capes most trying.” + +“Oh, it wasn’t that. I’ve had a headache all day.” + +“I thought Mr. Capes most unfair,” Miss Klegg went on in a small, even +voice; “MOST unfair! I’m glad you spoke out as you did.” + +“I didn’t mind that little argument.” + +“You gave it him well. What you said wanted saying. After you went he +got up and took refuge in the preparation-room. Or else _I_ would have +finished him.” + +Ann Veronica said nothing, and Miss Klegg went on: “He very often +IS--most unfair. He has a way of sitting on people. He wouldn’t like it +if people did it to him. He jumps the words out of your mouth; he takes +hold of what you have to say before you have had time to express it +properly.” + +Pause. + +“I suppose he’s frightfully clever,” said Miss Klegg. + +“He’s a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he can’t be much over thirty,” + said Miss Klegg. + +“He writes very well,” said Ann Veronica. + +“He can’t be more than thirty. He must have married when he was quite a +young man.” + +“Married?” said Ann Veronica. + +“Didn’t you know he was married?” asked Miss Klegg, and was struck by a +thought that made her glance quickly at her companion. + +Ann Veronica had no answer for a moment. She turned her head away +sharply. Some automaton within her produced in a quite unfamiliar voice +the remark, “They’re playing football.” + +“It’s too far for the ball to reach us,” said Miss Klegg. + +“I didn’t know Mr. Capes was married,” said Ann Veronica, resuming the +conversation with an entire disappearance of her former lassitude. + +“Oh yes,” said Miss Klegg; “I thought every one knew.” + +“No,” said Ann Veronica, offhandedly. “Never heard anything of it.” + +“I thought every one knew. I thought every one had heard about it.” + +“But why?” + +“He’s married--and, I believe, living separated from his wife. There was +a case, or something, some years ago.” + +“What case?” + +“A divorce--or something--I don’t know. But I have heard that he almost +had to leave the schools. If it hadn’t been for Professor Russell +standing up for him, they say he would have had to leave.” + +“Was he divorced, do you mean?” + +“No, but he got himself mixed up in a divorce case. I forget the +particulars, but I know it was something very disagreeable. It was among +artistic people.” + +Ann Veronica was silent for a while. + +“I thought every one had heard,” said Miss Klegg. “Or I wouldn’t have +said anything about it.” + +“I suppose all men,” said Ann Veronica, in a tone of detached criticism, +“get some such entanglement. And, anyhow, it doesn’t matter to us.” She +turned abruptly at right angles to the path they followed. “This is my +way back to my side of the Park,” she said. + +“I thought you were coming right across the Park.” + +“Oh no,” said Ann Veronica; “I have some work to do. I just wanted a +breath of air. And they’ll shut the gates presently. It’s not far from +twilight.” + + + + +Part 9 + + +She was sitting brooding over her fire about ten o’clock that night when +a sealed and registered envelope was brought up to her. + +She opened it and drew out a letter, and folded within it were the notes +she had sent off to Ramage that day. The letter began: + + +“MY DEAREST GIRL,--I cannot let you do this foolish thing--” + + +She crumpled notes and letter together in her hand, and then with a +passionate gesture flung them into the fire. Instantly she seized the +poker and made a desperate effort to get them out again. But she was +only able to save a corner of the letter. The twenty pounds burned with +avidity. + +She remained for some seconds crouching at the fender, poker in hand. + +“By Jove!” she said, standing up at last, “that about finishes it, Ann +Veronica!” + + + +CHAPTER THE TENTH + +THE SUFFRAGETTES + + +Part 1 + + +“There is only one way out of all this,” said Ann Veronica, sitting up +in her little bed in the darkness and biting at her nails. + +“I thought I was just up against Morningside Park and father, but it’s +the whole order of things--the whole blessed order of things....” + +She shivered. She frowned and gripped her hands about her knees very +tightly. Her mind developed into savage wrath at the present conditions +of a woman’s life. + +“I suppose all life is an affair of chances. But a woman’s life is all +chance. It’s artificially chance. Find your man, that’s the rule. All +the rest is humbug and delicacy. He’s the handle of life for you. He +will let you live if it pleases him.... + +“Can’t it be altered? + +“I suppose an actress is free?...” + +She tried to think of some altered state of affairs in which these +monstrous limitations would be alleviated, in which women would stand on +their own feet in equal citizenship with men. For a time she brooded on +the ideals and suggestions of the Socialists, on the vague intimations +of an Endowment of Motherhood, of a complete relaxation of that intense +individual dependence for women which is woven into the existing social +order. At the back of her mind there seemed always one irrelevant +qualifying spectator whose presence she sought to disregard. She would +not look at him, would not think of him; when her mind wavered, then +she muttered to herself in the darkness so as to keep hold of her +generalizations. + +“It is true. It is no good waiving the thing; it is true. Unless women +are never to be free, never to be even respected, there must be a +generation of martyrs.... Why shouldn’t we be martyrs? There’s +nothing else for most of us, anyhow. It’s a sort of blacklegging to want +to have a life of one’s own....” + +She repeated, as if she answered an objector: “A sort of blacklegging. + +“A sex of blacklegging clients.” + +Her mind diverged to other aspects, and another type of womanhood. + +“Poor little Miniver! What can she be but what she is?... Because +she states her case in a tangle, drags it through swamps of nonsense, it +doesn’t alter the fact that she is right.” + +That phrase about dragging the truth through swamps of nonsense she +remembered from Capes. At the recollection that it was his, she seemed +to fall through a thin surface, as one might fall through the crust of +a lava into glowing depths. She wallowed for a time in the thought of +Capes, unable to escape from his image and the idea of his presence in +her life. + +She let her mind run into dreams of that cloud paradise of an altered +world in which the Goopes and Minivers, the Fabians and reforming people +believed. Across that world was written in letters of light, “Endowment +of Motherhood.” Suppose in some complex yet conceivable way women were +endowed, were no longer economically and socially dependent on men. “If +one was free,” she said, “one could go to him.... This vile hovering +to catch a man’s eye!... One could go to him and tell him one loved +him. I want to love him. A little love from him would be enough. It +would hurt no one. It would not burden him with any obligation.” + +She groaned aloud and bowed her forehead to her knees. She floundered +deep. She wanted to kiss his feet. His feet would have the firm texture +of his hands. + +Then suddenly her spirit rose in revolt. “I will not have this slavery,” + she said. “I will not have this slavery.” + +She shook her fist ceilingward. “Do you hear!” she said “whatever you +are, wherever you are! I will not be slave to the thought of any man, +slave to the customs of any time. Confound this slavery of sex! I am a +man! I will get this under if I am killed in doing it!” + +She scowled into the cold blacknesses about her. + +“Manning,” she said, and contemplated a figure of inaggressive +persistence. “No!” Her thoughts had turned in a new direction. + +“It doesn’t matter,” she said, after a long interval, “if they are +absurd. They mean something. They mean everything that women can +mean--except submission. The vote is only the beginning, the necessary +beginning. If we do not begin--” + +She had come to a resolution. Abruptly she got out of bed, smoothed +her sheet and straightened her pillow and lay down, and fell almost +instantly asleep. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next morning was as dark and foggy as if it was mid-November instead +of early March. Ann Veronica woke rather later than usual, and lay awake +for some minutes before she remembered a certain resolution she +had taken in the small hours. Then instantly she got out of bed and +proceeded to dress. + +She did not start for the Imperial College. She spent the morning up +to ten in writing a series of unsuccessful letters to Ramage, which she +tore up unfinished; and finally she desisted and put on her jacket and +went out into the lamp-lit obscurity and slimy streets. She turned a +resolute face southward. + +She followed Oxford Street into Holborn, and then she inquired for +Chancery Lane. There she sought and at last found 107A, one of those +heterogeneous piles of offices which occupy the eastern side of the +lane. She studied the painted names of firms and persons and enterprises +on the wall, and discovered that the Women’s Bond of Freedom occupied +several contiguous suites on the first floor. She went up-stairs and +hesitated between four doors with ground-glass panes, each of which +professed “The Women’s Bond of Freedom” in neat black letters. She +opened one and found herself in a large untidy room set with chairs that +were a little disarranged as if by an overnight meeting. On the walls +were notice-boards bearing clusters of newspaper slips, three or four +big posters of monster meetings, one of which Ann Veronica had attended +with Miss Miniver, and a series of announcements in purple copying-ink, +and in one corner was a pile of banners. There was no one at all in this +room, but through the half-open door of one of the small apartments +that gave upon it she had a glimpse of two very young girls sitting at a +littered table and writing briskly. + +She walked across to this apartment and, opening the door a little +wider, discovered a press section of the movement at work. + +“I want to inquire,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Next door,” said a spectacled young person of seventeen or eighteen, +with an impatient indication of the direction. + +In the adjacent apartment Ann Veronica found a middle-aged woman with +a tired face under the tired hat she wore, sitting at a desk opening +letters while a dusky, untidy girl of eight-or nine-and-twenty hammered +industriously at a typewriter. The tired woman looked up in inquiring +silence at Ann Veronica’s diffident entry. + +“I want to know more about this movement,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Are you with us?” said the tired woman. + +“I don’t know,” said Ann Veronica; “I think I am. I want very much to do +something for women. But I want to know what you are doing.” + +The tired woman sat still for a moment. “You haven’t come here to make a +lot of difficulties?” she asked. + +“No,” said Ann Veronica, “but I want to know.” + +The tired woman shut her eyes tightly for a moment, and then looked with +them at Ann Veronica. “What can you do?” she asked. + +“Do?” + +“Are you prepared to do things for us? Distribute bills? Write letters? +Interrupt meetings? Canvass at elections? Face dangers?” + +“If I am satisfied--” + +“If we satisfy you?” + +“Then, if possible, I would like to go to prison.” + +“It isn’t nice going to prison.” + +“It would suit me.” + +“It isn’t nice getting there.” + +“That’s a question of detail,” said Ann Veronica. + +The tired woman looked quietly at her. “What are your objections?” she +said. + +“It isn’t objections exactly. I want to know what you are doing; how you +think this work of yours really does serve women.” + +“We are working for the equal citizenship of men and women,” said the +tired woman. “Women have been and are treated as the inferiors of men, +we want to make them their equals.” + +“Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “I agree to that. But--” + +The tired woman raised her eyebrows in mild protest. + +“Isn’t the question more complicated than that?” said Ann Veronica. + +“You could have a talk to Miss Kitty Brett this afternoon, if you liked. +Shall I make an appointment for you?” + +Miss Kitty Brett was one of the most conspicuous leaders of the +movement. Ann Veronica snatched at the opportunity, and spent most +of the intervening time in the Assyrian Court of the British Museum, +reading and thinking over a little book upon the feminist movement the +tired woman had made her buy. She got a bun and some cocoa in the little +refreshment-room, and then wandered through the galleries up-stairs, +crowded with Polynesian idols and Polynesian dancing-garments, and all +the simple immodest accessories to life in Polynesia, to a seat among +the mummies. She was trying to bring her problems to a head, and her +mind insisted upon being even more discursive and atmospheric than +usual. It generalized everything she put to it. + +“Why should women be dependent on men?” she asked; and the question was +at once converted into a system of variations upon the theme of “Why +are things as they are?”--“Why are human beings viviparous?”--“Why are +people hungry thrice a day?”--“Why does one faint at danger?” + +She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human face of +that desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings of social life. +It looked very patient, she thought, and a little self-satisfied. It +looked as if it had taken its world for granted and prospered on that +assumption--a world in which children were trained to obey their +elders and the wills of women over-ruled as a matter of course. It was +wonderful to think this thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps +once it had desired some other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one +had kissed the brow that was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken cheek +with loving fingers, held that stringy neck with passionately living +hands. But all of that was forgotten. “In the end,” it seemed to be +thinking, “they embalmed me with the utmost respect--sound spices chosen +to endure--the best! I took my world as I found it. THINGS ARE SO!” + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica’s first impression of Kitty Brett was that she was +aggressive and disagreeable; her next that she was a person of amazing +persuasive power. She was perhaps three-and-twenty, and very pink and +healthy-looking, showing a great deal of white and rounded neck above +her business-like but altogether feminine blouse, and a good deal of +plump, gesticulating forearm out of her short sleeve. She had animated +dark blue-gray eyes under her fine eyebrows, and dark brown hair that +rolled back simply and effectively from her broad low forehead. And she +was about as capable of intelligent argument as a runaway steam-roller. +She was a trained being--trained by an implacable mother to one end. + +She spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She did not so much deal with Ann +Veronica’s interpolations as dispose of them with quick and use-hardened +repartee, and then she went on with a fine directness to sketch the case +for her agitation, for that remarkable rebellion of the women that was +then agitating the whole world of politics and discussion. She assumed +with a kind of mesmeric force all the propositions that Ann Veronica +wanted her to define. + +“What do we want? What is the goal?” asked Ann Veronica. + +“Freedom! Citizenship! And the way to that--the way to everything--is +the Vote.” + +Ann Veronica said something about a general change of ideas. + +“How can you change people’s ideas if you have no power?” said Kitty +Brett. + +Ann Veronica was not ready enough to deal with that counter-stroke. + +“One doesn’t want to turn the whole thing into a mere sex antagonism.” + +“When women get justice,” said Kitty Brett, “there will be no sex +antagonism. None at all. Until then we mean to keep on hammering away.” + +“It seems to me that much of a woman’s difficulties are economic.” + +“That will follow,” said Kitty Brett--“that will follow.” + +She interrupted as Ann Veronica was about to speak again, with a bright +contagious hopefulness. “Everything will follow,” she said. + +“Yes,” said Ann Veronica, trying to think where they were, trying to +get things plain again that had seemed plain enough in the quiet of the +night. + +“Nothing was ever done,” Miss Brett asserted, “without a certain element +of Faith. After we have got the Vote and are recognized as citizens, +then we can come to all these other things.” + +Even in the glamour of Miss Brett’s assurance it seemed to Ann Veronica +that this was, after all, no more than the gospel of Miss Miniver with +a new set of resonances. And like that gospel it meant something, +something different from its phrases, something elusive, and yet +something that in spite of the superficial incoherence of its phrasing, +was largely essentially true. There was something holding women down, +holding women back, and if it wasn’t exactly man-made law, man-made +law was an aspect of it. There was something indeed holding the whole +species back from the imaginable largeness of life.... + +“The Vote is the symbol of everything,” said Miss Brett. + +She made an abrupt personal appeal. + +“Oh! please don’t lose yourself in a wilderness of secondary +considerations,” she said. “Don’t ask me to tell you all that women can +do, all that women can be. There is a new life, different from the old +life of dependence, possible. If only we are not divided. If only we +work together. This is the one movement that brings women of different +classes together for a common purpose. If you could see how it gives +them souls, women who have taken things for granted, who have given +themselves up altogether to pettiness and vanity....” + +“Give me something to do,” said Ann Veronica, interrupting her +persuasions at last. “It has been very kind of you to see me, but I +don’t want to sit and talk and use your time any longer. I want to do +something. I want to hammer myself against all this that pens women in. +I feel that I shall stifle unless I can do something--and do something +soon.” + + + +Part 4 + + +It was not Ann Veronica’s fault that the night’s work should have taken +upon itself the forms of wild burlesque. She was in deadly earnest in +everything she did. It seemed to her the last desperate attack upon the +universe that would not let her live as she desired to live, that penned +her in and controlled her and directed her and disapproved of her, the +same invincible wrappering, the same leaden tyranny of a universe that +she had vowed to overcome after that memorable conflict with her father +at Morningside Park. + +She was listed for the raid--she was informed it was to be a raid upon +the House of Commons, though no particulars were given her--and told to +go alone to 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, and not to ask any policeman +to direct her. 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, she found was not a house +but a yard in an obscure street, with big gates and the name of Podgers +& Carlo, Carriers and Furniture Removers, thereon. She was perplexed by +this, and stood for some seconds in the empty street hesitating, until +the appearance of another circumspect woman under the street lamp at the +corner reassured her. In one of the big gates was a little door, and she +rapped at this. It was immediately opened by a man with light eyelashes +and a manner suggestive of restrained passion. “Come right in,” he +hissed under his breath, with the true conspirator’s note, closed the +door very softly and pointed, “Through there!” + +By the meagre light of a gas lamp she perceived a cobbled yard with four +large furniture vans standing with horses and lamps alight. A slender +young man, wearing glasses, appeared from the shadow of the nearest van. +“Are you A, B, C, or D?” he asked. + +“They told me D,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Through there,” he said, and pointed with the pamphlet he was carrying. + +Ann Veronica found herself in a little stirring crowd of excited women, +whispering and tittering and speaking in undertones. + +The light was poor, so that she saw their gleaming faces dimly and +indistinctly. No one spoke to her. She stood among them, watching +them and feeling curiously alien to them. The oblique ruddy lighting +distorted them oddly, made queer bars and patches of shadow upon their +clothes. “It’s Kitty’s idea,” said one, “we are to go in the vans.” + +“Kitty is wonderful,” said another. + +“Wonderful!” + +“I have always longed for prison service,” said a voice, “always. +From the beginning. But it’s only now I’m able to do it.” + +A little blond creature close at hand suddenly gave way to a fit of +hysterical laughter, and caught up the end of it with a sob. + +“Before I took up the Suffrage,” a firm, flat voice remarked, “I could +scarcely walk up-stairs without palpitations.” + +Some one hidden from Ann Veronica appeared to be marshalling the +assembly. “We have to get in, I think,” said a nice little old lady in +a bonnet to Ann Veronica, speaking with a voice that quavered a little. +“My dear, can you see in this light? I think I would like to get in. +Which is C?” + +Ann Veronica, with a curious sinking of the heart, regarded the black +cavities of the vans. Their doors stood open, and placards with big +letters indicated the section assigned to each. She directed the little +old woman and then made her way to van D. A young woman with a white +badge on her arm stood and counted the sections as they entered their +vans. + +“When they tap the roof,” she said, in a voice of authority, “you are to +come out. You will be opposite the big entrance in Old Palace Yard. It’s +the public entrance. You are to make for that and get into the lobby if +you can, and so try and reach the floor of the House, crying ‘Votes for +Women!’ as you go.” + +She spoke like a mistress addressing school-children. + +“Don’t bunch too much as you come out,” she added. + +“All right?” asked the man with the light eyelashes, suddenly appearing +in the doorway. He waited for an instant, wasting an encouraging smile +in the imperfect light, and then shut the doors of the van, leaving the +women in darkness.... + +The van started with a jerk and rumbled on its way. + +“It’s like Troy!” said a voice of rapture. “It’s exactly like Troy!” + + + +Part 5 + + +So Ann Veronica, enterprising and a little dubious as ever, mingled with +the stream of history and wrote her Christian name upon the police-court +records of the land. + +But out of a belated regard for her father she wrote the surname of some +one else. + +Some day, when the rewards of literature permit the arduous research +required, the Campaign of the Women will find its Carlyle, and the +particulars of that marvellous series of exploits by which Miss Brett +and her colleagues nagged the whole Western world into the discussion of +women’s position become the material for the most delightful and amazing +descriptions. At present the world waits for that writer, and the +confused record of the newspapers remains the only resource of the +curious. When he comes he will do that raid of the pantechnicons the +justice it deserves; he will picture the orderly evening scene about the +Imperial Legislature in convincing detail, the coming and going of cabs +and motor-cabs and broughams through the chill, damp evening into New +Palace Yard, the reinforced but untroubled and unsuspecting police about +the entries of those great buildings whose square and panelled Victorian +Gothic streams up from the glare of the lamps into the murkiness of +the night; Big Ben shining overhead, an unassailable beacon, and the +incidental traffic of Westminster, cabs, carts, and glowing omnibuses +going to and from the bridge. About the Abbey and Abingdon Street stood +the outer pickets and detachments of the police, their attention all +directed westward to where the women in Caxton Hall, Westminster, hummed +like an angry hive. Squads reached to the very portal of that centre of +disturbance. And through all these defences and into Old Palace +Yard, into the very vitals of the defenders’ position, lumbered the +unsuspected vans. + +They travelled past the few idle sightseers who had braved the +uninviting evening to see what the Suffragettes might be doing; they +pulled up unchallenged within thirty yards of those coveted portals. + +And then they disgorged. + +Were I a painter of subject pictures, I would exhaust all my skill +in proportion and perspective and atmosphere upon the august seat +of empire, I would present it gray and dignified and immense and +respectable beyond any mere verbal description, and then, in vivid +black and very small, I would put in those valiantly impertinent +vans, squatting at the base of its altitudes and pouring out a swift, +straggling rush of ominous little black objects, minute figures of +determined women at war with the universe. + +Ann Veronica was in their very forefront. + +In an instant the expectant calm of Westminster was ended, and the very +Speaker in the chair blenched at the sound of the policemen’s whistles. +The bolder members in the House left their places to go lobbyward, +grinning. Others pulled hats over their noses, cowered in their seats, +and feigned that all was right with the world. In Old Palace Yard +everybody ran. They either ran to see or ran for shelter. Even two +Cabinet Ministers took to their heels, grinning insincerely. At the +opening of the van doors and the emergence into the fresh air Ann +Veronica’s doubt and depression gave place to the wildest exhilaration. +That same adventurousness that had already buoyed her through crises +that would have overwhelmed any normally feminine girl with shame and +horror now became uppermost again. Before her was a great Gothic portal. +Through that she had to go. + +Past her shot the little old lady in the bonnet, running incredibly +fast, but otherwise still alertly respectable, and she was making a +strange threatening sound as she ran, such as one would use in driving +ducks out of a garden--“B-r-r-r-r-r--!” and pawing with black-gloved +hands. The policemen were closing in from the sides to intervene. The +little old lady struck like a projectile upon the resounding chest +of the foremost of these, and then Ann Veronica had got past and was +ascending the steps. + +Then most horribly she was clasped about the waist from behind and +lifted from the ground. + +At that a new element poured into her excitement, an element of wild +disgust and terror. She had never experienced anything so disagreeable +in her life as the sense of being held helplessly off her feet. She +screamed involuntarily--she had never in her life screamed before--and +then she began to wriggle and fight like a frightened animal against the +men who were holding her. + +The affair passed at one leap from a spree to a nightmare of violence +and disgust. Her hair got loose, her hat came over one eye, and she had +no arm free to replace it. She felt she must suffocate if these men did +not put her down, and for a time they would not put her down. Then with +an indescribable relief her feet were on the pavement, and she was +being urged along by two policemen, who were gripping her wrists in an +irresistible expert manner. She was writhing to get her hands loose +and found herself gasping with passionate violence, “It’s +damnable!--damnable!” to the manifest disgust of the fatherly policeman +on her right. + +Then they had released her arms and were trying to push her away. + +“You be off, missie,” said the fatherly policeman. “This ain’t no place +for you.” + +He pushed her a dozen yards along the greasy pavement with flat, +well-trained hands that there seemed to be no opposing. Before her +stretched blank spaces, dotted with running people coming toward her, +and below them railings and a statue. She almost submitted to this +ending of her adventure. But at the word “home” she turned again. + +“I won’t go home,” she said; “I won’t!” and she evaded the clutch of the +fatherly policeman and tried to thrust herself past him in the direction +of that big portal. “Steady on!” he cried. + +A diversion was created by the violent struggles of the little old +lady. She seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. A knot of +three policemen in conflict with her staggered toward Ann Veronica’s +attendants and distracted their attention. “I WILL be arrested! I WON’T +go home!” the little old lady was screaming over and over again. They +put her down, and she leaped at them; she smote a helmet to the ground. + +“You’ll have to take her!” shouted an inspector on horseback, and she +echoed his cry: “You’ll have to take me!” They seized upon her and +lifted her, and she screamed. Ann Veronica became violently excited at +the sight. “You cowards!” said Ann Veronica, “put her down!” and tore +herself from a detaining hand and battered with her fists upon the big +red ear and blue shoulder of the policeman who held the little old lady. + +So Ann Veronica also was arrested. + +And then came the vile experience of being forced and borne along the +street to the police-station. Whatever anticipation Ann Veronica had +formed of this vanished in the reality. Presently she was going through +a swaying, noisy crowd, whose faces grinned and stared pitilessly in the +light of the electric standards. “Go it, miss!” cried one. “Kick aht at +‘em!” though, indeed, she went now with Christian meekness, resenting +only the thrusting policemen’s hands. Several people in the crowd seemed +to be fighting. Insulting cries became frequent and various, but for the +most part she could not understand what was said. “Who’ll mind the baby +nar?” was one of the night’s inspirations, and very frequent. A lean +young man in spectacles pursued her for some time, crying “Courage! +Courage!” Somebody threw a dab of mud at her, and some of it got down +her neck. Immeasurable disgust possessed her. She felt draggled and +insulted beyond redemption. + +She could not hide her face. She attempted by a sheer act of will to +end the scene, to will herself out of it anywhere. She had a horrible +glimpse of the once nice little old lady being also borne stationward, +still faintly battling and very muddy--one lock of grayish hair +straggling over her neck, her face scared, white, but triumphant. Her +bonnet dropped off and was trampled into the gutter. A little Cockney +recovered it, and made ridiculous attempts to get to her and replace it. + +“You must arrest me!” she gasped, breathlessly, insisting insanely on a +point already carried; “you shall!” + +The police-station at the end seemed to Ann Veronica like a refuge from +unnamable disgraces. She hesitated about her name, and, being prompted, +gave it at last as Ann Veronica Smith, 107A, Chancery Lane.... + +Indignation carried her through that night, that men and the world +could so entreat her. The arrested women were herded in a passage of +the Panton Street Police-station that opened upon a cell too unclean for +occupation, and most of them spent the night standing. Hot coffee +and cakes were sent in to them in the morning by some intelligent +sympathizer, or she would have starved all day. Submission to the +inevitable carried her through the circumstances of her appearance +before the magistrate. + +He was no doubt doing his best to express the attitude of society toward +these wearily heroic defendants, but he seemed to be merely rude and +unfair to Ann Veronica. He was not, it seemed, the proper stipendiary at +all, and there had been some demur to his jurisdiction that had ruffled +him. He resented being regarded as irregular. He felt he was human +wisdom prudentially interpolated.... “You silly wimmin,” he said over +and over again throughout the hearing, plucking at his blotting-pad +with busy hands. “You silly creatures! Ugh! Fie upon you!” The court was +crowded with people, for the most part supporters and admirers of the +defendants, and the man with the light eyelashes was conspicuously +active and omnipresent. + +Ann Veronica’s appearance was brief and undistinguished. She had nothing +to say for herself. She was guided into the dock and prompted by a +helpful police inspector. She was aware of the body of the court, +of clerks seated at a black table littered with papers, of policemen +standing about stiffly with expressions of conscious integrity, and +a murmuring background of the heads and shoulders of spectators close +behind her. On a high chair behind a raised counter the stipendiary’s +substitute regarded her malevolently over his glasses. A disagreeable +young man, with red hair and a loose mouth, seated at the reporter’s +table, was only too manifestly sketching her. + +She was interested by the swearing of the witnesses. The kissing of the +book struck her as particularly odd, and then the policemen gave their +evidence in staccato jerks and stereotyped phrases. + +“Have you anything to ask the witness?” asked the helpful inspector. + +The ribald demons that infested the back of Ann Veronica’s mind urged +various facetious interrogations upon her, as, for example, where +the witness had acquired his prose style. She controlled herself, and +answered meekly, “No.” + +“Well, Ann Veronica Smith,” the magistrate remarked when the case was +all before him, “you’re a good-looking, strong, respectable gell, and +it’s a pity you silly young wimmin can’t find something better to do +with your exuberance. Two-and-twenty! I can’t imagine what your parents +can be thinking about to let you get into these scrapes.” + +Ann Veronica’s mind was filled with confused unutterable replies. + +“You are persuaded to come and take part in these outrageous +proceedings--many of you, I am convinced, have no idea whatever of +their nature. I don’t suppose you could tell me even the derivation of +suffrage if I asked you. No! not even the derivation! But the fashion’s +been set and in it you must be.” + +The men at the reporter’s table lifted their eyebrows, smiled faintly, +and leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One with the +appearance of a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. They had got all +this down already--they heard the substance of it now for the fourteenth +time. The stipendiary would have done it all very differently. + +She found presently she was out of the dock and confronted with the +alternative of being bound over in one surety for the sum of forty +pounds--whatever that might mean or a month’s imprisonment. + +“Second class,” said some one, but first and second were all alike to +her. She elected to go to prison. + +At last, after a long rumbling journey in a stuffy windowless van, she +reached Canongate Prison--for Holloway had its quota already. It was bad +luck to go to Canongate. + +Prison was beastly. Prison was bleak without spaciousness, and pervaded +by a faint, oppressive smell; and she had to wait two hours in the +sullenly defiant company of two unclean women thieves before a cell +could be assigned to her. Its dreariness, like the filthiness of the +police cell, was a discovery for her. She had imagined that prisons +were white-tiled places, reeking of lime-wash and immaculately +sanitary. Instead, they appeared to be at the hygienic level of tramps’ +lodging-houses. She was bathed in turbid water that had already been +used. She was not allowed to bathe herself: another prisoner, with a +privileged manner, washed her. Conscientious objectors to that process +are not permitted, she found, in Canongate. Her hair was washed for her +also. Then they dressed her in a dirty dress of coarse serge and a cap, +and took away her own clothes. The dress came to her only too manifestly +unwashed from its former wearer; even the under-linen they gave her +seemed unclean. Horrible memories of things seen beneath the microscope +of the baser forms of life crawled across her mind and set her +shuddering with imagined irritations. She sat on the edge of the +bed--the wardress was too busy with the flood of arrivals that day +to discover that she had it down--and her skin was shivering from the +contact of these garments. She surveyed accommodation that seemed at +first merely austere, and became more and more manifestly inadequate as +the moments fled by. She meditated profoundly through several enormous +cold hours on all that had happened and all that she had done since the +swirl of the suffrage movement had submerged her personal affairs.... + +Very slowly emerging out of a phase of stupefaction, these personal +affairs and her personal problem resumed possession of her mind. She had +imagined she had drowned them altogether. + + + +CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH + +THOUGHTS IN PRISON + + +Part 1 + + +The first night in prison she found it impossible to sleep. The bed +was hard beyond any experience of hers, the bed-clothes coarse and +insufficient, the cell at once cold and stuffy. The little grating +in the door, the sense of constant inspection, worried her. She kept +opening her eyes and looking at it. She was fatigued physically and +mentally, and neither mind nor body could rest. She became aware that +at regular intervals a light flashed upon her face and a bodiless eye +regarded her, and this, as the night wore on, became a torment.... + +Capes came back into her mind. He haunted a state between hectic +dreaming and mild delirium, and she found herself talking aloud to +him. All through the night an entirely impossible and monumental +Capes confronted her, and she argued with him about men and women. She +visualized him as in a policeman’s uniform and quite impassive. On some +insane score she fancied she had to state her case in verse. “We are the +music and you are the instrument,” she said; “we are verse and you are +prose. + + “For men have reason, women rhyme + A man scores always, all the time.” + +This couplet sprang into her mind from nowhere, and immediately begot an +endless series of similar couplets that she began to compose and address +to Capes. They came teeming distressfully through her aching brain: + + “A man can kick, his skirts don’t tear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “His dress for no man lays a snare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + For hats that fail and hats that flare; + Toppers their universal wear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “Men’s waists are neither here nor there; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “A man can manage without hair; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “There are no males at men to stare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “And children must we women bear-- + +“Oh, damn!” she cried, as the hundred-and-first couplet or so presented +itself in her unwilling brain. + +For a time she worried about that compulsory bath and cutaneous +diseases. + +Then she fell into a fever of remorse for the habit of bad language she +had acquired. + + “A man can smoke, a man can swear; + A man scores always, everywhere.” + +She rolled over on her face, and stuffed her fingers in her ears to shut +out the rhythm from her mind. She lay still for a long time, and her +mind resumed at a more tolerable pace. She found herself talking to +Capes in an undertone of rational admission. + +“There is something to be said for the lady-like theory after all,” she +admitted. “Women ought to be gentle and submissive persons, strong only +in virtue and in resistance to evil compulsion. My dear--I can call you +that here, anyhow--I know that. The Victorians over-did it a little, I +admit. Their idea of maidenly innocence was just a blank white--the sort +of flat white that doesn’t shine. But that doesn’t alter the fact +that there IS innocence. And I’ve read, and thought, and guessed, and +looked--until MY innocence--it’s smirched. + +“Smirched!... + +“You see, dear, one IS passionately anxious for something--what is it? +One wants to be CLEAN. You want me to be clean. You would want me to be +clean, if you gave me a thought, that is.... + +“I wonder if you give me a thought.... + +“I’m not a good woman. I don’t mean I’m not a good woman--I mean that +I’m not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I hardly know +what I am saying. I mean I’m not a good specimen of a woman. I’ve got a +streak of male. Things happen to women--proper women--and all they have +to do is to take them well. They’ve just got to keep white. But I’m +always trying to make things happen. And I get myself dirty... + +“It’s all dirt that washes off, dear, but it’s dirt. + +“The white unaggressive woman who corrects and nurses and serves, and is +worshipped and betrayed--the martyr-queen of men, the white mother.... +You can’t do that sort of thing unless you do it over religion, and +there’s no religion in me--of that sort--worth a rap. + +“I’m not gentle. Certainly not a gentlewoman. + +“I’m not coarse--no! But I’ve got no purity of mind--no real purity of +mind. A good woman’s mind has angels with flaming swords at the portals +to keep out fallen thoughts.... + +“I wonder if there are any good women really. + +“I wish I didn’t swear. I do swear. It began as a joke.... It +developed into a sort of secret and private bad manners. It’s got to be +at last like tobacco-ash over all my sayings and doings.... + +“‘Go it, missie,’ they said; “kick aht!’ + +“I swore at that policeman--and disgusted him. Disgusted him! + + “For men policemen never blush; + A man in all things scores so much... + +“Damn! Things are getting plainer. It must be the dawn creeping in. + + “Now here hath been dawning another blue day; + I’m just a poor woman, please take it away. + +“Oh, sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!” + + + +Part 2 + + +“Now,” said Ann Veronica, after the half-hour of exercise, and sitting +on the uncomfortable wooden seat without a back that was her perch by +day, “it’s no good staying here in a sort of maze. I’ve got nothing to +do for a month but think. I may as well think. I ought to be able to +think things out. + +“How shall I put the question? What am I? What have I got to do with +myself?... + +“I wonder if many people HAVE thought things out? + +“Are we all just seizing hold of phrases and obeying moods? + +“It wasn’t so with old-fashioned people, they knew right from wrong; +they had a clear-cut, religious faith that seemed to explain everything +and give a rule for everything. We haven’t. I haven’t, anyhow. And it’s +no good pretending there is one when there isn’t.... I suppose I +believe in God.... Never really thought about Him--people don’t.. +.. I suppose my creed is, ‘I believe rather indistinctly in God the +Father Almighty, substratum of the evolutionary process, and, in a vein +of vague sentimentality that doesn’t give a datum for anything at all, +in Jesus Christ, His Son.’... + +“It’s no sort of good, Ann Veronica, pretending one does believe when +one doesn’t.... + +“And as for praying for faith--this sort of monologue is about as near +as any one of my sort ever gets to prayer. Aren’t I asking--asking +plainly now?... + +“We’ve all been mixing our ideas, and we’ve got intellectual hot +coppers--every blessed one of us.... + +“A confusion of motives--that’s what I am!... + +“There is this absurd craving for Mr. Capes--the ‘Capes crave,’ they +would call it in America. Why do I want him so badly? Why do I want him, +and think about him, and fail to get away from him? + +“It isn’t all of me. + +“The first person you love, Ann Veronica, is yourself--get hold of that! +The soul you have to save is Ann Veronica’s soul....” + +She knelt upon the floor of her cell and clasped her hands, and remained +for a long time in silence. + +“Oh, God!” she said at last, “how I wish I had been taught to pray!” + + + +Part 3 + + +She had some idea of putting these subtle and difficult issues to the +chaplain when she was warned of his advent. But she had not reckoned +with the etiquette of Canongate. She got up, as she had been told to +do, at his appearance, and he amazed her by sitting down, according to +custom, on her stool. He still wore his hat, to show that the days +of miracles and Christ being civil to sinners are over forever. She +perceived that his countenance was only composed by a great effort, his +features severely compressed. He was ruffled, and his ears were red, +no doubt from some adjacent controversy. He classified her as he seated +himself. + +“Another young woman, I suppose,” he said, “who knows better than her +Maker about her place in the world. Have you anything to ask me?” + +Ann Veronica readjusted her mind hastily. Her back stiffened. She +produced from the depths of her pride the ugly investigatory note of +the modern district visitor. “Are you a special sort of clergyman,” she +said, after a pause, and looking down her nose at him, “or do you go to +the Universities?” + +“Oh!” he said, profoundly. + +He panted for a moment with unuttered replies, and then, with a scornful +gesture, got up and left the cell. + +So that Ann Veronica was not able to get the expert advice she certainly +needed upon her spiritual state. + + + +Part 4 + + +After a day or so she thought more steadily. She found herself in a +phase of violent reaction against the suffrage movement, a phase +greatly promoted by one of those unreasonable objections people of Ann +Veronica’s temperament take at times--to the girl in the next cell to +her own. She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still +more foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. +She was noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always +abominably done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that +silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard slouched +round with carelessly dispersed feet. Ann Veronica decided that +“hoydenish ragger” was the only phrase to express her. She was always +breaking rules, whispering asides, intimating signals. She became at +times an embodiment for Ann Veronica of all that made the suffrage +movement defective and unsatisfying. + +She was always initiating petty breaches of discipline. Her greatest +exploit was the howling before the mid-day meal. This was an imitation +of the noises made by the carnivora at the Zoological Gardens at +feeding-time; the idea was taken up by prisoner after prisoner until +the whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican +chatterings, and feline yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of +hysterical laughter. To many in that crowded solitude it came as an +extraordinary relief. It was better even than the hymn-singing. But it +annoyed Ann Veronica. + +“Idiots!” she said, when she heard this pandemonium, and with particular +reference to this young lady with the throaty contralto next door. +“Intolerable idiots!...” + +It took some days for this phase to pass, and it left some scars and +something like a decision. “Violence won’t do it,” said Ann Veronica. +“Begin violence, and the woman goes under.... + +“But all the rest of our case is right.... Yes.” + +As the long, solitary days wore on, Ann Veronica found a number of +definite attitudes and conclusions in her mind. + +One of these was a classification of women into women who are and women +who are not hostile to men. “The real reason why I am out of place +here,” she said, “is because I like men. I can talk with them. I’ve +never found them hostile. I’ve got no feminine class feeling. I don’t +want any laws or freedoms to protect me from a man like Mr. Capes. I +know that in my heart I would take whatever he gave.... + +“A woman wants a proper alliance with a man, a man who is better stuff +than herself. She wants that and needs it more than anything else in +the world. It may not be just, it may not be fair, but things are so. It +isn’t law, nor custom, nor masculine violence settled that. It is just +how things happen to be. She wants to be free--she wants to be legally +and economically free, so as not to be subject to the wrong man; but +only God, who made the world, can alter things to prevent her being +slave to the right one. + +“And if she can’t have the right one? + +“We’ve developed such a quality of preference!” + +She rubbed her knuckles into her forehead. “Oh, but life is difficult!” + she groaned. “When you loosen the tangle in one place you tie a knot in +another.... Before there is any change, any real change, I shall be +dead--dead--dead and finished--two hundred years!...” + + + +Part 5 + + +One afternoon, while everything was still, the wardress heard her cry +out suddenly and alarmingly, and with great and unmistakable passion, +“Why in the name of goodness did I burn that twenty pounds?” + + + +Part 6 + + +She sat regarding her dinner. The meat was coarse and disagreeably +served. + +“I suppose some one makes a bit on the food,” she said.... + +“One has such ridiculous ideas of the wicked common people and the +beautiful machinery of order that ropes them in. And here are these +places, full of contagion! + +“Of course, this is the real texture of life, this is what we refined +secure people forget. We think the whole thing is straight and noble at +bottom, and it isn’t. We think if we just defy the friends we have and +go out into the world everything will become easy and splendid. +One doesn’t realize that even the sort of civilization one has at +Morningside Park is held together with difficulty. By policemen one +mustn’t shock. + +“This isn’t a world for an innocent girl to walk about in. It’s a world +of dirt and skin diseases and parasites. It’s a world in which the +law can be a stupid pig and the police-stations dirty dens. One wants +helpers and protectors--and clean water. + +“Am I becoming reasonable or am I being tamed? + +“I’m simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and +puzzling. I thought one had only to take it by the throat. + +“It hasn’t GOT a throat!” + + + +Part 7 + + +One day the idea of self-sacrifice came into her head, and she made, she +thought, some important moral discoveries. + +It came with an extreme effect of re-discovery, a remarkable novelty. +“What have I been all this time?” she asked herself, and answered, “Just +stark egotism, crude assertion of Ann Veronica, without a modest rag of +religion or discipline or respect for authority to cover me!” + +It seemed to her as though she had at last found the touchstone of +conduct. She perceived she had never really thought of any one but +herself in all her acts and plans. Even Capes had been for her merely an +excitant to passionate love--a mere idol at whose feet one could enjoy +imaginative wallowings. She had set out to get a beautiful life, a free, +untrammelled life, self-development, without counting the cost either +for herself or others. + +“I have hurt my father,” she said; “I have hurt my aunt. I have hurt and +snubbed poor Teddy. I’ve made no one happy. I deserve pretty much what +I’ve got.... + +“If only because of the way one hurts others if one kicks loose and +free, one has to submit.... + +“Broken-in people! I suppose the world is just all egotistical children +and broken-in people. + +“Your little flag of pride must flutter down with the rest of them, Ann +Veronica.... + +“Compromise--and kindness. + +“Compromise and kindness. + +“Who are YOU that the world should lie down at your feet? + +“You’ve got to be a decent citizen, Ann Veronica. Take your half loaf +with the others. You mustn’t go clawing after a man that doesn’t belong +to you--that isn’t even interested in you. That’s one thing clear. + +“You’ve got to take the decent reasonable way. You’ve got to adjust +yourself to the people God has set about you. Every one else does.” + +She thought more and more along that line. There was no reason why +she shouldn’t be Capes’ friend. He did like her, anyhow; he was always +pleased to be with her. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be his +restrained and dignified friend. After all, that was life. Nothing was +given away, and no one came so rich to the stall as to command all that +it had to offer. Every one has to make a deal with the world. + +It would be very good to be Capes’ friend. + +She might be able to go on with biology, possibly even work upon the +same questions that he dealt with.... + +Perhaps her granddaughter might marry his grandson.... + +It grew clear to her that throughout all her wild raid for independence +she had done nothing for anybody, and many people had done things for +her. She thought of her aunt and that purse that was dropped on the +table, and of many troublesome and ill-requited kindnesses; she thought +of the help of the Widgetts, of Teddy’s admiration; she thought, with +a new-born charity, of her father, of Manning’s conscientious +unselfishness, of Miss Miniver’s devotion. + +“And for me it has been Pride and Pride and Pride! + +“I am the prodigal daughter. I will arise and go to my father, and will +say unto him-- + +“I suppose pride and self-assertion are sin? Sinned against heaven--Yes, +I have sinned against heaven and before thee.... + +“Poor old daddy! I wonder if he’ll spend much on the fatted calf?... + +“The wrappered life-discipline! One comes to that at last. I begin to +understand Jane Austen and chintz covers and decency and refinement and +all the rest of it. One puts gloves on one’s greedy fingers. One learns +to sit up... + +“And somehow or other,” she added, after a long interval, “I must pay +Mr. Ramage back his forty pounds.” + + + +CHAPTER THE TWELFTH + +ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica made a strenuous attempt to carry out her good resolutions. +She meditated long and carefully upon her letter to her father before +she wrote it, and gravely and deliberately again before she despatched +it. + + +“MY DEAR FATHER,” she wrote,--“I have been thinking hard about +everything since I was sent to this prison. All these experiences have +taught me a great deal about life and realities. I see that compromise +is more necessary to life than I ignorantly supposed it to be, and I +have been trying to get Lord Morley’s book on that subject, but it does +not appear to be available in the prison library, and the chaplain seems +to regard him as an undesirable writer.” + +At this point she had perceived that she was drifting from her subject. + +“I must read him when I come out. But I see very clearly that as things +are a daughter is necessarily dependent on her father and bound while +she is in that position to live harmoniously with his ideals.” + +“Bit starchy,” said Ann Veronica, and altered the key abruptly. Her +concluding paragraph was, on the whole, perhaps, hardly starchy enough. + +“Really, daddy, I am sorry for all I have done to put you out. May I +come home and try to be a better daughter to you? + +“ANN VERONICA.” + + + +Part 2 + + +Her aunt came to meet her outside Canongate, and, being a little +confused between what was official and what was merely a rebellious +slight upon our national justice, found herself involved in a triumphal +procession to the Vindicator Vegetarian Restaurant, and was specifically +and personally cheered by a small, shabby crowd outside that rendezvous. +They decided quite audibly, “She’s an Old Dear, anyhow. Voting wouldn’t +do no ‘arm to ‘er.” She was on the very verge of a vegetarian meal +before she recovered her head again. Obeying some fine instinct, she had +come to the prison in a dark veil, but she had pushed this up to kiss +Ann Veronica and never drawn it down again. Eggs were procured for her, +and she sat out the subsequent emotions and eloquence with the dignity +becoming an injured lady of good family. The quiet encounter and +home-coming Ann Veronica and she had contemplated was entirely +disorganized by this misadventure; there were no adequate explanations, +and after they had settled things at Ann Veronica’s lodgings, they +reached home in the early afternoon estranged and depressed, with +headaches and the trumpet voice of the indomitable Kitty Brett still +ringing in their ears. + +“Dreadful women, my dear!” said Miss Stanley. “And some of them quite +pretty and well dressed. No need to do such things. We must never +let your father know we went. Why ever did you let me get into that +wagonette?” + +“I thought we had to,” said Ann Veronica, who had also been a little +under the compulsion of the marshals of the occasion. “It was very +tiring.” + +“We will have some tea in the drawing-room as soon as ever we can--and I +will take my things off. I don’t think I shall ever care for this bonnet +again. We’ll have some buttered toast. Your poor cheeks are quite sunken +and hollow....” + + + +Part 3 + + +When Ann Veronica found herself in her father’s study that evening it +seemed to her for a moment as though all the events of the past six +months had been a dream. The big gray spaces of London, the shop-lit, +greasy, shining streets, had become very remote; the biological +laboratory with its work and emotions, the meetings and discussions, +the rides in hansoms with Ramage, were like things in a book read and +closed. The study seemed absolutely unaltered, there was still the same +lamp with a little chip out of the shade, still the same gas fire, still +the same bundle of blue and white papers, it seemed, with the same pink +tape about them, at the elbow of the arm-chair, still the same father. +He sat in much the same attitude, and she stood just as she had stood +when he told her she could not go to the Fadden Dance. Both had dropped +the rather elaborate politeness of the dining-room, and in their faces +an impartial observer would have discovered little lines of obstinate +wilfulness in common; a certain hardness--sharp, indeed, in the father +and softly rounded in the daughter--but hardness nevertheless, that made +every compromise a bargain and every charity a discount. + +“And so you have been thinking?” her father began, quoting her letter +and looking over his slanting glasses at her. “Well, my girl, I wish you +had thought about all these things before these bothers began.” + +Ann Veronica perceived that she must not forget to remain eminently +reasonable. + +“One has to live and learn,” she remarked, with a passable imitation of +her father’s manner. + +“So long as you learn,” said Mr. Stanley. + +Their conversation hung. + +“I suppose, daddy, you’ve no objection to my going on with my work at +the Imperial College?” she asked. + +“If it will keep you busy,” he said, with a faintly ironical smile. + +“The fees are paid to the end of the session.” + +He nodded twice, with his eyes on the fire, as though that was a formal +statement. + +“You may go on with that work,” he said, “so long as you keep in harmony +with things at home. I’m convinced that much of Russell’s investigations +are on wrong lines, unsound lines. Still--you must learn for yourself. +You’re of age--you’re of age.” + +“The work’s almost essential for the B.Sc. exam.” + +“It’s scandalous, but I suppose it is.” + +Their agreement so far seemed remarkable, and yet as a home-coming the +thing was a little lacking in warmth. But Ann Veronica had still to get +to her chief topic. They were silent for a time. “It’s a period of crude +views and crude work,” said Mr. Stanley. “Still, these Mendelian fellows +seem likely to give Mr. Russell trouble, a good lot of trouble. Some of +their specimens--wonderfully selected, wonderfully got up.” + +“Daddy,” said Ann Veronica, “these affairs--being away from home +has--cost money.” + +“I thought you would find that out.” + +“As a matter of fact, I happen to have got a little into debt.” + +“NEVER!” + +Her heart sank at the change in his expression. + +“Well, lodgings and things! And I paid my fees at the College.” + +“Yes. But how could you get--Who gave you credit? + +“You see,” said Ann Veronica, “my landlady kept on my room while I +was in Holloway, and the fees for the College mounted up pretty +considerably.” She spoke rather quickly, because she found her father’s +question the most awkward she had ever had to answer in her life. + +“Molly and you settled about the rooms. She said you HAD some money.” + +“I borrowed it,” said Ann Veronica in a casual tone, with white despair +in her heart. + +“But who could have lent you money?” + +“I pawned my pearl necklace. I got three pounds, and there’s three on my +watch.” + +“Six pounds. H’m. Got the tickets? Yes, but then--you said you +borrowed?” + +“I did, too,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Who from?” + +She met his eye for a second and her heart failed her. The truth +was impossible, indecent. If she mentioned Ramage he might have a +fit--anything might happen. She lied. “The Widgetts,” she said. + +“Tut, tut!” he said. “Really, Vee, you seem to have advertised our +relations pretty generally!” + +“They--they knew, of course. Because of the Dance.” + +“How much do you owe them?” + +She knew forty pounds was a quite impossible sum for their neighbors. +She knew, too, she must not hesitate. “Eight pounds,” she plunged, and +added foolishly, “fifteen pounds will see me clear of everything.” She +muttered some unlady-like comment upon herself under her breath and +engaged in secret additions. + +Mr. Stanley determined to improve the occasion. He seemed to deliberate. +“Well,” he said at last slowly, “I’ll pay it. I’ll pay it. But I do +hope, Vee, I do hope--this is the end of these adventures. I hope you +have learned your lesson now and come to see--come to realize--how +things are. People, nobody, can do as they like in this world. +Everywhere there are limitations.” + +“I know,” said Ann Veronica (fifteen pounds!). “I have learned that. I +mean--I mean to do what I can.” (Fifteen pounds. Fifteen from forty is +twenty-five.) + +He hesitated. She could think of nothing more to say. + +“Well,” she achieved at last. “Here goes for the new life!” + +“Here goes for the new life,” he echoed and stood up. Father and +daughter regarded each other warily, each more than a little insecure +with the other. He made a movement toward her, and then recalled the +circumstances of their last conversation in that study. She saw his +purpose and his doubt hesitated also, and then went to him, took his +coat lapels, and kissed him on the cheek. + +“Ah, Vee,” he said, “that’s better! and kissed her back rather clumsily. + +“We’re going to be sensible.” + +She disengaged herself from him and went out of the room with a grave, +preoccupied expression. (Fifteen pounds! And she wanted forty!) + + + +Part 4 + + +It was, perhaps, the natural consequence of a long and tiring and +exciting day that Ann Veronica should pass a broken and distressful +night, a night in which the noble and self-subduing resolutions of +Canongate displayed themselves for the first time in an atmosphere of +almost lurid dismay. Her father’s peculiar stiffness of soul presented +itself now as something altogether left out of the calculations upon +which her plans were based, and, in particular, she had not anticipated +the difficulty she would find in borrowing the forty pounds she needed +for Ramage. That had taken her by surprise, and her tired wits had +failed her. She was to have fifteen pounds, and no more. She knew that +to expect more now was like anticipating a gold-mine in the garden. The +chance had gone. It became suddenly glaringly apparent to her that it +was impossible to return fifteen pounds or any sum less than twenty +pounds to Ramage--absolutely impossible. She realized that with a pang +of disgust and horror. + +Already she had sent him twenty pounds, and never written to explain to +him why it was she had not sent it back sharply directly he returned +it. She ought to have written at once and told him exactly what had +happened. Now if she sent fifteen pounds the suggestion that she had +spent a five-pound note in the meanwhile would be irresistible. No! That +was impossible. She would have just to keep the fifteen pounds until she +could make it twenty. That might happen on her birthday--in August. + +She turned about, and was persecuted by visions, half memories, +half dreams, of Ramage. He became ugly and monstrous, dunning her, +threatening her, assailing her. + +“Confound sex from first to last!” said Ann Veronica. “Why can’t we +propagate by sexless spores, as the ferns do? We restrict each other, we +badger each other, friendship is poisoned and buried under it!... I +MUST pay off that forty pounds. I MUST.” + +For a time there seemed no comfort for her even in Capes. She was to see +Capes to-morrow, but now, in this state of misery she had achieved, she +felt assured he would turn his back upon her, take no notice of her at +all. And if he didn’t, what was the good of seeing him? + +“I wish he was a woman,” she said, “then I could make him my friend. I +want him as my friend. I want to talk to him and go about with him. Just +go about with him.” + +She was silent for a time, with her nose on the pillow, and that brought +her to: “What’s the good of pretending? + +“I love him,” she said aloud to the dim forms of her room, and repeated +it, and went on to imagine herself doing acts of tragically dog-like +devotion to the biologist, who, for the purposes of the drama, remained +entirely unconscious of and indifferent to her proceedings. + +At last some anodyne formed itself from these exercises, +and, with eyelashes wet with such feeble tears as only +three-o’clock-in-the-morning pathos can distil, she fell asleep. + + + +Part 5 + + +Pursuant to some altogether private calculations she did not go up to +the Imperial College until after mid-day, and she found the laboratory +deserted, even as she desired. She went to the table under the end +window at which she had been accustomed to work, and found it swept and +garnished with full bottles of re-agents. Everything was very neat; it +had evidently been straightened up and kept for her. She put down the +sketch-books and apparatus she had brought with her, pulled out her +stool, and sat down. As she did so the preparation-room door opened +behind her. She heard it open, but as she felt unable to look round in +a careless manner she pretended not to hear it. Then Capes’ footsteps +approached. She turned with an effort. + +“I expected you this morning,” he said. “I saw--they knocked off your +fetters yesterday.” + +“I think it is very good of me to come this afternoon.” + +“I began to be afraid you might not come at all.” + +“Afraid!” + +“Yes. I’m glad you’re back for all sorts of reasons.” He spoke a little +nervously. “Among other things, you know, I didn’t understand quite--I +didn’t understand that you were so keenly interested in this suffrage +question. I have it on my conscience that I offended you--” + +“Offended me when?” + +“I’ve been haunted by the memory of you. I was rude and stupid. We were +talking about the suffrage--and I rather scoffed.” + +“You weren’t rude,” she said. + +“I didn’t know you were so keen on this suffrage business.” + +“Nor I. You haven’t had it on your mind all this time?” + +“I have rather. I felt somehow I’d hurt you.” + +“You didn’t. I--I hurt myself.” + +“I mean--” + +“I behaved like an idiot, that’s all. My nerves were in rags. I was +worried. We’re the hysterical animal, Mr. Capes. I got myself locked up +to cool off. By a sort of instinct. As a dog eats grass. I’m right again +now.” + +“Because your nerves were exposed, that was no excuse for my touching +them. I ought to have seen--” + +“It doesn’t matter a rap--if you’re not disposed to resent the--the way +I behaved.” + +“_I_ resent!” + +“I was only sorry I’d been so stupid.” + +“Well, I take it we’re straight again,” said Capes with a note of +relief, and assumed an easier position on the edge of her table. “But +if you weren’t keen on the suffrage business, why on earth did you go to +prison?” + +Ann Veronica reflected. “It was a phase,” she said. + +He smiled. “It’s a new phase in the life history,” he remarked. +“Everybody seems to have it now. Everybody who’s going to develop into a +woman.” + +“There’s Miss Garvice.” + +“She’s coming on,” said Capes. “And, you know, you’re altering us all. +I’M shaken. The campaign’s a success.” He met her questioning eye, and +repeated, “Oh! it IS a success. A man is so apt to--to take women a +little too lightly. Unless they remind him now and then not to.... +YOU did.” + +“Then I didn’t waste my time in prison altogether?” + +“It wasn’t the prison impressed me. But I liked the things you said +here. I felt suddenly I understood you--as an intelligent person. If +you’ll forgive my saying that, and implying what goes with it. There’s +something--puppyish in a man’s usual attitude to women. That is what +I’ve had on my conscience.... I don’t think we’re altogether to blame +if we don’t take some of your lot seriously. Some of your sex, I mean. +But we smirk a little, I’m afraid, habitually when we talk to you. We +smirk, and we’re a bit--furtive.” + +He paused, with his eyes studying her gravely. “You, anyhow, don’t +deserve it,” he said. + +Their colloquy was ended abruptly by the apparition of Miss Klegg at +the further door. When she saw Ann Veronica she stood for a moment as if +entranced, and then advanced with outstretched hands. “Veronique!” she +cried with a rising intonation, though never before had she called Ann +Veronica anything but Miss Stanley, and seized her and squeezed her and +kissed her with profound emotion. “To think that you were going to do +it--and never said a word! You are a little thin, but except for that +you look--you look better than ever. Was it VERY horrible? I tried to +get into the police-court, but the crowd was ever so much too big, push +as I would.... + +“I mean to go to prison directly the session is over,” said Miss Klegg. +“Wild horses--not if they have all the mounted police in London--shan’t +keep me out.” + + + +Part 6 + + +Capes lit things wonderfully for Ann Veronica all that afternoon, he was +so friendly, so palpably interested in her, and glad to have her back +with him. Tea in the laboratory was a sort of suffragette reception. +Miss Garvice assumed a quality of neutrality, professed herself almost +won over by Ann Veronica’s example, and the Scotchman decided that if +women had a distinctive sphere it was, at any rate, an enlarging sphere, +and no one who believed in the doctrine of evolution could logically +deny the vote to women “ultimately,” however much they might be disposed +to doubt the advisability of its immediate concession. It was a refusal +of expediency, he said, and not an absolute refusal. The youth with his +hair like Russell cleared his throat and said rather irrelevantly that +he knew a man who knew Thomas Bayard Simmons, who had rioted in the +Strangers’ Gallery, and then Capes, finding them all distinctly pro-Ann +Veronica, if not pro-feminist, ventured to be perverse, and started a +vein of speculation upon the Scotchman’s idea--that there were still +hopes of women evolving into something higher. + +He was unusually absurd and ready, and all the time it seemed to Ann +Veronica as a delightful possibility, as a thing not indeed to be +entertained seriously, but to be half furtively felt, that he was being +so agreeable because she had come back again. She returned home through +a world that was as roseate as it had been gray overnight. + +But as she got out of the train at Morningside Park Station she had a +shock. She saw, twenty yards down the platform, the shiny hat and broad +back and inimitable swagger of Ramage. She dived at once behind the +cover of the lamp-room and affected serious trouble with her shoe-lace +until he was out of the station, and then she followed slowly and with +extreme discretion until the bifurcation of the Avenue from the field +way insured her escape. Ramage went up the Avenue, and she hurried +along the path with a beating heart and a disagreeable sense of unsolved +problems in her mind. + +“That thing’s going on,” she told herself. “Everything goes on, confound +it! One doesn’t change anything one has set going by making good +resolutions.” + +And then ahead of her she saw the radiant and welcoming figure of +Manning. He came as an agreeable diversion from an insoluble perplexity. +She smiled at the sight of him, and thereat his radiation increased. + +“I missed the hour of your release,” he said, “but I was at the +Vindicator Restaurant. You did not see me, I know. I was among the +common herd in the place below, but I took good care to see you.” + +“Of course you’re converted?” she said. + +“To the view that all those Splendid Women in the movement ought to have +votes. Rather! Who could help it?” + +He towered up over her and smiled down at her in his fatherly way. + +“To the view that all women ought to have votes whether they like it or +not.” + +He shook his head, and his eyes and the mouth under the black mustache +wrinkled with his smile. And as he walked by her side they began a +wrangle that was none the less pleasant to Ann Veronica because it +served to banish a disagreeable preoccupation. It seemed to her in her +restored geniality that she liked Manning extremely. The brightness +Capes had diffused over the world glorified even his rival. + + + +Part 7 + + +The steps by which Ann Veronica determined to engage herself to marry +Manning were never very clear to her. A medley of motives warred in her, +and it was certainly not one of the least of these that she knew herself +to be passionately in love with Capes; at moments she had a giddy +intimation that he was beginning to feel keenly interested in her. +She realized more and more the quality of the brink upon which she +stood--the dreadful readiness with which in certain moods she +might plunge, the unmitigated wrongness and recklessness of such a +self-abandonment. “He must never know,” she would whisper to herself, +“he must never know. Or else--Else it will be impossible that I can be +his friend.” + +That simple statement of the case was by no means all that went on in +Ann Veronica’s mind. But it was the form of her ruling determination; it +was the only form that she ever allowed to see daylight. What else was +there lurked in shadows and deep places; if in some mood of reverie it +came out into the light, it was presently overwhelmed and hustled back +again into hiding. She would never look squarely at these dream forms +that mocked the social order in which she lived, never admit she +listened to the soft whisperings in her ear. But Manning seemed more and +more clearly indicated as a refuge, as security. Certain simple purposes +emerged from the disingenuous muddle of her feelings and desires. Seeing +Capes from day to day made a bright eventfulness that hampered her in +the course she had resolved to follow. She vanished from the laboratory +for a week, a week of oddly interesting days.... + +When she renewed her attendance at the Imperial College the third finger +of her left hand was adorned with a very fine old ring with dark blue +sapphires that had once belonged to a great-aunt of Manning’s. + +That ring manifestly occupied her thoughts a great deal. She kept +pausing in her work and regarding it, and when Capes came round to her, +she first put her hand in her lap and then rather awkwardly in front of +him. But men are often blind to rings. He seemed to be. + +In the afternoon she had considered certain doubts very carefully, +and decided on a more emphatic course of action. “Are these ordinary +sapphires?” she said. He bent to her hand, and she slipped off the ring +and gave it to him to examine. + +“Very good,” he said. “Rather darker than most of them. But I’m +generously ignorant of gems. Is it an old ring?” he asked, returning it. + +“I believe it is. It’s an engagement ring....” She slipped it on her +finger, and added, in a voice she tried to make matter-of-fact: “It was +given to me last week.” + +“Oh!” he said, in a colorless tone, and with his eyes on her face. + +“Yes. Last week.” + +She glanced at him, and it was suddenly apparent for one instant of +illumination that this ring upon her finger was the crowning blunder +of her life. It was apparent, and then it faded into the quality of an +inevitable necessity. + +“Odd!” he remarked, rather surprisingly, after a little interval. + +There was a brief pause, a crowded pause, between them. + +She sat very still, and his eyes rested on that ornament for a moment, +and then travelled slowly to her wrist and the soft lines of her +forearm. + +“I suppose I ought to congratulate you,” he said. Their eyes met, and +his expressed perplexity and curiosity. “The fact is--I don’t know +why--this takes me by surprise. Somehow I haven’t connected the idea +with you. You seemed complete--without that.” + +“Did I?” she said. + +“I don’t know why. But this is like--like walking round a house that +looks square and complete and finding an unexpected long wing running +out behind.” + +She looked up at him, and found he was watching her closely. For some +seconds of voluminous thinking they looked at the ring between them, +and neither spoke. Then Capes shifted his eyes to her microscope and +the little trays of unmounted sections beside it. “How is that carmine +working?” he asked, with a forced interest. + +“Better,” said Ann Veronica, with an unreal alacrity. “But it still +misses the nucleolus.” + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH + +THE SAPPHIRE RING + + +Part 1 + + +For a time that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all, the +satisfactory solution of Ann Veronica’s difficulties. It was like +pouring a strong acid over dulled metal. A tarnish of constraint that +had recently spread over her intercourse with Capes vanished again. They +embarked upon an open and declared friendship. They even talked about +friendship. They went to the Zoological Gardens together one Saturday to +see for themselves a point of morphological interest about the toucan’s +bill--that friendly and entertaining bird--and they spent the rest of +the afternoon walking about and elaborating in general terms this theme +and the superiority of intellectual fellowship to all merely passionate +relationships. Upon this topic Capes was heavy and conscientious, but +that seemed to her to be just exactly what he ought to be. He was also, +had she known it, more than a little insincere. “We are only in the dawn +of the Age of Friendship,” he said, “when interest, I suppose, will +take the place of passions. Either you have had to love people or hate +them--which is a sort of love, too, in its way--to get anything out of +them. Now, more and more, we’re going to be interested in them, to be +curious about them and--quite mildly-experimental with them.” He seemed +to be elaborating ideas as he talked. They watched the chimpanzees in +the new apes’ house, and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes--“so +much more human than human beings”--and they watched the Agile Gibbon in +the next apartment doing wonderful leaps and aerial somersaults. + +“I wonder which of us enjoys that most,” said Capes--“does he, or do +we?” + +“He seems to get a zest--” + +“He does it and forgets it. We remember it. These joyful bounds just +lace into the stuff of my memories and stay there forever. Living’s just +material.” + +“It’s very good to be alive.” + +“It’s better to know life than be life.” + +“One may do both,” said Ann Veronica. + +She was in a very uncritical state that afternoon. When he said, “Let’s +go and see the wart-hog,” she thought no one ever had had so quick a +flow of good ideas as he; and when he explained that sugar and not buns +was the talisman of popularity among the animals, she marvelled at his +practical omniscience. + +Finally, at the exit into Regent’s Park, they ran against Miss Klegg. +It was the expression of Miss Klegg’s face that put the idea into Ann +Veronica’s head of showing Manning at the College one day, an idea which +she didn’t for some reason or other carry out for a fortnight. + + + +Part 2 + + +When at last she did so, the sapphire ring took on a new quality in the +imagination of Capes. It ceased to be the symbol of liberty and a remote +and quite abstracted person, and became suddenly and very disagreeably +the token of a large and portentous body visible and tangible. + +Manning appeared just at the end of the afternoon’s work, and the +biologist was going through some perplexities the Scotchman had created +by a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of Hyrax and a young African +elephant. He was clearing up these difficulties by tracing a partially +obliterated suture the Scotchman had overlooked when the door from the +passage opened, and Manning came into his universe. + +Seen down the length of the laboratory, Manning looked a very handsome +and shapely gentleman indeed, and, at the sight of his eager advance to +his fiancee, Miss Klegg replaced one long-cherished romance about Ann +Veronica by one more normal and simple. He carried a cane and a silk +hat with a mourning-band in one gray-gloved hand; his frock-coat and +trousers were admirable; his handsome face, his black mustache, his +prominent brow conveyed an eager solicitude. + +“I want,” he said, with a white hand outstretched, “to take you out to +tea.” + +“I’ve been clearing up,” said Ann Veronica, brightly. + +“All your dreadful scientific things?” he said, with a smile that Miss +Klegg thought extraordinarily kindly. + +“All my dreadful scientific things,” said Ann Veronica. + +He stood back, smiling with an air of proprietorship, and looking about +him at the business-like equipment of the room. The low ceiling made him +seem abnormally tall. Ann Veronica wiped a scalpel, put a card over a +watch-glass containing thin shreds of embryonic guinea-pig swimming in +mauve stain, and dismantled her microscope. + +“I wish I understood more of biology,” said Manning. + +“I’m ready,” said Ann Veronica, closing her microscope-box with a click, +and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. “We have no airs +and graces here, and my hat hangs from a peg in the passage.” + +She led the way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and round her +and opened the door for her. When Capes glanced up at them for a moment, +Manning seemed to be holding his arms all about her, and there was +nothing but quiet acquiescence in her bearing. + +After Capes had finished the Scotchman’s troubles he went back into the +preparation-room. He sat down on the sill of the open window, folded his +arms, and stared straight before him for a long time over the wilderness +of tiles and chimney-pots into a sky that was blue and empty. He was not +addicted to monologue, and the only audible comment he permitted himself +at first upon a universe that was evidently anything but satisfactory to +him that afternoon, was one compact and entirely unassigned “Damn!” + +The word must have had some gratifying quality, because he repeated +it. Then he stood up and repeated it again. “The fool I have been!” he +cried; and now speech was coming to him. He tried this sentence with +expletives. “Ass!” he went on, still warming. “Muck-headed moral ass! I +ought to have done anything. + +“I ought to have done anything! + +“What’s a man for? + +“Friendship!” + +He doubled up his fist, and seemed to contemplate thrusting it through +the window. He turned his back on that temptation. Then suddenly he +seized a new preparation bottle that stood upon his table and contained +the better part of a week’s work--a displayed dissection of a snail, +beautifully done--and hurled it across the room, to smash resoundingly +upon the cemented floor under the bookcase; then, without either haste +or pause, he swept his arm along a shelf of re-agents and sent them to +mingle with the debris on the floor. They fell in a diapason of smashes. +“H’m!” he said, regarding the wreckage with a calmer visage. “Silly!” he +remarked after a pause. “One hardly knows--all the time.” + +He put his hands in his pockets, his mouth puckered to a whistle, and he +went to the door of the outer preparation-room and stood there, looking, +save for the faintest intensification of his natural ruddiness, the +embodiment of blond serenity. + +“Gellett,” he called, “just come and clear up a mess, will you? I’ve +smashed some things.” + + + +Part 3 + + +There was one serious flaw in Ann Veronica’s arrangements for +self-rehabilitation, and that was Ramage. He hung over her--he and his +loan to her and his connection with her and that terrible evening--a +vague, disconcerting possibility of annoyance and exposure. She could +not see any relief from this anxiety except repayment, and repayment +seemed impossible. The raising of twenty-five pounds was a task +altogether beyond her powers. Her birthday was four months away, and +that, at its extremist point, might give her another five pounds. + +The thing rankled in her mind night and day. She would wake in the night +to repeat her bitter cry: “Oh, why did I burn those notes?” + +It added greatly to the annoyance of the situation that she had twice +seen Ramage in the Avenue since her return to the shelter of her +father’s roof. He had saluted her with elaborate civility, his eyes +distended with indecipherable meanings. + +She felt she was bound in honor to tell the whole affair to Manning +sooner or later. Indeed, it seemed inevitable that she must clear it up +with his assistance, or not at all. And when Manning was not about +the thing seemed simple enough. She would compose extremely lucid and +honorable explanations. But when it came to broaching them, it proved to +be much more difficult than she had supposed. + +They went down the great staircase of the building, and, while she +sought in her mind for a beginning, he broke into appreciation of her +simple dress and self-congratulations upon their engagement. + +“It makes me feel,” he said, “that nothing is impossible--to have you +here beside me. I said, that day at Surbiton, ‘There’s many good things +in life, but there’s only one best, and that’s the wild-haired girl +who’s pulling away at that oar. I will make her my Grail, and some day, +perhaps, if God wills, she shall become my wife!’” + +He looked very hard before him as he said this, and his voice was full +of deep feeling. + +“Grail!” said Ann Veronica, and then: “Oh, yes--of course! Anything but +a holy one, I’m afraid.” + +“Altogether holy, Ann Veronica. Ah! but you can’t imagine what you are +to me and what you mean to me! I suppose there is something mystical and +wonderful about all women.” + +“There is something mystical and wonderful about all human beings. I +don’t see that men need bank it with the women.” + +“A man does,” said Manning--“a true man, anyhow. And for me there is +only one treasure-house. By Jove! When I think of it I want to leap and +shout!” + +“It would astonish that man with the barrow.” + +“It astonishes me that I don’t,” said Manning, in a tone of intense +self-enjoyment. + +“I think,” began Ann Veronica, “that you don’t realize--” + +He disregarded her entirely. He waved an arm and spoke with a peculiar +resonance. “I feel like a giant! I believe now I shall do great things. +Gods! what it must be to pour out strong, splendid verse--mighty +lines! mighty lines! If I do, Ann Veronica, it will be you. It will be +altogether you. I will dedicate my books to you. I will lay them all at +your feet.” + +He beamed upon her. + +“I don’t think you realize,” Ann Veronica began again, “that I am rather +a defective human being.” + +“I don’t want to,” said Manning. “They say there are spots on the sun. +Not for me. It warms me, and lights me, and fills my world with flowers. +Why should I peep at it through smoked glass to see things that don’t +affect me?” He smiled his delight at his companion. + +“I’ve got bad faults.” + +He shook his head slowly, smiling mysteriously. + +“But perhaps I want to confess them.” + +“I grant you absolution.” + +“I don’t want absolution. I want to make myself visible to you.” + +“I wish I could make you visible to yourself. I don’t believe in the +faults. They’re just a joyous softening of the outline--more beautiful +than perfection. Like the flaws of an old marble. If you talk of your +faults, I shall talk of your splendors.” + +“I do want to tell you things, nevertheless.” + +“We’ll have, thank God! ten myriad days to tell each other things. When +I think of it--” + +“But these are things I want to tell you now!” + +“I made a little song of it. Let me say it to you. I’ve no name for it +yet. Epithalamy might do. + + “Like him who stood on Darien + I view uncharted sea + Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights + Before my Queen and me. + +“And that only brings me up to about sixty-five! + + “A glittering wilderness of time + That to the sunset reaches + No keel as yet its waves has ploughed + Or gritted on its beaches. + + “And we will sail that splendor wide, + From day to day together, + From isle to isle of happiness + Through year’s of God’s own weather.” + +“Yes,” said his prospective fellow-sailor, “that’s very pretty.” She +stopped short, full of things un-said. Pretty! Ten thousand days, ten +thousand nights! + +“You shall tell me your faults,” said Manning. “If they matter to you, +they matter.” + +“It isn’t precisely faults,” said Ann Veronica. “It’s something that +bothers me.” Ten thousand! Put that way it seemed so different. + +“Then assuredly!” said Manning. + +She found a little difficulty in beginning. She was glad when he went +on: “I want to be your city of refuge from every sort of bother. I want +to stand between you and all the force and vileness of the world. I want +to make you feel that here is a place where the crowd does not clamor +nor ill-winds blow.” + +“That is all very well,” said Ann Veronica, unheeded. + +“That is my dream of you,” said Manning, warming. “I want my life to be +beaten gold just in order to make it a fitting setting for yours. There +you will be, in an inner temple. I want to enrich it with hangings and +gladden it with verses. I want to fill it with fine and precious things. +And by degrees, perhaps, that maiden distrust of yours that makes you +shrink from my kisses, will vanish.... Forgive me if a certain +warmth creeps into my words! The Park is green and gray to-day, but I am +glowing pink and gold.... It is difficult to express these things.” + + + +Part 4 + + +They sat with tea and strawberries and cream before them at a little +table in front of the pavilion in Regent’s Park. Her confession was +still unmade. Manning leaned forward on the table, talking discursively +on the probable brilliance of their married life. Ann Veronica sat back +in an attitude of inattention, her eyes on a distant game of cricket, +her mind perplexed and busy. She was recalling the circumstances under +which she had engaged herself to Manning, and trying to understand a +curious development of the quality of this relationship. + +The particulars of her engagement were very clear in her memory. She had +taken care he should have this momentous talk with her on a garden-seat +commanded by the windows of the house. They had been playing tennis, +with his manifest intention looming over her. + +“Let us sit down for a moment,” he had said. He made his speech a little +elaborately. She plucked at the knots of her racket and heard him to the +end, then spoke in a restrained undertone. + +“You ask me to be engaged to you, Mr. Manning,” she began. + +“I want to lay all my life at your feet.” + +“Mr. Manning, I do not think I love you.... I want to be very plain +with you. I have nothing, nothing that can possibly be passion for you. +I am sure. Nothing at all.” + +He was silent for some moments. + +“Perhaps that is only sleeping,” he said. “How can you know?” + +“I think--perhaps I am rather a cold-blooded person.” + +She stopped. He remained listening attentively. + +“You have been very kind to me,” she said. + +“I would give my life for you.” + +Her heart had warmed toward him. It had seemed to her that life might +be very good indeed with his kindliness and sacrifice about her. She +thought of him as always courteous and helpful, as realizing, indeed, +his ideal of protection and service, as chivalrously leaving her free to +live her own life, rejoicing with an infinite generosity in every detail +of her irresponsive being. She twanged the catgut under her fingers. + +“It seems so unfair,” she said, “to take all you offer me and give so +little in return.” + +“It is all the world to me. And we are not traders looking at +equivalents.” + +“You know, Mr. Manning, I do not really want to marry.” + +“No.” + +“It seems so--so unworthy”--she picked among her phrases “of the noble +love you give--” + +She stopped, through the difficulty she found in expressing herself. + +“But I am judge of that,” said Manning. + +“Would you wait for me?” + +Manning was silent for a space. “As my lady wills.” + +“Would you let me go on studying for a time?” + +“If you order patience.” + +“I think, Mr. Manning... I do not know. It is so difficult. When I +think of the love you give me--One ought to give you back love.” + +“You like me?” + +“Yes. And I am grateful to you....” + +Manning tapped with his racket on the turf through some moments of +silence. “You are the most perfect, the most glorious of created +things--tender, frank intellectual, brave, beautiful. I am your +servitor. I am ready to wait for you, to wait your pleasure, to give all +my life to winning it. Let me only wear your livery. Give me but leave +to try. You want to think for a time, to be free for a time. That is so +like you, Diana--Pallas Athene! (Pallas Athene is better.) You are all +the slender goddesses. I understand. Let me engage myself. That is all I +ask.” + +She looked at him; his face, downcast and in profile, was handsome and +strong. Her gratitude swelled within her. + +“You are too good for me,” she said in a low voice. + +“Then you--you will?” + +A long pause. + +“It isn’t fair....” + +“But will you?” + +“YES.” + +For some seconds he had remained quite still. + +“If I sit here,” he said, standing up before her abruptly, “I shall +have to shout. Let us walk about. Tum, tum, tirray, tum, tum, tum, +te-tum--that thing of Mendelssohn’s! If making one human being +absolutely happy is any satisfaction to you--” + +He held out his hands, and she also stood up. + +He drew her close up to him with a strong, steady pull. Then suddenly, +in front of all those windows, he folded her in his arms and pressed her +to him, and kissed her unresisting face. + +“Don’t!” cried Ann Veronica, struggling faintly, and he released her. + +“Forgive me,” he said. “But I am at singing-pitch.” + +She had a moment of sheer panic at the thing she had done. “Mr. +Manning,” she said, “for a time--Will you tell no one? Will you keep +this--our secret? I’m doubtful--Will you please not even tell my aunt?” + +“As you will,” he said. “But if my manner tells! I cannot help it if +that shows. You only mean a secret for a little time?” + +“Just for a little time,” she said; “yes....” + +But the ring, and her aunt’s triumphant eye, and a note of approval in +her father’s manner, and a novel disposition in him to praise Manning +in a just, impartial voice had soon placed very definite qualifications +upon that covenanted secrecy. + + + +Part 5 + + +At first the quality of her relationship to Manning seemed moving and +beautiful to Ann Veronica. She admired and rather pitied him, and she +was unfeignedly grateful to him. She even thought that perhaps she might +come to love him, in spite of that faint indefinable flavor of absurdity +that pervaded his courtly bearing. She would never love him as she +loved Capes, of course, but there are grades and qualities of love. +For Manning it would be a more temperate love altogether. Much more +temperate; the discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, +condescending wife. She had been quite convinced that an engagement with +him and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromise which +distinguishes the ways of the wise. It would be the wrappered world +almost at its best. She saw herself building up a life upon that--a +life restrained, kindly, beautiful, a little pathetic and altogether +dignified; a life of great disciplines and suppressions and extensive +reserves... + +But the Ramage affair needed clearing up, of course; it was a flaw upon +that project. She had to explain about and pay off that forty pounds.... + +Then, quite insensibly, her queenliness had declined. She was never able +to trace the changes her attitude had undergone, from the time when she +believed herself to be the pampered Queen of Fortune, the crown of a +good man’s love (and secretly, but nobly, worshipping some one else), +to the time when she realized she was in fact just a mannequin for her +lover’s imagination, and that he cared no more for the realities of her +being, for the things she felt and desired, for the passions and dreams +that might move her, than a child cares for the sawdust in its doll. She +was the actress his whim had chosen to play a passive part.... + +It was one of the most educational disillusionments in Ann Veronica’s +career. + +But did many women get anything better? + +This afternoon, when she was urgent to explain her hampering and +tainting complication with Ramage, the realization of this alien quality +in her relationship with Manning became acute. Hitherto it had been +qualified by her conception of all life as a compromise, by her new +effort to be unexacting of life. But she perceived that to tell Manning +of her Ramage adventures as they had happened would be like tarring +figures upon a water-color. They were in different key, they had a +different timbre. How could she tell him what indeed already began to +puzzle herself, why she had borrowed that money at all? The plain fact +was that she had grabbed a bait. She had grabbed! She became less and +less attentive to his meditative, self-complacent fragments of talk as +she told herself this. Her secret thoughts made some hasty, half-hearted +excursions into the possibility of telling the thing in romantic +tones--Ramage was as a black villain, she as a white, fantastically +white, maiden.... She doubted if Manning would even listen to that. +He would refuse to listen and absolve her unshriven. + +Then it came to her with a shock, as an extraordinary oversight, that +she could never tell Manning about Ramage--never. + +She dismissed the idea of doing so. But that still left the forty +pounds!... + +Her mind went on generalizing. So it would always be between herself and +Manning. She saw her life before her robbed of all generous illusions, +the wrappered life unwrappered forever, vistas of dull responses, crises +of make-believe, years of exacting mutual disregard in a misty garden of +fine sentiments. + +But did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps every woman +conceals herself from a man perforce!... + +She thought of Capes. She could not help thinking of Capes. Surely +Capes was different. Capes looked at one and not over one, spoke to one, +treated one as a visible concrete fact. Capes saw her, felt for her, +cared for her greatly, even if he did not love her. Anyhow, he did not +sentimentalize her. And she had been doubting since that walk in the +Zoological Gardens whether, indeed, he did simply care for her. Little +things, almost impalpable, had happened to justify that doubt; something +in his manner had belied his words. Did he not look for her in the +morning when she entered--come very quickly to her? She thought of him +as she had last seen him looking down the length of the laboratory to +see her go. Why had he glanced up--quite in that way?... + +The thought of Capes flooded her being like long-veiled sunlight +breaking again through clouds. It came to her like a dear thing +rediscovered, that she loved Capes. It came to her that to marry any +one but Capes was impossible. If she could not marry him, she would not +marry any one. She would end this sham with Manning. It ought never +to have begun. It was cheating, pitiful cheating. And then if some day +Capes wanted her--saw fit to alter his views upon friendship.... + +Dim possibilities that she would not seem to look at even to herself +gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind. + +She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution, and in one moment had +made it into a new self. She flung aside every plan she had in life, +every discretion. Of course, why not? She would be honest, anyhow! + +She turned her eyes to Manning. + +He was sitting back from the table now, with one arm over the back +of his green chair and the other resting on the little table. He was +smiling under his heavy mustache, and his head was a little on one side +as he looked at her. + +“And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?” he was saying. +His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene disbelief in any confessible +thing. Ann Veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and the vestiges of her +strawberries and cream, and put her elbows before her on the table. “Mr. +Manning,” she said, “I HAVE a confession to make.” + +“I wish you would use my Christian name,” he said. + +She attended to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant. + +Something in her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted gravity +to him. For the first time he seemed to wonder what it might be that she +had to confess. His smile faded. + +“I don’t think our engagement can go on,” she plunged, and felt exactly +that loss of breath that comes with a dive into icy water. + +“But, how,” he said, sitting up astonished beyond measure, “not go on?” + +“I have been thinking while you have been talking. You see--I didn’t +understand.” + +She stared hard at her finger-nails. “It is hard to express one’s self, +but I do want to be honest with you. When I promised to marry you I +thought I could; I thought it was a possible arrangement. I did think it +could be done. I admired your chivalry. I was grateful.” + +She paused. + +“Go on,” he said. + +She moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a still lower tone. “I +told you I did not love you.” + +“I know,” said Manning, nodding gravely. “It was fine and brave of you.” + +“But there is something more.” + +She paused again. + +“I--I am sorry--I didn’t explain. These things are difficult. It wasn’t +clear to me that I had to explain.... I love some one else.” + +They remained looking at each other for three or four seconds. Then +Manning flopped back in his chair and dropped his chin like a man shot. +There was a long silence between them. + +“My God!” he said at last, with tremendous feeling, and then again, “My +God!” + +Now that this thing was said her mind was clear and calm. She heard this +standard expression of a strong soul wrung with a critical coldness that +astonished herself. She realized dimly that there was no personal thing +behind his cry, that countless myriads of Mannings had “My God!”-ed with +an equal gusto at situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated +her remorse enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and conveyed +magnificent tragedy by his pose. + +“But why,” he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, and +looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, “why did you not tell me +this before?” + +“I didn’t know--I thought I might be able to control myself.” + +“And you can’t?” + +“I don’t think I ought to control myself.” + +“And I have been dreaming and thinking--” + +“I am frightfully sorry....” + +“But--This bolt from the blue! My God! Ann Veronica, you don’t +understand. This--this shatters a world!” + +She tried to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism was strong +and clear. + +He went on with intense urgency. + +“Why did you ever let me love you? Why did you ever let me peep through +the gates of Paradise? Oh! my God! I don’t begin to feel and realize +this yet. It seems to me just talk; it seems to me like the fancy of a +dream. Tell me I haven’t heard. This is a joke of yours.” He made his +voice very low and full, and looked closely into her face. + +She twisted her fingers tightly. “It isn’t a joke,” she said. “I feel +shabby and disgraced.... I ought never to have thought of it. Of you, +I mean....” + +He fell back in his chair with an expression of tremendous desolation. +“My God!” he said again.... + +They became aware of the waitress standing over them with book and +pencil ready for their bill. “Never mind the bill,” said Manning +tragically, standing up and thrusting a four-shilling piece into her +hand, and turning a broad back on her astonishment. “Let us walk across +the Park at least,” he said to Ann Veronica. “Just at present my mind +simply won’t take hold of this at all.... I tell you--never mind the +bill. Keep it! Keep it!” + + + +Part 6 + + +They walked a long way that afternoon. They crossed the Park to the +westward, and then turned back and walked round the circle about the +Royal Botanical Gardens and then southwardly toward Waterloo. They +trudged and talked, and Manning struggled, as he said, to “get the hang +of it all.” + +It was a long, meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and unavoidable. Ann +Veronica was apologetic to the bottom of her soul. At the same time she +was wildly exultant at the resolution she had taken, the end she had +made to her blunder. She had only to get through this, to solace Manning +as much as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as +were possible, and then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fate +to the test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action in +accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them or care +for them. Then she realized that it was her business to let Manning talk +and impose his own interpretations upon the situation so far as he was +concerned. She did her best to do this. But about his unknown rival he +was acutely curious. + +He made her tell him the core of the difficulty. + +“I cannot say who he is,” said Ann Veronica, “but he is a married +man.... No! I do not even know that he cares for me. It is no good going +into that. Only I just want him. I just want him, and no one else will +do. It is no good arguing about a thing like that.” + +“But you thought you could forget him.” + +“I suppose I must have thought so. I didn’t understand. Now I do.” + +“By God!” said Manning, making the most of the word, “I suppose it’s +fate. Fate! You are so frank so splendid! + +“I’m taking this calmly now,” he said, almost as if he apologized, +“because I’m a little stunned.” + +Then he asked, “Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love to +you?” + +Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. “I wish he had,” she said. + +“But--” + +The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on her +nerves. “When one wants a thing more than anything else in the world,” + she said with outrageous frankness, “one naturally wishes one had it.” + +She shocked him by that. She shattered the edifice he was building up +of himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win her from a +hopeless and consuming passion. + +“Mr. Manning,” she said, “I warned you not to idealize me. Men ought not +to idealize any woman. We aren’t worth it. We’ve done nothing to deserve +it. And it hampers us. You don’t know the thoughts we have; the things +we can do and say. You are a sisterless man; you have never heard the +ordinary talk that goes on at a girls’ boarding-school.” + +“Oh! but you ARE splendid and open and fearless! As if I couldn’t allow! +What are all these little things? Nothing! Nothing! You can’t sully +yourself. You can’t! I tell you frankly you may break off your +engagement to me--I shall hold myself still engaged to you, yours just +the same. As for this infatuation--it’s like some obsession, some +magic thing laid upon you. It’s not you--not a bit. It’s a thing that’s +happened to you. It is like some accident. I don’t care. In a sense I +don’t care. It makes no difference.... All the same, I wish I had +that fellow by the throat! Just the virile, unregenerate man in me +wishes that.... + +“I suppose I should let go if I had. + +“You know,” he went on, “this doesn’t seem to me to end anything. + +“I’m rather a persistent person. I’m the sort of dog, if you turn it out +of the room it lies down on the mat at the door. I’m not a lovesick +boy. I’m a man, and I know what I mean. It’s a tremendous blow, of +course--but it doesn’t kill me. And the situation it makes!--the +situation!” + +Thus Manning, egotistical, inconsecutive, unreal. And Ann Veronica +walked beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to him by the +thought of how she had ill-used him, and all the time, as her feet and +mind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the cost +of this one interminable walk she escaped the prospect of--what was +it?--“Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights” in his company. Whatever +happened she need never return to that possibility. + +“For me,” Manning went on, “this isn’t final. In a sense it alters +nothing. I shall still wear your favor--even if it is a stolen and +forbidden favor--in my casque.... I shall still believe in you. Trust +you.” + +He repeated several times that he would trust her, though it remained +obscure just exactly where the trust came in. + +“Look here,” he cried out of a silence, with a sudden flash of +understanding, “did you mean to throw me over when you came out with me +this afternoon?” + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and with a startled mind realized the truth. +“No,” she answered, reluctantly. + +“Very well,” said Manning. “Then I don’t take this as final. That’s all. +I’ve bored you or something.... You think you love this other man! No +doubt you do love him. Before you have lived--” + +He became darkly prophetic. He thrust out a rhetorical hand. + +“I will MAKE you love me! Until he has faded--faded into a memory...” + +He saw her into the train at Waterloo, and stood, a tall, grave figure, +with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward slowly and hid him. +Ann Veronica sat back with a sigh of relief. Manning might go on now +idealizing her as much as he liked. She was no longer a confederate in +that. He might go on as the devoted lover until he tired. She had done +forever with the Age of Chivalry, and her own base adaptations of its +traditions to the compromising life. She was honest again. + +But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the +tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic +importunity. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH + +THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + + +Part 1 + + +Spring had held back that year until the dawn of May, and then spring +and summer came with a rush together. Two days after this conversation +between Manning and Ann Veronica, Capes came into the laboratory at +lunch-time and found her alone there standing by the open window, and +not even pretending to be doing anything. + +He came in with his hands in his trousers pockets and a general air +of depression in his bearing. He was engaged in detesting Manning and +himself in almost equal measure. His face brightened at the sight of +her, and he came toward her. + +“What are you doing?” he asked. + +“Nothing,” said Ann Veronica, and stared over her shoulder out of the +window. + +“So am I.... Lassitude?” + +“I suppose so.” + +“_I_ can’t work.” + +“Nor I,” said Ann Veronica. + +Pause. + +“It’s the spring,” he said. “It’s the warming up of the year, the coming +of the light mornings, the way in which everything begins to run about +and begin new things. Work becomes distasteful; one thinks of holidays. +This year--I’ve got it badly. I want to get away. I’ve never wanted to +get away so much.” + +“Where do you go?” + +“Oh!--Alps.” + +“Climbing?” + +“Yes.” + +“That’s rather a fine sort of holiday!” + +He made no answer for three or four seconds. + +“Yes,” he said, “I want to get away. I feel at moments as though I could +bolt for it.... Silly, isn’t it? Undisciplined.” + +He went to the window and fidgeted with the blind, looking out to where +the tree-tops of Regent’s Park showed distantly over the houses. He +turned round toward her and found her looking at him and standing very +still. + +“It’s the stir of spring,” he said. + +“I believe it is.” + +She glanced out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth of +hard spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild resolution, +and, lest she should waver from it, she set about at once to realize it. +“I’ve broken off my engagement,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and +found her heart thumping in her neck. He moved slightly, and she +went on, with a slight catching of her breath: “It’s a bother and +disturbance, but you see--” She had to go through with it now, because +she could think of nothing but her preconceived words. Her voice was +weak and flat. + +“I’ve fallen in love.” + +He never helped her by a sound. + +“I--I didn’t love the man I was engaged to,” she said. She met his eyes +for a moment, and could not interpret their expression. They struck her +as cold and indifferent. + +Her heart failed her and her resolution became water. She remained +standing stiffly, unable even to move. She could not look at him through +an interval that seemed to her a vast gulf of time. But she felt his lax +figure become rigid. + +At last his voice came to release her tension. + +“I thought you weren’t keeping up to the mark. You--It’s jolly of you to +confide in me. Still--” Then, with incredible and obviously deliberate +stupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, he asked, “Who is the man?” + +Her spirit raged within her at the dumbness, the paralysis that had +fallen upon her. Grace, confidence, the power of movement even, seemed +gone from her. A fever of shame ran through her being. Horrible doubts +assailed her. She sat down awkwardly and helplessly on one of the little +stools by her table and covered her face with her hands. + +“Can’t you SEE how things are?” she said. + + + +Part 2 + + +Before Capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of the +laboratory opened noisily and Miss Klegg appeared. She went to her own +table and sat down. At the sound of the door Ann Veronica uncovered +a tearless face, and with one swift movement assumed a conversational +attitude. Things hung for a moment in an awkward silence. + +“You see,” said Ann Veronica, staring before her at the window-sash, +“that’s the form my question takes at the present time.” + +Capes had not quite the same power of recovery. He stood with his +hands in his pockets looking at Miss Klegg’s back. His face was white. +“It’s--it’s a difficult question.” He appeared to be paralyzed by +abstruse acoustic calculations. Then, very awkwardly, he took a stool +and placed it at the end of Ann Veronica’s table, and sat down. He +glanced at Miss Klegg again, and spoke quickly and furtively, with eager +eyes on Ann Veronica’s face. + +“I had a faint idea once that things were as you say they are, but the +affair of the ring--of the unexpected ring--puzzled me. Wish SHE”--he +indicated Miss Klegg’s back with a nod--“was at the bottom of the +sea.... I would like to talk to you about this--soon. If you don’t think +it would be a social outrage, perhaps I might walk with you to your +railway station.” + +“I will wait,” said Ann Veronica, still not looking at him, “and we will +go into Regent’s Park. No--you shall come with me to Waterloo.” + +“Right!” he said, and hesitated, and then got up and went into the +preparation-room. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that lead +southward from the College. Capes bore a face of infinite perplexity. + +“The thing I feel most disposed to say, Miss Stanley,” he began at last, +“is that this is very sudden.” + +“It’s been coming on since first I came into the laboratory.” + +“What do you want?” he asked, bluntly. + +“You!” said Ann Veronica. + +The sense of publicity, of people coming and going about them, kept +them both unemotional. And neither had any of that theatricality which +demands gestures and facial expression. + +“I suppose you know I like you tremendously?” he pursued. + +“You told me that in the Zoological Gardens.” + +She found her muscles a-tremble. But there was nothing in her bearing +that a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the excitement that +possessed her. + +“I”--he seemed to have a difficulty with the word--“I love you. I’ve +told you that practically already. But I can give it its name now. You +needn’t be in any doubt about it. I tell you that because it puts us on +a footing....” + +They went on for a time without another word. + +“But don’t you know about me?” he said at last. + +“Something. Not much.” + +“I’m a married man. And my wife won’t live with me for reasons that I +think most women would consider sound.... Or I should have made love +to you long ago.” + +There came a silence again. + +“I don’t care,” said Ann Veronica. + +“But if you knew anything of that--” + +“I did. It doesn’t matter.” + +“Why did you tell me? I thought--I thought we were going to be friends.” + +He was suddenly resentful. He seemed to charge her with the ruin of +their situation. “Why on earth did you TELL me?” he cried. + +“I couldn’t help it. It was an impulse. I HAD to.” + +“But it changes things. I thought you understood.” + +“I had to,” she repeated. “I was sick of the make-believe. I don’t care! +I’m glad I did. I’m glad I did.” + +“Look here!” said Capes, “what on earth do you want? What do you think +we can do? Don’t you know what men are, and what life is?--to come to me +and talk to me like this!” + +“I know--something, anyhow. But I don’t care; I haven’t a spark of +shame. I don’t see any good in life if it hasn’t got you in it. I wanted +you to know. And now you know. And the fences are down for good. You +can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t care for me.” + +“I’ve told you,” he said. + +“Very well,” said Ann Veronica, with an air of concluding the +discussion. + +They walked side by side for a time. + +“In that laboratory one gets to disregard these passions,” began Capes. +“Men are curious animals, with a trick of falling in love readily +with girls about your age. One has to train one’s self not to. I’ve +accustomed myself to think of you--as if you were like every other +girl who works at the schools--as something quite outside these +possibilities. If only out of loyalty to co-education one has to do +that. Apart from everything else, this meeting of ours is a breach of a +good rule.” + +“Rules are for every day,” said Ann Veronica. “This is not every day. +This is something above all rules.” + +“For you.” + +“Not for you?” + +“No. No; I’m going to stick to the rules.... It’s odd, but nothing +but cliche seems to meet this case. You’ve placed me in a very +exceptional position, Miss Stanley.” The note of his own voice +exasperated him. “Oh, damn!” he said. + +She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems with +himself. + +“No!” he said aloud at last. + +“The plain common-sense of the case,” he said, “is that we can’t +possibly be lovers in the ordinary sense. That, I think, is manifest. +You know, I’ve done no work at all this afternoon. I’ve been smoking +cigarettes in the preparation-room and thinking this out. We can’t be +lovers in the ordinary sense, but we can be great and intimate friends.” + +“We are,” said Ann Veronica. + +“You’ve interested me enormously....” + +He paused with a sense of ineptitude. “I want to be your friend,” he +said. “I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let us be friends--as near +and close as friends can be.” + +Ann Veronica gave him a pallid profile. + +“What is the good of pretending?” she said. + +“We don’t pretend.” + +“We do. Love is one thing and friendship quite another. Because I’m +younger than you.... I’ve got imagination.... I know what I am +talking about. Mr. Capes, do you think... do you think I don’t know +the meaning of love?” + + + +Part 4 + + +Capes made no answer for a time. + +“My mind is full of confused stuff,” he said at length. “I’ve been +thinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of thought and +feeling there are bottled up too.... I feel a mixture of beast and +uncle. I feel like a fraudulent trustee. Every rule is against me--Why +did I let you begin this? I might have told--” + +“I don’t see that you could help--” + +“I might have helped--” + +“You couldn’t.” + +“I ought to have--all the same. + +“I wonder,” he said, and went off at a tangent. “You know about my +scandalous past?” + +“Very little. It doesn’t seem to matter. Does it?” + +“I think it does. Profoundly.” + +“How?” + +“It prevents our marrying. It forbids--all sorts of things.” + +“It can’t prevent our loving.” + +“I’m afraid it can’t. But, by Jove! it’s going to make our loving a +fiercely abstract thing.” + +“You are separated from your wife?” + +“Yes, but do you know how?” + +“Not exactly.” + +“Why on earth--? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I’m separated from +my wife. But she doesn’t and won’t divorce me. You don’t understand +the fix I am in. And you don’t know what led to our separation. And, in +fact, all round the problem you don’t know and I don’t see how I could +possibly have told you before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I +trusted to that ring of yours.” + +“Poor old ring!” said Ann Veronica. + +“I ought never have gone to the Zoo, I suppose. I asked you to go. But +a man is a mixed creature.... I wanted the time with you. I wanted it +badly.” + +“Tell me about yourself,” said Ann Veronica. + +“To begin with, I was--I was in the divorce court. I was--I was a +co-respondent. You understand that term?” + +Ann Veronica smiled faintly. “A modern girl does understand these terms. +She reads novels--and history--and all sorts of things. Did you really +doubt if I knew?” + +“No. But I don’t suppose you can understand.” + +“I don’t see why I shouldn’t.” + +“To know things by name is one thing; to know them by seeing them and +feeling them and being them quite another. That is where life takes +advantage of youth. You don’t understand.” + +“Perhaps I don’t.” + +“You don’t. That’s the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I expect, +since you are in love with me, you’d explain the whole business as being +very fine and honorable for me--the Higher Morality, or something of +that sort.... It wasn’t.” + +“I don’t deal very much,” said Ann Veronica, “in the Higher Morality, or +the Higher Truth, or any of those things.” + +“Perhaps you don’t. But a human being who is young and clean, as you +are, is apt to ennoble--or explain away.” + +“I’ve had a biological training. I’m a hard young woman.” + +“Nice clean hardness, anyhow. I think you are hard. There’s +something--something ADULT about you. I’m talking to you now as though +you had all the wisdom and charity in the world. I’m going to tell you +things plainly. Plainly. It’s best. And then you can go home and think +things over before we talk again. I want you to be clear what you’re +really and truly up to, anyhow.” + +“I don’t mind knowing,” said Ann Veronica. + +“It’s precious unromantic.” + +“Well, tell me.” + +“I married pretty young,” said Capes. “I’ve got--I have to tell you this +to make myself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my composition. I +married--I married a woman whom I still think one of the most beautiful +persons in the world. She is a year or so older than I am, and she is, +well, of a very serene and proud and dignified temperament. If you met +her you would, I am certain, think her as fine as I do. She has never +done a really ignoble thing that I know of--never. I met her when we +were both very young, as young as you are. I loved her and made love to +her, and I don’t think she quite loved me back in the same way.” + +He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing. + +“These are the sort of things that aren’t supposed to happen. They leave +them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young people ignore them +until they find themselves up against them. My wife doesn’t understand, +doesn’t understand now. She despises me, I suppose.... We married, +and for a time we were happy. She was fine and tender. I worshipped her +and subdued myself.” + +He left off abruptly. “Do you understand what I am talking about? It’s +no good if you don’t.” + +“I think so,” said Ann Veronica, and colored. “In fact, yes, I do.” + +“Do you think of these things--these matters--as belonging to our Higher +Nature or our Lower?” + +“I don’t deal in Higher Things, I tell you,” said Ann Veronica, “or +Lower, for the matter of that. I don’t classify.” She hesitated. “Flesh +and flowers are all alike to me.” + +“That’s the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a fever in +my blood. Don’t think it was anything better than fever--or a bit +beautiful. It wasn’t. Quite soon, after we were married--it was just +within a year--I formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a woman +eight years older than myself.... It wasn’t anything splendid, you +know. It was just a shabby, stupid, furtive business that began between +us. Like stealing. We dressed it in a little music.... I want you to +understand clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I +was mean to him.... It was the gratification of an immense necessity. +We were two people with a craving. We felt like thieves. We WERE +thieves.... We LIKED each other well enough. Well, my friend found +us out, and would give no quarter. He divorced her. How do you like the +story?” + +“Go on,” said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, “tell me all of it.” + +“My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. She thought me--filthy. +All her pride raged at me. One particularly humiliating thing came +out--humiliating for me. There was a second co-respondent. I hadn’t +heard of him before the trial. I don’t know why that should be so +acutely humiliating. There’s no logic in these things. It was.” + +“Poor you!” said Ann Veronica. + +“My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me. She +could hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a separation. +She had money of her own--much more than I have--and there was no need +to squabble about that. She has given herself up to social work.” + +“Well--” + +“That’s all. Practically all. And yet--Wait a little, you’d better have +every bit of it. One doesn’t go about with these passions allayed simply +because they have made wreckage and a scandal. There one is! The same +stuff still! One has a craving in one’s blood, a craving roused, cut off +from its redeeming and guiding emotional side. A man has more freedom to +do evil than a woman. Irregularly, in a quite inglorious and unromantic +way, you know, I am a vicious man. That’s--that’s my private life. Until +the last few months. It isn’t what I have been but what I am. I haven’t +taken much account of it until now. My honor has been in my scientific +work and public discussion and the things I write. Lots of us are like +that. But, you see, I’m smirched. For the sort of love-making you think +about. I’ve muddled all this business. I’ve had my time and lost my +chances. I’m damaged goods. And you’re as clean as fire. You come with +those clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel....” + +He stopped abruptly. + +“Well?” she said. + +“That’s all.” + +“It’s so strange to think of you--troubled by such things. I didn’t +think--I don’t know what I thought. Suddenly all this makes you human. +Makes you real.” + +“But don’t you see how I must stand to you? Don’t you see how it bars us +from being lovers--You can’t--at first. You must think it over. It’s all +outside the world of your experience.” + +“I don’t think it makes a rap of difference, except for one thing. I +love you more. I’ve wanted you--always. I didn’t dream, not even in my +wildest dreaming, that--you might have any need of me.” + +He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried out +within him, and for a time they were both too full for speech. + +They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station. + +“You go home and think of all this,” he said, “and talk about it +to-morrow. Don’t, don’t say anything now, not anything. As for loving +you, I do. I do--with all my heart. It’s no good hiding it any more. +I could never have talked to you like this, forgetting everything that +parts us, forgetting even your age, if I did not love you utterly. If +I were a clean, free man--We’ll have to talk of all these things. Thank +goodness there’s plenty of opportunity! And we two can talk. Anyhow, now +you’ve begun it, there’s nothing to keep us in all this from being the +best friends in the world. And talking of every conceivable thing. Is +there?” + +“Nothing,” said Ann Veronica, with a radiant face. + +“Before this there was a sort of restraint--a make-believe. It’s gone.” + +“It’s gone.” + +“Friendship and love being separate things. And that confounded +engagement!” + +“Gone!” + +They came upon a platform, and stood before her compartment. + +He took her hand and looked into her eyes and spoke, divided against +himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere. + +“I shall be very glad to have you for a friend,” he said, “loving +friend. I had never dreamed of such a friend as you.” + +She smiled, sure of herself beyond any pretending, into his troubled +eyes. Hadn’t they settled that already? + +“I want you as a friend,” he persisted, almost as if he disputed +something. + + + +Part 5 + + +The next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour in the +reasonable certainty that he would come to her. + +“Well, you have thought it over?” he said, sitting down beside her. + +“I’ve been thinking of you all night,” she answered. + +“Well?” + +“I don’t care a rap for all these things.” + +He said nothing for a space. + +“I don’t see there’s any getting away from the fact that you and I love +each other,” he said, slowly. “So far you’ve got me and I you.... +You’ve got me. I’m like a creature just wakened up. My eyes are open to +you. I keep on thinking of you. I keep on thinking of little details and +aspects of your voice, your eyes, the way you walk, the way your hair +goes back from the side of your forehead. I believe I have always been +in love with you. Always. Before ever I knew you.” + +She sat motionless, with her hand tightening over the edge of the table, +and he, too, said no more. She began to tremble violently. + +He stood up abruptly and went to the window. + +“We have,” he said, “to be the utmost friends.” + +She stood up and held her arms toward him. “I want you to kiss me,” she +said. + +He gripped the window-sill behind him. + +“If I do,” he said.... “No! I want to do without that. I want to +do without that for a time. I want to give you time to think. I am a +man--of a sort of experience. You are a girl with very little. Just sit +down on that stool again and let’s talk of this in cold blood. People of +your sort--I don’t want the instincts to--to rush our situation. Are you +sure what it is you want of me?” + +“I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. +I want to be whatever I can to you.” She paused for a moment. “Is that +plain?” she asked. + +“If I didn’t love you better than myself,” said Capes, “I wouldn’t fence +like this with you. + +“I am convinced you haven’t thought this out,” he went on. “You do not +know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our heads swim with +the thought of being together. But what can we do? Here am I, fixed to +respectability and this laboratory; you’re living at home. It means... +just furtive meetings.” + +“I don’t care how we meet,” she said. + +“It will spoil your life.” + +“It will make it. I want you. I am clear I want you. You are different +from all the world for me. You can think all round me. You are the one +person I can understand and feel--feel right with. I don’t idealize you. +Don’t imagine that. It isn’t because you’re good, but because I may be +rotten bad; and there’s something--something living and understanding +in you. Something that is born anew each time we meet, and pines when +we are separated. You see, I’m selfish. I’m rather scornful. I think +too much about myself. You’re the only person I’ve really given good, +straight, unselfish thought to. I’m making a mess of my life--unless +you come in and take it. I am. In you--if you can love me--there +is salvation. Salvation. I know what I am doing better than you do. +Think--think of that engagement!” + +Their talk had come to eloquent silences that contradicted all he had to +say. + +She stood up before him, smiling faintly. + +“I think we’ve exhausted this discussion,” she said. + +“I think we have,” he answered, gravely, and took her in his arms, and +smoothed her hair from her forehead, and very tenderly kissed her lips. + + + +Part 6 + + +They spent the next Sunday in Richmond Park, and mingled the happy +sensation of being together uninterruptedly through the long sunshine +of a summer’s day with the ample discussion of their position. “This has +all the clean freshness of spring and youth,” said Capes; “it is love +with the down on; it is like the glitter of dew in the sunlight to be +lovers such as we are, with no more than one warm kiss between us. I +love everything to-day, and all of you, but I love this, this--this +innocence upon us most of all. + +“You can’t imagine,” he said, “what a beastly thing a furtive love +affair can be. + +“This isn’t furtive,” said Ann Veronica. + +“Not a bit of it. And we won’t make it so.... We mustn’t make it so.” + +They loitered under trees, they sat on mossy banks they gossiped on +friendly benches, they came back to lunch at the “Star and Garter,” + and talked their afternoon away in the garden that looks out upon the +crescent of the river. They had a universe to talk about--two universes. + +“What are we going to do?” said Capes, with his eyes on the broad +distances beyond the ribbon of the river. + +“I will do whatever you want,” said Ann Veronica. + +“My first love was all blundering,” said Capes. + +He thought for a moment, and went on: “Love is something that has to be +taken care of. One has to be so careful.... It’s a beautiful plant, +but a tender one.... I didn’t know. I’ve a dread of love dropping its +petals, becoming mean and ugly. How can I tell you all I feel? I love +you beyond measure. And I’m afraid.... I’m anxious, joyfully anxious, +like a man when he has found a treasure.” + +“YOU know,” said Ann Veronica. “I just came to you and put myself in +your hands.” + +“That’s why, in a way, I’m prudish. I’ve--dreads. I don’t want to tear +at you with hot, rough hands.” + +“As you will, dear lover. But for me it doesn’t matter. Nothing is wrong +that you do. Nothing. I am quite clear about this. I know exactly what I +am doing. I give myself to you.” + +“God send you may never repent it!” cried Capes. + +She put her hand in his to be squeezed. + +“You see,” he said, “it is doubtful if we can ever marry. Very doubtful. +I have been thinking--I will go to my wife again. I will do my utmost. +But for a long time, anyhow, we lovers have to be as if we were no more +than friends.” + +He paused. She answered slowly. “That is as you will,” she said. + +“Why should it matter?” he said. + +And then, as she answered nothing, “Seeing that we are lovers.” + + + +Part 7 + + +It was rather less than a week after that walk that Capes came and sat +down beside Ann Veronica for their customary talk in the lunch hour. He +took a handful of almonds and raisins that she held out to him--for +both these young people had given up the practice of going out for +luncheon--and kept her hand for a moment to kiss her finger-tips. He did +not speak for a moment. + +“Well?” she said. + +“I say!” he said, without any movement. “Let’s go.” + +“Go!” She did not understand him at first, and then her heart began to +beat very rapidly. + +“Stop this--this humbugging,” he explained. “It’s like the Picture and +the Bust. I can’t stand it. Let’s go. Go off and live together--until we +can marry. Dare you?” + +“Do you mean NOW?” + +“At the end of the session. It’s the only clean way for us. Are you +prepared to do it?” + +Her hands clenched. “Yes,” she said, very faintly. And then: “Of course! +Always. It is what I have wanted, what I have meant all along.” + +She stared before her, trying to keep back a rush of tears. + +Capes kept obstinately stiff, and spoke between his teeth. + +“There’s endless reasons, no doubt, why we shouldn’t,” he said. +“Endless. It’s wrong in the eyes of most people. For many of them it +will smirch us forever.... You DO understand?” + +“Who cares for most people?” she said, not looking at him. + +“I do. It means social isolation--struggle.” + +“If you dare--I dare,” said Ann Veronica. “I was never so clear in all +my life as I have been in this business.” She lifted steadfast eyes to +him. “Dare!” she said. The tears were welling over now, but her voice +was steady. “You’re not a man for me--not one of a sex, I mean. You’re +just a particular being with nothing else in the world to class with +you. You are just necessary to life for me. I’ve never met any one +like you. To have you is all important. Nothing else weighs against it. +Morals only begin when that is settled. I sha’n’t care a rap if we can +never marry. I’m not a bit afraid of anything--scandal, difficulty, +struggle.... I rather want them. I do want them.” + +“You’ll get them,” he said. “This means a plunge.” + +“Are you afraid?” + +“Only for you! Most of my income will vanish. Even unbelieving +biological demonstrators must respect decorum; and besides, you see--you +were a student. We shall have--hardly any money.” + +“I don’t care.” + +“Hardship and danger.” + +“With you!” + +“And as for your people?” + +“They don’t count. That is the dreadful truth. This--all this swamps +them. They don’t count, and I don’t care.” + +Capes suddenly abandoned his attitude of meditative restraint. “By +Jove!” he broke out, “one tries to take a serious, sober view. I don’t +quite know why. But this is a great lark, Ann Veronica! This turns life +into a glorious adventure!” + +“Ah!” she cried in triumph. + +“I shall have to give up biology, anyhow. I’ve always had a sneaking +desire for the writing-trade. That is what I must do. I can.” + +“Of course you can.” + +“And biology was beginning to bore me a bit. One research is very like +another.... Latterly I’ve been doing things.... Creative work +appeals to me wonderfully. Things seem to come rather easily.... But +that, and that sort of thing, is just a day-dream. For a time I must do +journalism and work hard.... What isn’t a day-dream is this: that you +and I are going to put an end to flummery--and go!” + +“Go!” said Ann Veronica, clenching her hands. + +“For better or worse.” + +“For richer or poorer.” + +She could not go on, for she was laughing and crying at the same time. +“We were bound to do this when you kissed me,” she sobbed through +her tears. “We have been all this time--Only your queer code of +honor--Honor! Once you begin with love you have to see it through.” + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH + +THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + + +Part 1 + + +They decided to go to Switzerland at the session’s end. “We’ll clean up +everything tidy,” said Capes.... + +For her pride’s sake, and to save herself from long day-dreams and an +unappeasable longing for her lover, Ann Veronica worked hard at her +biology during those closing weeks. She was, as Capes had said, a +hard young woman. She was keenly resolved to do well in the school +examination, and not to be drowned in the seas of emotion that +threatened to submerge her intellectual being. + +Nevertheless, she could not prevent a rising excitement as the dawn of +the new life drew near to her--a thrilling of the nerves, a secret +and delicious exaltation above the common circumstances of +existence. Sometimes her straying mind would become astonishingly +active--embroidering bright and decorative things that she could say to +Capes; sometimes it passed into a state of passive acquiescence, into +a radiant, formless, golden joy. She was aware of people--her aunt, +her father, her fellow-students, friends, and neighbors--moving about +outside this glowing secret, very much as an actor is aware of the dim +audience beyond the barrier of the footlights. They might applaud, or +object, or interfere, but the drama was her very own. She was going +through with that, anyhow. + +The feeling of last days grew stronger with her as their number +diminished. She went about the familiar home with a clearer and clearer +sense of inevitable conclusions. She became exceptionally considerate +and affectionate with her father and aunt, and more and more concerned +about the coming catastrophe that she was about to precipitate upon +them. Her aunt had a once exasperating habit of interrupting her work +with demands for small household services, but now Ann Veronica rendered +them with a queer readiness of anticipatory propitiation. She was +greatly exercised by the problem of confiding in the Widgetts; they were +dears, and she talked away two evenings with Constance without broaching +the topic; she made some vague intimations in letters to Miss Miniver +that Miss Miniver failed to mark. But she did not bother her head very +much about her relations with these sympathizers. + +And at length her penultimate day in Morningside Park dawned for her. +She got up early, and walked about the garden in the dewy June sunshine +and revived her childhood. She was saying good-bye to childhood and +home, and her making; she was going out into the great, multitudinous +world; this time there would be no returning. She was at the end of +girlhood and on the eve of a woman’s crowning experience. She visited +the corner that had been her own little garden--her forget-me-nots and +candytuft had long since been elbowed into insignificance by weeds; she +visited the raspberry-canes that had sheltered that first love affair +with the little boy in velvet, and the greenhouse where she had been +wont to read her secret letters. Here was the place behind the shed +where she had used to hide from Roddy’s persecutions, and here the +border of herbaceous perennials under whose stems was fairyland. The +back of the house had been the Alps for climbing, and the shrubs +in front of it a Terai. The knots and broken pale that made the +garden-fence scalable, and gave access to the fields behind, were still +to be traced. And here against a wall were the plum-trees. In spite of +God and wasps and her father, she had stolen plums; and once because of +discovered misdeeds, and once because she had realized that her mother +was dead, she had lain on her face in the unmown grass, beneath the +elm-trees that came beyond the vegetables, and poured out her soul in +weeping. + +Remote little Ann Veronica! She would never know the heart of that child +again! That child had loved fairy princes with velvet suits and golden +locks, and she was in love with a real man named Capes, with little +gleams of gold on his cheek and a pleasant voice and firm and shapely +hands. She was going to him soon and certainly, going to his strong, +embracing arms. She was going through a new world with him side by side. +She had been so busy with life that, for a vast gulf of time, as it +seemed, she had given no thought to those ancient, imagined things of +her childhood. Now, abruptly, they were real again, though very distant, +and she had come to say farewell to them across one sundering year. + +She was unusually helpful at breakfast, and unselfish about the eggs: +and then she went off to catch the train before her father’s. She did +this to please him. He hated travelling second-class with her--indeed, +he never did--but he also disliked travelling in the same train when his +daughter was in an inferior class, because of the look of the thing. +So he liked to go by a different train. And in the Avenue she had an +encounter with Ramage. + +It was an odd little encounter, that left vague and dubitable +impressions in her mind. She was aware of him--a silk-hatted, +shiny-black figure on the opposite side of the Avenue; and then, +abruptly and startlingly, he crossed the road and saluted and spoke to +her. + +“I MUST speak to you,” he said. “I can’t keep away from you.” + +She made some inane response. She was struck by a change in his +appearance. His eyes looked a little bloodshot to her; his face had lost +something of its ruddy freshness. + +He began a jerky, broken conversation that lasted until they reached the +station, and left her puzzled at its drift and meaning. She quickened +her pace, and so did he, talking at her slightly averted ear. She made +lumpish and inadequate interruptions rather than replies. At times he +seemed to be claiming pity from her; at times he was threatening her +with her check and exposure; at times he was boasting of his inflexible +will, and how, in the end, he always got what he wanted. He said that +his life was boring and stupid without her. Something or other--she +did not catch what--he was damned if he could stand. He was evidently +nervous, and very anxious to be impressive; his projecting eyes sought +to dominate. The crowning aspect of the incident, for her mind, was the +discovery that he and her indiscretion with him no longer mattered very +much. Its importance had vanished with her abandonment of compromise. +Even her debt to him was a triviality now. + +And of course! She had a brilliant idea. It surprised her she hadn’t +thought of it before! She tried to explain that she was going to pay +him forty pounds without fail next week. She said as much to him. She +repeated this breathlessly. + +“I was glad you did not send it back again,” he said. + +He touched a long-standing sore, and Ann Veronica found herself vainly +trying to explain--the inexplicable. “It’s because I mean to send it +back altogether,” she said. + +He ignored her protests in order to pursue some impressive line of his +own. + +“Here we are, living in the same suburb,” he began. “We have to +be--modern.” + +Her heart leaped within her as she caught that phrase. That knot also +would be cut. Modern, indeed! She was going to be as primordial as +chipped flint. + + + +Part 2 + + +In the late afternoon, as Ann Veronica was gathering flowers for the +dinner-table, her father came strolling across the lawn toward her with +an affectation of great deliberation. + +“I want to speak to you about a little thing, Vee,” said Mr. Stanley. + +Ann Veronica’s tense nerves started, and she stood still with her eyes +upon him, wondering what it might be that impended. + +“You were talking to that fellow Ramage to-day--in the Avenue. Walking +to the station with him.” + +So that was it! + +“He came and talked to me.” + +“Ye--e--es.” Mr. Stanley considered. “Well, I don’t want you to talk to +him,” he said, very firmly. + +Ann Veronica paused before she answered. “Don’t you think I ought to?” + she asked, very submissively. + +“No.” Mr. Stanley coughed and faced toward the house. “He is not--I +don’t like him. I think it inadvisable--I don’t want an intimacy to +spring up between you and a man of that type.” + +Ann Veronica reflected. “I HAVE--had one or two talks with him, daddy.” + +“Don’t let there be any more. I--In fact, I dislike him extremely.” + +“Suppose he comes and talks to me?” + +“A girl can always keep a man at a distance if she cares to do it. +She--She can snub him.” + +Ann Veronica picked a cornflower. + +“I wouldn’t make this objection,” Mr. Stanley went on, “but there are +things--there are stories about Ramage. He’s--He lives in a world of +possibilities outside your imagination. His treatment of his wife +is most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. A bad man, in fact. A +dissipated, loose-living man.” + +“I’ll try not to see him again,” said Ann Veronica. “I didn’t know you +objected to him, daddy.” + +“Strongly,” said Mr. Stanley, “very strongly.” + +The conversation hung. Ann Veronica wondered what her father would do if +she were to tell him the full story of her relations with Ramage. + +“A man like that taints a girl by looking at her, by his mere +conversation.” He adjusted his glasses on his nose. There was another +little thing he had to say. “One has to be so careful of one’s friends +and acquaintances,” he remarked, by way of transition. “They mould one +insensibly.” His voice assumed an easy detached tone. “I suppose, Vee, +you don’t see much of those Widgetts now?” + +“I go in and talk to Constance sometimes.” + +“Do you?” + +“We were great friends at school.” + +“No doubt.... Still--I don’t know whether I quite like--Something +ramshackle about those people, Vee. While I am talking about your +friends, I feel--I think you ought to know how I look at it.” His voice +conveyed studied moderation. “I don’t mind, of course, your seeing +her sometimes, still there are differences--differences in social +atmospheres. One gets drawn into things. Before you know where you +are you find yourself in a complication. I don’t want to influence you +unduly--But--They’re artistic people, Vee. That’s the fact about them. +We’re different.” + +“I suppose we are,” said Vee, rearranging the flowers in her hand. + +“Friendships that are all very well between school-girls don’t always go +on into later life. It’s--it’s a social difference.” + +“I like Constance very much.” + +“No doubt. Still, one has to be reasonable. As you admitted to me--one +has to square one’s self with the world. You don’t know. With people +of that sort all sorts of things may happen. We don’t want things to +happen.” + +Ann Veronica made no answer. + +A vague desire to justify himself ruffled her father. “I may seem +unduly--anxious. I can’t forget about your sister. It’s that has always +made me--SHE, you know, was drawn into a set--didn’t discriminate +Private theatricals.” + +Ann Veronica remained anxious to hear more of her sister’s story from +her father’s point of view, but he did not go on. Even so much allusion +as this to that family shadow, she felt, was an immense recognition of +her ripening years. She glanced at him. He stood a little anxious and +fussy, bothered by the responsibility of her, entirely careless of what +her life was or was likely to be, ignoring her thoughts and feelings, +ignorant of every fact of importance in her life, explaining everything +he could not understand in her as nonsense and perversity, concerned +only with a terror of bothers and undesirable situations. “We don’t want +things to happen!” Never had he shown his daughter so clearly that the +womenkind he was persuaded he had to protect and control could please +him in one way, and in one way only, and that was by doing nothing +except the punctual domestic duties and being nothing except restful +appearances. He had quite enough to see to and worry about in the City +without their doing things. He had no use for Ann Veronica; he had +never had a use for her since she had been too old to sit upon his knee. +Nothing but the constraint of social usage now linked him to her. And +the less “anything” happened the better. The less she lived, in fact, +the better. These realizations rushed into Ann Veronica’s mind and +hardened her heart against him. She spoke slowly. “I may not see the +Widgetts for some little time, father,” she said. “I don’t think I +shall.” + +“Some little tiff?” + +“No; but I don’t think I shall see them.” + +Suppose she were to add, “I am going away!” + +“I’m glad to hear you say it,” said Mr. Stanley, and was so evidently +pleased that Ann Veronica’s heart smote her. + +“I am very glad to hear you say it,” he repeated, and refrained from +further inquiry. “I think we are growing sensible,” he said. “I think +you are getting to understand me better.” + +He hesitated, and walked away from her toward the house. Her eyes +followed him. The curve of his shoulders, the very angle of his feet, +expressed relief at her apparent obedience. “Thank goodness!” said +that retreating aspect, “that’s said and over. Vee’s all right. There’s +nothing happened at all!” She didn’t mean, he concluded, to give him any +more trouble ever, and he was free to begin a fresh chromatic novel--he +had just finished the Blue Lagoon, which he thought very beautiful and +tender and absolutely irrelevant to Morningside Park--or work in peace +at his microtome without bothering about her in the least. + +The immense disillusionment that awaited him! The devastating +disillusionment! She had a vague desire to run after him, to state her +case to him, to wring some understanding from him of what life was to +her. She felt a cheat and a sneak to his unsuspecting retreating back. + +“But what can one do?” asked Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dressed carefully for dinner in a black dress that her father +liked, and that made her look serious and responsible. Dinner was quite +uneventful. Her father read a draft prospectus warily, and her aunt +dropped fragments of her projects for managing while the cook had a +holiday. After dinner Ann Veronica went into the drawing-room with Miss +Stanley, and her father went up to his den for his pipe and pensive +petrography. Later in the evening she heard him whistling, poor man! + +She felt very restless and excited. She refused coffee, though she knew +that anyhow she was doomed to a sleepless night. She took up one of her +father’s novels and put it down again, fretted up to her own room for +some work, sat on her bed and meditated upon the room that she was now +really abandoning forever, and returned at length with a stocking to +darn. Her aunt was making herself cuffs out of little slips of insertion +under the newly lit lamp. + +Ann Veronica sat down in the other arm-chair and darned badly for a +minute or so. Then she looked at her aunt, and traced with a curious eye +the careful arrangement of her hair, her sharp nose, the little drooping +lines of mouth and chin and cheek. + +Her thought spoke aloud. “Were you ever in love, aunt?” she asked. + +Her aunt glanced up startled, and then sat very still, with hands that +had ceased to work. “What makes you ask such a question, Vee?” she said. + +“I wondered.” + +Her aunt answered in a low voice: “I was engaged to him, dear, for seven +years, and then he died.” + +Ann Veronica made a sympathetic little murmur. + +“He was in holy orders, and we were to have been married when he got a +living. He was a Wiltshire Edmondshaw, a very old family.” + +She sat very still. + +Ann Veronica hesitated with a question that had leaped up in her mind, +and that she felt was cruel. “Are you sorry you waited, aunt?” she said. + +Her aunt was a long time before she answered. “His stipend forbade it,” + she said, and seemed to fall into a train of thought. “It would have +been rash and unwise,” she said at the end of a meditation. “What he had +was altogether insufficient.” + +Ann Veronica looked at the mildly pensive gray eyes and the comfortable, +rather refined face with a penetrating curiosity. Presently her aunt +sighed deeply and looked at the clock. “Time for my Patience,” she said. +She got up, put the neat cuffs she had made into her work-basket, +and went to the bureau for the little cards in the morocco case. Ann +Veronica jumped up to get her the card-table. “I haven’t seen the new +Patience, dear,” she said. “May I sit beside you?” + +“It’s a very difficult one,” said her aunt. “Perhaps you will help me +shuffle?” + +Ann Veronica did, and also assisted nimbly with the arrangements of the +rows of eight with which the struggle began. Then she sat watching the +play, sometimes offering a helpful suggestion, sometimes letting her +attention wander to the smoothly shining arms she had folded across her +knees just below the edge of the table. She was feeling extraordinarily +well that night, so that the sense of her body was a deep delight, a +realization of a gentle warmth and strength and elastic firmness. Then +she glanced at the cards again, over which her aunt’s many-ringed hand +played, and then at the rather weak, rather plump face that surveyed its +operations. + +It came to Ann Veronica that life was wonderful beyond measure. It +seemed incredible that she and her aunt were, indeed, creatures of the +same blood, only by a birth or so different beings, and part of that +same broad interlacing stream of human life that has invented the fauns +and nymphs, Astarte, Aphrodite, Freya, and all the twining beauty of +the gods. The love-songs of all the ages were singing in her blood, the +scent of night stock from the garden filled the air, and the moths that +beat upon the closed frames of the window next the lamp set her mind +dreaming of kisses in the dusk. Yet her aunt, with a ringed hand +flitting to her lips and a puzzled, worried look in her eyes, deaf +to all this riot of warmth and flitting desire, was playing +Patience--playing Patience, as if Dionysius and her curate had died +together. A faint buzz above the ceiling witnessed that petrography, +too, was active. Gray and tranquil world! Amazing, passionless world! A +world in which days without meaning, days in which “we don’t want things +to happen” followed days without meaning--until the last thing happened, +the ultimate, unavoidable, coarse, “disagreeable.” It was her last +evening in that wrappered life against which she had rebelled. Warm +reality was now so near her she could hear it beating in her ears. Away +in London even now Capes was packing and preparing; Capes, the magic man +whose touch turned one to trembling fire. What was he doing? What was he +thinking? It was less than a day now, less than twenty hours. Seventeen +hours, sixteen hours. She glanced at the soft-ticking clock with the +exposed brass pendulum upon the white marble mantel, and made a rapid +calculation. To be exact, it was just sixteen hours and twenty minutes. +The slow stars circled on to the moment of their meeting. The softly +glittering summer stars! She saw them shining over mountains of snow, +over valleys of haze and warm darkness.... There would be no moon. + +“I believe after all it’s coming out!” said Miss Stanley. “The aces made +it easy.” + +Ann Veronica started from her reverie, sat up in her chair, became +attentive. “Look, dear,” she said presently, “you can put the ten on the +Jack.” + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH + +IN THE MOUNTAINS + + +Part 1 + + +Next day Ann Veronica and Capes felt like newborn things. It seemed +to them they could never have been really alive before, but only +dimly anticipating existence. They sat face to face beneath an +experienced-looking rucksack and a brand new portmanteau and a leather +handbag, in the afternoon-boat train that goes from Charing Cross to +Folkestone for Boulogne. They tried to read illustrated papers in an +unconcerned manner and with forced attention, lest they should catch +the leaping exultation in each other’s eyes. And they admired Kent +sedulously from the windows. + +They crossed the Channel in sunshine and a breeze that just ruffled the +sea to glittering scales of silver. Some of the people who watched them +standing side by side thought they must be newly wedded because of their +happy faces, and others that they were an old-established couple because +of their easy confidence in each other. + +At Boulogne they took train to Basle; next morning they breakfasted +together in the buffet of that station, and thence they caught the +Interlaken express, and so went by way of Spies to Frutigen. There was +no railway beyond Frutigen in those days; they sent their baggage by +post to Kandersteg, and walked along the mule path to the left of the +stream to that queer hollow among the precipices, Blau See, where the +petrifying branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of an icy lake, and +pine-trees clamber among gigantic boulders. A little inn flying a +Swiss flag nestles under a great rock, and there they put aside their +knapsacks and lunched and rested in the mid-day shadow of the gorge +and the scent of resin. And later they paddled in a boat above the +mysterious deeps of the See, and peered down into the green-blues and +the blue-greens together. By that time it seemed to them they had lived +together twenty years. + +Except for one memorable school excursion to Paris, Ann Veronica had +never yet been outside England. So that it seemed to her the whole world +had changed--the very light of it had changed. Instead of English villas +and cottages there were chalets and Italian-built houses shining white; +there were lakes of emerald and sapphire and clustering castles, and +such sweeps of hill and mountain, such shining uplands of snow, as she +had never seen before. Everything was fresh and bright, from the kindly +manners of the Frutigen cobbler, who hammered mountain nails into her +boots, to the unfamiliar wild flowers that spangled the wayside. And +Capes had changed into the easiest and jolliest companion in the world. +The mere fact that he was there in the train alongside her, helping her, +sitting opposite to her in the dining-car, presently sleeping on a seat +within a yard of her, made her heart sing until she was afraid their +fellow passengers would hear it. It was too good to be true. She would +not sleep for fear of losing a moment of that sense of his proximity. To +walk beside him, dressed akin to him, rucksacked and companionable, was +bliss in itself; each step she took was like stepping once more across +the threshold of heaven. + +One trouble, however, shot its slanting bolts athwart the shining warmth +of that opening day and marred its perfection, and that was the thought +of her father. + +She had treated him badly; she had hurt him and her aunt; she had done +wrong by their standards, and she would never persuade them that she +had done right. She thought of her father in the garden, and of her aunt +with her Patience, as she had seen them--how many ages was it ago? Just +one day intervened. She felt as if she had struck them unawares. The +thought of them distressed her without subtracting at all from the +oceans of happiness in which she swam. But she wished she could put the +thing she had done in some way to them so that it would not hurt them +so much as the truth would certainly do. The thought of their faces, +and particularly of her aunt’s, as it would meet the fact--disconcerted, +unfriendly, condemning, pained--occurred to her again and again. + +“Oh! I wish,” she said, “that people thought alike about these things.” + +Capes watched the limpid water dripping from his oar. “I wish they did,” + he said, “but they don’t.” + +“I feel--All this is the rightest of all conceivable things. I want to +tell every one. I want to boast myself.” + +“I know.” + +“I told them a lie. I told them lies. I wrote three letters yesterday +and tore them up. It was so hopeless to put it to them. At last--I told +a story.” + +“You didn’t tell them our position?” + +“I implied we had married.” + +“They’ll find out. They’ll know.” + +“Not yet.” + +“Sooner or later.” + +“Possibly--bit by bit.... But it was hopelessly hard to put. I said +I knew he disliked and distrusted you and your work--that you shared +all Russell’s opinions: he hates Russell beyond measure--and that we +couldn’t possibly face a conventional marriage. What else could one say? +I left him to suppose--a registry perhaps....” + +Capes let his oar smack on the water. + +“Do you mind very much?” + +He shook his head. + +“But it makes me feel inhuman,” he added. + +“And me....” + +“It’s the perpetual trouble,” he said, “of parent and child. They +can’t help seeing things in the way they do. Nor can we. WE don’t +think they’re right, but they don’t think we are. A deadlock. In a very +definite sense we are in the wrong--hopelessly in the wrong. But--It’s +just this: who was to be hurt?” + +“I wish no one had to be hurt,” said Ann Veronica. “When one is happy--I +don’t like to think of them. Last time I left home I felt as hard as +nails. But this is all different. It is different.” + +“There’s a sort of instinct of rebellion,” said Capes. “It isn’t +anything to do with our times particularly. People think it is, but they +are wrong. It’s to do with adolescence. Long before religion and Society +heard of Doubt, girls were all for midnight coaches and Gretna Green. +It’s a sort of home-leaving instinct.” + +He followed up a line of thought. + +“There’s another instinct, too,” he went on, “in a state of suppression, +unless I’m very much mistaken; a child-expelling instinct.... I +wonder.... There’s no family uniting instinct, anyhow; it’s habit +and sentiment and material convenience hold families together after +adolescence. There’s always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. +Always! I don’t believe there is any strong natural affection at all +between parents and growing-up children. There wasn’t, I know, between +myself and my father. I didn’t allow myself to see things as they were +in those days; now I do. I bored him. I hated him. I suppose that +shocks one’s ideas.... It’s true.... There are sentimental and +traditional deferences and reverences, I know, between father and +son; but that’s just exactly what prevents the development of an easy +friendship. Father-worshipping sons are abnormal--and they’re no good. +No good at all. One’s got to be a better man than one’s father, or what +is the good of successive generations? Life is rebellion, or nothing.” + +He rowed a stroke and watched the swirl of water from his oar broaden +and die away. At last he took up his thoughts again: “I wonder if, some +day, one won’t need to rebel against customs and laws? If this discord +will have gone? Some day, perhaps--who knows?--the old won’t coddle and +hamper the young, and the young won’t need to fly in the faces of the +old. They’ll face facts as facts, and understand. Oh, to face facts! +Gods! what a world it might be if people faced facts! Understanding! +Understanding! There is no other salvation. Some day older people, +perhaps, will trouble to understand younger people, and there won’t +be these fierce disruptions; there won’t be barriers one must defy or +perish.... That’s really our choice now, defy--or futility.... The +world, perhaps, will be educated out of its idea of fixed standards.... +I wonder, Ann Veronica, if, when our time comes, we shall be any +wiser?” + +Ann Veronica watched a water-beetle fussing across the green depths. +“One can’t tell. I’m a female thing at bottom. I like high tone for a +flourish and stars and ideas; but I want my things.” + + + +Part 2 + + +Capes thought. + +“It’s odd--I have no doubt in my mind that what we are doing is wrong,” + he said. “And yet I do it without compunction.” + +“I never felt so absolutely right,” said Ann Veronica. + +“You ARE a female thing at bottom,” he admitted. “I’m not nearly so sure +as you. As for me, I look twice at it.... Life is two things, +that’s how I see it; two things mixed and muddled up together. Life is +morality--life is adventure. Squire and master. Adventure rules, and +morality--looks up the trains in the Bradshaw. Morality tells you what +is right, and adventure moves you. If morality means anything it means +keeping bounds, respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If +individuality means anything it means breaking bounds--adventure. + +“Will you be moral and your species, or immoral and yourself? We’ve +decided to be immoral. We needn’t try and give ourselves airs. We’ve +deserted the posts in which we found ourselves, cut our duties, exposed +ourselves to risks that may destroy any sort of social usefulness in +us.... I don’t know. One keeps rules in order to be one’s self. One +studies Nature in order not to be blindly ruled by her. There’s no sense +in morality, I suppose, unless you are fundamentally immoral.” + +She watched his face as he traced his way through these speculative +thickets. + +“Look at our affair,” he went on, looking up at her. “No power on earth +will persuade me we’re not two rather disreputable persons. You desert +your home; I throw up useful teaching, risk every hope in your career. +Here we are absconding, pretending to be what we are not; shady, to say +the least of it. It’s not a bit of good pretending there’s any Higher +Truth or wonderful principle in this business. There isn’t. We never +started out in any high-browed manner to scandalize and Shelleyfy. +When first you left your home you had no idea that _I_ was the hidden +impulse. I wasn’t. You came out like an ant for your nuptial flight. It +was just a chance that we in particular hit against each other--nothing +predestined about it. We just hit against each other, and here we are +flying off at a tangent, a little surprised at what we are doing, all +our principles abandoned, and tremendously and quite unreasonably proud +of ourselves. Out of all this we have struck a sort of harmony.... +And it’s gorgeous!” + +“Glorious!” said Ann Veronica. + +“Would YOU like us--if some one told you the bare outline of our +story?--and what we are doing?” + +“I shouldn’t mind,” said Ann Veronica. + +“But if some one else asked your advice? If some one else said, ‘Here is +my teacher, a jaded married man on the verge of middle age, and he and I +have a violent passion for one another. We propose to disregard all our +ties, all our obligations, all the established prohibitions of society, +and begin life together afresh.’ What would you tell her?” + +“If she asked advice, I should say she wasn’t fit to do anything of the +sort. I should say that having a doubt was enough to condemn it.” + +“But waive that point.” + +“It would be different all the same. It wouldn’t be you.” + +“It wouldn’t be you either. I suppose that’s the gist of the whole +thing.” He stared at a little eddy. “The rule’s all right, so long as +there isn’t a case. Rules are for established things, like the pieces +and positions of a game. Men and women are not established things; +they’re experiments, all of them. Every human being is a new thing, +exists to do new things. Find the thing you want to do most intensely, +make sure that’s it, and do it with all your might. If you live, well +and good; if you die, well and good. Your purpose is done.... Well, +this is OUR thing.” + +He woke the glassy water to swirling activity again, and made the +deep-blue shapes below writhe and shiver. + +“This is MY thing,” said Ann Veronica, softly, with thoughtful eyes upon +him. + +Then she looked up the sweep of pine-trees to the towering sunlit cliffs +and the high heaven above and then back to his face. She drew in a deep +breath of the sweet mountain air. Her eyes were soft and grave, and +there was the faintest of smiles upon her resolute lips. + + + +Part 3 + + +Later they loitered along a winding path above the inn, and made love +to one another. Their journey had made them indolent, the afternoon was +warm, and it seemed impossible to breathe a sweeter air. The flowers and +turf, a wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, and suchlike little intimate +things had become more interesting than mountains. Their flitting hands +were always touching. Deep silences came between them.... + +“I had thought to go on to Kandersteg,” said Capes, “but this is a +pleasant place. There is not a soul in the inn but ourselves. Let +us stay the night here. Then we can loiter and gossip to our heart’s +content.” + +“Agreed,” said Ann Veronica. + +“After all, it’s our honeymoon.” + +“All we shall get,” said Ann Veronica. + +“This place is very beautiful.” + +“Any place would be beautiful,” said Ann Veronica, in a low voice. + +For a time they walked in silence. + +“I wonder,” she began, presently, “why I love you--and love you so +much?... I know now what it is to be an abandoned female. I AM an +abandoned female. I’m not ashamed--of the things I’m doing. I want to +put myself into your hands. You know--I wish I could roll my little body +up small and squeeze it into your hand and grip your fingers upon it. +Tight. I want you to hold me and have me SO.... Everything. Everything. +It’s a pure joy of giving--giving to YOU. I have never spoken of these +things to any human being. Just dreamed--and ran away even from my +dreams. It is as if my lips had been sealed about them. And now I break +the seals--for you. Only I wish--I wish to-day I was a thousand times, +ten thousand times more beautiful.” + +Capes lifted her hand and kissed it. + +“You are a thousand times more beautiful,” he said, “than anything else +could be.... You are you. You are all the beauty in the world. Beauty +doesn’t mean, never has meant, anything--anything at all but you. It +heralded you, promised you....” + + + +Part 4 + + +They lay side by side in a shallow nest of turf and mosses among +bowlders and stunted bushes on a high rock, and watched the day sky +deepen to evening between the vast precipices overhead and looked over +the tree-tops down the widening gorge. A distant suggestion of chalets +and a glimpse of the road set them talking for a time of the world they +had left behind. + +Capes spoke casually of their plans for work. “It’s a flabby, +loose-willed world we have to face. It won’t even know whether to be +scandalized at us or forgiving. It will hold aloof, a little undecided +whether to pelt or not--” + +“That depends whether we carry ourselves as though we expected pelting,” + said Ann Veronica. + +“We won’t.” + +“No fear!” + +“Then, as we succeed, it will begin to sidle back to us. It will do its +best to overlook things--” + +“If we let it, poor dear.” + +“That’s if we succeed. If we fail,” said Capes, “then--” + +“We aren’t going to fail,” said Ann Veronica. + +Life seemed a very brave and glorious enterprise to Ann Veronica that +day. She was quivering with the sense of Capes at her side and glowing +with heroic love; it seemed to her that if they put their hands jointly +against the Alps and pushed they would be able to push them aside. She +lay and nibbled at a sprig of dwarf rhododendron. + +“FAIL!” she said. + + + +Part 5 + + +Presently it occurred to Ann Veronica to ask about the journey he had +planned. He had his sections of the Siegfried map folded in his pocket, +and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an Indian idol while +she lay prone beside him and followed every movement of his indicatory +finger. + +“Here,” he said, “is this Blau See, and here we rest until to-morrow. I +think we rest here until to-morrow?” + +There was a brief silence. + +“It is a very pleasant place,” said Ann Veronica, biting a rhododendron +stalk through, and with that faint shadow of a smile returning to her +lips.... + +“And then?” said Ann Veronica. + +“Then we go on to this place, the Oeschinensee. It’s a lake among +precipices, and there is a little inn where we can stay, and sit and eat +our dinner at a pleasant table that looks upon the lake. For some days +we shall be very idle there among the trees and rocks. There are boats +on the lake and shady depths and wildernesses of pine-wood. After a day +or so, perhaps, we will go on one or two little excursions and see how +good your head is--a mild scramble or so; and then up to a hut on a pass +just here, and out upon the Blumlis-alp glacier that spreads out so and +so.” + +She roused herself from some dream at the word. “Glaciers?” she said. + +“Under the Wilde Frau--which was named after you.” + +He bent and kissed her hair and paused, and then forced his attention +back to the map. “One day,” he resumed, “we will start off early and +come down into Kandersteg and up these zigzags and here and here, and so +past this Daubensee to a tiny inn--it won’t be busy yet, though; we +may get it all to ourselves--on the brim of the steepest zigzag you can +imagine, thousands of feet of zigzag; and you will sit and eat lunch +with me and look out across the Rhone Valley and over blue distances +beyond blue distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa and a long +regiment of sunny, snowy mountains. And when we see them we shall at +once want to go to them--that’s the way with beautiful things--and +down we shall go, like flies down a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to Leuk +Station, here, and then by train up the Rhone Valley and this little +side valley to Stalden; and there, in the cool of the afternoon, we +shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs below us and above us, +to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next day to Saas Fee, Saas of +the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People. And there, about Saas, are ice +and snows again, and sometimes we will loiter among the rocks and trees +about Saas or peep into Samuel Butler’s chapels, and sometimes we will +climb up out of the way of the other people on to the glaciers and snow. +And, for one expedition at least, we will go up this desolate valley +here to Mattmark, and so on to Monte Moro. There indeed you see Monte +Rosa. Almost the best of all.” + +“Is it very beautiful?” + +“When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. It was the +crowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining white. It towered up +high above the level of the pass, thousands of feet, still, shining, and +white, and below, thousands of feet below, was a floor of little woolly +clouds. And then presently these clouds began to wear thin and expose +steep, deep slopes, going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, down +and down, and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs, +shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of white +silk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day--it will have to be, +when first you set eyes on Italy.... That’s as far as we go.” + +“Can’t we go down into Italy?” + +“No,” he said; “it won’t run to that now. We must wave our hands at the +blue hills far away there and go back to London and work.” + +“But Italy--” + +“Italy’s for a good girl,” he said, and laid his hand for a moment on +her shoulder. “She must look forward to Italy.” + +“I say,” she reflected, “you ARE rather the master, you know.” + +The idea struck him as novel. “Of course I’m manager for this +expedition,” he said, after an interval of self-examination. + +She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. “Nice sleeve,” she +said, and came to his hand and kissed it. + +“I say!” he cried. “Look here! Aren’t you going a little too far? +This--this is degradation--making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn’t do +things like that.” + +“Why not?” + +“Free woman--and equal.” + +“I do it--of my own free will,” said Ann Veronica, kissing his hand +again. “It’s nothing to what I WILL do.” + +“Oh, well!” he said, a little doubtfully, “it’s just a phase,” and bent +down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, with his heart +beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay very still, with her +hands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face, he came still +closer and softly kissed the nape of her neck.... + + + +Part 6 + + +Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they climbed more +than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved rather a good climber, +steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to be +cautious at his command. + +One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity for +blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things. + +He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he had been +there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the straggling +pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and munch sandwiches +and talk together and do things together that were just a little +difficult and dangerous. And they could talk, they found; and never +once, it seemed, did their meaning and intention hitch. They were +enormously pleased with one another; they found each other beyond +measure better than they had expected, if only because of the want of +substance in mere expectation. Their conversation degenerated again +and again into a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked an +eavesdropper. + +“You’re--I don’t know,” said Ann Veronica. “You’re splendid.” + +“It isn’t that you’re splendid or I,” said Capes. “But we satisfy one +another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest fitness! +What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of mind? Complexion and +voice. I don’t think I’ve got illusions, nor you.... If I had never +met anything of you at all but a scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann +Veronica, I know I would have kept that somewhere near to me.... All +your faults are just jolly modelling to make you real and solid.” + +“The faults are the best part of it,” said Ann Veronica; “why, even our +little vicious strains run the same way. Even our coarseness.” + +“Coarse?” said Capes, “We’re not coarse.” + +“But if we were?” said Ann Veronica. + +“I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort,” said +Capes; “that’s the essence of it. It’s made up of things as small as the +diameter of hairs and big as life and death.... One always dreamed +of this and never believed it. It’s the rarest luck, the wildest, most +impossible accident. Most people, every one I know else, seem to have +mated with foreigners and to talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be +afraid of the knowledge the other one has, of the other one’s perpetual +misjudgment and misunderstandings. + +“Why don’t they wait?” he added. + +Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight. + +“One doesn’t wait,” said Ann Veronica. + +She expanded that. “_I_ shouldn’t have waited,” she said. “I might have +muddled for a time. But it’s as you say. I’ve had the rarest luck and +fallen on my feet.” + +“We’ve both fallen on our feet! We’re the rarest of mortals! The real +thing! There’s not a compromise nor a sham nor a concession between +us. We aren’t afraid; we don’t bother. We don’t consider each other; +we needn’t. That wrappered life, as you call it--we’ve burned the +confounded rags! Danced out of it! We’re stark!” + +“Stark!” echoed Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 7 + + +As they came back from that day’s climb--it was up the Mittaghorn--they +had to cross a shining space of wet, steep rocks between two grass +slopes that needed a little care. There were a few loose, broken +fragments of rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one place where +hands did as much work as toes. They used the rope--not that a rope was +at all necessary, but because Ann Veronica’s exalted state of mind made +the fact of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a +joint death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes went +first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges came +like long, awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica’s feet. About half-way +across this interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes had a +shock. + +“Heavens!” exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. “My God!” + and ceased to move. + +Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. “All right?” he asked. + +“I’ll have to pay it.” + +“Eh?” + +“I’ve forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!” + +“Eh?” + +“He said I would.” + +“What?” + +“That’s the devil of it!” + +“Devil of what?... You DO use vile language!” + +“Forget about it like this.” + +“Forget WHAT?” + +“And I said I wouldn’t. I said I’d do anything. I said I’d make shirts.” + +“Shirts?” + +“Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! Ann +Veronica, you’re a bilker!” + +Pause. + +“Will you tell me what all this is about?” said Capes. + +“It’s about forty pounds.” + +Capes waited patiently. + +“G. I’m sorry.... But you’ve got to lend me forty pounds.” + +“It’s some sort of delirium,” said Capes. “The rarefied air? I thought +you had a better head.” + +“No! I’ll explain lower. It’s all right. Let’s go on climbing now. It’s +a thing I’ve unaccountably overlooked. All right really. It can wait +a bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness +you’ll understand. That’s why I chucked Manning.... All right, I’m +coming. But all this business has driven it clean out of my head.... +That’s why he was so annoyed, you know.” + +“Who was annoyed?” + +“Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds.” She took a step. “My dear,” she +added, by way of afterthought, “you DO obliterate things!” + + + +Part 8 + + +They found themselves next day talking love to one another high up on +some rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice on the +eastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time Capes’ hair had bleached +nearly white, and his skin had become a skin of red copper shot with +gold. They were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness. +And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of +Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt +and loose knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine, +long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could +do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had +only deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She had +pushed aside her azure veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling +under her hand at the shining glories--the lit cornices, the blue +shadows, the softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places +full of quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was +cloudless, effulgent blue. + +Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising the day +and fortune and their love for each other. + +“Here we are,” he said, “shining through each other like light through a +stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this sunlight soaking +us.... Life is so good. Can it ever be so good again?” + +Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. “It’s very good,” + she said. “It’s glorious good!” + +“Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue deep +beyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a thousand feet +or more below? Yes? Well, think--we’ve got to go but ten steps and lie +down and put our arms about each other. See? Down we should rush in a +foam--in a cloud of snow--to flight and a dream. All the rest of +our lives would be together then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And no +ill-chances.” + +“If you tempt me too much,” she said, after a silence, “I shall do +it. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I’m a desperate +young woman. And then as we went down you’d try to explain. And that +would spoil it.... You know you don’t mean it.” + +“No, I don’t. But I liked to say it.” + +“Rather! But I wonder why you don’t mean it?” + +“Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other reason could +there be? It’s more complex, but it’s better. THIS, this glissade, would +be damned scoundrelism. You know that, and I know that, though we might +be put to it to find a reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the +pay of life and then not living. And besides--We’re going to live, Ann +Veronica! Oh, the things we’ll do, the life we’ll lead! There’ll be +trouble in it at times--you and I aren’t going to run without friction. +But we’ve got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads to +talk to each other. We sha’n’t hang up on any misunderstanding. Not us. +And we’re going to fight that old world down there. That old world that +had shoved up that silly old hotel, and all the rest of it.... If we +don’t live it will think we are afraid of it.... Die, indeed! We’re +going to do work; we’re going to unfold about each other; we’re going to +have children.” + +“Girls!” cried Ann Veronica. + +“Boys!” said Capes. + +“Both!” said Ann Veronica. “Lots of ‘em!” + +Capes chuckled. “You delicate female!” + +“Who cares,” said Ann Veronica, “seeing it’s you? Warm, soft little +wonders! Of course I want them.” + + + +Part 9 + + +“All sorts of things we’re going to do,” said Capes; “all sorts of times +we’re going to have. Sooner or later we’ll certainly do something to +clean those prisons you told me about--limewash the underside of life. +You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we can love over a pail of +whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! Moonlight and music--pleasing, you +know, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish.... Do you +remember your first day with me?... Do you indeed remember? The smell +of decay and cheap methylated spirit!... My dear! we’ve had so many +moments! I used to go over the times we’d had together, the things we’d +said--like a rosary of beads. But now it’s beads by the cask--like the +hold of a West African trader. It feels like too much gold-dust clutched +in one’s hand. One doesn’t want to lose a grain. And one must--some of +it must slip through one’s fingers.” + +“I don’t care if it does,” said Ann Veronica. “I don’t care a rap for +remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn’t be better until the +next moment comes. That’s how it takes me. Why should WE hoard? We +aren’t going out presently, like Japanese lanterns in a gale. It’s the +poor dears who do, who know they will, know they can’t keep it up, who +need to clutch at way-side flowers. And put ‘em in little books for +remembrance. Flattened flowers aren’t for the likes of us. Moments, +indeed! We like each other fresh and fresh. It isn’t illusions--for us. +We two just love each other--the real, identical other--all the time.” + +“The real, identical other,” said Capes, and took and bit the tip of her +little finger. + +“There’s no delusions, so far as I know,” said Ann Veronica. + +“I don’t believe there is one. If there is, it’s a mere +wrapping--there’s better underneath. It’s only as if I’d begun to know +you the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep on coming truer, +after you have seemed to come altogether true. You... brick!” + + + +Part 10 + + +“To think,” he cried, “you are ten years younger than I!... There are +times when you make me feel a little thing at your feet--a young, silly, +protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about your +birth certificate; a forgery--and fooling at that. You are one of the +Immortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in the +world who have known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You have +converted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a slip of +a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on your breast, when +your heart has been beating close to my ears, when I have known you for +the goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when I have wished +that you could kill me for the joy of being killed by you. You are the +High Priestess of Life....” + +“Your priestess,” whispered Ann Veronica, softly. “A silly little +priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you.” + + + +Part 11 + + +They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous shining +globe of mutual satisfaction. + +“Well,” said Capes, at length, “we’ve to go down, Ann Veronica. Life +waits for us.” + +He stood up and waited for her to move. + +“Gods!” cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. “And to think that +it’s not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel school-girl, +distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding that this great +force of love was bursting its way through me! All those nameless +discontents--they were no more than love’s birth-pangs. I felt--I +felt living in a masked world. I felt as though I had bandaged eyes. I +felt--wrapped in thick cobwebs. They blinded me. They got in my mouth. +And now--Dear! Dear! The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love. +I am loved. I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be +alive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you are a +man! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for life and you. I +thank God for His sunlight on your face. I thank God for the beauty +you love and the faults you love. I thank God for the very skin that is +peeling from your nose, for all things great and small that make us what +we are. This is grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping +of life are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born +dragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad as I!” + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH + +IN PERSPECTIVE + + +Part 1 + + +About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four years and +four months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon an old Persian +carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the dining-room of their flat +and surveyed a shining dinner-table set for four people, lit by +skilfully-shaded electric lights, brightened by frequent gleams of +silver, and carefully and simply adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes +had altered scarcely at all during the interval, except for a new +quality of smartness in the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was +nearly half an inch taller; her face was at once stronger and softer, +her neck firmer and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly +than it had been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to +the tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in the +old garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a simple +evening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old embroidery +that enhanced the gentle gravity of her style, and her black hair flowed +off her open forehead to pass under the control of a simple ribbon of +silver. A silver necklace enhanced the dusky beauty of her neck. Both +husband and wife affected an unnatural ease of manner for the benefit of +the efficient parlor-maid, who was putting the finishing touches to the +sideboard arrangements. + +“It looks all right,” said Capes. + +“I think everything’s right,” said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye of +a capable but not devoted house-mistress. + +“I wonder if they will seem altered,” she remarked for the third time. + +“There I can’t help,” said Capes. + +He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue +curtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. Ann +Veronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him, +rustling, came to his side by the high brass fender, and touched two or +three ornaments on the mantel above the cheerful fireplace. + +“It’s still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven,” she said, +turning. + +“My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he’s very human.” + +“Did you tell him of the registry office?” + +“No--o--certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play.” + +“It was an inspiration--your speaking to him?” + +“I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been near +the Royal Society since--since you disgraced me. What’s that?” + +They both stood listening. It was not the arrival of the guests, but +merely the maid moving about in the hall. + +“Wonderful man!” said Ann Veronica, reassured, and stroking his cheek +with her finger. + +Capes made a quick movement as if to bite that aggressive digit, but it +withdrew to Ann Veronica’s side. + +“I was really interested in his stuff. I WAS talking to him before I saw +his name on the card beside the row of microscopes. Then, naturally, I +went on talking. He--he has rather a poor opinion of his contemporaries. +Of course, he had no idea who I was.” + +“But how did you tell him? You’ve never told me. Wasn’t it--a little bit +of a scene?” + +“Oh! let me see. I said I hadn’t been at the Royal Society soiree for +four years, and got him to tell me about some of the fresh Mendelian +work. He loves the Mendelians because he hates all the big names of +the eighties and nineties. Then I think I remarked that science was +disgracefully under-endowed, and confessed I’d had to take to +more profitable courses. ‘The fact of it is,’ I said, ‘I’m the new +playwright, Thomas More. Perhaps you’ve heard--?’ Well, you know, he +had.” + +“Fame!” + +“Isn’t it? ‘I’ve not seen your play, Mr. More,’ he said, ‘but I’m told +it’s the most amusing thing in London at the present time. A friend +of mine, Ogilvy’--I suppose that’s Ogilvy & Ogilvy, who do so many +divorces, Vee?--‘was speaking very highly of it--very highly!’” He +smiled into her eyes. + +“You are developing far too retentive a memory for praises,” said Ann +Veronica. + +“I’m still new to them. But after that it was easy. I told him instantly +and shamelessly that the play was going to be worth ten thousand pounds. +He agreed it was disgraceful. Then I assumed a rather portentous manner +to prepare him.” + +“How? Show me.” + +“I can’t be portentous, dear, when you’re about. It’s my other side of +the moon. But I was portentous, I can assure you. ‘My name’s NOT More, +Mr. Stanley,’ I said. ‘That’s my pet name.’” + +“Yes?” + +“I think--yes, I went on in a pleasing blend of the casual and sotto +voce, ‘The fact of it is, sir, I happen to be your son-in-law, Capes. I +do wish you could come and dine with us some evening. It would make my +wife very happy.’” + +“What did he say?” + +“What does any one say to an invitation to dinner point-blank? One tries +to collect one’s wits. ‘She is constantly thinking of you,’ I said.” + +“And he accepted meekly?” + +“Practically. What else could he do? You can’t kick up a scene on the +spur of the moment in the face of such conflicting values as he +had before him. With me behaving as if everything was infinitely +matter-of-fact, what could he do? And just then Heaven sent old +Manningtree--I didn’t tell you before of the fortunate intervention of +Manningtree, did I? He was looking quite infernally distinguished, with +a wide crimson ribbon across him--what IS a wide crimson ribbon? Some +sort of knight, I suppose. He is a knight. ‘Well, young man,’ he said, +‘we haven’t seen you lately,’ and something about ‘Bateson & Co.’--he’s +frightfully anti-Mendelian--having it all their own way. So I introduced +him to my father-in-law like a shot. I think that WAS decision. Yes, it +was Manningtree really secured your father. He--” + +“Here they are!” said Ann Veronica as the bell sounded. + + + +Part 2 + + +They received the guests in their pretty little hall with genuine +effusion. Miss Stanley threw aside a black cloak to reveal a discreet +and dignified arrangement of brown silk, and then embraced Ann Veronica +with warmth. “So very clear and cold,” she said. “I feared we might +have a fog.” The housemaid’s presence acted as a useful restraint. Ann +Veronica passed from her aunt to her father, and put her arms about him +and kissed his cheek. “Dear old daddy!” she said, and was amazed to +find herself shedding tears. She veiled her emotion by taking off his +overcoat. “And this is Mr. Capes?” she heard her aunt saying. + +All four people moved a little nervously into the drawing-room, +maintaining a sort of fluttered amiability of sound and movement. + +Mr. Stanley professed a great solicitude to warm his hands. “Quite +unusually cold for the time of year,” he said. “Everything very nice, +I am sure,” Miss Stanley murmured to Capes as he steered her to a place +upon the little sofa before the fire. Also she made little pussy-like +sounds of a reassuring nature. + +“And let’s have a look at you, Vee!” said Mr. Stanley, standing up with +a sudden geniality and rubbing his hands together. + +Ann Veronica, who knew her dress became her, dropped a curtsy to her +father’s regard. + +Happily they had no one else to wait for, and it heartened her mightily +to think that she had ordered the promptest possible service of the +dinner. Capes stood beside Miss Stanley, who was beaming unnaturally, +and Mr. Stanley, in his effort to seem at ease, took entire possession +of the hearthrug. + +“You found the flat easily?” said Capes in the pause. “The numbers are a +little difficult to see in the archway. They ought to put a lamp.” + +Her father declared there had been no difficulty. + +“Dinner is served, m’m,” said the efficient parlor-maid in the archway, +and the worst was over. + +“Come, daddy,” said Ann Veronica, following her husband and Miss +Stanley; and in the fulness of her heart she gave a friendly squeeze to +the parental arm. + +“Excellent fellow!” he answered a little irrelevantly. “I didn’t +understand, Vee.” + +“Quite charming apartments,” Miss Stanley admired; “charming! Everything +is so pretty and convenient.” + +The dinner was admirable as a dinner; nothing went wrong, from the +golden and excellent clear soup to the delightful iced marrons +and cream; and Miss Stanley’s praises died away to an appreciative +acquiescence. A brisk talk sprang up between Capes and Mr. Stanley, to +which the two ladies subordinated themselves intelligently. The +burning topic of the Mendelian controversy was approached on one or two +occasions, but avoided dexterously; and they talked chiefly of letters +and art and the censorship of the English stage. Mr. Stanley was +inclined to think the censorship should be extended to the supply of +what he styled latter-day fiction; good wholesome stories were being +ousted, he said, by “vicious, corrupting stuff” that “left a bad taste +in the mouth.” He declared that no book could be satisfactory that left +a bad taste in the mouth, however much it seized and interested the +reader at the time. He did not like it, he said, with a significant +look, to be reminded of either his books or his dinners after he had +done with them. Capes agreed with the utmost cordiality. + +“Life is upsetting enough, without the novels taking a share,” said Mr. +Stanley. + +For a time Ann Veronica’s attention was diverted by her aunt’s interest +in the salted almonds. + +“Quite particularly nice,” said her aunt. “Exceptionally so.” + +When Ann Veronica could attend again she found the men were discussing +the ethics of the depreciation of house property through the increasing +tumult of traffic in the West End, and agreeing with each other to a +devastating extent. It came into her head with real emotional force that +this must be some particularly fantastic sort of dream. It seemed to her +that her father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she +had supposed, and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had +demanded a struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his +first failure. Why was she noting things like this? Capes seemed +self-possessed and elaborately genial and commonplace, but she knew him +to be nervous by a little occasional clumsiness, by the faintest shadow +of vulgarity in the urgency of his hospitality. She wished he could +smoke and dull his nerves a little. A gust of irrational impatience blew +through her being. Well, they’d got to the pheasants, and in a little +while he would smoke. What was it she had expected? Surely her moods +were getting a little out of hand. + +She wished her father and aunt would not enjoy their dinner with such +quiet determination. Her father and her husband, who had both been a +little pale at their first encounter, were growing now just faintly +flushed. It was a pity people had to eat food. + +“I suppose,” said her father, “I have read at least half the novels that +have been at all successful during the last twenty years. Three a week +is my allowance, and, if I get short ones, four. I change them in the +morning at Cannon Street, and take my book as I come down.” + +It occurred to her that she had never seen her father dining out +before, never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he was almost +deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in the old time, +never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever anticipated. It was +as if she had grown right past her father into something older and +of infinitely wider outlook, as if he had always been unsuspectedly a +flattened figure, and now she had discovered him from the other side. + +It was a great relief to arrive at last at that pause when she could say +to her aunt, “Now, dear?” and rise and hold back the curtain through the +archway. Capes and her father stood up, and her father made a belated +movement toward the curtain. She realized that he was the sort of man +one does not think much about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that +his wife was a supremely beautiful woman. He reached a silver cigar and +cigarette box from the sideboard and put it before his father-in-law, +and for a time the preliminaries of smoking occupied them both. Then +Capes flittered to the hearthrug and poked the fire, stood up, and +turned about. “Ann Veronica is looking very well, don’t you think?” he +said, a little awkwardly. + +“Very,” said Mr. Stanley. “Very,” and cracked a walnut appreciatively. + +“Life--things--I don’t think her prospects now--Hopeful outlook.” + +“You were in a difficult position,” Mr. Stanley pronounced, and seemed +to hesitate whether he had not gone too far. He looked at his port wine +as though that tawny ruby contained the solution of the matter. “All’s +well that ends well,” he said; “and the less one says about things the +better.” + +“Of course,” said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the fire +through sheer nervousness. “Have some more port wine, sir?” + +“It’s a very sound wine,” said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity. + +“Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think,” said Capes, +clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the suppressed topic. + + + +Part 3 + + +At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone down to +see Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had waved an amiable +farewell from the pavement steps. + +“Great dears!” said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight. + +“Yes, aren’t they?” said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. And +then, “They seem changed.” + +“Come in out of the cold,” said Capes, and took her arm. + +“They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller,” she said. + +“You’ve grown out of them.... Your aunt liked the pheasant.” + +“She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, talking +cookery?” + +They went up by the lift in silence. + +“It’s odd,” said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat. + +“What’s odd?” + +“Oh, everything!” + +She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down in the +arm-chair beside her. + +“Life’s so queer,” she said, kneeling and looking into the flames. “I +wonder--I wonder if we shall ever get like that.” + +She turned a firelit face to her husband. “Did you tell him?” + +Capes smiled faintly. “Yes.” + +“How?” + +“Well--a little clumsily.” + +“But how?” + +“I poured him out some port wine, and I said--let me see--oh, ‘You are +going to be a grandfather!’” + +“Yes. Was he pleased?” + +“Calmly! He said--you won’t mind my telling you?” + +“Not a bit.” + +“He said, ‘Poor Alice has got no end!’” + +“Alice’s are different,” said Ann Veronica, after an interval. “Quite +different. She didn’t choose her man.... Well, I told aunt.... +Husband of mine, I think we have rather overrated the emotional capacity +of those--those dears.” + +“What did your aunt say?” + +“She didn’t even kiss me. She said”--Ann Veronica shivered again--“‘I +hope it won’t make you uncomfortable, my dear’--like that--‘and +whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!’ I think--I judge from +her manner--that she thought it was just a little indelicate of +us--considering everything; but she tried to be practical and +sympathetic and live down to our standards.” + +Capes looked at his wife’s unsmiling face. + +“Your father,” he said, “remarked that all’s well that ends well, and +that he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then spoke with a +certain fatherly kindliness of the past....” + +“And my heart has ached for him!” + +“Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him.” + +“We might even have--given it up for them!” + +“I wonder if we could.” + +“I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night--I don’t know.” + +“I suppose so. I’m glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. But if we +had gone under--!” + +They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of her +penetrating flashes. + +“We are not the sort that goes under,” said Ann Veronica, holding her +hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. “We settled +long ago--we’re hard stuff. We’re hard stuff!” + +Then she went on: “To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood +over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from +everything we have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom. +And they come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good; +and they are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we +can dare to have children.” + +She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. “Oh, +my dear!” she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, into her +husband’s arms. + +“Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one +another? How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember the light +on things and the glory of things? I’m greedy, I’m greedy! I want +children like the mountains and life like the sky. Oh! and love--love! +We’ve had so splendid a time, and fought our fight and won. And it’s +like the petals falling from a flower. Oh, I’ve loved love, dear! I’ve +loved love and you, and the glory of you; and the great time is over, +and I have to go carefully and bear children, and--take care of my +hair--and when I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals +have fallen--the red petals we loved so. We’re hedged about with +discretions--and all this furniture--and successes! We are successful +at last! Successful! But the mountains, dear! We won’t forget the +mountains, dear, ever. That shining slope of snow, and how we talked of +death! We might have died! Even when we are old, when we are rich as we +may be, we won’t forget the tune when we cared nothing for anything but +the joy of one another, when we risked everything for one another, when +all the wrappings and coverings seemed to have fallen from life and left +it light and fire. Stark and stark! Do you remember it all?... Say +you will never forget! That these common things and secondary things +sha’n’t overwhelm us. These petals! I’ve been wanting to cry all the +evening, cry here on your shoulder for my petals. Petals!... Silly +woman!... I’ve never had these crying fits before....” + +“Blood of my heart!” whispered Capes, holding her close to him. “I know. +I understand.” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + +***** This file should be named 524-0.txt or 524-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/524/ + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/524-0.zip b/524-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..384bb48 --- /dev/null +++ b/524-0.zip diff --git a/524-h.zip b/524-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..af5e315 --- /dev/null +++ b/524-h.zip diff --git a/524-h/524-h.htm b/524-h/524-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..890453f --- /dev/null +++ b/524-h/524-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15319 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ann Veronica + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: March 18, 2006 [EBook #524] +Last Updated: September 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + ANN VERONICA + </h1> + <h2> + A MODERN LOVE STORY + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By H. G. Wells + </h2> + <blockquote> + <p> + “The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every<br /> + well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can <br /> even + ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge.” + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>ANN VERONICA</b></big> </a><br /> + <br /> <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER THE FIRST </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER THE SECOND </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THE THIRD </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER THE FIFTH + </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER THE SIXTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER THE SEVENTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER THE EIGHTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER THE NINTH </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> + CHAPTER THE TENTH </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER THE + ELEVENTH </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER THE TWELFTH </a><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + ANN VERONICA + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST + </h2> + <h3> + ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down + from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have + things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on the + verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely she made + it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had been + reached. She made up her mind in the train home that it should be a + decisive crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with her + there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of this crisis + and its consequences that this novel has to tell. + </p> + <p> + She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to Morningside + Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in an attitude that would + certainly have distressed her mother to see, and horrified her grandmother + beyond measure; she sat with her knees up to her chin and her hands + clasped before them, and she was so lost in thought that she discovered + with a start, from a lettered lamp, that she was at Morningside Park, and + thought she was moving out of the station, whereas she was only moving in. + “Lord!” she said. She jumped up at once, caught up a leather clutch + containing notebooks, a fat text-book, and a chocolate-and-yellow-covered + pamphlet, and leaped neatly from the carriage, only to discover that the + train was slowing down and that she had to traverse the full length of the + platform past it again as the result of her precipitation. “Sold again,” + she remarked. “Idiot!” She raged inwardly while she walked along with that + air of self-contained serenity that is proper to a young lady of nearly + two-and-twenty under the eye of the world. + </p> + <p> + She walked down the station approach, past the neat, obtrusive offices of + the coal merchant and the house agent, and so to the wicket-gate by the + butcher’s shop that led to the field path to her home. Outside the + post-office stood a no-hatted, blond young man in gray flannels, who was + elaborately affixing a stamp to a letter. At the sight of her he became + rigid and a singularly bright shade of pink. She made herself serenely + unaware of his existence, though it may be it was his presence that sent + her by the field detour instead of by the direct path up the Avenue. + </p> + <p> + “Umph!” he said, and regarded his letter doubtfully before consigning it + to the pillar-box. “Here goes,” he said. Then he hovered undecidedly for + some seconds with his hands in his pockets and his mouth puckered to a + whistle before he turned to go home by the Avenue. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica forgot him as soon as she was through the gate, and her face + resumed its expression of stern preoccupation. “It’s either now or never,” + she said to herself.... + </p> + <p> + Morningside Park was a suburb that had not altogether, as people say, come + off. It consisted, like pre-Roman Gaul, of three parts. There was first + the Avenue, which ran in a consciously elegant curve from the railway + station into an undeveloped wilderness of agriculture, with big, yellow + brick villas on either side, and then there was the pavement, the little + clump of shops about the post-office, and under the railway arch was a + congestion of workmen’s dwellings. The road from Surbiton and Epsom ran + under the arch, and, like a bright fungoid growth in the ditch, there was + now appearing a sort of fourth estate of little red-and-white rough-cast + villas, with meretricious gables and very brassy window-blinds. Behind the + Avenue was a little hill, and an iron-fenced path went over the crest of + this to a stile under an elm-tree, and forked there, with one branch going + back into the Avenue again. + </p> + <p> + “It’s either now or never,” said Ann Veronica, again ascending this stile. + “Much as I hate rows, I’ve either got to make a stand or give in + altogether.” + </p> + <p> + She seated herself in a loose and easy attitude and surveyed the backs of + the Avenue houses; then her eyes wandered to where the new red-and-white + villas peeped among the trees. She seemed to be making some sort of + inventory. “Ye Gods!” she said at last. “WHAT a place! + </p> + <p> + “Stuffy isn’t the word for it. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what he takes me for?” + </p> + <p> + When presently she got down from the stile a certain note of internal + conflict, a touch of doubt, had gone from her warm-tinted face. She had + now the clear and tranquil expression of one whose mind is made up. Her + back had stiffened, and her hazel eyes looked steadfastly ahead. + </p> + <p> + As she approached the corner of the Avenue the blond, no-hatted man in + gray flannels appeared. There was a certain air of forced fortuity in his + manner. He saluted awkwardly. “Hello, Vee!” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Teddy!” she answered. + </p> + <p> + He hung vaguely for a moment as she passed. + </p> + <p> + But it was clear she was in no mood for Teddys. He realized that he was + committed to the path across the fields, an uninteresting walk at the best + of times. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dammit!” he remarked, “dammit!” with great bitterness as he faced it. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica Stanley was twenty-one and a half years old. She had black + hair, fine eyebrows, and a clear complexion; and the forces that had + modelled her features had loved and lingered at their work and made them + subtle and fine. She was slender, and sometimes she seemed tall, and + walked and carried herself lightly and joyfully as one who commonly and + habitually feels well, and sometimes she stooped a little and was + preoccupied. Her lips came together with an expression between contentment + and the faintest shadow of a smile, her manner was one of quiet reserve, + and behind this mask she was wildly discontented and eager for freedom and + life. + </p> + <p> + She wanted to live. She was vehemently impatient—she did not clearly + know for what—to do, to be, to experience. And experience was slow + in coming. All the world about her seemed to be—how can one put it?—in + wrappers, like a house when people leave it in the summer. The blinds were + all drawn, the sunlight kept out, one could not tell what colors these + gray swathings hid. She wanted to know. And there was no intimation + whatever that the blinds would ever go up or the windows or doors be + opened, or the chandeliers, that seemed to promise such a blaze of fire, + unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted about her, not only + speaking but it would seem even thinking in undertones.... + </p> + <p> + During her school days, especially her earlier school days, the world had + been very explicit with her, telling her what to do, what not to do, + giving her lessons to learn and games to play and interests of the most + suitable and various kinds. Presently she woke up to the fact that there + was a considerable group of interests called being in love and getting + married, with certain attractive and amusing subsidiary developments, such + as flirtation and “being interested” in people of the opposite sex. She + approached this field with her usual liveliness of apprehension. But here + she met with a check. These interests her world promptly, through the + agency of schoolmistresses, older school-mates, her aunt, and a number of + other responsible and authoritative people, assured her she must on no + account think about. Miss Moffatt, the history and moral instruction + mistress, was particularly explicit upon this score, and they all agreed + in indicating contempt and pity for girls whose minds ran on such matters, + and who betrayed it in their conversation or dress or bearing. It was, in + fact, a group of interests quite unlike any other group, peculiar and + special, and one to be thoroughly ashamed of. Nevertheless, Ann Veronica + found it a difficult matter not to think of these things. However having a + considerable amount of pride, she decided she would disavow these + undesirable topics and keep her mind away from them just as far as she + could, but it left her at the end of her school days with that wrapped + feeling I have described, and rather at loose ends. + </p> + <p> + The world, she discovered, with these matters barred had no particular + place for her at all, nothing for her to do, except a functionless + existence varied by calls, tennis, selected novels, walks, and dusting in + her father’s house. She thought study would be better. She was a clever + girl, the best of her year in the High School, and she made a valiant + fight for Somerville or Newnham but her father had met and argued with a + Somerville girl at a friend’s dinner-table and he thought that sort of + thing unsexed a woman. He said simply that he wanted her to live at home. + There was a certain amount of disputation, and meanwhile she went on at + school. They compromised at length on the science course at the Tredgold + Women’s College—she had already matriculated into London University + from school—she came of age, and she bickered with her aunt for + latch-key privileges on the strength of that and her season ticket. + Shamefaced curiosities began to come back into her mind, thinly disguised + as literature and art. She read voraciously, and presently, because of her + aunt’s censorship, she took to smuggling any books she thought might be + prohibited instead of bringing them home openly, and she went to the + theatre whenever she could produce an acceptable friend to accompany her. + She passed her general science examination with double honors and + specialized in science. She happened to have an acute sense of form and + unusual mental lucidity, and she found in biology, and particularly in + comparative anatomy, a very considerable interest, albeit the illumination + it cast upon her personal life was not altogether direct. She dissected + well, and in a year she found herself chafing at the limitations of the + lady B. Sc. who retailed a store of faded learning in the Tredgold + laboratory. She had already realized that this instructress was hopelessly + wrong and foggy—it is the test of the good comparative anatomist—upon + the skull. She discovered a desire to enter as a student in the Imperial + College at Westminster, where Russell taught, and go on with her work at + the fountain-head. + </p> + <p> + She had asked about that already, and her father had replied, evasively: + “We’ll have to see about that, little Vee; we’ll have to see about that.” + In that posture of being seen about the matter hung until she seemed + committed to another session at the Tredgold College, and in the mean time + a small conflict arose and brought the latch-key question, and in fact the + question of Ann Veronica’s position generally, to an acute issue. + </p> + <p> + In addition to the various business men, solicitors, civil servants, and + widow ladies who lived in the Morningside Park Avenue, there was a certain + family of alien sympathies and artistic quality, the Widgetts, with which + Ann Veronica had become very friendly. Mr. Widgett was a journalist and + art critic, addicted to a greenish-gray tweed suit and “art” brown ties; + he smoked corncob pipes in the Avenue on Sunday morning, travelled third + class to London by unusual trains, and openly despised golf. He occupied + one of the smaller houses near the station. He had one son, who had been + co-educated, and three daughters with peculiarly jolly red hair that Ann + Veronica found adorable. Two of these had been her particular intimates at + the High School, and had done much to send her mind exploring beyond the + limits of the available literature at home. It was a cheerful, + irresponsible, shamelessly hard-up family in the key of faded green and + flattened purple, and the girls went on from the High School to the Fadden + Art School and a bright, eventful life of art student dances, Socialist + meetings, theatre galleries, talking about work, and even, at intervals, + work; and ever and again they drew Ann Veronica from her sound persistent + industry into the circle of these experiences. They had asked her to come + to the first of the two great annual Fadden Dances, the October one, and + Ann Veronica had accepted with enthusiasm. And now her father said she + must not go. + </p> + <p> + He had “put his foot down,” and said she must not go. + </p> + <p> + Going involved two things that all Ann Veronica’s tact had been + ineffectual to conceal from her aunt and father. Her usual dignified + reserve had availed her nothing. One point was that she was to wear fancy + dress in the likeness of a Corsair’s bride, and the other was that she was + to spend whatever vestiges of the night remained after the dance was over + in London with the Widgett girls and a select party in “quite a decent + little hotel” near Fitzroy Square. + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear!” said Ann Veronica’s aunt. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” said Ann Veronica, with the air of one who shares a difficulty, + “I’ve promised to go. I didn’t realize—I don’t see how I can get out + of it now.” + </p> + <p> + Then it was her father issued his ultimatum. He had conveyed it to her, + not verbally, but by means of a letter, which seemed to her a singularly + ignoble method of prohibition. “He couldn’t look me in the face and say + it,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “But of course it’s aunt’s doing really.” + </p> + <p> + And thus it was that as Ann Veronica neared the gates of home, she said to + herself: “I’ll have it out with him somehow. I’ll have it out with him. + And if he won’t—” + </p> + <p> + But she did not give even unspoken words to the alternative at that time. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s father was a solicitor with a good deal of company + business: a lean, trustworthy, worried-looking, neuralgic, clean-shaven + man of fifty-three, with a hard mouth, a sharp nose, iron-gray hair, gray + eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, circular baldness at the crown of + his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at irregular + intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he + came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and inattentive; and he + called her his “little Vee,” and patted her unexpectedly and + disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of any age between + eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good deal, and what + energy he had left over he spent partly in golf, a game he treated very + seriously, and partly in the practices of microscopic petrography. + </p> + <p> + He “went in” for microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian manner as his + “hobby.” A birthday present of a microscope had turned his mind to + technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and a chance friendship with a + Holborn microscope dealer had confirmed that bent. He had remarkably + skilful fingers and a love of detailed processes, and he had become one of + the most dexterous amateur makers of rock sections in the world. He spent + a good deal more money and time than he could afford upon the little room + at the top of the house, in producing new lapidary apparatus and new + microscopic accessories and in rubbing down slices of rock to a + transparent thinness and mounting them in a beautiful and dignified + manner. He did it, he said, “to distract his mind.” His chief successes he + exhibited to the Lowndean Microscopical Society, where their high + technical merit never failed to excite admiration. Their scientific value + was less considerable, since he chose rocks entirely with a view to their + difficulty of handling or their attractiveness at conversaziones when + done. He had a great contempt for the sections the “theorizers” produced. + They proved all sorts of things perhaps, but they were thick, unequal, + pitiful pieces of work. Yet an indiscriminating, wrong-headed world gave + such fellows all sorts of distinctions.... + </p> + <p> + He read but little, and that chiefly healthy light fiction with chromatic + titles, The Red Sword, The Black Helmet, The Purple Robe, also in order + “to distract his mind.” He read it in winter in the evening after dinner, + and Ann Veronica associated it with a tendency to monopolize the lamp, and + to spread a very worn pair of dappled fawn-skin slippers across the + fender. She wondered occasionally why his mind needed so much distraction. + His favorite newspaper was the Times, which he began at breakfast in the + morning often with manifest irritation, and carried off to finish in the + train, leaving no other paper at home. + </p> + <p> + It occurred to Ann Veronica once that she had known him when he was + younger, but day had followed day, and each had largely obliterated the + impression of its predecessor. But she certainly remembered that when she + was a little girl he sometimes wore tennis flannels, and also rode a + bicycle very dexterously in through the gates to the front door. And in + those days, too, he used to help her mother with her gardening, and hover + about her while she stood on the ladder and hammered creepers to the + scullery wall. + </p> + <p> + It had been Ann Veronica’s lot as the youngest child to live in a home + that became less animated and various as she grew up. Her mother had died + when she was thirteen, her two much older sisters had married off—one + submissively, one insubordinately; her two brothers had gone out into the + world well ahead of her, and so she had made what she could of her father. + But he was not a father one could make much of. + </p> + <p> + His ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and modest quality; + they were creatures, he thought, either too bad for a modern vocabulary, + and then frequently most undesirably desirable, or too pure and good for + life. He made this simple classification of a large and various sex to the + exclusion of all intermediate kinds; he held that the two classes had to + be kept apart even in thought and remote from one another. Women are made + like the potter’s vessels—either for worship or contumely, and are + withal fragile vessels. He had never wanted daughters. Each time a + daughter had been born to him he had concealed his chagrin with great + tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had sworn unwontedly and with + passionate sincerity in the bathroom. He was a manly man, free from any + strong maternal strain, and he had loved his dark-eyed, dainty + bright-colored, and active little wife with a real vein of passion in his + sentiment. But he had always felt (he had never allowed himself to think + of it) that the promptitude of their family was a little indelicate of + her, and in a sense an intrusion. He had, however, planned brilliant + careers for his two sons, and, with a certain human amount of warping and + delay, they were pursuing these. One was in the Indian Civil Service and + one in the rapidly developing motor business. The daughters, he had hoped, + would be their mother’s care. + </p> + <p> + He had no ideas about daughters. They happen to a man. + </p> + <p> + Of course a little daughter is a delightful thing enough. It runs about + gayly, it romps, it is bright and pretty, it has enormous quantities of + soft hair and more power of expressing affection than its brothers. It is + a lovely little appendage to the mother who smiles over it, and it does + things quaintly like her, gestures with her very gestures. It makes + wonderful sentences that you can repeat in the City and are good enough + for Punch. You call it a lot of nicknames—“Babs” and “Bibs” and + “Viddles” and “Vee”; you whack at it playfully, and it whacks you back. It + loves to sit on your knee. All that is jolly and as it should be. + </p> + <p> + But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter quite another. There one + comes to a relationship that Mr. Stanley had never thought out. When he + found himself thinking about it, it upset him so that he at once resorted + to distraction. The chromatic fiction with which he relieved his mind + glanced but slightly at this aspect of life, and never with any quality of + guidance. Its heroes never had daughters, they borrowed other people’s. + The one fault, indeed, of this school of fiction for him was that it had + rather a light way with parental rights. His instinct was in the direction + of considering his daughters his absolute property, bound to obey him, his + to give away or his to keep to be a comfort in his declining years just as + he thought fit. About this conception of ownership he perceived and + desired a certain sentimental glamour, he liked everything properly + dressed, but it remained ownership. Ownership seemed only a reasonable + return for the cares and expenses of a daughter’s upbringing. Daughters + were not like sons. He perceived, however, that both the novels he read + and the world he lived in discountenanced these assumptions. Nothing else + was put in their place, and they remained sotto voce, as it were, in his + mind. The new and the old cancelled out; his daughters became + quasi-independent dependents—which is absurd. One married as he + wished and one against his wishes, and now here was Ann Veronica, his + little Vee, discontented with her beautiful, safe, and sheltering home, + going about with hatless friends to Socialist meetings and art-class + dances, and displaying a disposition to carry her scientific ambitions to + unwomanly lengths. She seemed to think he was merely the paymaster, + handing over the means of her freedom. And now she insisted that she MUST + leave the chastened security of the Tredgold Women’s College for Russell’s + unbridled classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dances in pirate + costume and spend the residue of the night with Widgett’s ramshackle girls + in some indescribable hotel in Soho! + </p> + <p> + He had done his best not to think about her at all, but the situation and + his sister had become altogether too urgent. He had finally put aside The + Lilac Sunbonnet, gone into his study, lit the gas fire, and written the + letter that had brought these unsatisfactory relations to a head. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + MY DEAR VEE, he wrote. These daughters! He gnawed his pen and reflected, + tore the sheet up, and began again. + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR VERONICA,—Your aunt tells me you have involved yourself in + some arrangement with the Widgett girls about a Fancy Dress Ball in + London. I gather you wish to go up in some fantastic get-up, wrapped about + in your opera cloak, and that after the festivities you propose to stay + with these friends of yours, and without any older people in your party, + at an hotel. Now I am sorry to cross you in anything you have set your + heart upon, but I regret to say—” + </p> + <p> + “H’m,” he reflected, and crossed out the last four words. + </p> + <p> + “—but this cannot be.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, and tried again: “but I must tell you quite definitely that + I feel it to be my duty to forbid any such exploit.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn!” he remarked at the defaced letter; and, taking a fresh sheet, he + recopied what he had written. A certain irritation crept into his manner + as he did so. + </p> + <p> + “I regret that you should ever have proposed it,” he went on. + </p> + <p> + He meditated, and began a new paragraph. + </p> + <p> + “The fact of it is, and this absurd project of yours only brings it to a + head, you have begun to get hold of some very queer ideas about what a + young lady in your position may or may not venture to do. I do not think + you quite understand my ideals or what is becoming as between father and + daughter. Your attitude to me—” + </p> + <p> + He fell into a brown study. It was so difficult to put precisely. + </p> + <p> + “—and your aunt—” + </p> + <p> + For a time he searched for the mot juste. Then he went on: + </p> + <p> + “—and, indeed, to most of the established things in life is, + frankly, unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical with all + the crude unthinking criticism of youth. You have no grasp upon the + essential facts of life (I pray God you never may), and in your rash + ignorance you are prepared to dash into positions that may end in lifelong + regret. The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls.” + </p> + <p> + He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture of Veronica reading + this last sentence. But he was now too deeply moved to trace a certain + unsatisfactoriness to its source in a mixture of metaphors. “Well,” he + said, argumentatively, “it IS. That’s all about it. It’s time she knew.” + </p> + <p> + “The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls, from which + she must be shielded at all costs.” + </p> + <p> + His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution. + </p> + <p> + “So long as I am your father, so long as your life is entrusted to my + care, I feel bound by every obligation to use my authority to check this + odd disposition of yours toward extravagant enterprises. A day will come + when you will thank me. It is not, my dear Veronica, that I think there is + any harm in you; there is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil but + by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do her as + serious an injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please believe + that in this matter I am acting for the best.” + </p> + <p> + He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door and called + “Mollie!” and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the + hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire. + </p> + <p> + His sister appeared. + </p> + <p> + She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all lace and + work and confused patternings of black and purple and cream about the + body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine version of the same + theme as himself. She had the same sharp nose—which, indeed, only + Ann Veronica, of all the family, had escaped. She carried herself well, + whereas her brother slouched, and there was a certain aristocratic dignity + about her that she had acquired through her long engagement to a curate of + family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died before they + married, and when her brother became a widower she had come to his + assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest daughter. But + from the first her rather old-fashioned conception of life had jarred with + the suburban atmosphere, the High School spirit and the memories of the + light and little Mrs. Stanley, whose family had been by any reckoning + inconsiderable—to use the kindliest term. Miss Stanley had + determined from the outset to have the warmest affection for her youngest + niece and to be a second mother in her life—a second and a better + one; but she had found much to battle with, and there was much in herself + that Ann Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an air of + reserved solicitude. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from his jacket + pocket. “What do you think of that?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. He filled + his pipe slowly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said at last, “it is firm and affectionate.” + </p> + <p> + “I could have said more.” + </p> + <p> + “You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me exactly + what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair.” + </p> + <p> + She paused, and he waited for her to speak. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think she quite sees the harm of those people or the sort of life + to which they would draw her,” she said. “They would spoil every chance.” + </p> + <p> + “She has chances?” he said, helping her out. + </p> + <p> + “She is an extremely attractive girl,” she said; and added, “to some + people. Of course, one doesn’t like to talk about things until there are + things to talk about.” + </p> + <p> + “All the more reason why she shouldn’t get herself talked about.” + </p> + <p> + “That is exactly what I feel.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully for + a time. “I’d give anything,” he remarked, “to see our little Vee happily + and comfortably married.” + </p> + <p> + He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an inadvertent, + casual manner just as he was leaving the house to catch his London train. + When Ann Veronica got it she had at first a wild, fantastic idea that it + contained a tip. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s resolve to have things out with her father was not + accomplished without difficulty. + </p> + <p> + He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and played + Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The atmosphere at + dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly amiable above a certain + tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a caller about the alarming spread + of marigolds that summer at the end of the garden, a sort of Yellow Peril + to all the smaller hardy annuals, while her father brought some papers to + table and presented himself as preoccupied with them. “It really seems as + if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next year,” Aunt Molly + repeated three times, “and do away with marguerites. They seed beyond all + reason.” Elizabeth, the parlormaid, kept coming in to hand vegetables + whenever there seemed a chance of Ann Veronica asking for an interview. + Directly dinner was over Mr. Stanley, having pretended to linger to smoke, + fled suddenly up-stairs to petrography, and when Veronica tapped he + answered through the locked door, “Go away, Vee! I’m busy,” and made a + lapidary’s wheel buzz loudly. + </p> + <p> + Breakfast, too, was an impossible occasion. He read the Times with an + unusually passionate intentness, and then declared suddenly for the + earlier of the two trains he used. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll come to the station,” said Ann Veronica. “I may as well come up by + this train.” + </p> + <p> + “I may have to run,” said her father, with an appeal to his watch. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll run, too,” she volunteered. + </p> + <p> + Instead of which they walked sharply.... + </p> + <p> + “I say, daddy,” she began, and was suddenly short of breath. + </p> + <p> + “If it’s about that dance project,” he said, “it’s no good, Veronica. I’ve + made up my mind.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll make me look a fool before all my friends.” + </p> + <p> + “You shouldn’t have made an engagement until you’d consulted your aunt.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I was old enough,” she gasped, between laughter and crying. + </p> + <p> + Her father’s step quickened to a trot. “I won’t have you quarrelling and + crying in the Avenue,” he said. “Stop it!... If you’ve got anything to + say, you must say it to your aunt—” + </p> + <p> + “But look here, daddy!” + </p> + <p> + He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture. + </p> + <p> + “It’s settled. You’re not to go. You’re NOT to go.” + </p> + <p> + “But it’s about other things.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care. This isn’t the place.” + </p> + <p> + “Then may I come to the study to-night—after dinner?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m—BUSY!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s important. If I can’t talk anywhere else—I DO want an + understanding.” + </p> + <p> + Ahead of them walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at their + present pace very speedily overtake. It was Ramage, the occupant of the + big house at the end of the Avenue. He had recently made Mr. Stanley’s + acquaintance in the train and shown him one or two trifling civilities. He + was an outside broker and the proprietor of a financial newspaper; he had + come up very rapidly in the last few years, and Mr. Stanley admired and + detested him in almost equal measure. It was intolerable to think that he + might overhear words and phrases. Mr. Stanley’s pace slackened. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve no right to badger me like this, Veronica,” he said. “I can’t see + what possible benefit can come of discussing things that are settled. If + you want advice, your aunt is the person. However, if you must air your + opinions—” + </p> + <p> + “To-night, then, daddy!” + </p> + <p> + He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and then Ramage + glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited for them to come + up. He was a square-faced man of nearly fifty, with iron-gray hair a + mobile, clean-shaven mouth and rather protuberant black eyes that now + scrutinized Ann Veronica. He dressed rather after the fashion of the West + End than the City, and affected a cultured urbanity that somehow + disconcerted and always annoyed Ann Veronica’s father extremely. He did + not play golf, but took his exercise on horseback, which was also + unsympathetic. + </p> + <p> + “Stuffy these trees make the Avenue,” said Mr. Stanley as they drew + alongside, to account for his own ruffled and heated expression. “They + ought to have been lopped in the spring.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s plenty of time,” said Ramage. “Is Miss Stanley coming up with + us?” + </p> + <p> + “I go second,” she said, “and change at Wimbledon.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll all go second,” said Ramage, “if we may?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley wanted to object strongly, but as he could not immediately + think how to put it, he contented himself with a grunt, and the motion was + carried. “How’s Mrs. Ramage?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Very much as usual,” said Ramage. “She finds lying up so much very + irksome. But, you see, she HAS to lie up.” + </p> + <p> + The topic of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at once to Ann + Veronica. “And where are YOU going?” he said. “Are you going on again this + winter with that scientific work of yours? It’s an instance of heredity, I + suppose.” For a moment Mr. Stanley almost liked Ramage. “You’re a + biologist, aren’t you?” + </p> + <p> + He began to talk of his own impressions of biology as a commonplace + magazine reader who had to get what he could from the monthly reviews, and + was glad to meet with any information from nearer the fountainhead. In a + little while he and she were talking quite easily and agreeably. They went + on talking in the train—it seemed to her father a slight want of + deference to him—and he listened and pretended to read the Times. He + was struck disagreeably by Ramage’s air of gallant consideration and Ann + Veronica’s self-possessed answers. These things did not harmonize with his + conception of the forthcoming (if unavoidable) interview. After all, it + came to him suddenly as a harsh discovery that she might be in a sense + regarded as grownup. He was a man who in all things classified without + nuance, and for him there were in the matter of age just two feminine + classes and no more—girls and women. The distinction lay chiefly in + the right to pat their heads. But here was a girl—she must be a + girl, since she was his daughter and pat-able—imitating the woman + quite remarkably and cleverly. He resumed his listening. She was + discussing one of those modern advanced plays with a remarkable, with an + extraordinary, confidence. + </p> + <p> + “His love-making,” she remarked, “struck me as unconvincing. He seemed too + noisy.” + </p> + <p> + The full significance of her words did not instantly appear to him. Then + it dawned. Good heavens! She was discussing love-making. For a time he + heard no more, and stared with stony eyes at a Book-War proclamation in + leaded type that filled half a column of the Times that day. Could she + understand what she was talking about? Luckily it was a second-class + carriage and the ordinary fellow-travellers were not there. Everybody, he + felt, must be listening behind their papers. + </p> + <p> + Of course, girls repeat phrases and opinions of which they cannot possibly + understand the meaning. But a middle-aged man like Ramage ought to know + better than to draw out a girl, the daughter of a friend and neighbor.... + </p> + <p> + Well, after all, he seemed to be turning the subject. “Broddick is a heavy + man,” he was saying, “and the main interest of the play was the + embezzlement.” Thank Heaven! Mr. Stanley allowed his paper to drop a + little, and scrutinized the hats and brows of their three + fellow-travellers. + </p> + <p> + They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss Stanley to the + platform as though she had been a duchess, and she descended as though + such attentions from middle-aged, but still gallant, merchants were a + matter of course. Then, as Ramage readjusted himself in a corner, he + remarked: “These young people shoot up, Stanley. It seems only yesterday + that she was running down the Avenue, all hair and legs.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something approaching + animosity. + </p> + <p> + “Now she’s all hat and ideas,” he said, with an air of humor. + </p> + <p> + “She seems an unusually clever girl,” said Ramage. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor’s clean-shaven face almost warily. “I’m + not sure whether we don’t rather overdo all this higher education,” he + said, with an effect of conveying profound meanings. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as the day + wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his thoughts all + through the morning, and still more so in the afternoon. He saw her young + and graceful back as she descended from the carriage, severely ignoring + him, and recalled a glimpse he had of her face, bright and serene, as his + train ran out of Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating perplexity her + clear, matter-of-fact tone as she talked about love-making being + unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and extraordinarily angry + and resentful at the innocent and audacious self-reliance that seemed to + intimate her sense of absolute independence of him, her absolute security + without him. After all, she only LOOKED a woman. She was rash and + ignorant, absolutely inexperienced. Absolutely. He began to think of + speeches, very firm, explicit speeches, he would make. + </p> + <p> + He lunched in the Legal Club in Chancery Lane, and met Ogilvy. Daughters + were in the air that day. Ogilvy was full of a client’s trouble in that + matter, a grave and even tragic trouble. He told some of the particulars. + </p> + <p> + “Curious case,” said Ogilvy, buttering his bread and cutting it up in a + way he had. “Curious case—and sets one thinking.” + </p> + <p> + He resumed, after a mouthful: “Here is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, + seventeen and a half to be exact, running about, as one might say, in + London. Schoolgirl. Her family are solid West End people, Kensington + people. Father—dead. She goes out and comes home. Afterward goes on + to Oxford. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Why doesn’t she marry? Plenty of money + under her father’s will. Charming girl.” + </p> + <p> + He consumed Irish stew for some moments. + </p> + <p> + “Married already,” he said, with his mouth full. “Shopman.” + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” said Mr. Stanley. + </p> + <p> + “Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing. Very romantic and all that. He + fixed it.” + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + “He left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense on her part. Sheer calculation + on his. Went up to Somerset House to examine the will before he did it. + Yes. Nice position.” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t care for him now?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit. What a girl of sixteen cares for is hair and a high color and + moonlight and a tenor voice. I suppose most of our daughters would marry + organ-grinders if they had a chance—at that age. My son wanted to + marry a woman of thirty in a tobacconist’s shop. Only a son’s another + story. We fixed that. Well, that’s the situation. My people don’t know + what to do. Can’t face a scandal. Can’t ask the gent to go abroad and + condone a bigamy. He misstated her age and address; but you can’t get home + on him for a thing like that.... There you are! Girl spoilt for life. + Makes one want to go back to the Oriental system!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley poured wine. “Damned Rascal!” he said. “Isn’t there a brother + to kick him?” + </p> + <p> + “Mere satisfaction,” reflected Ogilvy. “Mere sensuality. I rather think + they have kicked him, from the tone of some of the letters. Nice, of + course. But it doesn’t alter the situation.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s these Rascals,” said Mr. Stanley, and paused. + </p> + <p> + “Always has been,” said Ogilvy. “Our interest lies in heading them off.” + </p> + <p> + “There was a time when girls didn’t get these extravagant ideas.” + </p> + <p> + “Lydia Languish, for example. Anyhow, they didn’t run about so much.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. That’s about the beginning. It’s these damned novels. All this + torrent of misleading, spurious stuff that pours from the press. These + sham ideals and advanced notions. Women who Dids, and all that kind of + thing....” + </p> + <p> + Ogilvy reflected. “This girl—she’s really a very charming, frank + person—had had her imagination fired, so she told me, by a school + performance of Romeo and Juliet.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley decided to treat that as irrelevant. “There ought to be a + Censorship of Books. We want it badly at the present time. Even WITH the + Censorship of Plays there’s hardly a decent thing to which a man can take + his wife and daughters, a creeping taint of suggestion everywhere. What + would it be without that safeguard?” + </p> + <p> + Ogilvy pursued his own topic. “I’m inclined to think, Stanley, myself that + as a matter of fact it was the expurgated Romeo and Juliet did the + mischief. If our young person hadn’t had the nurse part cut out, eh? She + might have known more and done less. I was curious about that. All they + left it was the moon and stars. And the balcony and ‘My Romeo!’” + </p> + <p> + “Shakespeare is altogether different from the modern stuff. Altogether + different. I’m not discussing Shakespeare. I don’t want to Bowdlerize + Shakespeare. I’m not that sort I quite agree. But this modern miasma—” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley took mustard savagely. + </p> + <p> + “Well, we won’t go into Shakespeare,” said Ogilvy “What interests me is + that our young women nowadays are running about as free as air + practically, with registry offices and all sorts of accommodation round + the corner. Nothing to check their proceedings but a declining habit of + telling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And in that + respect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think we + ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other. They’re + too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom. That’s my + point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? The apple-tart’s + been very good lately—very good!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: “Father!” + </p> + <p> + Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave + deliberation; “If there is anything you want to say to me,” he said, “you + must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and then I + shall go to the study. I don’t see what you can have to say. I should have + thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers I have to + look through to-night—important papers.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t keep you very long, daddy,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see, Mollie,” he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on the + table as his sister and daughter rose, “why you and Vee shouldn’t discuss + this little affair—whatever it is—without bothering me.” + </p> + <p> + It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all + three of them were shy by habit. + </p> + <p> + He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for her aunt. + The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the room with + dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her own room. She + agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confused her that the + girl should not come to her. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited + disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt. + </p> + <p> + When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of a + carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had been + moved a little so as to face each other on either side of the fender, and + in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay, conspicuously + waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tied with pink tape. Her + father held some printed document in his hand, and appeared not to observe + her entry. “Sit down,” he said, and perused—“perused” is the word + for it—for some moments. Then he put the paper by. “And what is it + all about, Veronica?” he asked, with a deliberate note of irony, looking + at her a little quizzically over his glasses. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded her + father’s invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and looked + down on him. “Look here, daddy,” she said, in a tone of great + reasonableness, “I MUST go to that dance, you know.” + </p> + <p> + Her father’s irony deepened. “Why?” he asked, suavely. + </p> + <p> + Her answer was not quite ready. “Well, because I don’t see any reason why + I shouldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “You see I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn’t I go?” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t a suitable place; it isn’t a suitable gathering.” + </p> + <p> + “But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?” + </p> + <p> + “And it’s entirely out of order; it isn’t right, it isn’t correct; it’s + impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London—the idea is + preposterous. I can’t imagine what possessed you, Veronica.” + </p> + <p> + He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and + looked at her over his glasses. + </p> + <p> + “But why is it preposterous?” asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a pipe + on the mantel. + </p> + <p> + “Surely!” he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal. + </p> + <p> + “You see, daddy, I don’t think it IS preposterous. That’s really what I + want to discuss. It comes to this—am I to be trusted to take care of + myself, or am I not?” + </p> + <p> + “To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not.” + </p> + <p> + “I think I am.” + </p> + <p> + “As long as you remain under my roof—” he began, and paused. + </p> + <p> + “You are going to treat me as though I wasn’t. Well, I don’t think that’s + fair.” + </p> + <p> + “Your ideas of fairness—” he remarked, and discontinued that + sentence. “My dear girl,” he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, + “you are a mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, + nothing of its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, + and so forth. It isn’t. It isn’t. That’s where you go wrong. In some + things, in many things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know + more of life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this matter. + There it is. You can’t go.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep hold of a + complicated situation and not lose her head. She had turned round + sideways, so as to look down into the fire. + </p> + <p> + “You see, father,” she said, “it isn’t only this affair of the dance. I + want to go to that because it’s a new experience, because I think it will + be interesting and give me a view of things. You say I know nothing. + That’s probably true. But how am I to know of things?” + </p> + <p> + “Some things I hope you may never know,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not so sure. I want to know—just as much as I can.” + </p> + <p> + “Tut!” he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the pink + tape. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I do. It’s just that I want to say. I want to be a human being; I + want to learn about things and know about things, and not to be protected + as something too precious for life, cooped up in one narrow little + corner.” + </p> + <p> + “Cooped up!” he cried. “Did I stand in the way of your going to college? + Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable hour? You’ve got a + bicycle!” + </p> + <p> + “H’m!” said Ann Veronica, and then went on “I want to be taken seriously. + A girl—at my age—is grown-up. I want to go on with my + University work under proper conditions, now that I’ve done the + Intermediate. It isn’t as though I haven’t done well. I’ve never muffed an + exam yet. Roddy muffed two....” + </p> + <p> + Her father interrupted. “Now look here, Veronica, let us be plain with + each other. You are not going to that infidel Russell’s classes. You are + not going anywhere but to the Tredgold College. I’ve thought that out, and + you must make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come in. + While you live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong even + about that man’s scientific position and his standard of work. There are + men in the Lowndean who laugh at him—simply laugh at him. And I have + seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as being—well, next + door to shameful. There’s stories, too, about his demonstrator, Capes + Something or other. The kind of man who isn’t content with his science, + and writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it is: YOU ARE + NOT GOING THERE.” + </p> + <p> + The girl received this intimation in silence, but the face that looked + down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought out a + hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke, her + lips twitched. + </p> + <p> + “Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?” + </p> + <p> + “It seems the natural course—” + </p> + <p> + “And do nothing?” + </p> + <p> + “There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home.” + </p> + <p> + “Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?” + </p> + <p> + He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, and he + took up the papers. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, father,” she said, with a change in her voice, “suppose I + won’t stand it?” + </p> + <p> + He regarded her as though this was a new idea. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?” + </p> + <p> + “You won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Well”—her breath failed her for a moment. “How would you prevent + it?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “But I have forbidden it!” he said, raising his voice. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know. But suppose I go?” + </p> + <p> + “Now, Veronica! No, no. This won’t do. Understand me! I forbid it. I do + not want to hear from you even the threat of disobedience.” He spoke + loudly. “The thing is forbidden!” + </p> + <p> + “I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “You will give up anything I wish you to give up.” + </p> + <p> + They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were flushed and + obstinate. + </p> + <p> + She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless gymnastics to + restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips quivered, and they came. + “I mean to go to that dance!” she blubbered. “I mean to go to that dance! + I meant to reason with you, but you won’t reason. You’re dogmatic.” + </p> + <p> + At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of triumph + and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an arm about her, + but she stepped back from him quickly. She produced a handkerchief, and + with one sweep of this and a simultaneous gulp had abolished her fit of + weeping. His voice now had lost its ironies. + </p> + <p> + “Now, Veronica,” he pleaded, “Veronica, this is most unreasonable. All we + do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor I have any other thought but + what is best for you.” + </p> + <p> + “Only you won’t let me live. Only you won’t let me exist!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly. + </p> + <p> + “What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO live, you DO + exist! You have this home. You have friends, acquaintances, social + standing, brothers and sisters, every advantage! Instead of which, you + want to go to some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance + about at nights in wild costumes with casual art student friends and God + knows who. That—that isn’t living! You are beside yourself. You + don’t know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor + logic. I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your good. You + MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I put my foot down like—like + adamant. And a time will come, Veronica, mark my words, a time will come + when you will bless me for my firmness to-night. It goes to my heart to + disappoint you, but this thing must not be.” + </p> + <p> + He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in possession + of the hearth-rug. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she said, “good-night, father.” + </p> + <p> + “What!” he asked; “not a kiss?” + </p> + <p> + She affected not to hear. + </p> + <p> + The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained standing + before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat down and filled his + pipe slowly and thoughtfully.... + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see what else I could have said,” he remarked. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND + </h2> + <h3> + ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + “Are you coming to the Fadden Dance, Ann Veronica?” asked Constance + Widgett. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica considered her answer. “I mean to,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “You are making your dress?” + </p> + <p> + “Such as it is.” + </p> + <p> + They were in the elder Widgett girl’s bedroom; Hetty was laid up, she + said, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was gossiping away + her tedium. It was a large, littered, self-forgetful apartment, decorated + with unframed charcoal sketches by various incipient masters; and an open + bookcase, surmounted by plaster casts and the half of a human skull, + displayed an odd miscellany of books—Shaw and Swinburne, Tom Jones, + Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. Constance Widgett’s abundant + copper-red hair was bent down over some dimly remunerative work—stencilling + in colors upon rough, white material—at a kitchen table she had + dragged up-stairs for the purpose, while on her bed there was seated a + slender lady of thirty or so in a dingy green dress, whom Constance had + introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss Miniver. Miss Miniver looked + out on the world through large emotional blue eyes that were further + magnified by the glasses she wore, and her nose was pinched and pink, and + her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her glasses moved quickly as her + glance travelled from face to face. She seemed bursting with the desire to + talk, and watching for her opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, + bearing the words “Votes for Women.” Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the + sufferer’s bed, while Teddy Widgett, being something of an athlete, + occupied the only bed-room chair—a decadent piece, essentially a + tripod and largely a formality—and smoked cigarettes, and tried to + conceal the fact that he was looking all the time at Ann Veronica’s + eyebrows. Teddy was the hatless young man who had turned Ann Veronica + aside from the Avenue two days before. He was the junior of both his + sisters, co-educated and much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of + roses, just brought by Ann Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, + and Ann Veronica was particularly trim in preparation for a call she was + to make with her aunt later in the afternoon. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. “I’ve been,” she said, + “forbidden to come.” + </p> + <p> + “Hul-LO!” said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy remarked + with profound emotion, “My God!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “and that complicates the situation.” + </p> + <p> + “Auntie?” asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica’s affairs. + </p> + <p> + “No! My father. It’s—it’s a serious prohibition.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” asked Hetty. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the point. I asked him why, and he hadn’t a reason.” + </p> + <p> + “YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!” said Miss Miniver, with great + intensity. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn’t have it out.” Ann + Veronica reflected for an instant “That’s why I think I ought to come.” + </p> + <p> + “You asked your father for a reason!” Miss Miniver repeated. + </p> + <p> + “We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!” said Hetty. “He’s + got almost to like it.” + </p> + <p> + “Men,” said Miss Miniver, “NEVER have a reason. Never! And they don’t know + it! They have no idea of it. It’s one of their worst traits, one of their + very worst.” + </p> + <p> + “But I say, Vee,” said Constance, “if you come and you are forbidden to + come there’ll be the deuce of a row.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her situation was + perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and + sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. “It isn’t only the dance,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “There’s the classes,” said Constance, the well-informed. + </p> + <p> + “There’s the whole situation. Apparently I’m not to exist yet. I’m not to + study, I’m not to grow. I’ve got to stay at home and remain in a state of + suspended animation.” + </p> + <p> + “DUSTING!” said Miss Miniver, in a sepulchral voice. + </p> + <p> + “Until you marry, Vee,” said Hetty. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don’t feel like standing it.” + </p> + <p> + “Thousands of women have married merely for freedom,” said Miss Miniver. + “Thousands! Ugh! And found it a worse slavery.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink petals, “it’s + our lot. But it’s very beastly.” + </p> + <p> + “What’s our lot?” asked her sister. + </p> + <p> + “Slavery! Downtroddenness! When I think of it I feel all over boot marks—men’s + boots. We hide it bravely, but so it is. Damn! I’ve splashed.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver’s manner became impressive. She addressed Ann Veronica with + an air of conveying great open secrets to her. “As things are at present,” + she said, “it is true. We live under man-made institutions, and that is + what they amount to. Every girl in the world practically, except a few of + us who teach or type-write, and then we’re underpaid and sweated—it’s + dreadful to think how we are sweated!” She had lost her generalization, + whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then went on, conclusively, + “Until we have the vote that is how things WILL be.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m all for the vote,” said Teddy. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose a girl MUST be underpaid and sweated,” said Ann Veronica. “I + suppose there’s no way of getting a decent income—independently.” + </p> + <p> + “Women have practically NO economic freedom,” said Miss Miniver, “because + they have no political freedom. Men have seen to that. The one profession, + the one decent profession, I mean, for a woman—except the stage—is + teaching, and there we trample on one another. Everywhere else—the + law, medicine, the Stock Exchange—prejudice bars us.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s art,” said Ann Veronica, “and writing.” + </p> + <p> + “Every one hasn’t the Gift. Even there a woman never gets a fair chance. + Men are against her. Whatever she does is minimized. All the best novels + have been written by women, and yet see how men sneer at the lady novelist + still! There’s only one way to get on for a woman, and that is to please + men. That is what they think we are for!” + </p> + <p> + “We’re beasts,” said Teddy. “Beasts!” + </p> + <p> + But Miss Miniver took no notice of his admission. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Miss Miniver—she went on in a regularly undulating + voice—“we DO please men. We have that gift. We can see round them + and behind them and through them, and most of us use that knowledge, in + the silent way we have, for our great ends. Not all of us, but some of us. + Too many. I wonder what men would say if we threw the mask aside—if + we really told them what WE thought of them, really showed them what WE + were.” A flush of excitement crept into her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Maternity,” she said, “has been our undoing.” + </p> + <p> + From that she opened out into a long, confused emphatic discourse on the + position of women, full of wonderful statements, while Constance worked at + her stencilling and Ann Veronica and Hetty listened, and Teddy contributed + sympathetic noises and consumed cheap cigarettes. As she talked she made + weak little gestures with her hands, and she thrust her face forward from + her bent shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann Veronica and sometimes + at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near Fluelen, that hung upon the wall. + Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely sympathizing with her, vaguely + disliking her physical insufficiency and her convulsive movements, and the + fine eyebrows were knit with a faint perplexity. Essentially the talk was + a mixture of fragments of sentences heard, of passages read, or arguments + indicated rather than stated, and all of it was served in a sauce of + strange enthusiasm, thin yet intense. Ann Veronica had had some training + at the Tredgold College in disentangling threads from confused statements, + and she had a curious persuasion that in all this fluent muddle there was + something—something real, something that signified. But it was very + hard to follow. She did not understand the note of hostility to men that + ran through it all, the bitter vindictiveness that lit Miss Miniver’s + cheeks and eyes, the sense of some at last insupportable wrong slowly + accumulated. She had no inkling of that insupportable wrong. + </p> + <p> + “We are the species,” said Miss Miniver, “men are only incidents. They + give themselves airs, but so it is. In all the species of animals the + females are more important than the males; the males have to please them. + Look at the cock’s feathers, look at the competition there is everywhere, + except among humans. The stags and oxen and things all have to fight for + us, everywhere. Only in man is the male made the most important. And that + happens through our maternity; it’s our very importance that degrades us. + </p> + <p> + “While we were minding the children they stole our rights and liberties. + The children made us slaves, and the men took advantage of it. It’s—Mrs. + Shalford says—the accidental conquering the essential. Originally in + the first animals there were no males, none at all. It has been proved. + Then they appear among the lower things”—she made meticulous + gestures to figure the scale of life; she seemed to be holding up + specimens, and peering through her glasses at them—“among + crustaceans and things, just as little creatures, ever so inferior to the + females. Mere hangers on. Things you would laugh at. And among human + beings, too, women to begin with were the rulers and leaders; they owned + all the property, they invented all the arts. + </p> + <p> + “The primitive government was the Matriarchate. The Matriarchate! The + Lords of Creation just ran about and did what they were told.” + </p> + <p> + “But is that really so?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “It has been proved,” said Miss Miniver, and added, “by American + professors.” + </p> + <p> + “But how did they prove it?” + </p> + <p> + “By science,” said Miss Miniver, and hurried on, putting out a rhetorical + hand that showed a slash of finger through its glove. “And now, look at + us! See what we have become. Toys! Delicate trifles! A sex of invalids. It + is we who have become the parasites and toys.” + </p> + <p> + It was, Ann Veronica felt, at once absurd and extraordinarily right. + Hetty, who had periods of lucid expression, put the thing for her from her + pillow. She charged boldly into the space of Miss Miniver’s rhetorical + pause. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t quite that we’re toys. Nobody toys with me. Nobody regards + Constance or Vee as a delicate trifle.” + </p> + <p> + Teddy made some confused noise, a thoracic street row; some remark was + assassinated by a rival in his throat and buried hastily under a cough. + </p> + <p> + “They’d better not,” said Hetty. “The point is we’re not toys, toys isn’t + the word; we’re litter. We’re handfuls. We’re regarded as inflammable + litter that mustn’t be left about. We are the species, and maternity is + our game; that’s all right, but nobody wants that admitted for fear we + should all catch fire, and set about fulfilling the purpose of our beings + without waiting for further explanations. As if we didn’t know! The + practical trouble is our ages. They used to marry us off at seventeen, + rush us into things before we had time to protest. They don’t now. Heaven + knows why! They don’t marry most of us off now until high up in the + twenties. And the age gets higher. We have to hang about in the interval. + There’s a great gulf opened, and nobody’s got any plans what to do with + us. So the world is choked with waste and waiting daughters. Hanging + about! And they start thinking and asking questions, and begin to be + neither one thing nor the other. We’re partly human beings and partly + females in suspense.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver followed with an expression of perplexity, her mouth shaped + to futile expositions. The Widgett method of thought puzzled her weakly + rhetorical mind. “There is no remedy, girls,” she began, breathlessly, + “except the Vote. Give us that—” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica came in with a certain disregard of Miss Miniver. “That’s + it,” she said. “They have no plans for us. They have no ideas what to do + with us.” + </p> + <p> + “Except,” said Constance, surveying her work with her head on one side, + “to keep the matches from the litter.” + </p> + <p> + “And they won’t let us make plans for ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + “We will,” said Miss Miniver, refusing to be suppressed, “if some of us + have to be killed to get it.” And she pressed her lips together in white + resolution and nodded, and she was manifestly full of that same passion + for conflict and self-sacrifice that has given the world martyrs since the + beginning of things. “I wish I could make every woman, every girl, see + this as clearly as I see it—just what the Vote means to us. Just + what it means....” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + As Ann Veronica went back along the Avenue to her aunt she became aware of + a light-footed pursuer running. Teddy overtook her, a little out of + breath, his innocent face flushed, his straw-colored hair disordered. He + was out of breath, and spoke in broken sentences. + </p> + <p> + “I say, Vee. Half a minute, Vee. It’s like this: You want freedom. Look + here. You know—if you want freedom. Just an idea of mine. You know + how those Russian students do? In Russia. Just a formal marriage. Mere + formality. Liberates the girl from parental control. See? You marry me. + Simply. No further responsibility whatever. Without hindrance—present + occupation. Why not? Quite willing. Get a license—just an idea of + mine. Doesn’t matter a bit to me. Do anything to please you, Vee. + Anything. Not fit to be dust on your boots. Still—there you are!” + </p> + <p> + He paused. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the + tremendous earnestness of his expression. “Awfully good of you, Teddy.” + she said. + </p> + <p> + He nodded silently, too full for words. + </p> + <p> + “But I don’t see,” said Ann Veronica, “just how it fits the present + situation.” + </p> + <p> + “No! Well, I just suggested it. Threw it out. Of course, if at any time—see + reason—alter your opinion. Always at your service. No offence, I + hope. All right! I’m off. Due to play hockey. Jackson’s. Horrid snorters! + So long, Vee! Just suggested it. See? Nothing really. Passing thought.” + </p> + <p> + “Teddy,” said Ann Veronica, “you’re a dear!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, quite!” said Teddy, convulsively, and lifted an imaginary hat and + left her. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + The call Ann Veronica paid with her aunt that afternoon had at first much + the same relation to the Widgett conversation that a plaster statue of Mr. + Gladstone would have to a carelessly displayed interior on a + dissecting-room table. The Widgetts talked with a remarkable absence of + external coverings; the Palsworthys found all the meanings of life on its + surfaces. They seemed the most wrapped things in all Ann Veronica’s + wrappered world. The Widgett mental furniture was perhaps worn and shabby, + but there it was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an almost + pitiless sunlight. Lady Palsworthy was the widow of a knight who had won + his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was of good seventeenth-century + attorney blood, a county family, and distantly related to Aunt Mollie’s + deceased curate. She was the social leader of Morningside Park, and in her + superficial and euphuistic way an extremely kind and pleasant woman. With + her lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of the Morningside Park doctor, and a + very active and useful member of the Committee of the Impoverished + Gentlewomen’s Aid Society. Both ladies were on easy and friendly terms + with all that was best in Morningside Park society; they had an afternoon + once a month that was quite well attended, they sometimes gave musical + evenings, they dined out and gave a finish to people’s dinners, they had a + full-sized croquet lawn and tennis beyond, and understood the art of + bringing people together. And they never talked of anything at all, never + discussed, never even encouraged gossip. They were just nice. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica found herself walking back down the Avenue that had just been + the scene of her first proposal beside her aunt, and speculating for the + first time in her life about that lady’s mental attitudes. Her prevailing + effect was one of quiet and complete assurance, as though she knew all + about everything, and was only restrained by her instinctive delicacy from + telling what she knew. But the restraint exercised by her instinctive + delicacy was very great; over and above coarse or sexual matters it + covered religion and politics and any mention of money matters or crime, + and Ann Veronica found herself wondering whether these exclusions + represented, after all, anything more than suppressions. Was there + anything at all in those locked rooms of her aunt’s mind? Were they fully + furnished and only a little dusty and cobwebby and in need of an airing, + or were they stark vacancy except, perhaps, for a cockroach or so or the + gnawing of a rat? What was the mental equivalent of a rat’s gnawing? The + image was going astray. But what would her aunt think of Teddy’s recent + off-hand suggestion of marriage? What would she think of the Widgett + conversation? Suppose she was to tell her aunt quietly but firmly about + the parasitic males of degraded crustacea. The girl suppressed a chuckle + that would have been inexplicable. + </p> + <p> + There came a wild rush of anthropological lore into her brain, a flare of + indecorous humor. It was one of the secret troubles of her mind, this + grotesque twist her ideas would sometimes take, as though they rebelled + and rioted. After all, she found herself reflecting, behind her aunt’s + complacent visage there was a past as lurid as any one’s—not, of + course, her aunt’s own personal past, which was apparently just that + curate and almost incredibly jejune, but an ancestral past with all sorts + of scandalous things in it: fire and slaughterings, exogamy, marriage by + capture, corroborees, cannibalism! Ancestresses with perhaps dim + anticipatory likenesses to her aunt, their hair less neatly done, no + doubt, their manners and gestures as yet undisciplined, but still + ancestresses in the direct line, must have danced through a brief and + stirring life in the woady buff. Was there no echo anywhere in Miss + Stanley’s pacified brain? Those empty rooms, if they were empty, were the + equivalents of astoundingly decorated predecessors. Perhaps it was just as + well there was no inherited memory. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was by this time quite shocked at her own thoughts, and yet + they would go on with their freaks. Great vistas of history opened, and + she and her aunt were near reverting to the primitive and passionate and + entirely indecorous arboreal—were swinging from branches by the + arms, and really going on quite dreadfully—when their arrival at + the Palsworthys’ happily checked this play of fancy, and brought Ann + Veronica back to the exigencies of the wrappered life again. + </p> + <p> + Lady Palsworthy liked Ann Veronica because she was never awkward, had + steady eyes, and an almost invariable neatness and dignity in her clothes. + She seemed just as stiff and shy as a girl ought to be, Lady Palsworthy + thought, neither garrulous nor unready, and free from nearly all the heavy + aggressiveness, the overgrown, overblown quality, the egotism and want of + consideration of the typical modern girl. But then Lady Palsworthy had + never seen Ann Veronica running like the wind at hockey. She had never + seen her sitting on tables nor heard her discussing theology, and had + failed to observe that the graceful figure was a natural one and not due + to ably chosen stays. She took it for granted Ann Veronica wore stays—mild + stays, perhaps, but stays, and thought no more of the matter. She had seen + her really only at teas, with the Stanley strain in her uppermost. There + are so many girls nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea, with their + untrimmed laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when they sit + down, their slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it is true, like the + girls of the eighties and nineties, nevertheless to a fine intelligence + they have the flavor of tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the + mellow surface of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and Lady + Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed surfaces + of things. Ann Veronica was one of the few young people—and one must + have young people just as one must have flowers—one could ask to a + little gathering without the risk of a painful discord. Then the distant + relationship to Miss Stanley gave them a slight but pleasant sense of + proprietorship in the girl. They had their little dreams about her. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Pramlay received them in the pretty chintz drawing-room, which opened + by French windows on the trim garden, with its croquet lawn, its + tennis-net in the middle distance, and its remote rose alley lined with + smart dahlias and flaming sunflowers. Her eye met Miss Stanley’s + understandingly, and she was if anything a trifle more affectionate in her + greeting to Ann Veronica. Then Ann Veronica passed on toward the tea in + the garden, which was dotted with the elite of Morningside Park society, + and there she was pounced upon by Lady Palsworthy and given tea and led + about. Across the lawn and hovering indecisively, Ann Veronica saw and + immediately affected not to see Mr. Manning, Lady Palsworthy’s nephew, a + tall young man of seven-and-thirty with a handsome, thoughtful, impassive + face, a full black mustache, and a certain heavy luxuriousness of gesture. + The party resolved itself for Ann Veronica into a game in which she + manoeuvred unostentatiously and finally unsuccessfully to avoid talking + alone with this gentleman. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning had shown on previous occasions that he found Ann Veronica + interesting and that he wished to interest her. He was a civil servant of + some standing, and after a previous conversation upon aesthetics of a + sententious, nebulous, and sympathetic character, he had sent her a small + volume, which he described as the fruits of his leisure and which was as a + matter of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with fine aspects + of Mr. Manning’s feelings, and as Ann Veronica’s mind was still largely + engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in metrical forms, she had + not as yet cut its pages. So that as she saw him she remarked to herself + very faintly but definitely, “Oh, golly!” and set up a campaign of + avoidance that Mr. Manning at last broke down by coming directly at her as + she talked with the vicar’s aunt about some of the details of the alleged + smell of the new church lamps. He did not so much cut into this + conversation as loom over it, for he was a tall, if rather studiously + stooping, man. + </p> + <p> + The face that looked down upon Ann Veronica was full of amiable intention. + “Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley,” he said. “How well and + jolly you must be feeling.” + </p> + <p> + He beamed over the effect of this and shook hands with effusion, and Lady + Palsworthy suddenly appeared as his confederate and disentangled the + vicar’s aunt. + </p> + <p> + “I love this warm end of summer more than words can tell,” he said. “I’ve + tried to make words tell it. It’s no good. Mild, you know, and boon. You + want music.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of her assent cover a + possible knowledge of a probable poem. + </p> + <p> + “Splendid it must be to be a composer. Glorious! The Pastoral. Beethoven; + he’s the best of them. Don’t you think? Tum, tay, tum, tay.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica did. + </p> + <p> + “What have you been doing since our last talk? Still cutting up rabbits + and probing into things? I’ve often thought of that talk of ours—often.” + </p> + <p> + He did not appear to require any answer to his question. + </p> + <p> + “Often,” he repeated, a little heavily. + </p> + <p> + “Beautiful these autumn flowers are,” said Ann Veronica, in a wide, + uncomfortable pause. + </p> + <p> + “Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the garden,” said + Mr. Manning, “they’re a dream.” And Ann Veronica found herself being + carried off to an isolation even remoter and more conspicuous than the + corner of the lawn, with the whole of the party aiding and abetting and + glancing at them. “Damn!” said Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself + for a conflict. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar admission + from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of beauty. He said that for + him beauty justified life, that he could not imagine a good action that + was not a beautiful one nor any beautiful thing that could be altogether + bad. Ann Veronica hazarded an opinion that as a matter of history some + very beautiful people had, to a quite considerable extent, been bad, but + Mr. Manning questioned whether when they were bad they were really + beautiful or when they were beautiful bad. Ann Veronica found her + attention wandering a little as he told her that he was not ashamed to + feel almost slavish in the presence of really beautiful people, and then + they came to the Michaelmas daisies. They were really very fine and + abundant, with a blaze of perennial sunflowers behind them. + </p> + <p> + “They make me want to shout,” said Mr. Manning, with a sweep of the arm. + </p> + <p> + “They’re very good this year,” said Ann Veronica, avoiding controversial + matter. + </p> + <p> + “Either I want to shout,” said Mr. Manning, “when I see beautiful things, + or else I want to weep.” He paused and looked at her, and said, with a + sudden drop into a confidential undertone, “Or else I want to pray.” + </p> + <p> + “When is Michaelmas Day?” said Ann Veronica, a little abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Heaven knows!” said Mr. Manning; and added, “the twenty-ninth.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought it was earlier,” said Ann Veronica. “Wasn’t Parliament to + reassemble?” + </p> + <p> + He put out his hand and leaned against a tree and crossed his legs. + “You’re not interested in politics?” he asked, almost with a note of + protest. + </p> + <p> + “Well, rather,” said Ann Veronica. “It seems—It’s interesting.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think so? I find my interest in that sort of thing decline and + decline.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m curious. Perhaps because I don’t know. I suppose an intelligent + person OUGHT to be interested in political affairs. They concern us all.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” said Mr. Manning, with a baffling smile. + </p> + <p> + “I think they do. After all, they’re history in the making.” + </p> + <p> + “A sort of history,” said Mr. Manning; and repeated, “a sort of history. + But look at these glorious daisies!” + </p> + <p> + “But don’t you think political questions ARE important?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think they are this afternoon, and I don’t think they are to + you.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica turned her back on the Michaelmas daisies, and faced toward + the house with an air of a duty completed. + </p> + <p> + “Just come to that seat now you are here, Miss Stanley, and look down the + other path; there’s a vista of just the common sort. Better even than + these.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica walked as he indicated. + </p> + <p> + “You know I’m old-fashioned, Miss Stanley. I don’t think women need to + trouble about political questions.” + </p> + <p> + “I want a vote,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Really!” said Mr. Manning, in an earnest voice, and waved his hand to the + alley of mauve and purple. “I wish you didn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” She turned on him. + </p> + <p> + “It jars. It jars with all my ideas. Women to me are something so serene, + so fine, so feminine, and politics are so dusty, so sordid, so wearisome + and quarrelsome. It seems to me a woman’s duty to be beautiful, to BE + beautiful and to behave beautifully, and politics are by their very nature + ugly. You see, I—I am a woman worshipper. I worshipped women long + before I found any woman I might ever hope to worship. Long ago. And—the + idea of committees, of hustings, of agenda-papers!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see why the responsibility of beauty should all be shifted on to + the women,” said Ann Veronica, suddenly remembering a part of Miss + Miniver’s discourse. + </p> + <p> + “It rests with them by the nature of things. Why should you who are queens + come down from your thrones? If you can afford it, WE can’t. We can’t + afford to turn our women, our Madonnas, our Saint Catherines, our Mona + Lisas, our goddesses and angels and fairy princesses, into a sort of man. + Womanhood is sacred to me. My politics in that matter wouldn’t be to give + women votes. I’m a Socialist, Miss Stanley.” + </p> + <p> + “WHAT?” said Ann Veronica, startled. + </p> + <p> + “A Socialist of the order of John Ruskin. Indeed I am! I would make this + country a collective monarchy, and all the girls and women in it should be + the Queen. They should never come into contact with politics or economics—or + any of those things. And we men would work for them and serve them in + loyal fealty.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s rather the theory now,” said Ann Veronica. “Only so many men + neglect their duties.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Mr. Manning, with an air of emerging from an elaborate + demonstration, “and so each of us must, under existing conditions, being + chivalrous indeed to all women, choose for himself his own particular and + worshipful queen.” + </p> + <p> + “So far as one can judge from the system in practice,” said Ann Veronica, + speaking in a loud, common-sense, detached tone, and beginning to walk + slowly but resolutely toward the lawn, “it doesn’t work.” + </p> + <p> + “Every one must be experimental,” said Mr. Manning, and glanced round + hastily for further horticultural points of interest in secluded corners. + None presented themselves to save him from that return. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all very well when one isn’t the material experimented upon,” Ann + Veronica had remarked. + </p> + <p> + “Women would—they DO have far more power than they think, as + influences, as inspirations.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica said nothing in answer to that. + </p> + <p> + “You say you want a vote,” said Mr. Manning, abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “I think I ought to have one.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I have two,” said Mr. Manning—“one in Oxford University and + one in Kensington.” He caught up and went on with a sort of clumsiness: + “Let me present you with them and be your voter.” + </p> + <p> + There followed an instant’s pause, and then Ann Veronica had decided to + misunderstand. + </p> + <p> + “I want a vote for myself,” she said. “I don’t see why I should take it + second-hand. Though it’s very kind of you. And rather unscrupulous. Have + you ever voted, Mr. Manning? I suppose there’s a sort of place like a + ticket-office. And a ballot-box—” Her face assumed an expression of + intellectual conflict. “What is a ballot-box like, exactly?” she asked, as + though it was very important to her. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning regarded her thoughtfully for a moment and stroked his + mustache. “A ballot-box, you know,” he said, “is very largely just a box.” + He made quite a long pause, and went on, with a sigh: “You have a voting + paper given you—” + </p> + <p> + They emerged into the publicity of the lawn. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “yes,” to his explanation, and saw across the + lawn Lady Palsworthy talking to her aunt, and both of them staring frankly + across at her and Mr. Manning as they talked. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD + </h2> + <h3> + THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + Two days after came the day of the Crisis, the day of the Fadden Dance. It + would have been a crisis anyhow, but it was complicated in Ann Veronica’s + mind by the fact that a letter lay on the breakfast-table from Mr. + Manning, and that her aunt focussed a brightly tactful disregard upon this + throughout the meal. Ann Veronica had come down thinking of nothing in the + world but her inflexible resolution to go to the dance in the teeth of all + opposition. She did not know Mr. Manning’s handwriting, and opened his + letter and read some lines before its import appeared. Then for a time she + forgot the Fadden affair altogether. With a well-simulated unconcern and a + heightened color she finished her breakfast. + </p> + <p> + She was not obliged to go to the Tredgold College, because as yet the + College had not settled down for the session. She was supposed to be + reading at home, and after breakfast she strolled into the vegetable + garden, and having taken up a position upon the staging of a disused + greenhouse that had the double advantage of being hidden from the windows + of the house and secure from the sudden appearance of any one, she resumed + the reading of Mr. Manning’s letter. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning’s handwriting had an air of being clear without being easily + legible; it was large and rather roundish, with a lack of definition about + the letters and a disposition to treat the large ones as liberal-minded + people nowadays treat opinions, as all amounting to the same thing really—a + years-smoothed boyish rather than an adult hand. And it filled seven + sheets of notepaper, each written only on one side. + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR MISS STANLEY,” it began,—“I hope you will forgive my + bothering you with a letter, but I have been thinking very much over our + conversation at Lady Palsworthy’s, and I feel there are things I want to + say to you so much that I cannot wait until we meet again. It is the worst + of talk under such social circumstances that it is always getting cut off + so soon as it is beginning; and I went home that afternoon feeling I had + said nothing—literally nothing—of the things I had meant to + say to you and that were coursing through my head. They were things I had + meant very much to talk to you about, so that I went home vexed and + disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses. I + wonder if you will mind very much when I tell you they were suggested by + you. You must forgive the poet’s license I take. Here is one verse. The + metrical irregularity is intentional, because I want, as it were, to put + you apart: to change the lilt and the mood altogether when I speak of you. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “‘A SONG OF LADIES AND MY LADY + + “‘Saintly white and a lily is Mary, + Margaret’s violets, sweet and shy; + Green and dewy is Nellie-bud fairy, + Forget-me-nots live in Gwendolen’s eye. + Annabel shines like a star in the darkness, + Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose; + But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather, + She gleams and gladdens, she warms—and goes.’ +</pre> + <p> + “Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret. All bad verse—originally + the epigram was Lang’s, I believe—is written in a state of emotion. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon of work + and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the time resenting it + beyond measure. There we were discussing whether you should have a vote, + and I remembered the last occasion we met it was about your prospects of + success in the medical profession or as a Government official such as a + number of women now are, and all the time my heart was crying out within + me, ‘Here is the Queen of your career.’ I wanted, as I have never wanted + before, to take you up, to make you mine, to carry you off and set you + apart from all the strain and turmoil of life. For nothing will ever + convince me that it is not the man’s share in life to shield, to protect, + to lead and toil and watch and battle with the world at large. I want to + be your knight, your servant, your protector, your—I dare scarcely + write the word—your husband. So I come suppliant. I am + five-and-thirty, and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the + quality of life. I had a hard fight to begin with to win my way into the + Upper Division—I was third on a list of forty-seven—and since + then I have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening sphere of + social service. Before I met you I never met any one whom I felt I could + love, but you have discovered depths in my own nature I had scarcely + suspected. Except for a few early ebullitions of passion, natural to a + warm and romantic disposition, and leaving no harmful after-effects—ebullitions + that by the standards of the higher truth I feel no one can justly cast a + stone at, and of which I for one am by no means ashamed—I come to + you a pure and unencumbered man. I love you. In addition to my public + salary I have a certain private property and further expectations through + my aunt, so that I can offer you a life of wide and generous refinement, + travel, books, discussion, and easy relations with a circle of clever and + brilliant and thoughtful people with whom my literary work has brought me + into contact, and of which, seeing me only as you have done alone in + Morningside Park, you can have no idea. I have a certain standing not only + as a singer but as a critic, and I belong to one of the most brilliant + causerie dinner clubs of the day, in which successful Bohemianism, + politicians, men of affairs, artists, sculptors, and cultivated noblemen + generally, mingle together in the easiest and most delightful intercourse. + That is my real milieu, and one that I am convinced you would not only + adorn but delight in. + </p> + <p> + “I find it very hard to write this letter. There are so many things I want + to tell you, and they stand on such different levels, that the effect is + necessarily confusing and discordant, and I find myself doubting if I am + really giving you the thread of emotion that should run through all this + letter. For although I must confess it reads very much like an application + or a testimonial or some such thing as that, I can assure you I am writing + this in fear and trembling with a sinking heart. My mind is full of ideas + and images that I have been cherishing and accumulating—dreams of + travelling side by side, of lunching quietly together in some jolly + restaurant, of moonlight and music and all that side of life, of seeing + you dressed like a queen and shining in some brilliant throng—mine; + of your looking at flowers in some old-world garden, our garden—there + are splendid places to be got down in Surrey, and a little runabout motor + is quite within my means. You know they say, as, indeed, I have just + quoted already, that all bad poetry is written in a state of emotion, but + I have no doubt that this is true of bad offers of marriage. I have often + felt before that it is only when one has nothing to say that one can write + easy poetry. Witness Browning. And how can I get into one brief letter the + complex accumulated desires of what is now, I find on reference to my + diary, nearly sixteen months of letting my mind run on you—ever + since that jolly party at Surbiton, where we raced and beat the other + boat. You steered and I rowed stroke. My very sentences stumble and give + way. But I do not even care if I am absurd. I am a resolute man, and + hitherto when I have wanted a thing I have got it; but I have never yet + wanted anything in my life as I have wanted you. It isn’t the same thing. + I am afraid because I love you, so that the mere thought of failure hurts. + If I did not love you so much I believe I could win you by sheer force of + character, for people tell me I am naturally of the dominating type. Most + of my successes in life have been made with a sort of reckless vigor. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I have said what I had to say, stumblingly and badly, and baldly. + But I am sick of tearing up letters and hopeless of getting what I have to + say better said. It would be easy enough for me to write an eloquent + letter about something else. Only I do not care to write about anything + else. Let me put the main question to you now that I could not put the + other afternoon. Will you marry me, Ann Veronica? + </p> + <p> + “Very sincerely yours, + </p> + <p> + “HUBERT MANNING.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes. + </p> + <p> + Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. Twice she + smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheets in a + search for particular passages. Finally she fell into reflection. + </p> + <p> + “Odd!” she said. “I suppose I shall have to write an answer. It’s so + different from what one has been led to expect.” + </p> + <p> + She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the greenhouse, + advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry + canes. + </p> + <p> + “No you don’t!” said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and + business-like pace toward the house. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going for a long tramp, auntie,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Alone, dear?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, aunt. I’ve got a lot of things to think about.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. She thought + her niece very hard and very self-possessed and self-confident. She ought + to be softened and tender and confidential at this phase of her life. She + seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states that were becoming + to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round the garden thinking, + and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann Veronica’s slamming of + the front door. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder!” said Miss Stanley. + </p> + <p> + For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as though they + offered an explanation. Then she went in and up-stairs, hesitated on the + landing, and finally, a little breathless and with an air of great + dignity, opened the door and walked into Ann Veronica’s room. It was a + neat, efficient-looking room, with a writing-table placed with a + business-like regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a pig’s + skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of shiny, + black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two hockey-sticks + and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica, by means of + autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss Stanley took no + notice of these things. She walked straight across to the wardrobe and + opened it. There, hanging among Ann Veronica’s more normal clothing, was a + skimpy dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap and tawdry braid, and short—it + could hardly reach below the knee. On the same peg and evidently belonging + to it was a black velvet Zouave jacket. And then! a garment that was + conceivably a secondary skirt. + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of the + constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it. + </p> + <p> + The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. As she + raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy crimson masses. + </p> + <p> + “TROUSERS!” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very chairs. + </p> + <p> + Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish slippers + of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She walked over to them + still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to examine them. + They were ingenious disguises of gilt paper destructively gummed, it would + seem, to Ann Veronicas’ best dancing-slippers. + </p> + <p> + Then she reverted to the trousers. + </p> + <p> + “How CAN I tell him?” whispered Miss Stanley. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. She walked + with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the proletarian portion + of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a pretty overhung + lane that led toward Caddington and the Downs. And then her pace + slackened. She tucked her stick under her arm and re-read Manning’s + letter. + </p> + <p> + “Let me think,” said Ann Veronica. “I wish this hadn’t turned up to-day of + all days.” + </p> + <p> + She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything but + clear what it was she had to think about. Practically it was most of the + chief interests in life that she proposed to settle in this pedestrian + meditation. Primarily it was her own problem, and in particular the answer + she had to give to Mr. Manning’s letter, but in order to get data for that + she found that she, having a logical and ordered mind, had to decide upon + the general relations of men to women, the objects and conditions of + marriage and its bearing upon the welfare of the race, the purpose of the + race, the purpose, if any, of everything.... + </p> + <p> + “Frightful lot of things aren’t settled,” said Ann Veronica. In addition, + the Fadden Dance business, all out of proportion, occupied the whole + foreground of her thoughts and threw a color of rebellion over everything. + She kept thinking she was thinking about Mr. Manning’s proposal of + marriage and finding she was thinking of the dance. + </p> + <p> + For a time her efforts to achieve a comprehensive concentration were + dispersed by the passage of the village street of Caddington, the passing + of a goggled car-load of motorists, and the struggles of a stable lad + mounted on one recalcitrant horse and leading another. When she got back + to her questions again in the monotonous high-road that led up the hill, + she found the image of Mr. Manning central in her mind. He stood there, + large and dark, enunciating, in his clear voice from beneath his large + mustache, clear flat sentences, deliberately kindly. He proposed, he + wanted to possess her! He loved her. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica felt no repulsion at the prospect. That Mr. Manning loved her + presented itself to her bloodlessly, stilled from any imaginative quiver + or thrill of passion or disgust. The relationship seemed to have almost as + much to do with blood and body as a mortgage. It was something that would + create a mutual claim, a relationship. It was in another world from that + in which men will die for a kiss, and touching hands lights fires that + burn up lives—the world of romance, the world of passionately + beautiful things. + </p> + <p> + But that other world, in spite of her resolute exclusion of it, was always + looking round corners and peeping through chinks and crannies, and + rustling and raiding into the order in which she chose to live, shining + out of pictures at her, echoing in lyrics and music; it invaded her + dreams, it wrote up broken and enigmatical sentences upon the passage + walls of her mind. She was aware of it now as if it were a voice shouting + outside a house, shouting passionate verities in a hot sunlight, a voice + that cries while people talk insincerely in a darkened room and pretend + not to hear. Its shouting now did in some occult manner convey a protest + that Mr. Manning would on no account do, though he was tall and dark and + handsome and kind, and thirty-five and adequately prosperous, and all that + a husband should be. But there was, it insisted, no mobility in his face, + no movement, nothing about him that warmed. If Ann Veronica could have put + words to that song they would have been, “Hot-blooded marriage or none!” + but she was far too indistinct in this matter to frame any words at all. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t love him,” said Ann Veronica, getting a gleam. “I don’t see that + his being a good sort matters. That really settles about that.... But it + means no end of a row.” + </p> + <p> + For a time she sat on a rail before leaving the road for the downland + turf. “But I wish,” she said, “I had some idea what I was really up to.” + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts went into solution for a time, while she listened to a lark + singing. + </p> + <p> + “Marriage and mothering,” said Ann Veronica, with her mind crystallizing + out again as the lark dropped to the nest in the turf. “And all the rest + of it perhaps is a song.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Her mind got back to the Fadden Ball. + </p> + <p> + She meant to go, she meant to go, she meant to go. Nothing would stop her, + and she was prepared to face the consequences. Suppose her father turned + her out of doors! She did not care, she meant to go. She would just walk + out of the house and go.... + </p> + <p> + She thought of her costume in some detail and with considerable + satisfaction, and particularly of a very jolly property dagger with large + glass jewels in the handle, that reposed in a drawer in her room. She was + to be a Corsair’s Bride. “Fancy stabbing a man for jealousy!” she thought. + “You’d have to think how to get in between his bones.” + </p> + <p> + She thought of her father, and with an effort dismissed him from her mind. + </p> + <p> + She tried to imagine the collective effect of the Fadden Ball; she had + never seen a fancy-dress gathering in her life. Mr. Manning came into her + thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark, self-contained presence at the + Fadden. One might suppose him turning up; he knew a lot of clever people, + and some of them might belong to the class. What would he come as? + </p> + <p> + Presently she roused herself with a guilty start from the task of dressing + and re-dressing Mr. Manning in fancy costume, as though he was a doll. She + had tried him as a Crusader, in which guise he seemed plausible but heavy—“There + IS something heavy about him; I wonder if it’s his mustache?”—and as + a Hussar, which made him preposterous, and as a Black Brunswicker, which + was better, and as an Arab sheik. Also she had tried him as a dragoman and + as a gendarme, which seemed the most suitable of all to his severely + handsome, immobile profile. She felt he would tell people the way, control + traffic, and refuse admission to public buildings with invincible + correctness and the very finest explicit feelings possible. For each + costume she had devised a suitable form of matrimonial refusal. “Oh, + Lord!” she said, discovering what she was up to, and dropped lightly from + the fence upon the turf and went on her way toward the crest. + </p> + <p> + “I shall never marry,” said Ann Veronica, resolutely; “I’m not the sort. + That’s why it’s so important I should take my own line now.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s ideas of marriage were limited and unsystematic. Her + teachers and mistresses had done their best to stamp her mind with an + ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously important, and on no + account to be thought about. Her first intimations of marriage as a fact + of extreme significance in a woman’s life had come with the marriage of + Alice and the elopement of her second sister, Gwen. + </p> + <p> + These convulsions occurred when Ann Veronica was about twelve. There was a + gulf of eight years between her and the youngest of her brace of sisters—an + impassable gulf inhabited chaotically by two noisy brothers. These sisters + moved in a grown-up world inaccessible to Ann Veronica’s sympathies, and + to a large extent remote from her curiosity. She got into rows through + meddling with their shoes and tennis-rackets, and had moments of carefully + concealed admiration when she was privileged to see them just before her + bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in white or pink or amber and prepared + to go out with her mother. She thought Alice a bit of a sneak, an opinion + her brothers shared, and Gwen rather a snatch at meals. She saw nothing of + their love-making, and came home from her boarding-school in a state of + decently suppressed curiosity for Alice’s wedding. + </p> + <p> + Her impressions of this cardinal ceremony were rich and confused, + complicated by a quite transitory passion that awakened no reciprocal fire + for a fat curly headed cousin in black velveteen and a lace collar, who + assisted as a page. She followed him about persistently, and succeeded, + after a brisk, unchivalrous struggle (in which he pinched and asked her to + “cheese it”), in kissing him among the raspberries behind the greenhouse. + Afterward her brother Roddy, also strange in velveteen, feeling rather + than knowing of this relationship, punched this Adonis’s head. + </p> + <p> + A marriage in the house proved to be exciting but extremely disorganizing. + Everything seemed designed to unhinge the mind and make the cat wretched. + All the furniture was moved, all the meals were disarranged, and + everybody, Ann Veronica included, appeared in new, bright costumes. She + had to wear cream and a brown sash and a short frock and her hair down, + and Gwen cream and a brown sash and a long skirt and her hair up. And her + mother, looking unusually alert and hectic, wore cream and brown also, + made up in a more complicated manner. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was much impressed by a mighty trying on and altering and + fussing about Alice’s “things”—Alice was being re-costumed from + garret to cellar, with a walking-dress and walking-boots to measure, and a + bride’s costume of the most ravishing description, and stockings and such + like beyond the dreams of avarice—and a constant and increasing + dripping into the house of irrelevant remarkable objects, such as— + </p> + <p> + Real lace bedspread; + </p> + <p> + Gilt travelling clock; + </p> + <p> + Ornamental pewter plaque; + </p> + <p> + Salad bowl (silver mounted) and servers; + </p> + <p> + Madgett’s “English Poets” (twelve volumes), bound purple morocco; + </p> + <p> + Etc., etc. + </p> + <p> + Through all this flutter of novelty there came and went a solicitous, + preoccupied, almost depressed figure. It was Doctor Ralph, formerly the + partner of Doctor Stickell in the Avenue, and now with a thriving practice + of his own in Wamblesmith. He had shaved his side-whiskers and come over + in flannels, but he was still indisputably the same person who had + attended Ann Veronica for the measles and when she swallowed the + fish-bone. But his role was altered, and he was now playing the bridegroom + in this remarkable drama. Alice was going to be Mrs. Ralph. He came in + apologetically; all the old “Well, and how ARE we?” note gone; and once he + asked Ann Veronica, almost furtively, + </p> + <p> + “How’s Alice getting on, Vee?” Finally, on the Day, he appeared like his + old professional self transfigured, in the most beautiful light gray + trousers Ann Veronica had ever seen and a new shiny silk hat with a most + becoming roll.... + </p> + <p> + It was not simply that all the rooms were rearranged and everybody dressed + in unusual fashions, and all the routines of life abolished and put away: + people’s tempers and emotions also seemed strangely disturbed and shifted + about. Her father was distinctly irascible, and disposed more than ever to + hide away among the petrological things—the study was turned out. At + table he carved in a gloomy but resolute manner. On the Day he had + trumpet-like outbreaks of cordiality, varied by a watchful preoccupation. + Gwen and Alice were fantastically friendly, which seemed to annoy him, and + Mrs. Stanley was throughout enigmatical, with an anxious eye on her + husband and Alice. + </p> + <p> + There was a confused impression of livery carriages and whips with white + favors, people fussily wanting other people to get in before them, and + then the church. People sat in unusual pews, and a wide margin of hassocky + emptiness intervened between the ceremony and the walls. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had a number of fragmentary impressions of Alice strangely + transfigured in bridal raiment. It seemed to make her sister downcast + beyond any precedent. The bridesmaids and pages got rather jumbled in the + aisle, and she had an effect of Alice’s white back and sloping shoulders + and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some incomprehensible way + that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very + vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, + mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while the Rev. Edward Bribble + stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked kind and large, + and listened to Alice’s responses as though he was listening to symptoms + and thought that on the whole she was progressing favorably. + </p> + <p> + And afterward her mother and Alice kissed long and clung to each other. + And Doctor Ralph stood by looking considerate. He and her father shook + hands manfully. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had got quite interested in Mr. Bribble’s rendering of the + service—he had the sort of voice that brings out things—and + was still teeming with ideas about it when finally a wild outburst from + the organ made it clear that, whatever snivelling there might be down in + the chancel, that excellent wind instrument was, in its Mendelssohnian + way, as glad as ever it could be. “Pump, pump, per-um-pump, Pum, Pump, + Per-um....” + </p> + <p> + The wedding-breakfast was for Ann Veronica a spectacle of the unreal + consuming the real; she liked that part very well, until she was + carelessly served against her expressed wishes with mayonnaise. She was + caught by an uncle, whose opinion she valued, making faces at Roddy + because he had exulted at this. + </p> + <p> + Of the vast mass of these impressions Ann Veronica could make nothing at + the time; there they were—Fact! She stored them away in a mind + naturally retentive, as a squirrel stores away nuts, for further + digestion. Only one thing emerged with any reasonable clarity in her mind + at once, and that was that unless she was saved from drowning by an + unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is unavoidable, or totally + destitute of under-clothing, and so driven to get a trousseau, in which + hardship a trousseau would certainly be “ripping,” marriage was an + experience to be strenuously evaded. + </p> + <p> + When they were going home she asked her mother why she and Gwen and Alice + had cried. + </p> + <p> + “Ssh!” said her mother, and then added, “A little natural feeling, dear.” + </p> + <p> + “But didn’t Alice want to marry Doctor Ralph?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, ssh, Vee!” said her mother, with an evasion as patent as an + advertisement board. “I am sure she will be very happy indeed with Doctor + Ralph.” + </p> + <p> + But Ann Veronica was by no means sure of that until she went over to + Wamblesmith and saw her sister, very remote and domestic and + authoritative, in a becoming tea-gown, in command of Doctor Ralph’s home. + Doctor Ralph came in to tea and put his arm round Alice and kissed her, + and Alice called him “Squiggles,” and stood in the shelter of his arms for + a moment with an expression of satisfied proprietorship. She HAD cried, + Ann Veronica knew. There had been fusses and scenes dimly apprehended + through half-open doors. She had heard Alice talking and crying at the + same time, a painful noise. Perhaps marriage hurt. But now it was all + over, and Alice was getting on well. It reminded Ann Veronica of having a + tooth stopped. + </p> + <p> + And after that Alice became remoter than ever, and, after a time, ill. + Then she had a baby and became as old as any really grown-up person, or + older, and very dull. Then she and her husband went off to a Yorkshire + practice, and had four more babies, none of whom photographed well, and so + she passed beyond the sphere of Ann Veronica’s sympathies altogether. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + The Gwen affair happened when she was away at school at Marticombe-on-Sea, + a term before she went to the High School, and was never very clear to + her. + </p> + <p> + Her mother missed writing for a week, and then she wrote in an unusual + key. “My dear,” the letter ran, “I have to tell you that your sister Gwen + has offended your father very much. I hope you will always love her, but I + want you to remember she has offended your father and married without his + consent. Your father is very angry, and will not have her name mentioned + in his hearing. She has married some one he could not approve of, and gone + right away....” + </p> + <p> + When the next holidays came Ann Veronica’s mother was ill, and Gwen was in + the sick-room when Ann Veronica returned home. She was in one of her old + walking-dresses, her hair was done in an unfamiliar manner, she wore a + wedding-ring, and she looked as if she had been crying. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Gwen!” said Ann Veronica, trying to put every one at their ease. + “Been and married?... What’s the name of the happy man?” + </p> + <p> + Gwen owned to “Fortescue.” + </p> + <p> + “Got a photograph of him or anything?” said Ann Veronica, after kissing + her mother. + </p> + <p> + Gwen made an inquiry, and, directed by Mrs. Stanley, produced a portrait + from its hiding-place in the jewel-drawer under the mirror. It presented a + clean-shaven face with a large Corinthian nose, hair tremendously waving + off the forehead and more chin and neck than is good for a man. + </p> + <p> + “LOOKS all right,” said Ann Veronica, regarding him with her head first on + one side and then on the other, and trying to be agreeable. “What’s the + objection?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose she ought to know?” said Gwen to her mother, trying to alter + the key of the conversation. + </p> + <p> + “You see, Vee,” said Mrs. Stanley, “Mr. Fortescue is an actor, and your + father does not approve of the profession.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” said Ann Veronica. “I thought they made knights of actors?” + </p> + <p> + “They may of Hal some day,” said Gwen. “But it’s a long business.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose this makes you an actress?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know whether I shall go on,” said Gwen, a novel note of + languorous professionalism creeping into her voice. “The other women don’t + much like it if husband and wife work together, and I don’t think Hal + would like me to act away from him.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica regarded her sister with a new respect, but the traditions of + family life are strong. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to do it much,” + said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + Later Gwen’s trouble weighed so heavily on Mrs. Stanley in her illness + that her husband consented to receive Mr. Fortescue in the drawing-room, + and actually shake hands with him in an entirely hopeless manner and hope + everything would turn out for the best. + </p> + <p> + The forgiveness and reconciliation was a cold and formal affair, and + afterwards her father went off gloomily to his study, and Mr. Fortescue + rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian + nose upraised and his hands behind his back, pausing to look long and hard + at the fruit-trees against the wall. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica watched him from the dining-room window, and after some + moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse + direction to Mr. Fortescue’s steps, and encountered him with an air of + artless surprise. + </p> + <p> + “Hello!” said Ann Veronica, with arms akimbo and a careless, breathless + manner. “You Mr. Fortescue?” + </p> + <p> + “At your service. You Ann Veronica?” + </p> + <p> + “Rather! I say—did you marry Gwen?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Fortescue raised his eyebrows and assumed a light-comedy expression. + “I suppose I fell in love with her, Ann Veronica.” + </p> + <p> + “Rum,” said Ann Veronica. “Have you got to keep her now?” + </p> + <p> + “To the best of my ability,” said Mr. Fortescue, with a bow. + </p> + <p> + “Have you much ability?” asked Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Fortescue tried to act embarrassment in order to conceal its reality, + and Ann Veronica went on to ask a string of questions about acting, and + whether her sister would act, and was she beautiful enough for it, and who + would make her dresses, and so on. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact Mr. Fortescue had not much ability to keep her sister, + and a little while after her mother’s death Ann Veronica met Gwen suddenly + on the staircase coming from her father’s study, shockingly dingy in dusty + mourning and tearful and resentful, and after that Gwen receded from the + Morningside Park world, and not even the begging letters and distressful + communications that her father and aunt received, but only a vague + intimation of dreadfulness, a leakage of incidental comment, flashes of + paternal anger at “that blackguard,” came to Ann Veronica’s ears. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + These were Ann Veronica’s leading cases in the question of marriage. They + were the only real marriages she had seen clearly. For the rest, she + derived her ideas of the married state from the observed behavior of + married women, which impressed her in Morningside Park as being tied and + dull and inelastic in comparison with the life of the young, and from a + remarkably various reading among books. As a net result she had come to + think of all married people much as one thinks of insects that have lost + their wings, and of her sisters as new hatched creatures who had scarcely + for a moment had wings. She evolved a dim image of herself cooped up in a + house under the benevolent shadow of Mr. Manning. Who knows?—on the + analogy of “Squiggles” she might come to call him “Mangles!” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I can ever marry any one,” she said, and fell suddenly into + another set of considerations that perplexed her for a time. Had romance + to be banished from life?... + </p> + <p> + It was hard to part with romance, but she had never thirsted so keenly to + go on with her University work in her life as she did that day. She had + never felt so acutely the desire for free initiative, for a life + unhampered by others. At any cost! Her brothers had it practically—at + least they had it far more than it seemed likely she would unless she + exerted herself with quite exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair, + far prospect of freedom and self-development manoeuvred Mr. Manning, her + aunt and father, neighbors, customs, traditions, forces. They seemed to + her that morning to be all armed with nets and prepared to throw them over + her directly her movements became in any manner truly free. + </p> + <p> + She had a feeling as though something had dropped from her eyes, as though + she had just discovered herself for the first time—discovered + herself as a sleep-walker might do, abruptly among dangers, hindrances, + and perplexities, on the verge of a cardinal crisis. + </p> + <p> + The life of a girl presented itself to her as something happy and heedless + and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by others, and going on + amidst unsuspected screens and concealments. + </p> + <p> + And in its way it was very well. Then suddenly with a rush came reality, + came “growing up”; a hasty imperative appeal for seriousness, for supreme + seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings and Fortescues came down upon the raw + inexperience, upon the blinking ignorance of the newcomer; and before her + eyes were fairly open, before she knew what had happened, a new set of + guides and controls, a new set of obligations and responsibilities and + limitations, had replaced the old. “I want to be a Person,” said Ann + Veronica to the downs and the open sky; “I will not have this happen to + me, whatever else may happen in its place.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had three things very definitely settled by the time when, a + little after mid-day, she found herself perched up on a gate between a + bridle-path and a field that commanded the whole wide stretch of country + between Chalking and Waldersham. Firstly, she did not intend to marry at + all, and particularly she did not mean to marry Mr. Manning; secondly, by + some measure or other, she meant to go on with her studies, not at the + Tredgold Schools but at the Imperial College; and, thirdly, she was, as an + immediate and decisive act, a symbol of just exactly where she stood, a + declaration of free and adult initiative, going that night to the Fadden + Ball. + </p> + <p> + But the possible attitude of her father she had still to face. So far she + had the utmost difficulty in getting on to that vitally important matter. + The whole of that relationship persisted in remaining obscure. What would + happen when next morning she returned to Morningside Park? + </p> + <p> + He couldn’t turn her out of doors. But what he could do or might do she + could not imagine. She was not afraid of violence, but she was afraid of + something mean, some secondary kind of force. Suppose he stopped all her + allowance, made it imperative that she should either stay ineffectually + resentful at home or earn a living for herself at once.... It appeared + highly probable to her that he would stop her allowance. + </p> + <p> + What can a girl do? + </p> + <p> + Somewhere at this point Ann Veronica’s speculations were interrupted and + turned aside by the approach of a horse and rider. Mr. Ramage, that + iron-gray man of the world, appeared dressed in a bowler hat and a suit of + hard gray, astride of a black horse. He pulled rein at the sight of her, + saluted, and regarded her with his rather too protuberant eyes. The girl’s + gaze met his in interested inquiry. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve got my view,” he said, after a pensive second. “I always get off + here and lean over that rail for a bit. May I do so to-day?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s your gate,” she said, amiably; “you got it first. It’s for you to + say if I may sit on it.” + </p> + <p> + He slipped off the horse. “Let me introduce you to Caesar,” he said; and + she patted Caesar’s neck, and remarked how soft his nose was, and secretly + deplored the ugliness of equine teeth. Ramage tethered the horse to the + farther gate-post, and Caesar blew heavily and began to investigate the + hedge. + </p> + <p> + Ramage leaned over the gate at Ann Veronica’s side, and for a moment there + was silence. + </p> + <p> + He made some obvious comments on the wide view warming toward its autumnal + blaze that spread itself in hill and valley, wood and village, below. + </p> + <p> + “It’s as broad as life,” said Mr. Ramage, regarding it and putting a + well-booted foot up on the bottom rail. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + “And what are you doing here, young lady,” he said, looking up at her + face, “wandering alone so far from home?” + </p> + <p> + “I like long walks,” said Ann Veronica, looking down on him. + </p> + <p> + “Solitary walks?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the point of them. I think over all sorts of things.” + </p> + <p> + “Problems?” + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes quite difficult problems.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re lucky to live in an age when you can do so. Your mother, for + instance, couldn’t. She had to do her thinking at home—under + inspection.” + </p> + <p> + She looked down on him thoughtfully, and he let his admiration of her free + young poise show in his face. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose things have changed?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Never was such an age of transition.” + </p> + <p> + She wondered what to. Mr. Ramage did not know. “Sufficient unto me is the + change thereof,” he said, with all the effect of an epigram. + </p> + <p> + “I must confess,” he said, “the New Woman and the New Girl intrigue me + profoundly. I am one of those people who are interested in women, more + interested than I am in anything else. I don’t conceal it. And the change, + the change of attitude! The way all the old clingingness has been thrown + aside is amazing. And all the old—the old trick of shrinking up like + a snail at a touch. If you had lived twenty years ago you would have been + called a Young Person, and it would have been your chief duty in life not + to know, never to have heard of, and never to understand.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s quite enough still,” said Ann Veronica, smiling, “that one + doesn’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite. But your role would have been to go about saying, ‘I beg your + pardon’ in a reproving tone to things you understood quite well in your + heart and saw no harm in. That terrible Young Person! she’s vanished. + Lost, stolen, or strayed, the Young Person!... I hope we may never find + her again.” + </p> + <p> + He rejoiced over this emancipation. “While that lamb was about every man + of any spirit was regarded as a dangerous wolf. We wore invisible chains + and invisible blinkers. Now, you and I can gossip at a gate, and Honi + soit qui mal y pense. The change has given man one good thing he never had + before,” he said. “Girl friends. And I am coming to believe the best as + well as the most beautiful friends a man can have are girl friends.” + </p> + <p> + He paused, and went on, after a keen look at her: + </p> + <p> + “I had rather gossip to a really intelligent girl than to any man alive.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose we ARE more free than we were?” said Ann Veronica, keeping the + question general. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, there’s no doubt of it! Since the girls of the eighties broke bounds + and sailed away on bicycles—my young days go back to the very + beginnings of that—it’s been one triumphant relaxation.” + </p> + <p> + “Relaxation, perhaps. But are we any more free?” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I mean we’ve long strings to tether us, but we are bound all the same. A + woman isn’t much freer—in reality.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ramage demurred. + </p> + <p> + “One runs about,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “But it’s on condition one doesn’t do anything.” + </p> + <p> + “Do what?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!—anything.” + </p> + <p> + He looked interrogation with a faint smile. + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me it comes to earning one’s living in the long run,” said + Ann Veronica, coloring faintly. “Until a girl can go away as a son does + and earn her independent income, she’s still on a string. It may be a long + string, long enough if you like to tangle up all sorts of people; but + there it is! If the paymaster pulls, home she must go. That’s what I + mean.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ramage admitted the force of that. He was a little impressed by Ann + Veronica’s metaphor of the string, which, indeed, she owed to Hetty + Widgett. “YOU wouldn’t like to be independent?” he asked, abruptly. “I + mean REALLY independent. On your own. It isn’t such fun as it seems.” + </p> + <p> + “Every one wants to be independent,” said Ann Veronica. “Every one. Man or + woman.” + </p> + <p> + “And you?” + </p> + <p> + “Rather!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder why?” + </p> + <p> + “There’s no why. It’s just to feel—one owns one’s self.” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody does that,” said Ramage, and kept silence for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “But a boy—a boy goes out into the world and presently stands on his + own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company, makes his own + way of living.” + </p> + <p> + “You’d like to do that?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you like to be a boy?” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder! It’s out of the question, any way.” + </p> + <p> + Ramage reflected. “Why don’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it might mean rather a row.” + </p> + <p> + “I know—” said Ramage, with sympathy. + </p> + <p> + “And besides,” said Ann Veronica, sweeping that aspect aside, “what could + I do? A boy sails out into a trade or profession. But—it’s one of + the things I’ve just been thinking over. Suppose—suppose a girl did + want to start in life, start in life for herself—” She looked him + frankly in the eyes. “What ought she to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose you—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, suppose I—” + </p> + <p> + He felt that his advice was being asked. He became a little more personal + and intimate. “I wonder what you could do?” he said. “I should think YOU + could do all sorts of things.... + </p> + <p> + “What ought you to do?” He began to produce his knowledge of the world for + her benefit, jerkily and allusively, and with a strong, rank flavor of + “savoir faire.” He took an optimist view of her chances. Ann Veronica + listened thoughtfully, with her eyes on the turf, and now and then she + asked a question or looked up to discuss a point. In the meanwhile, as he + talked, he scrutinized her face, ran his eyes over her careless, gracious + poise, wondered hard about her. He described her privately to himself as a + splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away from home, that she was + impatient to get away from home. Why? While the front of his mind was busy + warning her not to fall into the hopeless miseries of underpaid teaching, + and explaining his idea that for women of initiative, quite as much as for + men, the world of business had by far the best chances, the back chambers + of his brain were busy with the problem of that “Why?” + </p> + <p> + His first idea as a man of the world was to explain her unrest by a lover, + some secret or forbidden or impossible lover. But he dismissed that + because then she would ask her lover and not him all these things. + Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple restlessness: home bored her. + He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored and + feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of + something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young lady impatient + for experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he did not + think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more than a mask. + Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept. If it was not an + actual personal lover, it still might be the lover not yet incarnate, not + yet perhaps suspected.... + </p> + <p> + He had diverged only a little from the truth when he said that his chief + interest in life was women. It wasn’t so much women as Woman that engaged + his mind. His was the Latin turn of thinking; he had fallen in love at + thirteen, and he was still capable—he prided himself—of + falling in love. His invalid wife and her money had been only the thin + thread that held his life together; beaded on that permanent relation had + been an inter-weaving series of other feminine experiences, disturbing, + absorbing, interesting, memorable affairs. Each one had been different + from the others, each had had a quality all its own, a distinctive + freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how men could + live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful research into + personality and the possibilities of pleasing, these complex, fascinating + expeditions that began in interest and mounted to the supremest, most + passionate intimacy. All the rest of his existence was subordinate to this + pursuit; he lived for it, worked for it, kept himself in training for it. + </p> + <p> + So while he talked to this girl of work and freedom, his slightly + protuberant eyes were noting the gracious balance of her limbs and body + across the gate, the fine lines of her chin and neck. Her grave fine face, + her warm clear complexion, had already aroused his curiosity as he had + gone to and fro in Morningside Park, and here suddenly he was near to her + and talking freely and intimately. He had found her in a communicative + mood, and he used the accumulated skill of years in turning that to + account. + </p> + <p> + She was pleased and a little flattered by his interest and sympathy. She + became eager to explain herself, to show herself in the right light. He + was manifestly exerting his mind for her, and she found herself fully + disposed to justify his interest. + </p> + <p> + She, perhaps, displayed herself rather consciously as a fine person unduly + limited. She even touched lightly on her father’s unreasonableness. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” said Ramage, “that more girls don’t think as you do and want + to strike out in the world.” + </p> + <p> + And then he speculated. “I wonder if you will?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me say one thing,” he said. “If ever you do and I can help you in any + way, by advice or inquiry or recommendation—You see, I’m no believer + in feminine incapacity, but I do perceive there is such a thing as + feminine inexperience. As a sex you’re a little under-trained—in + affairs. I’d take it—forgive me if I seem a little urgent—as a + sort of proof of friendliness. I can imagine nothing more pleasant in life + than to help you, because I know it would pay to help you. There’s + something about you, a little flavor of Will, I suppose, that makes one + feel—good luck about you and success....” + </p> + <p> + And while he talked and watched her as he talked, she answered, and behind + her listening watched and thought about him. She liked the animated + eagerness of his manner. + </p> + <p> + His mind seemed to be a remarkably full one; his knowledge of detailed + reality came in just where her own mind was most weakly equipped. Through + all he said ran one quality that pleased her—the quality of a man + who feels that things can be done, that one need not wait for the world to + push one before one moved. Compared with her father and Mr. Manning and + the men in “fixed” positions generally that she knew, Ramage, presented by + himself, had a fine suggestion of freedom, of power, of deliberate and + sustained adventure.... + </p> + <p> + She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It was really + very jolly to talk to a man in this way—who saw the woman in her and + did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps for a + girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a man beyond + the range of anything “nonsensical,” was, perhaps, the most interesting + sort of friend one could meet. But in that reservation it may be she went + a little beyond the converse of his view.... + </p> + <p> + They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the better part of + an hour, and at last walked together to the junction of highroad and the + bridle-path. There, after protestations of friendliness and helpfulness + that were almost ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and rode off at an + amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with his riding gaiters, + smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned northward and so came to + Micklechesil. There, in a little tea and sweet-stuff shop, she bought and + consumed slowly and absent-mindedly the insufficient nourishment that is + natural to her sex on such occasions. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE CRISIS + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + We left Miss Stanley with Ann Veronica’s fancy dress in her hands and her + eyes directed to Ann Veronica’s pseudo-Turkish slippers. + </p> + <p> + When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six—an earlier train by + fifteen minutes than he affected—his sister met him in the hall with + a hushed expression. “I’m so glad you’re here, Peter,” she said. “She + means to go.” + </p> + <p> + “Go!” he said. “Where?” + </p> + <p> + “To that ball.” + </p> + <p> + “What ball?” The question was rhetorical. He knew. + </p> + <p> + “I believe she’s dressing up-stairs—now.” + </p> + <p> + “Then tell her to undress, confound her!” The City had been thoroughly + annoying that day, and he was angry from the outset. + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley reflected on this proposal for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think she will,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “She must,” said Mr. Stanley, and went into his study. His sister + followed. “She can’t go now. She’ll have to wait for dinner,” he said, + uncomfortably. + </p> + <p> + “She’s going to have some sort of meal with the Widgetts down the Avenue, + and go up with them. + </p> + <p> + “She told you that?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “At tea.” + </p> + <p> + “But why didn’t you prohibit once for all the whole thing? How dared she + tell you that?” + </p> + <p> + “Out of defiance. She just sat and told me that was her arrangement. I’ve + never seen her quite so sure of herself.” + </p> + <p> + “What did you say?” + </p> + <p> + “I said, ‘My dear Veronica! how can you think of such things?’” + </p> + <p> + “And then?” + </p> + <p> + “She had two more cups of tea and some cake, and told me of her walk.” + </p> + <p> + “She’ll meet somebody one of these days—walking about like that.” + </p> + <p> + “She didn’t say she’d met any one.” + </p> + <p> + “But didn’t you say some more about that ball?” + </p> + <p> + “I said everything I could say as soon as I realized she was trying to + avoid the topic. I said, ‘It is no use your telling me about this walk and + pretend I’ve been told about the ball, because you haven’t. Your father + has forbidden you to go!’” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “She said, ‘I hate being horrid to you and father, but I feel it my duty + to go to that ball!’” + </p> + <p> + “Felt it her duty!” + </p> + <p> + “‘Very well,’ I said, ‘then I wash my hands of the whole business. Your + disobedience be upon your own head.’” + </p> + <p> + “But that is flat rebellion!” said Mr. Stanley, standing on the hearthrug + with his back to the unlit gas-fire. “You ought at once—you ought at + once to have told her that. What duty does a girl owe to any one before + her father? Obedience to him, that is surely the first law. What CAN she + put before that?” His voice began to rise. “One would think I had said + nothing about the matter. One would think I had agreed to her going. I + suppose this is what she learns in her infernal London colleges. I suppose + this is the sort of damned rubbish—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! Ssh, Peter!” cried Miss Stanley. + </p> + <p> + He stopped abruptly. In the pause a door could be heard opening and + closing on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became audible, + descending the staircase with a certain deliberation and a faint rustle of + skirts. + </p> + <p> + “Tell her,” said Mr. Stanley, with an imperious gesture, “to come in + here.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Miss Stanley emerged from the study and stood watching Ann Veronica + descend. + </p> + <p> + The girl was flushed with excitement, bright-eyed, and braced for a + struggle; her aunt had never seen her looking so fine or so pretty. Her + fancy dress, save for the green-gray stockings, the pseudo-Turkish + slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to a Corsair’s bride, was + hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood it was + evident that her rebellious hair was bound up with red silk, and fastened + by some device in her ears (unless she had them pierced, which was too + dreadful a thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings. + </p> + <p> + “I’m just off, aunt,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Your father is in the study and wishes to speak to you.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica hesitated, and then stood in the open doorway and regarded + her father’s stern presence. She spoke with an entirely false note of + cheerful off-handedness. “I’m just in time to say good-bye before I go, + father. I’m going up to London with the Widgetts to that ball.” + </p> + <p> + “Now look here, Ann Veronica,” said Mr. Stanley, “just a moment. You are + NOT going to that ball!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica tried a less genial, more dignified note. + </p> + <p> + “I thought we had discussed that, father.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not going to that ball! You are not going out of this house in + that get-up!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica tried yet more earnestly to treat him, as she would treat any + man, with an insistence upon her due of masculine respect. “You see,” she + said, very gently, “I AM going. I am sorry to seem to disobey you, but I + am. I wish”—she found she had embarked on a bad sentence—“I + wish we needn’t have quarrelled.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped abruptly, and turned about toward the front door. In a moment + he was beside her. “I don’t think you can have heard me, Vee,” he said, + with intensely controlled fury. “I said you were”—he shouted—“NOT + TO GO!” + </p> + <p> + She made, and overdid, an immense effort to be a princess. She tossed her + head, and, having no further words, moved toward the door. Her father + intercepted her, and for a moment she and he struggled with their hands + upon the latch. A common rage flushed their faces. “Let go!” she gasped at + him, a blaze of anger. + </p> + <p> + “Veronica!” cried Miss Stanley, warningly, and, “Peter!” + </p> + <p> + For a moment they seemed on the verge of an altogether desperate scuffle. + Never for a moment had violence come between these two since long ago he + had, in spite of her mother’s protest in the background, carried her + kicking and squalling to the nursery for some forgotten crime. With + something near to horror they found themselves thus confronted. + </p> + <p> + The door was fastened by a catch and a latch with an inside key, to which + at night a chain and two bolts were added. Carefully abstaining from + thrusting against each other, Ann Veronica and her father began an + absurdly desperate struggle, the one to open the door, the other to keep + it fastened. She seized the key, and he grasped her hand and squeezed it + roughly and painfully between the handle and the ward as she tried to turn + it. His grip twisted her wrist. She cried out with the pain of it. + </p> + <p> + A wild passion of shame and self-disgust swept over her. Her spirit awoke + in dismay to an affection in ruins, to the immense undignified disaster + that had come to them. + </p> + <p> + Abruptly she desisted, recoiled, and turned and fled up-stairs. + </p> + <p> + She made noises between weeping and laughter as she went. She gained her + room, and slammed her door and locked it as though she feared violence and + pursuit. + </p> + <p> + “Oh God!” she cried, “Oh God!” and flung aside her opera-cloak, and for a + time walked about the room—a Corsair’s bride at a crisis of emotion. + “Why can’t he reason with me,” she said, again and again, “instead of + doing this?” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + There presently came a phase in which she said: “I WON’T stand it even + now. I will go to-night.” + </p> + <p> + She went as far as her door, then turned to the window. She opened this + and scrambled out—a thing she had not done for five long years of + adolescence—upon the leaded space above the built-out bath-room on + the first floor. Once upon a time she and Roddy had descended thence by + the drain-pipe. + </p> + <p> + But things that a girl of sixteen may do in short skirts are not things to + be done by a young lady of twenty-one in fancy dress and an opera-cloak, + and just as she was coming unaided to an adequate realization of this, she + discovered Mr. Pragmar, the wholesale druggist, who lived three gardens + away, and who had been mowing his lawn to get an appetite for dinner, + standing in a fascinated attitude beside the forgotten lawn-mower and + watching her intently. + </p> + <p> + She found it extremely difficult to infuse an air of quiet correctitude + into her return through the window, and when she was safely inside she + waved clinched fists and executed a noiseless dance of rage. + </p> + <p> + When she reflected that Mr. Pragmar probably knew Mr. Ramage, and might + describe the affair to him, she cried “Oh!” with renewed vexation, and + repeated some steps of her dance in a new and more ecstatic measure. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + At eight that evening Miss Stanley tapped at Ann Veronica’s bedroom door. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve brought you up some dinner, Vee,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was lying on her bed in a darkling room staring at the + ceiling. She reflected before answering. She was frightfully hungry. She + had eaten little or no tea, and her mid-day meal had been worse than + nothing. + </p> + <p> + She got up and unlocked the door. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt did not object to capital punishment or war, or the industrial + system or casual wards, or flogging of criminals or the Congo Free State, + because none of these things really got hold of her imagination; but she + did object, she did not like, she could not bear to think of people not + having and enjoying their meals. It was her distinctive test of an + emotional state, its interference with a kindly normal digestion. Any one + very badly moved choked down a few mouthfuls; the symptom of supreme + distress was not to be able to touch a bit. So that the thought of Ann + Veronica up-stairs had been extremely painful for her through all the + silent dinner-time that night. As soon as dinner was over she went into + the kitchen and devoted herself to compiling a tray—not a tray + merely of half-cooled dinner things, but a specially prepared “nice” tray, + suitable for tempting any one. With this she now entered. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica found herself in the presence of the most disconcerting fact + in human experience, the kindliness of people you believe to be thoroughly + wrong. She took the tray with both hands, gulped, and gave way to tears. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt leaped unhappily to the thought of penitence. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” she began, with an affectionate hand on Ann Veronica’s + shoulder, “I do SO wish you would realize how it grieves your father.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica flung away from her hand, and the pepper-pot on the tray + upset, sending a puff of pepper into the air and instantly filling them + both with an intense desire to sneeze. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think you see,” she replied, with tears on her cheeks, and her + brows knitting, “how it shames and, ah!—disgraces me—AH + TISHU!” + </p> + <p> + She put down the tray with a concussion on her toilet-table. + </p> + <p> + “But, dear, think! He is your father. SHOOH!” + </p> + <p> + “That’s no reason,” said Ann Veronica, speaking through her handkerchief + and stopping abruptly. + </p> + <p> + Niece and aunt regarded each other for a moment over their + pocket-handkerchiefs with watery but antagonistic eyes, each far too + profoundly moved to see the absurdity of the position. + </p> + <p> + “I hope,” said Miss Stanley, with dignity, and turned doorward with + features in civil warfare. “Better state of mind,” she gasped.... + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica stood in the twilight room staring at the door that had + slammed upon her aunt, her pocket-handkerchief rolled tightly in her hand. + Her soul was full of the sense of disaster. She had made her first fight + for dignity and freedom as a grown-up and independent Person, and this was + how the universe had treated her. It had neither succumbed to her nor + wrathfully overwhelmed her. It had thrust her back with an undignified + scuffle, with vulgar comedy, with an unendurable, scornful grin. + </p> + <p> + “By God!” said Ann Veronica for the first time in her life. “But I will! I + will!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIFTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica had an impression that she did not sleep at all that night, + and at any rate she got through an immense amount of feverish feeling and + thinking. + </p> + <p> + What was she going to do? + </p> + <p> + One main idea possessed her: she must get away from home, she must assert + herself at once or perish. “Very well,” she would say, “then I must go.” + To remain, she felt, was to concede everything. And she would have to go + to-morrow. It was clear it must be to-morrow. If she delayed a day she + would delay two days, if she delayed two days she would delay a week, and + after a week things would be adjusted to submission forever. “I’ll go,” + she vowed to the night, “or I’ll die!” She made plans and estimated means + and resources. These and her general preparations had perhaps a certain + disproportion. She had a gold watch, a very good gold watch that had been + her mother’s, a pearl necklace that was also pretty good, some + unpretending rings, some silver bangles and a few other such inferior + trinkets, three pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her dress and book + allowance and a few good salable books. So equipped, she proposed to set + up a separate establishment in the world. + </p> + <p> + And then she would find work. + </p> + <p> + For most of a long and fluctuating night she was fairly confident that she + would find work; she knew herself to be strong, intelligent, and capable + by the standards of most of the girls she knew. She was not quite clear + how she should find it, but she felt she would. Then she would write and + tell her father what she had done, and put their relationship on a new + footing. + </p> + <p> + That was how she projected it, and in general terms it seemed plausible + and possible. But in between these wider phases of comparative confidence + were gaps of disconcerting doubt, when the universe was presented as + making sinister and threatening faces at her, defying her to defy, + preparing a humiliating and shameful overthrow. “I don’t care,” said Ann + Veronica to the darkness; “I’ll fight it.” + </p> + <p> + She tried to plan her proceedings in detail. The only difficulties that + presented themselves clearly to her were the difficulties of getting away + from Morningside Park, and not the difficulties at the other end of the + journey. These were so outside her experience that she found it possible + to thrust them almost out of sight by saying they would be “all right” in + confident tones to herself. But still she knew they were not right, and at + times they became a horrible obsession as of something waiting for her + round the corner. She tried to imagine herself “getting something,” to + project herself as sitting down at a desk and writing, or as returning + after her work to some pleasantly equipped and free and independent flat. + For a time she furnished the flat. But even with that furniture it + remained extremely vague, the possible good and the possible evil as well! + </p> + <p> + The possible evil! “I’ll go,” said Ann Veronica for the hundredth time. + “I’ll go. I don’t care WHAT happens.” + </p> + <p> + She awoke out of a doze, as though she had never been sleeping. It was + time to get up. + </p> + <p> + She sat on the edge of her bed and looked about her, at her room, at the + row of black-covered books and the pig’s skull. “I must take them,” she + said, to help herself over her own incredulity. “How shall I get my + luggage out of the house?...” + </p> + <p> + The figure of her aunt, a little distant, a little propitiatory, behind + the coffee things, filled her with a sense of almost catastrophic + adventure. Perhaps she might never come back to that breakfast-room again. + Never! Perhaps some day, quite soon, she might regret that breakfast-room. + She helped herself to the remainder of the slightly congealed bacon, and + reverted to the problem of getting her luggage out of the house. She + decided to call in the help of Teddy Widgett, or, failing him, of one of + his sisters. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + She found the younger generation of the Widgetts engaged in languid + reminiscences, and all, as they expressed it, a “bit decayed.” Every one + became tremendously animated when they heard that Ann Veronica had failed + them because she had been, as she expressed it, “locked in.” + </p> + <p> + “My God!” said Teddy, more impressively than ever. + </p> + <p> + “But what are you going to do?” asked Hetty. + </p> + <p> + “What can one do?” asked Ann Veronica. “Would you stand it? I’m going to + clear out.” + </p> + <p> + “Clear out?” cried Hetty. + </p> + <p> + “Go to London,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + She had expected sympathetic admiration, but instead the whole Widgett + family, except Teddy, expressed a common dismay. “But how can you?” asked + Constance. “Who will you stop with?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall go on my own. Take a room!” + </p> + <p> + “I say!” said Constance. “But who’s going to pay for the room?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got money,” said Ann Veronica. “Anything is better than this—this + stifled life down here.” And seeing that Hetty and Constance were + obviously developing objections, she plunged at once into a demand for + help. “I’ve got nothing in the world to pack with except a toy size + portmanteau. Can you lend me some stuff?” + </p> + <p> + “You ARE a chap!” said Constance, and warmed only slowly from the idea of + dissuasion to the idea of help. But they did what they could for her. They + agreed to lend her their hold-all and a large, formless bag which they + called the communal trunk. And Teddy declared himself ready to go to the + ends of the earth for her, and carry her luggage all the way. + </p> + <p> + Hetty, looking out of the window—she always smoked her + after-breakfast cigarette at the window for the benefit of the less + advanced section of Morningside Park society—and trying not to raise + objections, saw Miss Stanley going down toward the shops. + </p> + <p> + “If you must go on with it,” said Hetty, “now’s your time.” And Ann + Veronica at once went back with the hold-all, trying not to hurry + indecently but to keep up her dignified air of being a wronged person + doing the right thing at a smart trot, to pack. Teddy went round by the + garden backs and dropped the bag over the fence. All this was exciting and + entertaining. Her aunt returned before the packing was done, and Ann + Veronica lunched with an uneasy sense of bag and hold-all packed up-stairs + and inadequately hidden from chance intruders by the valance of the bed. + She went down, flushed and light-hearted, to the Widgetts’ after lunch to + make some final arrangements and then, as soon as her aunt had retired to + lie down for her usual digestive hour, took the risk of the servants + having the enterprise to report her proceedings and carried her bag and + hold-all to the garden gate, whence Teddy, in a state of ecstatic service, + bore them to the railway station. Then she went up-stairs again, dressed + herself carefully for town, put on her most businesslike-looking hat, and + with a wave of emotion she found it hard to control, walked down to catch + the 3.17 up-train. + </p> + <p> + Teddy handed her into the second-class compartment her season-ticket + warranted, and declared she was “simply splendid.” “If you want anything,” + he said, “or get into any trouble, wire me. I’d come back from the ends of + the earth. I’d do anything, Vee. It’s horrible to think of you!” + </p> + <p> + “You’re an awful brick, Teddy!” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Who wouldn’t be for you?” + </p> + <p> + The train began to move. “You’re splendid!” said Teddy, with his hair wild + in the wind. “Good luck! Good luck!” + </p> + <p> + She waved from the window until the bend hid him. + </p> + <p> + She found herself alone in the train asking herself what she must do next, + and trying not to think of herself as cut off from home or any refuge + whatever from the world she had resolved to face. She felt smaller and + more adventurous even than she had expected to feel. “Let me see,” she + said to herself, trying to control a slight sinking of the heart, “I am + going to take a room in a lodging-house because that is cheaper.... But + perhaps I had better get a room in an hotel to-night and look round.... + </p> + <p> + “It’s bound to be all right,” she said. + </p> + <p> + But her heart kept on sinking. What hotel should she go to? If she told a + cabman to drive to an hotel, any hotel, what would he do—or say? He + might drive to something dreadfully expensive, and not at all the quiet + sort of thing she required. Finally she decided that even for an hotel she + must look round, and that meanwhile she would “book” her luggage at + Waterloo. She told the porter to take it to the booking-office, and it was + only after a disconcerting moment or so that she found she ought to have + directed him to go to the cloak-room. But that was soon put right, and she + walked out into London with a peculiar exaltation of mind, an exaltation + that partook of panic and defiance, but was chiefly a sense of vast + unexampled release. + </p> + <p> + She inhaled a deep breath of air—London air. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + She dismissed the first hotels she passed, she scarcely knew why, mainly + perhaps from the mere dread of entering them, and crossed Waterloo Bridge + at a leisurely pace. It was high afternoon, there was no great throng of + foot-passengers, and many an eye from omnibus and pavement rested + gratefully on her fresh, trim presence as she passed young and erect, with + the light of determination shining through the quiet self-possession of + her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress for town, without + either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse confessed a pretty + neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her dark hair waved loosely and + graciously over her ears.... + </p> + <p> + It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all time to her, and + perhaps the thrill of her excitement did add a distinctive and culminating + keenness to the day. The river, the big buildings on the north bank, + Westminster, and St. Paul’s, were rich and wonderful with the soft + sunshine of London, the softest, the finest grained, the most penetrating + and least emphatic sunshine in the world. The very carts and vans and cabs + that Wellington Street poured out incessantly upon the bridge seemed ripe + and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious barges slumbered over the face + of the river-barges either altogether stagnant or dreaming along in the + wake of fussy tugs; and above circled, urbanely voracious, the London + seagulls. She had never been there before at that hour, in that light, and + it seemed to her as if she came to it all for the first time. And this + great mellow place, this London, now was hers, to struggle with, to go + where she pleased in, to overcome and live in. “I am glad,” she told + herself, “I came.” + </p> + <p> + She marked an hotel that seemed neither opulent nor odd in a little side + street opening on the Embankment, made up her mind with an effort, and, + returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, took a cab to this chosen + refuge with her two pieces of luggage. There was just a minute’s + hesitation before they gave her a room. + </p> + <p> + The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire, and Ann Veronica, + while she affected to read the appeal on a hospital collecting-box upon + the bureau counter, had a disagreeable sense of being surveyed from behind + by a small, whiskered gentleman in a frock-coat, who came out of the inner + office and into the hall among a number of equally observant green porters + to look at her and her bags. But the survey was satisfactory, and she + found herself presently in Room No. 47, straightening her hat and waiting + for her luggage to appear. + </p> + <p> + “All right so far,” she said to herself.... + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + But presently, as she sat on the one antimacassared red silk chair and + surveyed her hold-all and bag in that tidy, rather vacant, and dehumanized + apartment, with its empty wardrobe and desert toilet-table and pictureless + walls and stereotyped furnishings, a sudden blankness came upon her as + though she didn’t matter, and had been thrust away into this impersonal + corner, she and her gear.... + </p> + <p> + She decided to go out into the London afternoon again and get something to + eat in an Aerated Bread shop or some such place, and perhaps find a cheap + room for herself. Of course that was what she had to do; she had to find a + cheap room for herself and work! + </p> + <p> + This Room No. 47 was no more than a sort of railway compartment on the way + to that. + </p> + <p> + How does one get work? + </p> + <p> + She walked along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, and by the + Haymarket to Piccadilly, and so through dignified squares and palatial + alleys to Oxford Street; and her mind was divided between a speculative + treatment of employment on the one hand, and breezes—zephyr breezes—of + the keenest appreciation for London, on the other. The jolly part of it + was that for the first time in her life so far as London was concerned, + she was not going anywhere in particular; for the first time in her life + it seemed to her she was taking London in. + </p> + <p> + She tried to think how people get work. Ought she to walk into some of + these places and tell them what she could do? She hesitated at the window + of a shipping-office in Cockspur Street and at the Army and Navy Stores, + but decided that perhaps there would be some special and customary hour, + and that it would be better for her to find this out before she made her + attempt. And, besides, she didn’t just immediately want to make her + attempt. + </p> + <p> + She fell into a pleasant dream of positions and work. Behind every one of + these myriad fronts she passed there must be a career or careers. Her + ideas of women’s employment and a modern woman’s pose in life were based + largely on the figure of Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren’s Profession. She had + seen Mrs. Warren’s Profession furtively with Hetty Widgett from the + gallery of a Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most of it + had been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way that checked + further curiosity, but the figure of Vivien, hard, capable, successful, + and bullying, and ordering about a veritable Teddy in the person of Frank + Gardner, appealed to her. She saw herself in very much Vivie’s position—managing + something. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts were deflected from Vivie Warren by the peculiar behavior of + a middle-aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared suddenly from the + infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington Arcade, crossing the + pavement toward her and with his eyes upon her. He seemed to her + indistinguishably about her father’s age. He wore a silk hat a little + tilted, and a morning coat buttoned round a tight, contained figure; and a + white slip gave a finish to his costume and endorsed the quiet distinction + of his tie. His face was a little flushed perhaps, and his small, brown + eyes were bright. He stopped on the curb-stone, not facing her but as if + he was on his way to cross the road, and spoke to her suddenly over his + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Whither away?” he said, very distinctly in a curiously wheedling voice. + Ann Veronica stared at his foolish, propitiatory smile, his hungry gaze, + through one moment of amazement, then stepped aside and went on her way + with a quickened step. But her mind was ruffled, and its mirror-like + surface of satisfaction was not easily restored. + </p> + <p> + Queer old gentleman! + </p> + <p> + The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every well-bred girl, + so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her own thoughts + and her own knowledge. Ann Veronica could at the same time ask herself + what this queer old gentleman could have meant by speaking to her, and + know—know in general terms, at least—what that accosting + signified. About her, as she had gone day by day to and from the Tredgold + College, she had seen and not seen many an incidental aspect of those + sides of life about which girls are expected to know nothing, aspects that + were extraordinarily relevant to her own position and outlook on the + world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For all that she was of + exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never yet considered these + things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed them askance, and without + exchanging ideas with any one else in the world about them. + </p> + <p> + She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but disturbed + and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serene contentment. + </p> + <p> + That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone. + </p> + <p> + As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman + approaching her from the opposite direction—a tall woman who at the + first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came along with the + fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as she drew nearer paint + showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose behind the quiet expression of + her open countenance, and a sort of unreality in her splendor betrayed + itself for which Ann Veronica could not recall the right word—a + word, half understood, that lurked and hid in her mind, the word + “meretricious.” Behind this woman and a little to the side of her, walked + a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in his eyes. Something + insisted that those two were mysteriously linked—that the woman knew + the man was there. + </p> + <p> + It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free and + untrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was true that + a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor ever has gone + freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad and dangers, and petty + insults more irritating than dangers, lurk. + </p> + <p> + It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street that it first + came into her head disagreeably that she herself was being followed. She + observed a man walking on the opposite side of the way and looking toward + her. + </p> + <p> + “Bother it all!” she swore. “Bother!” and decided that this was not so, + and would not look to right or left again. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table Company shop + to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her tea to come she saw + this man again. Either it was an unfortunate recovery of a trail, or he + had followed her from Mayfair. There was no mistaking his intentions this + time. He came down the shop looking for her quite obviously, and took up a + position on the other side against a mirror in which he was able to regard + her steadfastly. + </p> + <p> + Beneath the serene unconcern of Ann Veronica’s face was a boiling tumult. + She was furiously angry. She gazed with a quiet detachment toward the + window and the Oxford Street traffic, and in her heart she was busy + kicking this man to death. He HAD followed her! What had he followed her + for? He must have followed her all the way from beyond Grosvenor Square. + </p> + <p> + He was a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were rather protuberant, + and long white hands of which he made a display. He had removed his silk + hat, and now sat looking at Ann Veronica over an untouched cup of tea; he + sat gloating upon her, trying to catch her eye. Once, when he thought he + had done so, he smiled an ingratiating smile. He moved, after quiet + intervals, with a quick little movement, and ever and again stroked his + small mustache and coughed a self-conscious cough. + </p> + <p> + “That he should be in the same world with me!” said Ann Veronica, reduced + to reading the list of good things the British Tea-Table Company had + priced for its patrons. + </p> + <p> + Heaven knows what dim and tawdry conceptions of passion and desire were in + that blond cranium, what romance-begotten dreams of intrigue and + adventure! but they sufficed, when presently Ann Veronica went out into + the darkling street again, to inspire a flitting, dogged pursuit, idiotic, + exasperating, indecent. + </p> + <p> + She had no idea what she should do. If she spoke to a policeman she did + not know what would ensue. Perhaps she would have to charge this man and + appear in a police-court next day. + </p> + <p> + She became angry with herself. She would not be driven in by this + persistent, sneaking aggression. She would ignore him. Surely she could + ignore him. She stopped abruptly, and looked in a flower-shop window. He + passed, and came loitering back and stood beside her, silently looking + into her face. + </p> + <p> + The afternoon had passed now into twilight. The shops were lighting up + into gigantic lanterns of color, the street lamps were glowing into + existence, and she had lost her way. She had lost her sense of direction, + and was among unfamiliar streets. She went on from street to street, and + all the glory of London had departed. Against the sinister, the + threatening, monstrous inhumanity of the limitless city, there was nothing + now but this supreme, ugly fact of a pursuit—the pursuit of the + undesired, persistent male. + </p> + <p> + For a second time Ann Veronica wanted to swear at the universe. + </p> + <p> + There were moments when she thought of turning upon this man and talking + to him. But there was something in his face at once stupid and invincible + that told her he would go on forcing himself upon her, that he would + esteem speech with her a great point gained. In the twilight he had ceased + to be a person one could tackle and shame; he had become something more + general, a something that crawled and sneaked toward her and would not let + her alone.... + </p> + <p> + Then, when the tension was getting unendurable, and she was on the verge + of speaking to some casual passer-by and demanding help, her follower + vanished. For a time she could scarcely believe he was gone. He had. The + night had swallowed him up, but his work on her was done. She had lost her + nerve, and there was no more freedom in London for her that night. She was + glad to join in the stream of hurrying homeward workers that was now + welling out of a thousand places of employment, and to imitate their + driven, preoccupied haste. She had followed a bobbing white hat and gray + jacket until she reached the Euston Road corner of Tottenham Court Road, + and there, by the name on a bus and the cries of a conductor, she made a + guess of her way. And she did not merely affect to be driven—she + felt driven. She was afraid people would follow her, she was afraid of the + dark, open doorways she passed, and afraid of the blazes of light; she was + afraid to be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared. + </p> + <p> + It was past seven when she got back to her hotel. She thought then that + she had shaken off the man of the bulging blue eyes forever, but that + night she found he followed her into her dreams. He stalked her, he stared + at her, he craved her, he sidled slinking and propitiatory and yet + relentlessly toward her, until at last she awoke from the suffocating + nightmare nearness of his approach, and lay awake in fear and horror + listening to the unaccustomed sounds of the hotel. + </p> + <p> + She came very near that night to resolving that she would return to her + home next morning. But the morning brought courage again, and those first + intimations of horror vanished completely from her mind. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + She had sent her father a telegram from the East Strand post-office worded + thus: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + | All | is | well | with | me | + |————-|—————-|—————|—————|————-| + | and | quite | safe | Veronica | | + ——————————————————————————- +</pre> + <p> + and afterward she had dined a la carte upon a cutlet, and had then set + herself to write an answer to Mr. Manning’s proposal of marriage. But she + had found it very difficult. + </p> + <p> + “DEAR MR. MANNING,” she had begun. So far it had been plain sailing, and + it had seemed fairly evident to go on: “I find it very difficult to answer + your letter.” + </p> + <p> + But after that neither ideas nor phrases had come and she had fallen + thinking of the events of the day. She had decided that she would spend + the next morning answering advertisements in the papers that abounded in + the writing-room; and so, after half an hour’s perusal of back numbers of + the Sketch in the drawing-room, she had gone to bed. + </p> + <p> + She found next morning, when she came to this advertisement answering, + that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In the first place there + were not so many suitable advertisements as she had expected. She sat down + by the paper-rack with a general feeling of resemblance to Vivie Warren, + and looked through the Morning Post and Standard and Telegraph, and + afterward the half-penny sheets. The Morning Post was hungry for + governesses and nursery governesses, but held out no other hopes; the + Daily Telegraph that morning seemed eager only for skirt hands. She went + to a writing-desk and made some memoranda on a sheet of note-paper, and + then remembered that she had no address as yet to which letters could be + sent. + </p> + <p> + She decided to leave this matter until the morrow and devote the morning + to settling up with Mr. Manning. At the cost of quite a number of torn + drafts she succeeded in evolving this: + </p> + <p> + “DEAR MR. MANNING,—I find it very difficult to answer your letter. I + hope you won’t mind if I say first that I think it does me an + extraordinary honor that you should think of any one like myself so highly + and seriously, and, secondly, that I wish it had not been written.” + </p> + <p> + She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on. “I wonder,” she + said, “why one writes him sentences like that? It’ll have to go,” she + decided, “I’ve written too many already.” She went on, with a desperate + attempt to be easy and colloquial: + </p> + <p> + “You see, we were rather good friends, I thought, and now perhaps it will + be difficult for us to get back to the old friendly footing. But if that + can possibly be done I want it to be done. You see, the plain fact of the + case is that I think I am too young and ignorant for marriage. I have been + thinking these things over lately, and it seems to me that marriage for a + girl is just the supremest thing in life. It isn’t just one among a number + of important things; for her it is the important thing, and until she + knows far more than I know of the facts of life, how is she to undertake + it? So please; if you will, forget that you wrote that letter, and forgive + this answer. I want you to think of me just as if I was a man, and quite + outside marriage altogether. + </p> + <p> + “I do hope you will be able to do this, because I value men friends. I + shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for a friend. I think that there + is no better friend for a girl than a man rather older than herself. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the step I have taken in + leaving my home. Very likely you will disapprove highly of what I have + done—I wonder? You may, perhaps, think I have done it just in a fit + of childish petulance because my father locked me in when I wanted to go + to a ball of which he did not approve. But really it is much more than + that. At Morningside Park I feel as though all my growing up was presently + to stop, as though I was being shut in from the light of life, and, as + they say in botany, etiolated. I was just like a sort of dummy that does + things as it is told—that is to say, as the strings are pulled. I + want to be a person by myself, and to pull my own strings. I had rather + have trouble and hardship like that than be taken care of by others. I + want to be myself. I wonder if a man can quite understand that passionate + feeling? It is quite a passionate feeling. So I am already no longer the + girl you knew at Morningside Park. I am a young person seeking employment + and freedom and self-development, just as in quite our first talk of all I + said I wanted to be. + </p> + <p> + “I do hope you will see how things are, and not be offended with me or + frightfully shocked and distressed by what I have done. + </p> + <p> + “Very sincerely yours, + </p> + <p> + “ANN VERONICA STANLEY.” + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + In the afternoon she resumed her search for apartments. The intoxicating + sense of novelty had given place to a more business-like mood. She drifted + northward from the Strand, and came on some queer and dingy quarters. + </p> + <p> + She had never imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to her in + the beginning of these investigations. She found herself again in the + presence of some element in life about which she had been trained not to + think, about which she was perhaps instinctively indisposed to think; + something which jarred, in spite of all her mental resistance, with all + her preconceptions of a clean and courageous girl walking out from + Morningside Park as one walks out of a cell into a free and spacious + world. One or two landladies refused her with an air of conscious virtue + that she found hard to explain. “We don’t let to ladies,” they said. + </p> + <p> + She drifted, via Theobald’s Road, obliquely toward the region about + Titchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either scandalously + dirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were adorned with + engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and undesirable than + anything she had ever seen in her life. Ann Veronica loved beautiful + things, and the beauty of undraped loveliness not least among them; but + these were pictures that did but insist coarsely upon the roundness of + women’s bodies. The windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, + their floors a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels were + of a class apart. After the first onset several of the women who had + apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in effect dismissed + her. This also struck her as odd. + </p> + <p> + About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of something weakly + and commonly and dustily evil; the women who negotiated the rooms looked + out through a friendly manner as though it was a mask, with hard, defiant + eyes. Then one old crone, short-sighted and shaky-handed, called Ann + Veronica “dearie,” and made some remark, obscure and slangy, of which the + spirit rather than the words penetrated to her understanding. + </p> + <p> + For a time she looked at no more apartments, and walked through gaunt and + ill-cleaned streets, through the sordid under side of life, perplexed and + troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness. + </p> + <p> + She had something of the feeling a Hindoo must experience who has been + into surroundings or touched something that offends his caste. She passed + people in the streets and regarded them with a quickening apprehension, + once or twice came girls dressed in slatternly finery, going toward Regent + Street from out these places. It did not occur to her that they at least + had found a way of earning a living, and had that much economic + superiority to herself. It did not occur to her that save for some + accidents of education and character they had souls like her own. + </p> + <p> + For a time Ann Veronica went on her way gauging the quality of sordid + streets. At last, a little way to the northward of Euston Road, the moral + cloud seemed to lift, the moral atmosphere to change; clean blinds + appeared in the windows, clean doorsteps before the doors, a different + appeal in the neatly placed cards bearing the word + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ————————————— + | APARTMENTS | + ————————————— +</pre> + <p> + in the clear bright windows. At last in a street near the Hampstead Road + she hit upon a room that had an exceptional quality of space and order, + and a tall woman with a kindly face to show it. “You’re a student, + perhaps?” said the tall woman. “At the Tredgold Women’s College,” said Ann + Veronica. She felt it would save explanations if she did not state she had + left her home and was looking for employment. The room was papered with + green, large-patterned paper that was at worst a trifle dingy, and the + arm-chair and the seats of the other chairs were covered with the unusual + brightness of a large-patterned chintz, which also supplied the + window-curtain. There was a round table covered, not with the usual + “tapestry” cover, but with a plain green cloth that went passably with the + wall-paper. In the recess beside the fireplace were some open bookshelves. + The carpet was a quiet drugget and not excessively worn, and the bed in + the corner was covered by a white quilt. There were neither texts nor + rubbish on the walls, but only a stirring version of Belshazzar’s feast, a + steel engraving in the early Victorian manner that had some satisfactory + blacks. And the woman who showed this room was tall, with an understanding + eye and the quiet manner of the well-trained servant. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel; she tipped the + hotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman eighteenpence, unpacked some + of her books and possessions, and so made the room a little homelike, and + then sat down in a by no means uncomfortable arm-chair before the fire. + She had arranged for a supper of tea, a boiled egg, and some tinned + peaches. She had discussed the general question of supplies with the + helpful landlady. “And now,” said Ann Veronica surveying her apartment + with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, “what is the next step?” + </p> + <p> + She spent the evening in writing—it was a little difficult—to + her father and—which was easier—to the Widgetts. She was + greatly heartened by doing this. The necessity of defending herself and + assuming a confident and secure tone did much to dispell the sense of + being exposed and indefensible in a huge dingy world that abounded in + sinister possibilities. She addressed her letters, meditated on them for a + time, and then took them out and posted them. Afterward she wanted to get + her letter to her father back in order to read it over again, and, if it + tallied with her general impression of it, re-write it. + </p> + <p> + He would know her address to-morrow. She reflected upon that with a thrill + of terror that was also, somehow, in some faint remote way, gleeful. + </p> + <p> + “Dear old Daddy,” she said, “he’ll make a fearful fuss. Well, it had to + happen somewhen.... Somehow. I wonder what he’ll say?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SIXTH + </h2> + <h3> + EXPOSTULATIONS + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own room, her + very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and read the + advertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations, preluded + by a telegram and headed by her aunt. The telegram reminded Ann Veronica + that she had no place for interviews except her bed-sitting-room, and she + sought her landlady and negotiated hastily for the use of the ground floor + parlor, which very fortunately was vacant. She explained she was expecting + an important interview, and asked that her visitor should be duly shown + in. Her aunt arrived about half-past ten, in black and with an unusually + thick spotted veil. She raised this with the air of a conspirator + unmasking, and displayed a tear-flushed face. For a moment she remained + silent. + </p> + <p> + “My dear,” she said, when she could get her breath, “you must come home at + once.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still. + </p> + <p> + “This has almost killed your father.... After Gwen!” + </p> + <p> + “I sent a telegram.” + </p> + <p> + “He cares so much for you. He did so care for you.” + </p> + <p> + “I sent a telegram to say I was all right.” + </p> + <p> + “All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on. I had + no idea!” She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists limply upon the + table. “Oh, Veronica!” she said, “to leave your home!” + </p> + <p> + She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was overcome by + this amount of emotion. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you do it?” her aunt urged. “Why could you not confide in us?” + </p> + <p> + “Do what?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “What you have done.” + </p> + <p> + “But what have I done?” + </p> + <p> + “Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a pride in you, + such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the happiest girl. Everything + I could do! Your father sat up all night. Until at last I persuaded him to + go to bed. He wanted to put on his overcoat and come after you and look + for you—in London. We made sure it was just like Gwen. Only Gwen + left a letter on the pincushion. You didn’t even do that Vee; not even + that.” + </p> + <p> + “I sent a telegram, aunt,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Like a stab. You didn’t even put the twelve words.” + </p> + <p> + “I said I was all right.” + </p> + <p> + “Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn’t even know + you were gone. He was just getting cross about your being late for dinner—you + know his way—when it came. He opened it—just off-hand, and + then when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoon + flying and splashing on to the tablecloth. ‘My God!’ he said, ‘I’ll go + after them and kill him. I’ll go after them and kill him.’ For the moment + I thought it was a telegram from Gwen.” + </p> + <p> + “But what did father imagine?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course he imagined! Any one would! ‘What has happened, Peter?’ I + asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He used + a most awful word! Then he said, ‘It’s Ann Veronica gone to join her + sister!’ ‘Gone!’ I said. ‘Gone!’ he said. ‘Read that,’ and threw the + telegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I tried to + get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat down + again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be strung + up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of the house + there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl have I seen + your father so moved. ‘Oh! little Vee!’ he cried, ‘little Vee!’ and put + his face between his hands and sat still for a long time before he broke + out again.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean, aunt,” she asked, “that my father thought I had gone off—with + some man?” + </p> + <p> + “What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as to + go off alone?” + </p> + <p> + “After—after what had happened the night before?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, his poor + face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He was for coming + up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said to him, ‘Wait + for the letters,’ and there, sure enough, was yours. He could hardly open + the envelope, he trembled so. Then he threw the letter at me. ‘Go and + fetch her home,’ he said; ‘it isn’t what we thought! It’s just a practical + joke of hers.’ And with that he went off to the City, stern and silent, + leaving his bacon on his plate—a great slice of bacon hardly + touched. No breakfast, he’s had no dinner, hardly a mouthful of soup—since + yesterday at tea.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently. + </p> + <p> + “You must come home to him at once,” said Miss Stanley. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-colored table-cloth. + Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid picture of her father as + the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental, noisy, aimless. Why + on earth couldn’t he leave her to grow in her own way? Her pride rose at + the bare thought of return. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I CAN do that,” she said. She looked up and said, a little + breathlessly, “I’m sorry, aunt, but I don’t think I can.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Then it was the expostulations really began. + </p> + <p> + From first to last, on this occasion, her aunt expostulated for about two + hours. “But, my dear,” she began, “it is Impossible! It is quite out of + the Question. You simply can’t.” And to that, through vast rhetorical + meanderings, she clung. It reached her only slowly that Ann Veronica was + standing to her resolution. “How will you live?” she appealed. “Think of + what people will say!” That became a refrain. “Think of what Lady + Palsworthy will say! Think of what”—So-and-so—“will say! What + are we to tell people? + </p> + <p> + “Besides, what am I to tell your father?” + </p> + <p> + At first it had not been at all clear to Ann Veronica that she would + refuse to return home; she had had some dream of a capitulation that + should leave her an enlarged and defined freedom, but as her aunt put this + aspect and that of her flight to her, as she wandered illogically and + inconsistently from one urgent consideration to another, as she mingled + assurances and aspects and emotions, it became clearer and clearer to the + girl that there could be little or no change in the position of things if + she returned. “And what will Mr. Manning think?” said her aunt. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care what any one thinks,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine what has come over you,” said her aunt. “I can’t conceive + what you want. You foolish girl!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim and yet + disconcerting, was the perception that she herself did not know what she + wanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to call her a foolish girl. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you care for Mr. Manning?” said her aunt. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see what he has to do with my coming to London?” + </p> + <p> + “He—he worships the ground you tread on. You don’t deserve it, but + he does. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And here you are!” + </p> + <p> + Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a rhetorical + gesture. “It seems to me all madness—madness! Just because your + father—wouldn’t let you disobey him!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanley in + person. Her father’s ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and + forcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas + chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace in + Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She + had intended to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage + from the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than flesh + and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and that she was + coming home submissively. In his desire to be emphatic and to avenge + himself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became brutal, more + brutal than she had ever known him before. + </p> + <p> + “A nice time of anxiety you’ve given me, young lady,” he said, as he + entered the room. “I hope you’re satisfied.” + </p> + <p> + She was frightened—his anger always did frighten her—and in + her resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to what + she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She said she hoped she + had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, and he + told her not to be a fool. She tried to keep her side up by declaring that + he had put her into an impossible position, and he replied by shouting, + “Nonsense! Nonsense! Any father in my place would have done what I did.” + </p> + <p> + Then he went on to say: “Well, you’ve had your little adventure, and I + hope now you’ve had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get your things + together while I look out for a hansom.” + </p> + <p> + To which the only possible reply seemed to be, “I’m not coming home.” + </p> + <p> + “Not coming home!” + </p> + <p> + “No!” And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica began to + weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always doomed to weep when + she talked to her father. But he was always forcing her to say and do such + unexpectedly conclusive things. She feared he might take her tears as a + sign of weakness. So she said: “I won’t come home. I’d rather starve!” + </p> + <p> + For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then Mr. + Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather of a + barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through his + glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, “And may I presume to + inquire, then, what you mean to do?—how do you propose to live?” + </p> + <p> + “I shall live,” sobbed Ann Veronica. “You needn’t be anxious about that! I + shall contrive to live.” + </p> + <p> + “But I AM anxious,” said Mr. Stanley, “I am anxious. Do you think it’s + nothing to me to have my daughter running about London looking for odd + jobs and disgracing herself?” + </p> + <p> + “Sha’n’t get odd jobs,” said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes. + </p> + <p> + And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering wrangle. Mr. + Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann Veronica to come home, to + which, of course, she said she wouldn’t; and then he warned her not to + defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again. He then + said that if she would not obey him in this course she should “never + darken his doors again,” and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. This threat + terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and vehemence + that she would never come home again, and for a time both talked at once + and very wildly. He asked her whether she understood what she was saying, + and went on to say still more precisely that she should never touch a + penny of his money until she came home again—not one penny. Ann + Veronica said she didn’t care. + </p> + <p> + Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. “You poor child!” he said; + “don’t you see the infinite folly of these proceedings? Think! Think of + the love and affection you abandon! Think of your aunt, a second mother to + you. Think if your own mother was alive!” + </p> + <p> + He paused, deeply moved. + </p> + <p> + “If my own mother was alive,” sobbed Ann Veronica, “she would understand.” + </p> + <p> + The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann Veronica + found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding on + desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling with him, + wrangling with him, thinking of repartees—almost as if he was a + brother. It was horrible, but what could she do? She meant to live her own + life, and he meant, with contempt and insults, to prevent her. Anything + else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or diversion from + that. + </p> + <p> + In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to pieces, + for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home again upon terms. + While waiting for his coming she had stated her present and future + relations with him with what had seemed to her the most satisfactory + lucidity and completeness. She had looked forward to an explanation. + Instead had come this storm, this shouting, this weeping, this confusion + of threats and irrelevant appeals. It was not only that her father had + said all sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, but that by some + incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in the same vein. He + had assumed that her leaving home was the point at issue, that everything + turned on that, and that the sole alternative was obedience, and she had + fallen in with that assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. + Moreover, atrociously and inexorably, he allowed it to appear ever and + again in horrible gleams that he suspected there was some man in the + case.... Some man! + </p> + <p> + And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the doorway, giving + her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other, shaken + at her to emphasize his point. + </p> + <p> + “You understand, then,” he was saying, “you understand?” + </p> + <p> + “I understand,” said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a reciprocal + passion, but standing up to him with an equality that amazed even herself, + “I understand.” She controlled a sob. “Not a penny—not one penny—and + never darken your doors again!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just saying it + was “an unheard-of thing” for a girl to leave her home as Ann Veronica had + done, when her father arrived, and was shown in by the pleasant-faced + landlady. + </p> + <p> + Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and umbrella, + rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica firmly. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” he said, quietly, “it’s time we stopped this nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still more deadly + quiet: “I am not here to bandy words with you. Let us have no more of this + humbug. You are to come home.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I explained—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think you can have heard me,” said her father; “I have told you + to come home.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I explained—” + </p> + <p> + “Come home!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said her father. + </p> + <p> + “I think this ends the business,” he said, turning to his sister. + </p> + <p> + “It’s not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn wisdom—as + God pleases.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear Peter!” said Miss Stanley. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said her brother, conclusively, “it’s not for a parent to go on + persuading a child.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl stood with + her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and intelligent, a strand of + her black hair over one eye and looking more than usually + delicate-featured, and more than ever like an obdurate child. + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “She does.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine what makes you fly out against everything like this,” + said Miss Stanley to her niece. + </p> + <p> + “What is the good of talking?” said her brother. “She must go her own way. + A man’s children nowadays are not his own. That’s the fact of the matter. + Their minds are turned against him.... Rubbishy novels and pernicious + rascals. We can’t even protect them from themselves.” + </p> + <p> + An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he said + these words. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see,” gasped Ann Veronica, “why parents and children... shouldn’t + be friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Friends!” said her father. “When we see you going through disobedience to + the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way. I’ve tried to use my + authority. And she defies me. What more is there to be said? She defies + me!” + </p> + <p> + It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of tremendous + pathos; she would have given anything to have been able to frame and make + some appeal, some utterance that should bridge this bottomless chasm that + had opened between her and her father, and she could find nothing whatever + to say that was in the least sincere and appealing. + </p> + <p> + “Father,” she cried, “I have to live!” + </p> + <p> + He misunderstood her. “That,” he said, grimly, with his hand on the + door-handle, “must be your own affair, unless you choose to live at + Morningside Park.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley turned to her. “Vee,” she said, “come home. Before it is too + late.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, Molly,” said Mr. Stanley, at the door. + </p> + <p> + “Vee!” said Miss Stanley, “you hear what your father says!” + </p> + <p> + Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement toward + her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down something lumpy on + the table and turned to follow her brother. Ann Veronica stared for a + moment in amazement at this dark-green object that clashed as it was put + down. It was a purse. She made a step forward. “Aunt!” she said, “I can’t—” + </p> + <p> + Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt’s blue eye, halted, and the door + clicked upon them. + </p> + <p> + There was a pause, and then the front door slammed.... + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And this time the + departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She had to resist an + impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them and give in. + </p> + <p> + “Gods,” she said, at last, “I’ve done it this time!” + </p> + <p> + “Well!” She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and examined the + contents. + </p> + <p> + It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a + small key, and her aunt’s return half ticket to Morningside Park. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + After the interview Ann Veronica considered herself formally cut off from + home. If nothing else had clinched that, the purse had. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her brother Roddy, + who was in the motor line, came to expostulate; her sister Alice wrote. + And Mr. Manning called. + </p> + <p> + Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away there in + Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann Veronica’s mind. + She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of “those unsexed + intellectuals, neither man nor woman.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. “That’s HIM,” said Ann Veronica, + in sound, idiomatic English. “Poor old Alice!” + </p> + <p> + Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to state a + case. “Bit thick on the old man, isn’t it?” said Roddy, who had developed + a bluff, straightforward style in the motor shop. + </p> + <p> + “Mind my smoking?” said Roddy. “I don’t see quite what your game is, Vee, + but I suppose you’ve got a game on somewhere. + </p> + <p> + “Rummy lot we are!” said Roddy. “Alice—Alice gone dotty, and all + over kids. Gwen—I saw Gwen the other day, and the paint’s thicker + than ever. Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas and Theosophy and Higher + Thought and rot—writes letters worse than Alice. And now YOU’RE on + the war-path. I believe I’m the only sane member of the family left. The + G.V.‘s as mad as any of you, in spite of all his respectability; not a bit + of him straight anywhere, not one bit.” + </p> + <p> + “Straight?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit of it! He’s been out after eight per cent. since the beginning. + Eight per cent.! He’ll come a cropper one of these days, if you ask me. + He’s been near it once or twice already. That’s got his nerves to rags. I + suppose we’re all human beings really, but what price the sacred + Institution of the Family! Us as a bundle! Eh?... I don’t half disagree + with you, Vee, really; only thing is, I don’t see how you’re going to pull + it off. A home MAY be a sort of cage, but still—it’s a home. Gives + you a right to hang on to the old man until he busts—practically. + Jolly hard life for a girl, getting a living. Not MY affair.” + </p> + <p> + He asked questions and listened to her views for a time. + </p> + <p> + “I’d chuck this lark right off if I were you, Vee,” he said. “I’m five + years older than you, and no end wiser, being a man. What you’re after is + too risky. It’s a damned hard thing to do. It’s all very handsome starting + out on your own, but it’s too damned hard. That’s my opinion, if you ask + me. There’s nothing a girl can do that isn’t sweated to the bone. You + square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That’s my advice. If you + don’t eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later. <i>I</i> can’t + help you a cent. Life’s hard enough nowadays for an unprotected male. Let + alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, and the only possible + trade for a girl that isn’t sweated is to get hold of a man and make him + do it for her. It’s no good flying out at that, Vee; <i>I</i> didn’t + arrange it. It’s Providence. That’s how things are; that’s the order of + the world. Like appendicitis. It isn’t pretty, but we’re made so. Rot, no + doubt; but we can’t alter it. You go home and live on the G.V., and get + some other man to live on as soon as possible. It isn’t sentiment but it’s + horse sense. All this Woman-who-Diddery—no damn good. After all, old + P.—Providence, I mean—HAS arranged it so that men will keep + you, more or less. He made the universe on those lines. You’ve got to take + what you can get.” + </p> + <p> + That was the quintessence of her brother Roddy. + </p> + <p> + He played variations on this theme for the better part of an hour. + </p> + <p> + “You go home,” he said, at parting; “you go home. It’s all very fine and + all that, Vee, this freedom, but it isn’t going to work. The world isn’t + ready for girls to start out on their own yet; that’s the plain fact of + the case. Babies and females have got to keep hold of somebody or go under—anyhow, + for the next few generations. You go home and wait a century, Vee, and + then try again. Then you may have a bit of a chance. Now you haven’t the + ghost of one—not if you play the game fair.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + It was remarkable to Ann Veronica how completely Mr. Manning, in his + entirely different dialect, indorsed her brother Roddy’s view of things. + He came along, he said, just to call, with large, loud apologies, + radiantly kind and good. Miss Stanley, it was manifest, had given him Ann + Veronica’s address. The kindly faced landlady had failed to catch his + name, and said he was a tall, handsome gentleman with a great black + mustache. Ann Veronica, with a sigh at the cost of hospitality, made a + hasty negotiation for an extra tea and for a fire in the ground-floor + apartment, and preened herself carefully for the interview. In the little + apartment, under the gas chandelier, his inches and his stoop were + certainly very effective. In the bad light he looked at once military and + sentimental and studious, like one of Ouida’s guardsmen revised by Mr. + Haldane and the London School of Economics and finished in the Keltic + school. + </p> + <p> + “It’s unforgivable of me to call, Miss Stanley,” he said, shaking hands in + a peculiar, high, fashionable manner; “but you know you said we might be + friends.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s dreadful for you to be here,” he said, indicating the yellow + presence of the first fog of the year without, “but your aunt told me + something of what had happened. It’s just like your Splendid Pride to do + it. Quite!” + </p> + <p> + He sat in the arm-chair and took tea, and consumed several of the extra + cakes which she had sent out for and talked to her and expressed himself, + looking very earnestly at her with his deep-set eyes, and carefully + avoiding any crumbs on his mustache the while. Ann Veronica sat firelit by + her tea-tray with, quite unconsciously, the air of an expert hostess. + </p> + <p> + “But how is it all going to end?” said Mr. Manning. + </p> + <p> + “Your father, of course,” he said, “must come to realize just how Splendid + you are! He doesn’t understand. I’ve seen him, and he doesn’t a bit + understand. <i>I</i> didn’t understand before that letter. It makes me + want to be just everything I CAN be to you. You’re like some splendid + Princess in Exile in these Dreadful Dingy apartments!” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid I’m anything but a Princess when it comes to earning a + salary,” said Ann Veronica. “But frankly, I mean to fight this through if + I possibly can.” + </p> + <p> + “My God!” said Manning, in a stage-aside. “Earning a salary!” + </p> + <p> + “You’re like a Princess in Exile!” he repeated, overruling her. “You come + into these sordid surroundings—you mustn’t mind my calling them + sordid—and it makes them seem as though they didn’t matter.... I + don’t think they do matter. I don’t think any surroundings could throw a + shadow on you.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica felt a slight embarrassment. “Won’t you have some more tea, + Mr. Manning?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “You know—,” said Mr. Manning, relinquishing his cup without + answering her question, “when I hear you talk of earning a living, it’s as + if I heard of an archangel going on the Stock Exchange—or Christ + selling doves.... Forgive my daring. I couldn’t help the thought.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a very good image,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I knew you wouldn’t mind.” + </p> + <p> + “But does it correspond with the facts of the case? You know, Mr. Manning, + all this sort of thing is very well as sentiment, but does it correspond + with the realities? Are women truly such angelic things and men so + chivalrous? You men have, I know, meant to make us Queens and Goddesses, + but in practice—well, look, for example, at the stream of girls one + meets going to work of a morning, round-shouldered, cheap, and underfed! + They aren’t queens, and no one is treating them as queens. And look, + again, at the women one finds letting lodgings.... I was looking for rooms + last week. It got on my nerves—the women I saw. Worse than any man. + Everywhere I went and rapped at a door I found behind it another dreadful + dingy woman—another fallen queen, I suppose—dingier than the + last, dirty, you know, in grain. Their poor hands!” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Mr. Manning, with entirely suitable emotion. + </p> + <p> + “And think of the ordinary wives and mothers, with their anxiety, their + limitations, their swarms of children!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning displayed distress. He fended these things off from him with + the rump of his fourth piece of cake. “I know that our social order is + dreadful enough,” he said, “and sacrifices all that is best and most + beautiful in life. I don’t defend it.” + </p> + <p> + “And besides, when it comes to the idea of queens,” Ann Veronica went on, + “there’s twenty-one and a half million women to twenty million men. + Suppose our proper place is a shrine. Still, that leaves over a million + shrines short, not reckoning widows who re-marry. And more boys die than + girls, so that the real disproportion among adults is even greater.” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Mr Manning, “I know these Dreadful Statistics. I know + there’s a sort of right in your impatience at the slowness of Progress. + But tell me one thing I don’t understand—tell me one thing: How can + you help it by coming down into the battle and the mire? That’s the thing + that concerns me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I’m not trying to help it,” said Ann Veronica. “I’m only arguing + against your position of what a woman should be, and trying to get it + clear in my own mind. I’m in this apartment and looking for work because—Well, + what else can I do, when my father practically locks me up?” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Mr. Manning, “I know. Don’t think I can’t sympathize and + understand. Still, here we are in this dingy, foggy city. Ye gods! what a + wilderness it is! Every one trying to get the better of every one, every + one regardless of every one—it’s one of those days when every one + bumps against you—every one pouring coal smoke into the air and + making confusion worse confounded, motor omnibuses clattering and + smelling, a horse down in the Tottenham Court Road, an old woman at the + corner coughing dreadfully—all the painful sights of a great city, + and here you come into it to take your chances. It’s too valiant, Miss + Stanley, too valiant altogether!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica meditated. She had had two days of employment-seeking now. “I + wonder if it is.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t,” said Mr. Manning, “that I mind Courage in a Woman—I love + and admire Courage. What could be more splendid than a beautiful girl + facing a great, glorious tiger? Una and the Lion again, and all that! But + this isn’t that sort of thing; this is just a great, ugly, endless + wilderness of selfish, sweating, vulgar competition!” + </p> + <p> + “That you want to keep me out of?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly!” said Mr. Manning. + </p> + <p> + “In a sort of beautiful garden-close—wearing lovely dresses and + picking beautiful flowers?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! If one could!” + </p> + <p> + “While those other girls trudge to business and those other women let + lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close resolves itself into + a villa at Morningside Park and my father being more and more cross and + overbearing at meals—and a general feeling of insecurity and + futility.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Manning relinquished his cup, and looked meaningly at Ann Veronica. + “There,” he said, “you don’t treat me fairly, Miss Stanley. My + garden-close would be a better thing than that.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + </h2> + <h3> + IDEALS AND A REALITY + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + And now for some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value in the + world. She went about in a negligent November London that had become very + dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, and tried to find that + modest but independent employment she had so rashly assumed. She went + about, intent-looking and self-possessed, trim and fine, concealing her + emotions whatever they were, as the realities of her position opened out + before her. Her little bed-sitting-room was like a lair, and she went out + from it into this vast, dun world, with its smoke-gray houses, its glaring + streets of shops, its dark streets of homes, its orange-lit windows, under + skies of dull copper or muddy gray or black, much as an animal goes out to + seek food. She would come back and write letters, carefully planned and + written letters, or read some book she had fetched from Mudie’s—she + had invested a half-guinea with Mudie’s—or sit over her fire and + think. + </p> + <p> + Slowly and reluctantly she came to realize that Vivie Warren was what is + called an “ideal.” There were no such girls and no such positions. No work + that offered was at all of the quality she had vaguely postulated for + herself. With such qualifications as she possessed, two chief channels of + employment lay open, and neither attracted her, neither seemed really to + offer a conclusive escape from that subjection to mankind against which, + in the person of her father, she was rebelling. One main avenue was for + her to become a sort of salaried accessory wife or mother, to be a + governess or an assistant schoolmistress, or a very high type of + governess-nurse. The other was to go into business—into a + photographer’s reception-room, for example, or a costumer’s or hat-shop. + The first set of occupations seemed to her to be altogether too domestic + and restricted; for the latter she was dreadfully handicapped by her want + of experience. And also she didn’t like them. She didn’t like the shops, + she didn’t like the other women’s faces; she thought the smirking men in + frock-coats who dominated these establishments the most intolerable + persons she had ever had to face. One called her very distinctly “My + dear!” + </p> + <p> + Two secretarial posts did indeed seem to offer themselves in which, at + least, there was no specific exclusion of womanhood; one was under a + Radical Member of Parliament, and the other under a Harley Street doctor, + and both men declined her proffered services with the utmost civility and + admiration and terror. There was also a curious interview at a big hotel + with a middle-aged, white-powdered woman, all covered with jewels and + reeking of scent, who wanted a Companion. She did not think Ann Veronica + would do as her companion. + </p> + <p> + And nearly all these things were fearfully ill-paid. They carried no more + than bare subsistence wages; and they demanded all her time and energy. + She had heard of women journalists, women writers, and so forth; but she + was not even admitted to the presence of the editors she demanded to see, + and by no means sure that if she had been she could have done any work + they might have given her. One day she desisted from her search and went + unexpectedly to the Tredgold College. Her place was not filled; she had + been simply noted as absent, and she did a comforting day of admirable + dissection upon the tortoise. She was so interested, and this was such a + relief from the trudging anxiety of her search for work, that she went on + for a whole week as if she was still living at home. Then a third + secretarial opening occurred and renewed her hopes again: a position as + amanuensis—with which some of the lighter duties of a nurse were + combined—to an infirm gentleman of means living at Twickenham, and + engaged upon a great literary research to prove that the “Faery Queen” was + really a treatise upon molecular chemistry written in a peculiar and + picturesquely handled cipher. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Now, while Ann Veronica was taking these soundings in the industrial sea, + and measuring herself against the world as it is, she was also making + extensive explorations among the ideas and attitudes of a number of human + beings who seemed to be largely concerned with the world as it ought to + be. She was drawn first by Miss Miniver, and then by her own natural + interest, into a curious stratum of people who are busied with dreams of + world progress, of great and fundamental changes, of a New Age that is to + replace all the stresses and disorders of contemporary life. + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver learned of her flight and got her address from the Widgetts. + She arrived about nine o’clock the next evening in a state of tremulous + enthusiasm. She followed the landlady half way up-stairs, and called up to + Ann Veronica, “May I come up? It’s me! You know—Nettie Miniver!” She + appeared before Ann Veronica could clearly recall who Nettie Miniver might + be. + </p> + <p> + There was a wild light in her eye, and her straight hair was out + demonstrating and suffragetting upon some independent notions of its own. + Her fingers were bursting through her gloves, as if to get at once into + touch with Ann Veronica. “You’re Glorious!” said Miss Miniver in tones of + rapture, holding a hand in each of hers and peering up into Ann Veronica’s + face. “Glorious! You’re so calm, dear, and so resolute, so serene! + </p> + <p> + “It’s girls like you who will show them what We are,” said Miss Miniver; + “girls whose spirits have not been broken!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica sunned herself a little in this warmth. + </p> + <p> + “I was watching you at Morningside Park, dear,” said Miss Miniver. “I am + getting to watch all women. I thought then perhaps you didn’t care, that + you were like so many of them. NOW it’s just as though you had grown up + suddenly.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, and then suggested: “I wonder—I should love—if it + was anything <i>I</i> said.” + </p> + <p> + She did not wait for Ann Veronica’s reply. She seemed to assume that it + must certainly be something she had said. “They all catch on,” she said. + “It spreads like wildfire. This is such a grand time! Such a glorious + time! There never was such a time as this! Everything seems so close to + fruition, so coming on and leading on! The Insurrection of Women! They + spring up everywhere. Tell me all that happened, one sister-woman to + another.” + </p> + <p> + She chilled Ann Veronica a little by that last phrase, and yet the + magnetism of her fellowship and enthusiasm was very strong; and it was + pleasant to be made out a heroine after so much expostulation and so many + secret doubts. + </p> + <p> + But she did not listen long; she wanted to talk. She sat, crouched + together, by the corner of the hearthrug under the bookcase that supported + the pig’s skull, and looked into the fire and up at Ann Veronica’s face, + and let herself go. “Let us put the lamp out,” she said; “the flames are + ever so much better for talking,” and Ann Veronica agreed. “You are coming + right out into life—facing it all.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica sat with her chin on her hand, red-lit and saying little, and + Miss Miniver discoursed. As she talked, the drift and significance of what + she was saying shaped itself slowly to Ann Veronica’s apprehension. It + presented itself in the likeness of a great, gray, dull world—a + brutal, superstitious, confused, and wrong-headed world, that hurt people + and limited people unaccountably. In remote times and countries its evil + tendencies had expressed themselves in the form of tyrannies, massacres, + wars, and what not; but just at present in England they shaped as + commercialism and competition, silk hats, suburban morals, the sweating + system, and the subjection of women. So far the thing was acceptable + enough. But over against the world Miss Miniver assembled a small but + energetic minority, the Children of Light—people she described as + “being in the van,” or “altogether in the van,” about whom Ann Veronica’s + mind was disposed to be more sceptical. + </p> + <p> + Everything, Miss Miniver said, was “working up,” everything was “coming + on”—the Higher Thought, the Simple Life, Socialism, Humanitarianism, + it was all the same really. She loved to be there, taking part in it all, + breathing it, being it. Hitherto in the world’s history there had been + precursors of this Progress at great intervals, voices that had spoken and + ceased, but now it was all coming on together in a rush. She mentioned, + with familiar respect, Christ and Buddha and Shelley and Nietzsche and + Plato. Pioneers all of them. Such names shone brightly in the darkness, + with black spaces of unilluminated emptiness about them, as stars shine in + the night; but now—now it was different; now it was dawn—the + real dawn. + </p> + <p> + “The women are taking it up,” said Miss Miniver; “the women and the common + people, all pressing forward, all roused.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica listened with her eyes on the fire. + </p> + <p> + “Everybody is taking it up,” said Miss Miniver. “YOU had to come in. You + couldn’t help it. Something drew you. Something draws everybody. From + suburbs, from country towns—everywhere. I see all the Movements. As + far as I can, I belong to them all. I keep my finger on the pulse of + things.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “The dawn!” said Miss Miniver, with her glasses reflecting the fire like + pools of blood-red flame. + </p> + <p> + “I came to London,” said Ann Veronica, “rather because of my own + difficulty. I don’t know that I understand altogether.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you don’t,” said Miss Miniver, gesticulating triumphantly with + her thin hand and thinner wrist, and patting Ann Veronica’s knee. “Of + course you don’t. That’s the wonder of it. But you will, you will. You + must let me take you to things—to meetings and things, to + conferences and talks. Then you will begin to see. You will begin to see + it all opening out. I am up to the ears in it all—every moment I can + spare. I throw up work—everything! I just teach in one school, one + good school, three days a week. All the rest—Movements! I can live + now on fourpence a day. Think how free that leaves me to follow things up! + I must take you everywhere. I must take you to the Suffrage people, and + the Tolstoyans, and the Fabians.” + </p> + <p> + “I have heard of the Fabians,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “It’s THE Society!” said Miss Miniver. “It’s the centre of the + intellectuals. Some of the meetings are wonderful! Such earnest, beautiful + women! Such deep-browed men!... And to think that there they are making + history! There they are putting together the plans of a new world. Almost + light-heartedly. There is Shaw, and Webb, and Wilkins the author, and + Toomer, and Doctor Tumpany—the most wonderful people! There you see + them discussing, deciding, planning! Just think—THEY ARE MAKING A + NEW WORLD!” + </p> + <p> + “But ARE these people going to alter everything?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “What else can happen?” asked Miss Miniver, with a little weak gesture at + the glow. “What else can possibly happen—as things are going now?” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Miss Miniver let Ann Veronica into her peculiar levels of the world with + so enthusiastic a generosity that it seemed ingratitude to remain + critical. Indeed, almost insensibly Ann Veronica became habituated to the + peculiar appearance and the peculiar manners of the people “in the van.” + The shock of their intellectual attitude was over, usage robbed it of the + first quaint effect of deliberate unreason. They were in many respects so + right; she clung to that, and shirked more and more the paradoxical + conviction that they were also somehow, and even in direct relation to + that rightness, absurd. + </p> + <p> + Very central in Miss Miniver’s universe were the Goopes. The Goopes were + the oddest little couple conceivable, following a fruitarian career upon + an upper floor in Theobald’s Road. They were childless and servantless, + and they had reduced simple living to the finest of fine arts. Mr. Goopes, + Ann Veronica gathered, was a mathematical tutor and visited schools, and + his wife wrote a weekly column in New Ideas upon vegetarian cookery, + vivisection, degeneration, the lacteal secretion, appendicitis, and the + Higher Thought generally, and assisted in the management of a fruit shop + in the Tottenham Court Road. Their very furniture had mysteriously a + high-browed quality, and Mr. Goopes when at home dressed simply in a + pajama-shaped suit of canvas sacking tied with brown ribbons, while his + wife wore a purple djibbah with a richly embroidered yoke. He was a small, + dark, reserved man, with a large inflexible-looking convex forehead, and + his wife was very pink and high-spirited, with one of those chins that + pass insensibly into a full, strong neck. Once a week, every Saturday, + they had a little gathering from nine till the small hours, just talk and + perhaps reading aloud and fruitarian refreshments—chestnut + sandwiches buttered with nut tose, and so forth—and lemonade and + unfermented wine; and to one of these symposia Miss Miniver after a good + deal of preliminary solicitude, conducted Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + She was introduced, perhaps a little too obviously for her taste, as a + girl who was standing out against her people, to a gathering that + consisted of a very old lady with an extremely wrinkled skin and a deep + voice who was wearing what appeared to Ann Veronica’s inexperienced eye to + be an antimacassar upon her head, a shy, blond young man with a narrow + forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts and + blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. and + Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. These were + seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very copper-adorned fireplace, + surmounted by a carved wood inscription: + </p> + <p> + “DO IT NOW.” + </p> + <p> + And to them were presently added a roguish-looking young man, with reddish + hair, an orange tie, and a fluffy tweed suit, and others who, in Ann + Veronica’s memory, in spite of her efforts to recall details, remained + obstinately just “others.” + </p> + <p> + The talk was animated, and remained always brilliant in form even when it + ceased to be brilliant in substance. There were moments when Ann Veronica + rather more than suspected the chief speakers to be, as school-boys say, + showing off at her. + </p> + <p> + They talked of a new substitute for dripping in vegetarian cookery that + Mrs. Goopes was convinced exercised an exceptionally purifying influence + on the mind. And then they talked of Anarchism and Socialism, and whether + the former was the exact opposite of the latter or only a higher form. The + reddish-haired young man contributed allusions to the Hegelian philosophy + that momentarily confused the discussion. Then Alderman Dunstable, who had + hitherto been silent, broke out into speech and went off at a tangent, and + gave his personal impressions of quite a number of his fellow-councillors. + He continued to do this for the rest of the evening intermittently, in and + out, among other topics. He addressed himself chiefly to Goopes, and spoke + as if in reply to long-sustained inquiries on the part of Goopes into the + personnel of the Marylebone Borough Council. “If you were to ask me,” he + would say, “I should say Blinders is straight. An ordinary type, of course—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Dunstable’s contributions to the conversation were entirely in the + form of nods; whenever Alderman Dunstable praised or blamed she nodded + twice or thrice, according to the requirements of his emphasis. And she + seemed always to keep one eye on Ann Veronica’s dress. Mrs. Goopes + disconcerted the Alderman a little by abruptly challenging the + roguish-looking young man in the orange tie (who, it seemed, was the + assistant editor of New Ideas) upon a critique of Nietzsche and Tolstoy + that had appeared in his paper, in which doubts had been cast upon the + perfect sincerity of the latter. Everybody seemed greatly concerned about + the sincerity of Tolstoy. + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver said that if once she lost her faith in Tolstoy’s sincerity, + nothing she felt would really matter much any more, and she appealed to + Ann Veronica whether she did not feel the same; and Mr. Goopes said that + we must distinguish between sincerity and irony, which was often indeed no + more than sincerity at the sublimated level. + </p> + <p> + Alderman Dunstable said that sincerity was often a matter of opportunity, + and illustrated the point to the fair young man with an anecdote about + Blinders on the Dust Destructor Committee, during which the young man in + the orange tie succeeded in giving the whole discussion a daring and + erotic flavor by questioning whether any one could be perfectly sincere in + love. + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver thought that there was no true sincerity except in love, and + appealed to Ann Veronica, but the young man in the orange tie went on to + declare that it was quite possible to be sincerely in love with two people + at the same time, although perhaps on different planes with each + individual, and deceiving them both. But that brought Mrs. Goopes down on + him with the lesson Titian teaches so beautifully in his “Sacred and + Profane Love,” and became quite eloquent upon the impossibility of any + deception in the former. + </p> + <p> + Then they discoursed on love for a time, and Alderman Dunstable, turning + back to the shy, blond young man and speaking in undertones of the utmost + clearness, gave a brief and confidential account of an unfounded rumor of + the bifurcation of the affections of Blinders that had led to a situation + of some unpleasantness upon the Borough Council. + </p> + <p> + The very old lady in the antimacassar touched Ann Veronica’s arm suddenly, + and said, in a deep, arch voice: + </p> + <p> + “Talking of love again; spring again, love again. Oh! you young people!” + </p> + <p> + The young man with the orange tie, in spite of Sisyphus-like efforts on + the part of Goopes to get the topic on to a higher plane, displayed great + persistence in speculating upon the possible distribution of the + affections of highly developed modern types. + </p> + <p> + The old lady in the antimacassar said, abruptly, “Ah! you young people, + you young people, if you only knew!” and then laughed and then mused in a + marked manner; and the young man with the narrow forehead and glasses + cleared his throat and asked the young man in the orange tie whether he + believed that Platonic love was possible. Mrs. Goopes said she believed in + nothing else, and with that she glanced at Ann Veronica, rose a little + abruptly, and directed Goopes and the shy young man in the handing of + refreshments. + </p> + <p> + But the young man with the orange tie remained in his place, disputing + whether the body had not something or other which he called its legitimate + claims. And from that they came back by way of the Kreutzer Sonata and + Resurrection to Tolstoy again. + </p> + <p> + So the talk went on. Goopes, who had at first been a little reserved, + resorted presently to the Socratic method to restrain the young man with + the orange tie, and bent his forehead over him, and brought out at last + very clearly from him that the body was only illusion and everything + nothing but just spirit and molecules of thought. It became a sort of duel + at last between them, and all the others sat and listened—every one, + that is, except the Alderman, who had got the blond young man into a + corner by the green-stained dresser with the aluminum things, and was + sitting with his back to every one else, holding one hand over his mouth + for greater privacy, and telling him, with an accent of confidential + admission, in whispers of the chronic struggle between the natural modesty + and general inoffensiveness of the Borough Council and the social evil in + Marylebone. + </p> + <p> + So the talk went on, and presently they were criticising novelists, and + certain daring essays of Wilkins got their due share of attention, and + then they were discussing the future of the theatre. Ann Veronica + intervened a little in the novelist discussion with a defence of Esmond + and a denial that the Egoist was obscure, and when she spoke every one + else stopped talking and listened. Then they deliberated whether Bernard + Shaw ought to go into Parliament. And that brought them to vegetarianism + and teetotalism, and the young man in the orange tie and Mrs. Goopes had a + great set-to about the sincerity of Chesterton and Belloc that was ended + by Goopes showing signs of resuming the Socratic method. + </p> + <p> + And at last Ann Veronica and Miss Miniver came down the dark staircase and + out into the foggy spaces of the London squares, and crossed Russell + Square, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, making an oblique route to Ann + Veronica’s lodging. They trudged along a little hungry, because of the + fruitarian refreshments, and mentally very active. And Miss Miniver fell + discussing whether Goopes or Bernard Shaw or Tolstoy or Doctor Tumpany or + Wilkins the author had the more powerful and perfect mind in existence at + the present time. She was clear there were no other minds like them in all + the world. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the back seats + of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the giant leaders of the + Fabian Society who are re-making the world: Bernard Shaw and Toomer and + Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the author, all displayed upon a platform. The + place was crowded, and the people about her were almost equally made up of + very good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great variety of + Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest mixture of + things that were personal and petty with an idealist devotion that was + fine beyond dispute. In nearly every speech she heard was the same + implication of great and necessary changes in the world—changes to + be won by effort and sacrifice indeed, but surely to be won. And afterward + she saw a very much larger and more enthusiastic gathering, a meeting of + the advanced section of the woman movement in Caxton Hall, where the same + note of vast changes in progress sounded; and she went to a soiree of the + Dress Reform Association and visited a Food Reform Exhibition, where + imminent change was made even alarmingly visible. The women’s meeting was + much more charged with emotional force than the Socialists’. Ann Veronica + was carried off her intellectual and critical feet by it altogether, and + applauded and uttered cries that subsequent reflection failed to endorse. + “I knew you would feel it,” said Miss Miniver, as they came away flushed + and heated. “I knew you would begin to see how it all falls into place + together.” + </p> + <p> + It did begin to fall into place together. She became more and more alive, + not so much to a system of ideas as to a big diffused impulse toward + change, to a great discontent with and criticism of life as it is lived, + to a clamorous confusion of ideas for reconstruction—reconstruction + of the methods of business, of economic development, of the rules of + property, of the status of children, of the clothing and feeding and + teaching of every one; she developed a quite exaggerated consciousness of + a multitude of people going about the swarming spaces of London with their + minds full, their talk and gestures full, their very clothing charged with + the suggestion of the urgency of this pervasive project of alteration. + Some indeed carried themselves, dressed themselves even, rather as foreign + visitors from the land of “Looking Backward” and “News from Nowhere” than + as the indigenous Londoners they were. For the most part these were + detached people: men practising the plastic arts, young writers, young men + in employment, a very large proportion of girls and women—self-supporting + women or girls of the student class. They made a stratum into which Ann + Veronica was now plunged up to her neck; it had become her stratum. + </p> + <p> + None of the things they said and did were altogether new to Ann Veronica, + but now she got them massed and alive, instead of by glimpses or in books—alive + and articulate and insistent. The London backgrounds, in Bloomsbury and + Marylebone, against which these people went to and fro, took on, by reason + of their gray facades, their implacably respectable windows and + window-blinds, their reiterated unmeaning iron railings, a stronger and + stronger suggestion of the flavor of her father at his most obdurate + phase, and of all that she felt herself fighting against. + </p> + <p> + She was already a little prepared by her discursive reading and discussion + under the Widgett influence for ideas and “movements,” though + temperamentally perhaps she was rather disposed to resist and criticise + than embrace them. But the people among whom she was now thrown through + the social exertions of Miss Miniver and the Widgetts—for Teddy and + Hetty came up from Morningside Park and took her to an eighteen-penny + dinner in Soho and introduced her to some art students, who were also + Socialists, and so opened the way to an evening of meandering talk in a + studio—carried with them like an atmosphere this implication, not + only that the world was in some stupid and even obvious way WRONG, with + which indeed she was quite prepared to agree, but that it needed only a + few pioneers to behave as such and be thoroughly and indiscriminately + “advanced,” for the new order to achieve itself. + </p> + <p> + When ninety per cent. out of the ten or twelve people one meets in a month + not only say but feel and assume a thing, it is very hard not to fall into + the belief that the thing is so. Imperceptibly almost Ann Veronica began + to acquire the new attitude, even while her mind still resisted the felted + ideas that went with it. And Miss Miniver began to sway her. + </p> + <p> + The very facts that Miss Miniver never stated an argument clearly, that + she was never embarrassed by a sense of self-contradiction, and had little + more respect for consistency of statement than a washerwoman has for wisps + of vapor, which made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at their first + encounter in Morningside Park, became at last with constant association + the secret of Miss Miniver’s growing influence. The brain tires of + resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently active, the + same phrases, the same ideas that it has already slain, exposed and + dissected and buried, it becomes less and less energetic to repeat the + operation. There must be something, one feels, in ideas that achieve + persistently a successful resurrection. What Miss Miniver would have + called the Higher Truth supervenes. + </p> + <p> + Yet through these talks, these meetings and conferences, these movements + and efforts, Ann Veronica, for all that she went with her friend, and at + times applauded with her enthusiastically, yet went nevertheless with eyes + that grew more and more puzzled, and fine eyebrows more and more disposed + to knit. She was with these movements—akin to them, she felt it at + times intensely—and yet something eluded her. Morningside Park had + been passive and defective; all this rushed about and was active, but it + was still defective. It still failed in something. It did seem germane to + the matter that so many of the people “in the van” were plain people, or + faded people, or tired-looking people. It did affect the business that + they all argued badly and were egotistical in their manners and + inconsistent in their phrases. There were moments when she doubted whether + the whole mass of movements and societies and gatherings and talks was not + simply one coherent spectacle of failure protecting itself from abjection + by the glamour of its own assertions. It happened that at the extremest + point of Ann Veronica’s social circle from the Widgetts was the family of + the Morningside Park horse-dealer, a company of extremely dressy and + hilarious young women, with one equestrian brother addicted to fancy + waistcoats, cigars, and facial spots. These girls wore hats at remarkable + angles and bows to startle and kill; they liked to be right on the spot + every time and up to everything that was it from the very beginning and + they rendered their conception of Socialists and all reformers by the + words “positively frightening” and “weird.” Well, it was beyond dispute + that these words did convey a certain quality of the Movements in general + amid which Miss Miniver disported herself. They WERE weird. And yet for + all that— + </p> + <p> + It got into Ann Veronica’s nights at last and kept her awake, the + perplexing contrast between the advanced thought and the advanced thinker. + The general propositions of Socialism, for example, struck her as + admirable, but she certainly did not extend her admiration to any of its + exponents. She was still more stirred by the idea of the equal citizenship + of men and women, by the realization that a big and growing organization + of women were giving form and a generalized expression to just that + personal pride, that aspiration for personal freedom and respect which had + brought her to London; but when she heard Miss Miniver discoursing on the + next step in the suffrage campaign, or read of women badgering Cabinet + Ministers, padlocked to railings, or getting up in a public meeting to + pipe out a demand for votes and be carried out kicking and screaming, her + soul revolted. She could not part with dignity. Something as yet + unformulated within her kept her estranged from all these practical + aspects of her beliefs. + </p> + <p> + “Not for these things, O Ann Veronica, have you revolted,” it said; “and + this is not your appropriate purpose.” + </p> + <p> + It was as if she faced a darkness in which was something very beautiful + and wonderful as yet unimagined. The little pucker in her brows became + more perceptible. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + In the beginning of December Ann Veronica began to speculate privately + upon the procedure of pawning. She had decided that she would begin with + her pearl necklace. She spent a very disagreeable afternoon and evening—it + was raining fast outside, and she had very unwisely left her soundest pair + of boots in the boothole of her father’s house in Morningside Park—thinking + over the economic situation and planning a course of action. Her aunt had + secretly sent on to Ann Veronica some new warm underclothing, a dozen + pairs of stockings, and her last winter’s jacket, but the dear lady had + overlooked those boots. + </p> + <p> + These things illuminated her situation extremely. Finally she decided upon + a step that had always seemed reasonable to her, but that hitherto she + had, from motives too faint for her to formulate, refrained from taking. + She resolved to go into the City to Ramage and ask for his advice. And + next morning she attired herself with especial care and neatness, found + his address in the Directory at a post-office, and went to him. + </p> + <p> + She had to wait some minutes in an outer office, wherein three young men + of spirited costume and appearance regarded her with ill-concealed + curiosity and admiration. Then Ramage appeared with effusion, and ushered + her into his inner apartment. The three young men exchanged expressive + glances. + </p> + <p> + The inner apartment was rather gracefully furnished with a thick, fine + Turkish carpet, a good brass fender, a fine old bureau, and on the walls + were engravings of two young girls’ heads by Greuze, and of some modern + picture of boys bathing in a sunlit pool. + </p> + <p> + “But this is a surprise!” said Ramage. “This is wonderful! I’ve been + feeling that you had vanished from my world. Have you been away from + Morningside Park?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not interrupting you?” + </p> + <p> + “You are. Splendidly. Business exists for such interruptions. There you + are, the best client’s chair.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica sat down, and Ramage’s eager eyes feasted on her. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been looking out for you,” he said. “I confess it.” + </p> + <p> + She had not, she reflected, remembered how prominent his eyes were. + </p> + <p> + “I want some advice,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “You remember once, how we talked—at a gate on the Downs? We talked + about how a girl might get an independent living.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you see, something has happened at home.” + </p> + <p> + She paused. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing has happened to Mr. Stanley?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve fallen out with my father. It was about—a question of what I + might do or might not do. He—In fact, he—he locked me in my + room. Practically.” + </p> + <p> + Her breath left her for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “I SAY!” said Mr. Ramage. + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to go to an art-student ball of which he disapproved.” + </p> + <p> + “And why shouldn’t you?” + </p> + <p> + “I felt that sort of thing couldn’t go on. So I packed up and came to + London next day.” + </p> + <p> + “To a friend?” + </p> + <p> + “To lodgings—alone.” + </p> + <p> + “I say, you know, you have some pluck. You did it on your own?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica smiled. “Quite on my own,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “It’s magnificent!” He leaned back and regarded her with his head a little + on one side. “By Jove!” he said, “there is something direct about you. I + wonder if I should have locked you up if I’d been your father. Luckily I’m + not. And you started out forthwith to fight the world and be a citizen on + your own basis?” He came forward again and folded his hands under him on + his desk. + </p> + <p> + “How has the world taken it?” he asked. “If I was the world I think I + should have put down a crimson carpet, and asked you to say what you + wanted, and generally walk over me. But the world didn’t do that.” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “It presented a large impenetrable back, and went on thinking about + something else.” + </p> + <p> + “It offered from fifteen to two-and-twenty shillings a week—for + drudgery.” + </p> + <p> + “The world has no sense of what is due to youth and courage. It never has + had.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Ann Veronica. “But the thing is, I want a job.” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly! And so you came along to me. And you see, I don’t turn my back, + and I am looking at you and thinking about you from top to toe.” + </p> + <p> + “And what do you think I ought to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly!” He lifted a paper-weight and dabbed it gently down again. “What + ought you to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve hunted up all sorts of things.” + </p> + <p> + “The point to note is that fundamentally you don’t want particularly to do + it.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “You want to be free and so forth, yes. But you don’t particularly want to + do the job that sets you free—for its own sake. I mean that it + doesn’t interest you in itself.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose not.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s one of our differences. We men are like children. We can get + absorbed in play, in games, in the business we do. That’s really why we do + them sometimes rather well and get on. But women—women as a rule + don’t throw themselves into things like that. As a matter of fact it isn’t + their affair. And as a natural consequence, they don’t do so well, and + they don’t get on—and so the world doesn’t pay them. They don’t + catch on to discursive interests, you see, because they are more serious, + they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a little + impatient of its—its outer aspects. At least that, I think, is what + makes a clever woman’s independent career so much more difficult than a + clever man’s.” + </p> + <p> + “She doesn’t develop a specialty.” Ann Veronica was doing her best to + follow him. + </p> + <p> + “She has one, that’s why. Her specialty is the central thing in life, it + is life itself, the warmth of life, sex—and love.” + </p> + <p> + He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with his eyes on + Ann Veronica’s face. He had an air of having told her a deep, personal + secret. She winced as he thrust the fact at her, was about to answer, and + checked herself. She colored faintly. + </p> + <p> + “That doesn’t touch the question I asked you,” she said. “It may be true, + but it isn’t quite what I have in mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course not,” said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep + preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like way upon + the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made. He displayed none + of the airy optimism of their previous talk over the downland gate. He was + helpful, but gravely dubious. “You see,” he said, “from my point of view + you’re grown up—you’re as old as all the goddesses and the + contemporary of any man alive. But from the—the economic point of + view you’re a very young and altogether inexperienced person.” + </p> + <p> + He returned to and developed that idea. “You’re still,” he said, “in the + educational years. From the point of view of most things in the world of + employment which a woman can do reasonably well and earn a living by, + you’re unripe and half-educated. If you had taken your degree, for + example.” + </p> + <p> + He spoke of secretarial work, but even there she would need to be able to + do typing and shorthand. He made it more and more evident to her that her + proper course was not to earn a salary but to accumulate equipment. “You + see,” he said, “you are like an inaccessible gold-mine in all this sort of + matter. You’re splendid stuff, you know, but you’ve got nothing ready to + sell. That’s the flat business situation.” + </p> + <p> + He thought. Then he slapped his hand on his desk and looked up with the + air of a man struck by a brilliant idea. “Look here,” he said, protruding + his eyes; “why get anything to do at all just yet? Why, if you must be + free, why not do the sensible thing? Make yourself worth a decent freedom. + Go on with your studies at the Imperial College, for example, get a + degree, and make yourself good value. Or become a thorough-going typist + and stenographer and secretarial expert.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can’t do that.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “You see, if I do go home my father objects to the College, and as for + typing—” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t go home.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but you forget; how am I to live?” + </p> + <p> + “Easily. Easily.... Borrow.... From me.” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t do that,” said Ann Veronica, sharply. + </p> + <p> + “I see no reason why you shouldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s impossible.” + </p> + <p> + “As one friend to another. Men are always doing it, and if you set up to + be a man—” + </p> + <p> + “No, it’s absolutely out of the question, Mr. Ramage.” And Ann Veronica’s + face was hot. + </p> + <p> + Ramage pursed his rather loose lips and shrugged his shoulders, with his + eyes fixed steadily upon her. “Well anyhow—I don’t see the force of + your objection, you know. That’s my advice to you. Here I am. Consider + you’ve got resources deposited with me. Perhaps at the first blush—it + strikes you as odd. People are brought up to be so shy about money. As + though it was indelicate—it’s just a sort of shyness. But here I am + to draw upon. Here I am as an alternative either to nasty work—or + going home.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very kind of you—” began Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit. Just a friendly polite suggestion. I don’t suggest any + philanthropy. I shall charge you five per cent., you know, fair and + square.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica opened her lips quickly and did not speak. But the five per + cent. certainly did seem to improve the aspect of Ramage’s suggestion. + </p> + <p> + “Well, anyhow, consider it open.” He dabbed with his paper-weight again, + and spoke in an entirely indifferent tone. “And now tell me, please, how + you eloped from Morningside Park. How did you get your luggage out of the + house? Wasn’t it—wasn’t it rather in some respects—rather a + lark? It’s one of my regrets for my lost youth. I never ran away from + anywhere with anybody anywhen. And now—I suppose I should be + considered too old. I don’t feel it.... Didn’t you feel rather EVENTFUL—in + the train—coming up to Waterloo?” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + Before Christmas Ann Veronica had gone to Ramage again and accepted this + offer she had at first declined. + </p> + <p> + Many little things had contributed to that decision. The chief influence + was her awakening sense of the need of money. She had been forced to buy + herself that pair of boots and a walking-skirt, and the pearl necklace at + the pawnbrokers’ had yielded very disappointingly. And, also, she wanted + to borrow that money. It did seem in so many ways exactly what Ramage said + it was—the sensible thing to do. There it was—to be borrowed. + It would put the whole adventure on a broader and better footing; it + seemed, indeed, almost the only possible way in which she might emerge + from her rebellion with anything like success. If only for the sake of her + argument with her home, she wanted success. And why, after all, should she + not borrow money from Ramage? + </p> + <p> + It was so true what he said; middle-class people WERE ridiculously + squeamish about money. Why should they be? + </p> + <p> + She and Ramage were friends, very good friends. If she was in a position + to help him she would help him; only it happened to be the other way + round. He was in a position to help her. What was the objection? + </p> + <p> + She found it impossible to look her own diffidence in the face. So she + went to Ramage and came to the point almost at once. + </p> + <p> + “Can you spare me forty pounds?” she said. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Ramage controlled his expression and thought very quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Agreed,” he said, “certainly,” and drew a checkbook toward him. + </p> + <p> + “It’s best,” he said, “to make it a good round sum. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t give you a check though—Yes, I will. I’ll give you an + uncrossed check, and then you can get it at the bank here, quite close + by.... You’d better not have all the money on you; you had better open a + small account in the post-office and draw it out a fiver at a time. That + won’t involve references, as a bank account would—and all that sort + of thing. The money will last longer, and—it won’t bother you.” + </p> + <p> + He stood up rather close to her and looked into her eyes. He seemed to be + trying to understand something very perplexing and elusive. “It’s jolly,” + he said, “to feel you have come to me. It’s a sort of guarantee of + confidence. Last time—you made me feel snubbed.” + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, and went off at a tangent. “There’s no end of things I’d + like to talk over with you. It’s just upon my lunch-time. Come and have + lunch with me.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica fenced for a moment. “I don’t want to take up your time.” + </p> + <p> + “We won’t go to any of these City places. They’re just all men, and no one + is safe from scandal. But I know a little place where we’ll get a little + quiet talk.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica for some indefinable reason did not want to lunch with him, a + reason indeed so indefinable that she dismissed it, and Ramage went + through the outer office with her, alert and attentive, to the vivid + interest of the three clerks. The three clerks fought for the only window, + and saw her whisked into a hansom. Their subsequent conversation is + outside the scope of our story. + </p> + <p> + “Ritter’s!” said Ramage to the driver, “Dean Street.” + </p> + <p> + It was rare that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was itself + eventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing of the thing + over its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the horse, the passage of + the teeming streets. She admitted her pleasure to Ramage. + </p> + <p> + And Ritter’s, too, was very amusing and foreign and discreet; a little + rambling room with a number of small tables, with red electric light + shades and flowers. It was an overcast day, albeit not foggy, and the + electric light shades glowed warmly, and an Italian waiter with + insufficient English took Ramage’s orders, and waited with an appearance + of affection. Ann Veronica thought the whole affair rather jolly. Ritter + sold better food than most of his compatriots, and cooked it better, and + Ramage, with a fine perception of a feminine palate, ordered Vero Capri. + It was, Ann Veronica felt, as a sip or so of that remarkable blend warmed + her blood, just the sort of thing that her aunt would not approve, to be + lunching thus, tete-a-tete with a man; and yet at the same time it was a + perfectly innocent as well as agreeable proceeding. + </p> + <p> + They talked across their meal in an easy and friendly manner about Ann + Veronica’s affairs. He was really very bright and clever, with a sort of + conversational boldness that was just within the limits of permissible + daring. She described the Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave him a + sketch of her landlady; and he talked in the most liberal and entertaining + way of a modern young woman’s outlook. He seemed to know a great deal + about life. He gave glimpses of possibilities. He roused curiosities. He + contrasted wonderfully with the empty showing-off of Teddy. His friendship + seemed a thing worth having.... + </p> + <p> + But when she was thinking it over in her room that evening vague and + baffling doubts came drifting across this conviction. She doubted how she + stood toward him and what the restrained gleam of his face might signify. + She felt that perhaps, in her desire to play an adequate part in the + conversation, she had talked rather more freely than she ought to have + done, and given him a wrong impression of herself. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + That was two days before Christmas Eve. The next morning came a compact + letter from her father. + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR DAUGHTER,” it ran,—“Here, on the verge of the season of + forgiveness I hold out a last hand to you in the hope of a reconciliation. + I ask you, although it is not my place to ask you, to return home. This + roof is still open to you. You will not be taunted if you return and + everything that can be done will be done to make you happy. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, I must implore you to return. This adventure of yours has gone on + altogether too long; it has become a serious distress to both your aunt + and myself. We fail altogether to understand your motives in doing what + you are doing, or, indeed, how you are managing to do it, or what you are + managing on. If you will think only of one trifling aspect—the + inconvenience it must be to us to explain your absence—I think you + may begin to realize what it all means for us. I need hardly say that your + aunt joins with me very heartily in this request. + </p> + <p> + “Please come home. You will not find me unreasonable with you. + </p> + <p> + “Your affectionate + </p> + <p> + “FATHER.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica sat over her fire with her father’s note in her hand. “Queer + letters he writes,” she said. “I suppose most people’s letters are queer. + Roof open—like a Noah’s Ark. I wonder if he really wants me to go + home. It’s odd how little I know of him, and of how he feels and what he + feels.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder how he treated Gwen.” + </p> + <p> + Her mind drifted into a speculation about her sister. “I ought to look up + Gwen,” she said. “I wonder what happened.” + </p> + <p> + Then she fell to thinking about her aunt. “I would like to go home,” she + cried, “to please her. She has been a dear. Considering how little he lets + her have.” + </p> + <p> + The truth prevailed. “The unaccountable thing is that I wouldn’t go home + to please her. She is, in her way, a dear. One OUGHT to want to please + her. And I don’t. I don’t care. I can’t even make myself care.” + </p> + <p> + Presently, as if for comparison with her father’s letter, she got out + Ramage’s check from the box that contained her papers. For so far she had + kept it uncashed. She had not even endorsed it. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose I chuck it,” she remarked, standing with the mauve slip in her + hand—“suppose I chuck it, and surrender and go home! Perhaps, after + all, Roddy was right! + </p> + <p> + “Father keeps opening the door and shutting it, but a time will come— + </p> + <p> + “I could still go home!” + </p> + <p> + She held Ramage’s check as if to tear it across. “No,” she said at last; + “I’m a human being—not a timid female. What could I do at home? The + other’s a crumple-up—just surrender. Funk! I’ll see it out.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE EIGHTH + </h2> + <h3> + BIOLOGY + </h3> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + January found Ann Veronica a student in the biological laboratory of the + Central Imperial College that towers up from among the back streets in the + angle between Euston Road and Great Portland Street. She was working very + steadily at the Advanced Course in Comparative Anatomy, wonderfully + relieved to have her mind engaged upon one methodically developing theme + in the place of the discursive uncertainties of the previous two months, + and doing her utmost to keep right in the back of her mind and out of + sight the facts, firstly, that she had achieved this haven of satisfactory + activity by incurring a debt to Ramage of forty pounds, and, secondly, + that her present position was necessarily temporary and her outlook quite + uncertain. + </p> + <p> + The biological laboratory had an atmosphere that was all its own. + </p> + <p> + It was at the top of the building, and looked clear over a clustering mass + of inferior buildings toward Regent’s Park. It was long and narrow, a + well-lit, well-ventilated, quiet gallery of small tables and sinks, + pervaded by a thin smell of methylated spirit and of a mitigated and + sterilized organic decay. Along the inner side was a wonderfully arranged + series of displayed specimens that Russell himself had prepared. The + supreme effect for Ann Veronica was its surpassing relevance; it made + every other atmosphere she knew seem discursive and confused. The whole + place and everything in it aimed at one thing—to illustrate, to + elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make ever plainer and plainer + the significance of animal and vegetable structure. It dealt from floor to + ceiling and end to end with the Theory of the Forms of Life; the very + duster by the blackboard was there to do its share in that work, the very + washers in the taps; the room was more simply concentrated in aim even + than a church. To that, perhaps, a large part of its satisfyingness was + due. Contrasted with the confused movement and presences of a Fabian + meeting, or the inexplicable enthusiasm behind the suffrage demand, with + the speeches that were partly egotistical displays, partly artful + manoeuvres, and partly incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, + compared with the comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were + like the eddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, + methodical chamber shone like a star seen through clouds. + </p> + <p> + Day after day for a measured hour in the lecture-theatre, with elaborate + power and patience, Russell pieced together difficulty and suggestion, + instance and counter-instance, in the elaborate construction of the family + tree of life. And then the students went into the long laboratory and + followed out these facts in almost living tissue with microscope and + scalpel, probe and microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care, + making now and then a raid into the compact museum of illustration next + door, in which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplined + ranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was a couple + of blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and at these Capes, + with quick and nervous speech that contrasted vividly with Russell’s slow, + definitive articulation, directed the dissection and made illuminating + comments on the structures under examination. Then he would come along the + laboratory, sitting down by each student in turn, checking the work and + discussing its difficulties, and answering questions arising out of + Russell’s lecture. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had come to the Imperial College obsessed by the great figure + of Russell, by the part he had played in the Darwinian controversies, and + by the resolute effect of the grim-lipped, yellow, leonine face beneath + the mane of silvery hair. Capes was rather a discovery. Capes was + something superadded. Russell burned like a beacon, but Capes illuminated + by darting flashes and threw light, even if it was but momentary light, + into a hundred corners that Russell left steadfastly in the shade. + </p> + <p> + Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two or three-and-thirty, so ruddily + blond that it was a mercy he had escaped light eyelashes, and with a minor + but by no means contemptible reputation of his own. He talked at the + blackboard in a pleasant, very slightly lisping voice with a curious + spontaneity, and was sometimes very clumsy in his exposition, and + sometimes very vivid. He dissected rather awkwardly and hurriedly, but, on + the whole, effectively, and drew with an impatient directness that made up + in significance what it lacked in precision. Across the blackboard the + colored chalks flew like flights of variously tinted rockets as diagram + after diagram flickered into being. + </p> + <p> + There happened that year to be an unusual proportion of girls and women in + the advanced laboratory, perhaps because the class as a whole was an + exceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four of these were women + students. As a consequence of its small size, it was possible to get along + with the work on a much easier and more colloquial footing than a larger + class would have permitted. And a custom had grown up of a general tea at + four o’clock, under the auspices of a Miss Garvice, a tall and graceful + girl of distinguished intellectual incompetence, in whom the hostess + instinct seemed to be abnormally developed. + </p> + <p> + Capes would come to these teas; he evidently liked to come, and he would + appear in the doorway of the preparation-room, a pleasing note of shyness + in his manner, hovering for an invitation. + </p> + <p> + From the first, Ann Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man. + To begin with, he struck her as being the most variable person she had + ever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful, talked round + and over every one, and would have been domineering if he had not been + extraordinarily kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, and defeated + Miss Garvice’s most skilful attempts to draw him out. Sometimes he was + obviously irritable and uncomfortable and unfortunate in his efforts to + seem at ease. And sometimes he overflowed with a peculiarly malignant wit + that played, with devastating effect, upon any topics that had the courage + to face it. Ann Veronica’s experiences of men had been among more stable + types—Teddy, who was always absurd; her father, who was always + authoritative and sentimental; Manning, who was always Manning. And most + of the others she had met had, she felt, the same steadfastness. Goopes, + she was sure was always high-browed and slow and Socratic. And Ramage too—about + Ramage there would always be that air of avidity, that air of knowledge + and inquiry, the mixture of things in his talk that were rather good with + things that were rather poor. But one could not count with any confidence + upon Capes. + </p> + <p> + The five men students were a mixed company. There was a very white-faced + youngster of eighteen who brushed back his hair exactly in Russell’s + manner, and was disposed to be uncomfortably silent when he was near her, + and to whom she felt it was only Christian kindness to be consistently + pleasant; and a lax young man of five-and-twenty in navy blue, who mingled + Marx and Bebel with the more orthodox gods of the biological pantheon. + There was a short, red-faced, resolute youth who inherited an + authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father; a Japanese + student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and had an imperfect + knowledge of English; and a dark, unwashed Scotchman with complicated + spectacles, who would come every morning as a sort of volunteer + supplementary demonstrator, look very closely at her work and her, tell + her that her dissections were “fairish,” or “very fairish indeed,” or + “high above the normal female standard,” hover as if for some outbreak of + passionate gratitude and with admiring retrospects that made the facetted + spectacles gleam like diamonds, return to his own place. + </p> + <p> + The women, Ann Veronica thought, were not quite so interesting as the men. + There were two school-mistresses, one of whom—Miss Klegg—might + have been a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so many Miniver traits; + there was a preoccupied girl whose name Ann Veronica never learned, but + who worked remarkably well; and Miss Garvice, who began by attracting her + very greatly—she moved so beautifully—and ended by giving her + the impression that moving beautifully was the beginning and end of her + being. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + The next few weeks were a time of the very liveliest thought and growth + for Ann Veronica. The crowding impressions of the previous weeks seemed to + run together directly her mind left the chaotic search for employment and + came into touch again with a coherent and systematic development of ideas. + The advanced work at the Central Imperial College was in the closest touch + with living interests and current controversies; it drew its illustrations + and material from Russell’s two great researches—upon the relation + of the brachiopods to the echinodermata, and upon the secondary and + tertiary mammalian and pseudo-mammalian factors in the free larval forms + of various marine organisms. Moreover, a vigorous fire of mutual criticism + was going on now between the Imperial College and the Cambridge Mendelians + and echoed in the lectures. From beginning to end it was first-hand stuff. + </p> + <p> + But the influence of the science radiated far beyond its own special field—beyond + those beautiful but highly technical problems with which we do not propose + for a moment to trouble the naturally terrified reader. Biology is an + extraordinarily digestive science. It throws out a number of broad + experimental generalizations, and then sets out to bring into harmony or + relation with these an infinitely multifarious collection of phenomena. + The little streaks upon the germinating area of an egg, the nervous + movements of an impatient horse, the trick of a calculating boy, the + senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of a garden flower, and the slime + upon a sea-wet rock—ten thousand such things bear their witness and + are illuminated. And not only did these tentacular generalizations gather + all the facts of natural history and comparative anatomy together, but + they seemed always stretching out further and further into a world of + interests that lay altogether outside their legitimate bounds. + </p> + <p> + It came to Ann Veronica one night after a long talk with Miss Miniver, as + a sudden remarkable thing, as a grotesque, novel aspect, that this slowly + elaborating biological scheme had something more than an academic interest + for herself. And not only so, but that it was after all, a more systematic + and particular method of examining just the same questions that underlay + the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of the West Central Arts + Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, the bottomless discussions + of the simple-life homes. It was the same Bios whose nature and drift and + ways and methods and aspects engaged them all. And she, she in her own + person too, was this eternal Bios, beginning again its recurrent journey + to selection and multiplication and failure or survival. + </p> + <p> + But this was but a momentary gleam of personal application, and at this + time she followed it up no further. + </p> + <p> + And now Ann Veronica’s evenings were also becoming very busy. She pursued + her interest in the Socialist movement and in the Suffragist agitation in + the company of Miss Miniver. They went to various central and local Fabian + gatherings, and to a number of suffrage meetings. Teddy Widgett hovered on + the fringe of all these gatherings, blinking at Ann Veronica and + occasionally making a wildly friendly dash at her, and carrying her and + Miss Miniver off to drink cocoa with a choice diversity of other youthful + and congenial Fabians after the meetings. Then Mr. Manning loomed up ever + and again into her world, full of a futile solicitude, and almost always + declaring she was splendid, splendid, and wishing he could talk things out + with her. Teas he contributed to the commissariat of Ann Veronica’s + campaign—quite a number of teas. He would get her to come to tea + with him, usually in a pleasant tea-room over a fruit-shop in Tottenham + Court Road, and he would discuss his own point of view and hint at a + thousand devotions were she but to command him. And he would express + various artistic sensibilities and aesthetic appreciations in carefully + punctuated sentences and a large, clear voice. At Christmas he gave her a + set of a small edition of Meredith’s novels, very prettily bound in + flexible leather, being guided in the choice of an author, as he + intimated, rather by her preferences than his own. + </p> + <p> + There was something markedly and deliberately liberal-minded in his manner + in all their encounters. He conveyed not only his sense of the extreme + want of correctitude in their unsanctioned meetings, but also that, so far + as he was concerned, this irregularity mattered not at all, that he had + flung—and kept on flinging—such considerations to the wind. + </p> + <p> + And, in addition, she was now seeing and talking to Ramage almost weekly, + on a theory which she took very gravely, that they were exceptionally + friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with him in some little + Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the district toward Soho, or in one + of the more stylish and magnificent establishments about Piccadilly + Circus, and for the most part she did not care to refuse. Nor, indeed, did + she want to refuse. These dinners, from their lavish display of ambiguous + hors d’oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes of frilled paper, with their + Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and their polyglot waiters and polyglot + clientele, were very funny and bright; and she really liked Ramage, and + valued his help and advice. It was interesting to see how different and + characteristic his mode of approach was to all sorts of questions that + interested her, and it was amusing to discover this other side to the life + of a Morningside Park inhabitant. She had thought that all Morningside + Park householders came home before seven at the latest, as her father + usually did. Ramage talked always about women or some woman’s concern, and + very much about Ann Veronica’s own outlook upon life. He was always + drawing contrasts between a woman’s lot and a man’s, and treating her as a + wonderful new departure in this comparison. Ann Veronica liked their + relationship all the more because it was an unusual one. + </p> + <p> + After these dinners they would have a walk, usually to the Thames + Embankment to see the two sweeps of river on either side of Waterloo + Bridge; and then they would part at Westminster Bridge, perhaps, and he + would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they should go to a music-hall + and see a wonderful new dancer, but Ann Veronica did not feel she cared to + see a new dancer. So, instead, they talked of dancing and what it might + mean in a human life. Ann Veronica thought it was a spontaneous release of + energy expressive of well-being, but Ramage thought that by dancing, men, + and such birds and animals as dance, come to feel and think of their + bodies. + </p> + <p> + This intercourse, which had been planned to warm Ann Veronica to a + familiar affection with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to a + constantly deepening interest in Ann Veronica. He felt that he was getting + on with her very slowly indeed, but he did not see how he could get on + faster. He had, he felt, to create certain ideas and vivify certain + curiosities and feelings in her. Until that was done a certain experience + of life assured him that a girl is a locked coldness against a man’s + approach. She had all the fascination of being absolutely perplexing in + this respect. On the one hand, she seemed to think plainly and simply, and + would talk serenely and freely about topics that most women have been + trained either to avoid or conceal; and on the other she was unconscious, + or else she had an air of being unconscious—that was the riddle—to + all sorts of personal applications that almost any girl or woman, one + might have thought, would have made. He was always doing his best to call + her attention to the fact that he was a man of spirit and quality and + experience, and she a young and beautiful woman, and that all sorts of + constructions upon their relationship were possible, trusting her to go on + from that to the idea that all sorts of relationships were possible. She + responded with an unfaltering appearance of insensibility, and never as a + young and beautiful woman conscious of sex; always in the character of an + intelligent girl student. + </p> + <p> + His perception of her personal beauty deepened and quickened with each + encounter. Every now and then her general presence became radiantly + dazzling in his eyes; she would appear in the street coming toward him, a + surprise, so fine and smiling and welcoming was she, so expanded and + illuminated and living, in contrast with his mere expectation. Or he would + find something—a wave in her hair, a little line in the contour of + her brow or neck, that made an exquisite discovery. + </p> + <p> + He was beginning to think about her inordinately. He would sit in his + inner office and compose conversations with her, penetrating, + illuminating, and nearly conclusive—conversations that never proved + to be of the slightest use at all with her when he met her face to face. + And he began also at times to wake at night and think about her. + </p> + <p> + He thought of her and himself, and no longer in that vein of incidental + adventure in which he had begun. He thought, too, of the fretful invalid + who lay in the next room to his, whose money had created his business and + made his position in the world. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve had most of the things I wanted,” said Ramage, in the stillness of + the night. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + For a time Ann Veronica’s family had desisted from direct offers of a free + pardon; they were evidently waiting for her resources to come to an end. + Neither father, aunt, nor brothers made a sign, and then one afternoon in + early February her aunt came up in a state between expostulation and + dignified resentment, but obviously very anxious for Ann Veronica’s + welfare. “I had a dream in the night,” she said. “I saw you in a sort of + sloping, slippery place, holding on by your hands and slipping. You seemed + to me to be slipping and slipping, and your face was white. It was really + most vivid, most vivid! You seemed to be slipping and just going to tumble + and holding on. It made me wake up, and there I lay thinking of you, + spending your nights up here all alone, and no one to look after you. I + wondered what you could be doing and what might be happening to you. I + said to myself at once, ‘Either this is a coincidence or the caper sauce.’ + But I made sure it was you. I felt I MUST do something anyhow, and up I + came just as soon as I could to see you.” + </p> + <p> + She had spoken rather rapidly. “I can’t help saying it,” she said, with + the quality of her voice altering, “but I do NOT think it is right for an + unprotected girl to be in London alone as you are.” + </p> + <p> + “But I’m quite equal to taking care of myself, aunt.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable for every + one concerned.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke with a certain asperity. She felt that Ann Veronica had duped + her in that dream, and now that she had come up to London she might as + well speak her mind. + </p> + <p> + “No Christmas dinner,” she said, “or anything nice! One doesn’t even know + what you are doing.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m going on working for my degree.” + </p> + <p> + “Why couldn’t you do that at home?” + </p> + <p> + “I’m working at the Imperial College. You see, aunt, it’s the only + possible way for me to get a good degree in my subjects, and father won’t + hear of it. There’d only be endless rows if I was at home. And how could I + come home—when he locks me in rooms and all that?” + </p> + <p> + “I do wish this wasn’t going on,” said Miss Stanley, after a pause. “I do + wish you and your father could come to some agreement.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica responded with conviction: “I wish so, too.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t we arrange something? Can’t we make a sort of treaty?” + </p> + <p> + “He wouldn’t keep it. He would get very cross one evening and no one would + dare to remind him of it.” + </p> + <p> + “How can you say such things?” + </p> + <p> + “But he would!” + </p> + <p> + “Still, it isn’t your place to say so.” + </p> + <p> + “It prevents a treaty.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn’t <i>I</i> make a treaty?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty that would + leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramage or + go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with Miss + Miniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so far she + had not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly was something + in the idea of a treaty. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see at all how you can be managing,” said Miss Stanley, and Ann + Veronica hastened to reply, “I do on very little.” Her mind went back to + that treaty. + </p> + <p> + “And aren’t there fees to pay at the Imperial College?” her aunt was + saying—a disagreeable question. + </p> + <p> + “There are a few fees.” + </p> + <p> + “Then how have you managed?” + </p> + <p> + “Bother!” said Ann Veronica to herself, and tried not to look guilty. “I + was able to borrow the money.” + </p> + <p> + “Borrow the money! But who lent you the money?” + </p> + <p> + “A friend,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + She felt herself getting into a corner. She sought hastily in her mind for + a plausible answer to an obvious question that didn’t come. Her aunt went + off at a tangent. “But my dear Ann Veronica, you will be getting into + debt!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica at once, and with a feeling of immense relief, took refuge in + her dignity. “I think, aunt,” she said, “you might trust to my + self-respect to keep me out of that.” + </p> + <p> + For the moment her aunt could not think of any reply to this + counterstroke, and Ann Veronica followed up her advantage by a sudden + inquiry about her abandoned boots. + </p> + <p> + But in the train going home her aunt reasoned it out. + </p> + <p> + “If she is borrowing money,” said Miss Stanley, “she MUST be getting into + debt. It’s all nonsense....” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in Ann + Veronica’s thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, at last, + strides to something more and more like predominance. She began by being + interested in his demonstrations and his biological theory, then she was + attracted by his character, and then, in a manner, she fell in love with + his mind. + </p> + <p> + One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion sprang up + about the question of women’s suffrage. The movement was then in its + earlier militant phases, and one of the women only, Miss Garvice, opposed + it, though Ann Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm. But a man’s + opposition always inclined her to the suffrage side; she had a curious + feeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive women through. Capes was + irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in which + case one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but tepidly + sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous attack on Miss + Garvice, who had said she thought women lost something infinitely precious + by mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussion wandered, and was + punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclined to support Miss Klegg + until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting him against himself, and citing + a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in which, following Atkinson, he + had made a vigorous and damaging attack on Lester Ward’s case for the + primitive matriarchate and the predominant importance of the female + throughout the animal kingdom. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher; she had a + little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice’s advantage. Afterwards she + hunted up the article in question, and it seemed to her quite delightfully + written and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffected writing, + coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to follow his written + thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with a perfectly new, + perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to read more of him, and + the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and hunted first among + the half-crown magazines for his essays and then through various + scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The ordinary research + paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, is apt to be rather sawdusty + in texture, and Ann Veronica was delighted to find the same easy and + confident luminosity that distinguished his work for the general reader. + She returned to these latter, and at the back of her mind, as she looked + them over again, was a very distinct resolve to quote them after the + manner of Miss Garvice at the very first opportunity. + </p> + <p> + When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with + something like surprise upon her half-day’s employment, and decided that + it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really very + interesting person indeed. + </p> + <p> + And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was so + distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some + time that this might be because she was falling in love with him. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + Yet Ann Veronica was thinking a very great deal about love. A dozen + shynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked or broken down + in her mind. All the influences about her worked with her own + predisposition and against all the traditions of her home and upbringing + to deal with the facts of life in an unabashed manner. Ramage, by a + hundred skilful hints had led her to realize that the problem of her own + life was inseparably associated with, and indeed only one special case of, + the problems of any woman’s life, and that the problem of a woman’s life + is love. + </p> + <p> + “A young man comes into life asking how best he may place himself,” Ramage + had said; “a woman comes into life thinking instinctively how best she may + give herself.” + </p> + <p> + She noted that as a good saying, and it germinated and spread tentacles of + explanation through her brain. The biological laboratory, perpetually + viewing life as pairing and breeding and selection, and again pairing and + breeding, seemed only a translated generalization of that assertion. And + all the talk of the Miniver people and the Widgett people seemed always to + be like a ship in adverse weather on the lee shore of love. “For seven + years,” said Ann Veronica, “I have been trying to keep myself from + thinking about love.... + </p> + <p> + “I have been training myself to look askance at beautiful things.” + </p> + <p> + She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She made herself + a private declaration of liberty. “This is mere nonsense, mere tongue-tied + fear!” she said. “This is the slavery of the veiled life. I might as well + be at Morningside Park. This business of love is the supreme affair in + life, it is the woman’s one event and crisis that makes up for all her + other restrictions, and I cower—as we all cower—with a + blushing and paralyzed mind until it overtakes me!... + </p> + <p> + “I’ll be hanged if I do.” + </p> + <p> + But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all that + manumission. + </p> + <p> + Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing for + openings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. But something + instinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be “silly” + and prudish she found that whenever he became at all bold in this matter + she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost entomological + indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he made it and pinned it + out for examination. In the biological laboratory that was their + invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her own mental + austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her friend, who + evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic and was willing to + give her the benefit of his experiences! Why should not she be at her ease + with him? Why should not she know things? It is hard enough anyhow for a + human being to learn, she decided, but it is a dozen times more difficult + than it need be because of all this locking of the lips and thoughts. + </p> + <p> + She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in one + direction, and talked one night of love and the facts of love with Miss + Miniver. + </p> + <p> + But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of Mrs. + Goopes’s: “Advanced people,” she said, with an air of great elucidation, + “tend to GENERALIZE love. ‘He prayeth best who loveth best—all + things both great and small.’ For my own part I go about loving.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but men;” said Ann Veronica, plunging; “don’t you want the love of + men?” + </p> + <p> + For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this question. + </p> + <p> + Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost balefully. “NO!” + she said, at last, with something in her voice that reminded Ann Veronica + of a sprung tennis-racket. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been through all that,” she went on, after a pause. + </p> + <p> + She spoke slowly. “I have never yet met a man whose intellect I could + respect.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided to + persist on principle. + </p> + <p> + “But if you had?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t imagine it,” said Miss Miniver. “And think, think”—her + voice sank—“of the horrible coarseness!” + </p> + <p> + “What coarseness?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “My dear Vee!” Her voice became very low. “Don’t you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I know—” + </p> + <p> + “Well—” Her face was an unaccustomed pink. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica ignored her friend’s confusion. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t we all rather humbug about the coarseness? All we women, I mean,” + said she. She decided to go on, after a momentary halt. “We pretend bodies + are ugly. Really they are the most beautiful things in the world. We + pretend we never think of everything that makes us what we are.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” cried Miss Miniver, almost vehemently. “You are wrong! I did not + think you thought such things. Bodies! Bodies! Horrible things! We are + souls. Love lives on a higher plane. We are not animals. If ever I did + meet a man I could love, I should love him”—her voice dropped again—“platonically.” + </p> + <p> + She made her glasses glint. “Absolutely platonically,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Soul to soul.” + </p> + <p> + She turned her face to the fire, gripped her hands upon her elbows, and + drew her thin shoulders together in a shrug. “Ugh!” she said. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica watched her and wondered about her. + </p> + <p> + “We do not want the men,” said Miss Miniver; “we do not want them, with + their sneers and loud laughter. Empty, silly, coarse brutes. Brutes! They + are the brute still with us! Science some day may teach us a way to do + without them. It is only the women matter. It is not every sort of + creature needs—these males. Some have no males.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s green-fly,” admitted Ann Veronica. “And even then—” + </p> + <p> + The conversation hung for a thoughtful moment. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand. “I wonder which of us is + right,” she said. “I haven’t a scrap—of this sort of aversion.” + </p> + <p> + “Tolstoy is so good about this,” said Miss Miniver, regardless of her + friend’s attitude. “He sees through it all. The Higher Life and the Lower. + He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts, coarse ways of living + cruelties. Simply because they are hardened by—by bestiality, and + poisoned by the juices of meat slain in anger and fermented drinks—fancy! + drinks that have been swarmed in by thousands and thousands of horrible + little bacteria!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s yeast,” said Ann Veronica—“a vegetable.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s all the same,” said Miss Miniver. “And then they are swollen up and + inflamed and drunken with matter. They are blinded to all fine and subtle + things—they look at life with bloodshot eyes and dilated nostrils. + They are arbitrary and unjust and dogmatic and brutish and lustful.” + </p> + <p> + “But do you really think men’s minds are altered by the food they eat?” + </p> + <p> + “I know it,” said Miss Miniver. “Experte credo. When I am leading a true + life, a pure and simple life free of all stimulants and excitements, I + think—I think—oh! with pellucid clearness; but if I so much as + take a mouthful of meat—or anything—the mirror is all + blurred.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + Then, arising she knew not how, like a new-born appetite, came a craving + in Ann Veronica for the sight and sound of beauty. + </p> + <p> + It was as if her aesthetic sense had become inflamed. Her mind turned and + accused itself of having been cold and hard. She began to look for beauty + and discover it in unexpected aspects and places. Hitherto she had seen it + chiefly in pictures and other works of art, incidentally, and as a thing + taken out of life. Now the sense of beauty was spreading to a multitude of + hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her. + </p> + <p> + The thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with her + biological work. She found herself asking more and more curiously, “Why, + on the principle of the survival of the fittest, have I any sense of + beauty at all?” That enabled her to go on thinking about beauty when it + seemed to her right that she should be thinking about biology. + </p> + <p> + She was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values—the two + series of explanations that her comparative anatomy on the one hand and + her sense of beauty on the other, set going in her thoughts. She could not + make up her mind which was the finer, more elemental thing, which gave its + values to the other. Was it that the struggle of things to survive + produced as a sort of necessary by-product these intense preferences and + appreciations, or was it that some mystical outer thing, some great force, + drove life beautyward, even in spite of expediency, regardless of survival + value and all the manifest discretions of life? She went to Capes with + that riddle and put it to him very carefully and clearly, and he talked + well—he always talked at some length when she took a difficulty to + him—and sent her to a various literature upon the markings of + butterflies, the incomprehensible elaboration and splendor of birds of + Paradise and humming-birds’ plumes, the patterning of tigers, and a + leopard’s spots. He was interesting and inconclusive, and the original + papers to which he referred her discursive were at best only suggestive. + Afterward, one afternoon, he hovered about her, and came and sat beside + her and talked of beauty and the riddle of beauty for some time. He + displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism in the matter. He + contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were, so to speak, + sceptically dogmatic. Their talk drifted to the beauty of music, and they + took that up again at tea-time. + </p> + <p> + But as the students sat about Miss Garvice’s tea-pot and drank tea or + smoked cigarettes, the talk got away from Capes. The Scotchman informed + Ann Veronica that your view of beauty necessarily depended on your + metaphysical premises, and the young man with the Russell-like hair became + anxious to distinguish himself by telling the Japanese student that + Western art was symmetrical and Eastern art asymmetrical, and that among + the higher organisms the tendency was toward an external symmetry veiling + an internal want of balance. Ann Veronica decided she would have to go on + with Capes another day, and, looking up, discovered him sitting on a stool + with his hands in his pockets and his head a little on one side, regarding + her with a thoughtful expression. She met his eye for a moment in curious + surprise. + </p> + <p> + He turned his eyes and stared at Miss Garvice like one who wakes from a + reverie, and then got up and strolled down the laboratory toward his + refuge, the preparation-room. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + Then one day a little thing happened that clothed itself in significance. + </p> + <p> + She had been working upon a ribbon of microtome sections of the developing + salamander, and he came to see what she had made of them. She stood up and + he sat down at the microscope, and for a time he was busy scrutinizing one + section after another. She looked down at him and saw that the sunlight + was gleaming from his cheeks, and that all over his cheeks was a fine + golden down of delicate hairs. And at the sight something leaped within + her. + </p> + <p> + Something changed for her. + </p> + <p> + She became aware of his presence as she had never been aware of any human + being in her life before. She became aware of the modelling of his ear, of + the muscles of his neck and the textures of the hair that came off his + brow, the soft minute curve of eyelid that she could just see beyond his + brow; she perceived all these familiar objects as though they were acutely + beautiful things. They WERE, she realized, acutely beautiful things. Her + sense followed the shoulders under his coat, down to where his flexible, + sensitive-looking hand rested lightly upon the table. She felt him as + something solid and strong and trustworthy beyond measure. The perception + of him flooded her being. + </p> + <p> + He got up. “Here’s something rather good,” he said, and with a start and + an effort she took his place at the microscope, while he stood beside her + and almost leaning over her. + </p> + <p> + She found she was trembling at his nearness and full of a thrilling dread + that he might touch her. She pulled herself together and put her eye to + the eye-piece. + </p> + <p> + “You see the pointer?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I see the pointer,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “It’s like this,” he said, and dragged a stool beside her and sat down + with his elbow four inches from hers and made a sketch. Then he got up and + left her. + </p> + <p> + She had a feeling at his departure as of an immense cavity, of something + enormously gone; she could not tell whether it was infinite regret or + infinite relief.... + </p> + <p> + But now Ann Veronica knew what was the matter with her. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 8 + </h2> + <p> + And as she sat on her bed that night, musing and half-undressed, she began + to run one hand down her arm and scrutinize the soft flow of muscle under + her skin. She thought of the marvellous beauty of skin, and all the + delightfulness of living texture. Oh the back of her arm she found the + faintest down of hair in the world. “Etherialized monkey,” she said. She + held out her arm straight before her, and turned her hand this way and + that. + </p> + <p> + “Why should one pretend?” she whispered. “Why should one pretend? + </p> + <p> + “Think of all the beauty in the world that is covered up and overlaid.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced shyly at the mirror above her dressing-table, and then about + her at the furniture, as though it might penetrate to the thoughts that + peeped in her mind. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” said Ann Veronica at last, “if I am beautiful? I wonder if I + shall ever shine like a light, like a translucent goddess?— + </p> + <p> + “I wonder— + </p> + <p> + “I suppose girls and women have prayed for this, have come to this—In + Babylon, in Nineveh. + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn’t one face the facts of one’s self?” + </p> + <p> + She stood up. She posed herself before her mirror and surveyed herself + with gravely thoughtful, gravely critical, and yet admiring eyes. “And, + after all, I am just one common person!” + </p> + <p> + She watched the throb of the arteries in the stem of her neck, and put her + hand at last gently and almost timidly to where her heart beat beneath her + breast. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 9 + </h2> + <p> + The realization that she was in love flooded Ann Veronica’s mind, and + altered the quality of all its topics. + </p> + <p> + She began to think persistently of Capes, and it seemed to her now that + for some weeks at least she must have been thinking persistently of him + unawares. She was surprised to find how stored her mind was with + impressions and memories of him, how vividly she remembered his gestures + and little things that he had said. It occurred to her that it was absurd + and wrong to be so continuously thinking of one engrossing topic, and she + made a strenuous effort to force her mind to other questions. + </p> + <p> + But it was extraordinary what seemingly irrelevant things could restore + her to the thought of Capes again. And when she went to sleep, then always + Capes became the novel and wonderful guest of her dreams. + </p> + <p> + For a time it really seemed all-sufficient to her that she should love. + That Capes should love her seemed beyond the compass of her imagination. + Indeed, she did not want to think of him as loving her. She wanted to + think of him as her beloved person, to be near him and watch him, to have + him going about, doing this and that, saying this and that, unconscious of + her, while she too remained unconscious of herself. To think of him as + loving her would make all that different. Then he would turn his face to + her, and she would have to think of herself in his eyes. She would become + defensive—what she did would be the thing that mattered. He would + require things of her, and she would be passionately concerned to meet his + requirements. Loving was better than that. Loving was self-forgetfulness, + pure delighting in another human being. She felt that with Capes near to + her she would be content always to go on loving. + </p> + <p> + She went next day to the schools, and her world seemed all made of + happiness just worked up roughly into shapes and occasions and duties. She + found she could do her microscope work all the better for being in love. + She winced when first she heard the preparation-room door open and Capes + came down the laboratory; but when at last he reached her she was + self-possessed. She put a stool for him at a little distance from her own, + and after he had seen the day’s work he hesitated, and then plunged into a + resumption of their discussion about beauty. + </p> + <p> + “I think,” he said, “I was a little too mystical about beauty the other + day.” + </p> + <p> + “I like the mystical way,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Our business here is the right way. I’ve been thinking, you know—I’m + not sure that primarily the perception of beauty isn’t just intensity of + feeling free from pain; intensity of perception without any tissue + destruction.” + </p> + <p> + “I like the mystical way better,” said Ann Veronica, and thought. + </p> + <p> + “A number of beautiful things are not intense.” + </p> + <p> + “But delicacy, for example, may be intensely perceived.” + </p> + <p> + “But why is one face beautiful and another not?” objected Ann Veronica; + “on your theory any two faces side by side in the sunlight ought to be + equally beautiful. One must get them with exactly the same intensity.” + </p> + <p> + He did not agree with that. “I don’t mean simply intensity of sensation. I + said intensity of perception. You may perceive harmony, proportion, + rhythm, intensely. They are things faint and slight in themselves, as + physical facts, but they are like the detonator of a bomb: they let loose + the explosive. There’s the internal factor as well as the external.... I + don’t know if I express myself clearly. I mean that the point is that + vividness of perception is the essential factor of beauty; but, of course, + vividness may be created by a whisper.” + </p> + <p> + “That brings us back,” said Ann Veronica, “to the mystery. Why should some + things and not others open the deeps?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, that might, after all, be an outcome of selection—like the + preference for blue flowers, which are not nearly so bright as yellow, of + some insects.” + </p> + <p> + “That doesn’t explain sunsets.” + </p> + <p> + “Not quite so easily as it explains an insect alighting on colored paper. + But perhaps if people didn’t like clear, bright, healthy eyes—which + is biologically understandable—they couldn’t like precious stones. + One thing may be a necessary collateral of the others. And, after all, a + fine clear sky of bright colors is the signal to come out of hiding and + rejoice and go on with life.” + </p> + <p> + “H’m!” said Ann Veronica, and shook her head. + </p> + <p> + Capes smiled cheerfully with his eyes meeting hers. “I throw it out in + passing,” he said. “What I am after is that beauty isn’t a special + inserted sort of thing; that’s my idea. It’s just life, pure life, life + nascent, running clear and strong.” + </p> + <p> + He stood up to go on to the next student. + </p> + <p> + “There’s morbid beauty,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if there is!” said Capes, and paused, and then bent down over + the boy who wore his hair like Russell. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica surveyed his sloping back for a moment, and then drew her + microscope toward her. Then for a time she sat very still. She felt that + she had passed a difficult corner, and that now she could go on talking + with him again, just as she had been used to do before she understood what + was the matter with her.... + </p> + <p> + She had one idea, she found, very clear in her mind—that she would + get a Research Scholarship, and so contrive another year in the + laboratory. + </p> + <p> + “Now I see what everything means,” said Ann Veronica to herself; and it + really felt for some days as though the secret of the universe, that had + been wrapped and hidden from her so obstinately, was at last altogether + displayed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE NINTH + </h2> + <h3> + DISCORDS + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + One afternoon, soon after Ann Veronica’s great discovery, a telegram came + into the laboratory for her. It ran: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + —————————————————————————- + | Bored | and | nothing | to | do | + |—————|—————-|—————|————|————| + | will | you | dine | with | me | + |—————|—————-|—————|————|————| + | to-night | somewhere | and | talk | I | + |—————|—————-|—————|————|————| + | shall | be | grateful | Ramage | | + —————————————————————————- +</pre> + <p> + Ann Veronica was rather pleased by this. She had not seen Ramage for ten + or eleven days, and she was quite ready for a gossip with him. And now her + mind was so full of the thought that she was in love—in love!—that + marvellous state! that I really believe she had some dim idea of talking + to him about it. At any rate, it would be good to hear him saying the sort + of things he did—perhaps now she would grasp them better—with + this world-shaking secret brandishing itself about inside her head + within a yard of him. + </p> + <p> + She was sorry to find Ramage a little disposed to be melancholy. + </p> + <p> + “I have made over seven hundred pounds in the last week,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “That’s exhilarating,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit of it,” he said; “it’s only a score in a game.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a score you can buy all sorts of things with.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing that one wants.” + </p> + <p> + He turned to the waiter, who held a wine-card. “Nothing can cheer me,” he + said, “except champagne.” He meditated. “This,” he said, and then: “No! Is + this sweeter? Very well.” + </p> + <p> + “Everything goes well with me,” he said, folding his arms under him and + regarding Ann Veronica with the slightly projecting eyes wide open. “And + I’m not happy. I believe I’m in love.” + </p> + <p> + He leaned back for his soup. + </p> + <p> + Presently he resumed: “I believe I must be in love.” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t be that,” said Ann Veronica, wisely. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, it isn’t exactly a depressing state, is it?” + </p> + <p> + “YOU don’t know.” + </p> + <p> + “One has theories,” said Ann Veronica, radiantly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, theories! Being in love is a fact.” + </p> + <p> + “It ought to make one happy.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s an unrest—a longing—What’s that?” The waiter had + intervened. “Parmesan—take it away!” + </p> + <p> + He glanced at Ann Veronica’s face, and it seemed to him that she really + was exceptionally radiant. He wondered why she thought love made people + happy, and began to talk of the smilax and pinks that adorned the table. + He filled her glass with champagne. “You MUST,” he said, “because of my + depression.” + </p> + <p> + They were eating quails when they returned to the topic of love. “What + made you think” he said, abruptly, with the gleam of avidity in his face, + “that love makes people happy?” + </p> + <p> + “I know it must.” + </p> + <p> + “But how?” + </p> + <p> + He was, she thought, a little too insistent. “Women know these things by + instinct,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” he said, “if women do know things by instinct? I have my + doubts about feminine instinct. It’s one of our conventional + superstitions. A woman is supposed to know when a man is in love with her. + Do you think she does?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica picked among her salad with a judicial expression of face. “I + think she would,” she decided. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” said Ramage, impressively. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica looked up at him and found him regarding her with eyes that + were almost woebegone, and into which, indeed, he was trying to throw much + more expression than they could carry. There was a little pause between + them, full for Ann Veronica of rapid elusive suspicions and intimations. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps one talks nonsense about a woman’s instinct,” she said. “It’s a + way of avoiding explanations. And girls and women, perhaps, are different. + I don’t know. I don’t suppose a girl can tell if a man is in love with her + or not in love with her.” Her mind went off to Capes. Her thoughts took + words for themselves. “She can’t. I suppose it depends on her own state of + mind. If one wants a thing very much, perhaps one is inclined to think one + can’t have it. I suppose if one were to love some one, one would feel + doubtful. And if one were to love some one very much, it’s just so that + one would be blindest, just when one wanted most to see.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped abruptly, afraid that Ramage might be able to infer Capes from + the things she had said, and indeed his face was very eager. + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” he said. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica blushed. “That’s all,” she said “I’m afraid I’m a little + confused about these things.” + </p> + <p> + Ramage looked at her, and then fell into deep reflection as the waiter + came to paragraph their talk again. + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever been to the opera, Ann Veronica?” said Ramage. + </p> + <p> + “Once or twice.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we go now?” + </p> + <p> + “I think I would like to listen to music. What is there?” + </p> + <p> + “Tristan.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve never heard Tristan and Isolde.” + </p> + <p> + “That settles it. We’ll go. There’s sure to be a place somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s rather jolly of you,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “It’s jolly of you to come,” said Ramage. + </p> + <p> + So presently they got into a hansom together, and Ann Veronica sat back + feeling very luxurious and pleasant, and looked at the light and stir and + misty glitter of the street traffic from under slightly drooping eyelids, + while Ramage sat closer to her than he need have done, and glanced ever + and again at her face, and made to speak and said nothing. And when they + got to Covent Garden Ramage secured one of the little upper boxes, and + they came into it as the overture began. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica took off her jacket and sat down in the corner chair, and + leaned forward to look into the great hazy warm brown cavity of the house, + and Ramage placed his chair to sit beside her and near her, facing the + stage. The music took hold of her slowly as her eyes wandered from the + indistinct still ranks of the audience to the little busy orchestra with + its quivering violins, its methodical movements of brown and silver + instruments, its brightly lit scores and shaded lights. She had never been + to the opera before except as one of a congested mass of people in the + cheaper seats, and with backs and heads and women’s hats for the frame of + the spectacle; there was by contrast a fine large sense of space and ease + in her present position. The curtain rose out of the concluding bars of + the overture and revealed Isolde on the prow of the barbaric ship. The + voice of the young seaman came floating down from the masthead, and the + story of the immortal lovers had begun. She knew the story only + imperfectly, and followed it now with a passionate and deepening interest. + The splendid voices sang on from phase to phase of love’s unfolding, the + ship drove across the sea to the beating rhythm of the rowers. The lovers + broke into passionate knowledge of themselves and each other, and then, a + jarring intervention, came King Mark amidst the shouts of the sailormen, + and stood beside them. + </p> + <p> + The curtain came festooning slowly down, the music ceased, the lights in + the auditorium glowed out, and Ann Veronica woke out of her confused dream + of involuntary and commanding love in a glory of sound and colors to + discover that Ramage was sitting close beside her with one hand resting + lightly on her waist. She made a quick movement, and the hand fell away. + </p> + <p> + “By God! Ann Veronica,” he said, sighing deeply. “This stirs one.” + </p> + <p> + She sat quite still looking at him. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you and I had drunk that love potion,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She found no ready reply to that, and he went on: “This music is the food + of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure. Life! Life and love! It + makes me want to be always young, always strong, always devoting my life—and + dying splendidly.” + </p> + <p> + “It is very beautiful,” said Ann Veronica in a low tone. + </p> + <p> + They said no more for a moment, and each was now acutely aware of the + other. Ann Veronica was excited and puzzled, with a sense of a strange and + disconcerting new light breaking over her relations with Ramage. She had + never thought of him at all in that way before. It did not shock her; it + amazed her, interested her beyond measure. But also this must not go on. + She felt he was going to say something more—something still more + personal and intimate. She was curious, and at the same time clearly + resolved she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talking upon some + impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. “What is the + exact force of a motif?” she asked at random. “Before I heard much + Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic descriptions of it from a mistress I + didn’t like at school. She gave me an impression of a sort of patched + quilt; little bits of patterned stuff coming up again and again.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped with an air of interrogation. + </p> + <p> + Ramage looked at her for a long and discriminating interval without + speaking. He seemed to be hesitating between two courses of action. “I + don’t know much about the technique of music,” he said at last, with his + eyes upon her. “It’s a matter of feeling with me.” + </p> + <p> + He contradicted himself by plunging into an exposition of motifs. + </p> + <p> + By a tacit agreement they ignored the significant thing between them, + ignored the slipping away of the ground on which they had stood together + hitherto.... + </p> + <p> + All through the love music of the second act, until the hunting horns of + Mark break in upon the dream, Ann Veronica’s consciousness was flooded + with the perception of a man close beside her, preparing some new thing to + say to her, preparing, perhaps, to touch her, stretching hungry invisible + tentacles about her. She tried to think what she should do in this + eventuality or that. Her mind had been and was full of the thought of + Capes, a huge generalized Capes-lover. And in some incomprehensible way, + Ramage was confused with Capes; she had a grotesque disposition to + persuade herself that this was really Capes who surrounded her, as it + were, with wings of desire. The fact that it was her trusted friend making + illicit love to her remained, in spite of all her effort, an insignificant + thing in her mind. The music confused and distracted her, and made her + struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam. That was the + inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The music throbbed into the + warnings that preceded the king’s irruption. + </p> + <p> + Abruptly he gripped her wrist. “I love you, Ann Veronica. I love you—with + all my heart and soul.” + </p> + <p> + She put her face closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of his. + “DON’T!” she said, and wrenched her wrist from his retaining hand. + </p> + <p> + “My God! Ann Veronica,” he said, struggling to keep his hold upon her; “my + God! Tell me—tell me now—tell me you love me!” + </p> + <p> + His expression was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered in + whispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next box peeping + beyond the partition within a yard of him. + </p> + <p> + “My hand! This isn’t the place.” + </p> + <p> + He released her hand and talked in eager undertones against an auditory + background of urgency and distress. + </p> + <p> + “Ann Veronica,” he said, “I tell you this is love. I love the soles of + your feet. I love your very breath. I have tried not to tell you—tried + to be simply your friend. It is no good. I want you. I worship you. I + would do anything—I would give anything to make you mine.... Do you + hear me? Do you hear what I am saying?... Love!” + </p> + <p> + He held her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive movement. + For a long time neither spoke again. + </p> + <p> + She sat drawn together in her chair in the corner of the box, at a loss + what to say or do—afraid, curious, perplexed. It seemed to her that + it was her duty to get up and clamor to go home to her room, to protest + against his advances as an insult. But she did not in the least want to do + that. These sweeping dignities were not within the compass of her will; + she remembered she liked Ramage, and owed things to him, and she was + interested—she was profoundly interested. He was in love with her! + She tried to grasp all the welter of values in the situation + simultaneously, and draw some conclusion from their disorder. + </p> + <p> + He began to talk again in quick undertones that she could not clearly + hear. + </p> + <p> + “I have loved you,” he was saying, “ever since you sat on that gate and + talked. I have always loved you. I don’t care what divides us. I don’t + care what else there is in the world. I want you beyond measure or + reckoning....” + </p> + <p> + His voice rose and fell amidst the music and the singing of Tristan and + King Mark, like a voice heard in a badly connected telephone. She stared + at his pleading face. + </p> + <p> + She turned to the stage, and Tristan was wounded in Kurvenal’s arms, with + Isolde at his feet, and King Mark, the incarnation of masculine force and + obligation, the masculine creditor of love and beauty, stood over him, and + the second climax was ending in wreaths and reek of melodies; and then the + curtain was coming down in a series of short rushes, the music had ended, + and the people were stirring and breaking out into applause, and the + lights of the auditorium were resuming. The lighting-up pierced the + obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped his urgent flow of words abruptly + and sat back. This helped to restore Ann Veronica’s self-command. + </p> + <p> + She turned her eyes to him again, and saw her late friend and pleasant and + trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to change into a lover, + babbling interesting inacceptable things. He looked eager and flushed and + troubled. His eyes caught at hers with passionate inquiries. “Tell me,” he + said; “speak to me.” She realized it was possible to be sorry for him—acutely + sorry for the situation. Of course this thing was absolutely impossible. + But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed. She remembered abruptly + that she was really living upon his money. She leaned forward and + addressed him. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” she said, “please don’t talk like this.” + </p> + <p> + He made to speak and did not. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t want you to do it, to go on talking to me. I don’t want to hear + you. If I had known that you had meant to talk like this I wouldn’t have + come here.” + </p> + <p> + “But how can I help it? How can I keep silence?” + </p> + <p> + “Please!” she insisted. “Please not now.” + </p> + <p> + “I MUST talk with you. I must say what I have to say!” + </p> + <p> + “But not now—not here.” + </p> + <p> + “It came,” he said. “I never planned it—And now I have begun—” + </p> + <p> + She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and as acutely that + explanations were impossible that night. She wanted to think. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” she said, “I can’t—Not now. Will you please—Not + now, or I must go.” + </p> + <p> + He stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of her thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t want to go?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But I must—I ought—” + </p> + <p> + “I MUST talk about this. Indeed I must.” + </p> + <p> + “Not now.” + </p> + <p> + “But I love you. I love you—unendurably.” + </p> + <p> + “Then don’t talk to me now. I don’t want you to talk to me now. There is a + place—This isn’t the place. You have misunderstood. I can’t explain—” + </p> + <p> + They regarded one another, each blinded to the other. “Forgive me,” he + decided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver of emotion, and + he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. “I am the most foolish of men. I + was stupid—stupid and impulsive beyond measure to burst upon you in + this way. I—I am a love-sick idiot, and not accountable for my + actions. Will you forgive me—if I say no more?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him with perplexed, earnest eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Pretend,” he said, “that all I have said hasn’t been said. And let us go + on with our evening. Why not? Imagine I’ve had a fit of hysteria—and + that I’ve come round.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt this was + the sensible way out of this oddly sinister situation. + </p> + <p> + He still watched her and questioned her. + </p> + <p> + “And let us have a talk about this—some other time. Somewhere, where + we can talk without interruption. Will you?” + </p> + <p> + She thought, and it seemed to him she had never looked so self-disciplined + and deliberate and beautiful. “Yes,” she said, “that is what we ought to + do.” But now she doubted again of the quality of the armistice they had + just made. + </p> + <p> + He had a wild impulse to shout. “Agreed,” he said with queer exaltation, + and his grip tightened on her hand. “And to-night we are friends?” + </p> + <p> + “We are friends,” said Ann Veronica, and drew her hand quickly away from + him. + </p> + <p> + “To-night we are as we have always been. Except that this music we have + been swimming in is divine. While I have been pestering you, have you + heard it? At least, you heard the first act. And all the third act is + love-sick music. Tristan dying and Isolde coming to crown his death. + Wagner had just been in love when he wrote it all. It begins with that + queer piccolo solo. Now I shall never hear it but what this evening will + come pouring back over me.” + </p> + <p> + The lights sank, the prelude to the third act was beginning, the music + rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers separated—lovers + separated with scars and memories between them, and the curtain went + reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch and the shepherd + crouching with his pipe. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + They had their explanations the next evening, but they were explanations + in quite other terms than Ann Veronica had anticipated, quite other and + much more startling and illuminating terms. Ramage came for her at her + lodgings, and she met him graciously and kindly as a queen who knows she + must needs give sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually soft and + gentle in her manner to him. He was wearing a new silk hat, with a + slightly more generous brim than its predecessor, and it suited his type + of face, robbed his dark eyes a little of their aggressiveness and gave + him a solid and dignified and benevolent air. A faint anticipation of + triumph showed in his manner and a subdued excitement. + </p> + <p> + “We’ll go to a place where we can have a private room,” he said. “Then—then + we can talk things out.” + </p> + <p> + So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and up-stairs to + a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with whiskers like a + French admiral and discretion beyond all limits in his manner. He seemed + to have expected them. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into a + minute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa, and + a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers. + </p> + <p> + “Odd little room,” said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusive + sofa. + </p> + <p> + “One can talk without undertones, so to speak,” said Ramage. “It’s—private.” + He stood looking at the preparations before them with an unusual + preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to take her jacket, a little + awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter who hung it in the corner of the + room. It appeared he had already ordered dinner and wine, and the + whiskered waiter waved in his subordinate with the soup forthwith. + </p> + <p> + “I’m going to talk of indifferent themes,” said Ramage, a little fussily, + “until these interruptions of the service are over. Then—then we + shall be together.... How did you like Tristan?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply came. + </p> + <p> + “I thought much of it amazingly beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest little + love-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of it?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + “It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get + this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately in love + with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, a tapestry + of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who love in spite of + all that is wise and respectable and right.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink from + conversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through her + mind. “I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so careless of other + considerations?” + </p> + <p> + “The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief thing in + life.” He stopped and said earnestly: “It is the chief thing in life, and + everything else goes down before it. Everything, my dear, everything!... + But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes until we have done with + this blond young gentleman from Bavaria....” + </p> + <p> + The dinner came to an end at last, and the whiskered waiter presented his + bill and evacuated the apartment and closed the door behind him with an + almost ostentatious discretion. Ramage stood up, and suddenly turned the + key in the door in an off-hand manner. “Now,” he said, “no one can blunder + in upon us. We are alone and we can say and do what we please. We two.” He + stood still, looking at her. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica tried to seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of the key + startled her, but she did not see how she could make an objection. She + felt she had stepped into a world of unknown usages. + </p> + <p> + “I have waited for this,” he said, and stood quite still, looking at her + until the silence became oppressive. + </p> + <p> + “Won’t you sit down,” she said, “and tell me what you want to say?” Her + voice was flat and faint. Suddenly she had become afraid. She struggled + not to be afraid. After all, what could happen? + </p> + <p> + He was looking at her very hard and earnestly. “Ann Veronica,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Then before she could say a word to arrest him he was at her side. + “Don’t!” she said, weakly, as he had bent down and put one arm about her + and seized her hands with his disengaged hand and kissed her—kissed + her almost upon her lips. He seemed to do ten things before she could + think to do one, to leap upon her and take possession. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s universe, which had never been altogether so respectful to + her as she could have wished, gave a shout and whirled head over heels. + Everything in the world had changed for her. If hate could kill, Ramage + would have been killed by a flash of hate. “Mr. Ramage!” she cried, and + struggled to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “My darling!” he said, clasping her resolutely in his arms, “my dearest!” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage!” she began, and his mouth sealed hers and his breath was + mixed with her breath. Her eye met his four inches away, and his was + glaring, immense, and full of resolution, a stupendous monster of an eye. + </p> + <p> + She shut her lips hard, her jaw hardened, and she set herself to struggle + with him. She wrenched her head away from his grip and got her arm between + his chest and hers. They began to wrestle fiercely. Each became + frightfully aware of the other as a plastic energetic body, of the strong + muscles of neck against cheek, of hands gripping shoulder-blade and waist. + “How dare you!” she panted, with her world screaming and grimacing insult + at her. “How dare you!” + </p> + <p> + They were both astonished at the other’s strength. Perhaps Ramage was the + more astonished. Ann Veronica had been an ardent hockey player and had had + a course of jiu-jitsu in the High School. Her defence ceased rapidly to be + in any sense ladylike, and became vigorous and effective; a strand of + black hair that had escaped its hairpins came athwart Ramage’s eyes, and + then the knuckles of a small but very hardly clinched fist had thrust + itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness under his jawbone and + ear. + </p> + <p> + “Let go!” said Ann Veronica, through her teeth, strenuously inflicting + agony, and he cried out sharply and let go and receded a pace. + </p> + <p> + “NOW!” said Ann Veronica. “Why did you dare to do that?” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Each of them stared at the other, set in a universe that had changed its + system of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. She was flushed, and her + eyes were bright and angry; her breath came sobbing, and her hair was all + abroad in wandering strands of black. He too was flushed and ruffled; one + side of his collar had slipped from its stud and he held a hand to the + corner of his jaw. + </p> + <p> + “You vixen!” said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought of his + heart. + </p> + <p> + “You had no right—” panted Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Why on earth,” he asked, “did you hurt me like that?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately attempted to + cause him pain. She ignored his question. + </p> + <p> + “I never dreamt!” she said. + </p> + <p> + “What on earth did you expect me to do, then?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; she + understood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She understood. + She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of furtive base realizations. + She wanted to cry out upon herself for the uttermost fool in existence. + </p> + <p> + “I thought you wanted to have a talk to me,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to make love to you. + </p> + <p> + “You knew it,” he added, in her momentary silence. + </p> + <p> + “You said you were in love with me,” said Ann Veronica; “I wanted to + explain—” + </p> + <p> + “I said I loved and wanted you.” The brutality of his first astonishment + was evaporating. “I am in love with you. You know I am in love with you. + And then you go—and half throttle me.... I believe you’ve crushed a + gland or something. It feels like it.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry,” said Ann Veronica. “What else was I to do?” + </p> + <p> + For some seconds she stood watching him and both were thinking very + quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether discreditable to + her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed to faint and scream at + all these happenings; she ought to have maintained a front of outraged + dignity to veil the sinking of her heart. I would like to have to tell it + so. But indeed that is not at all a good description of her attitude. She + was an indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted within + limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some low + adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at least if base, + going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent meeting-places of her + mind declaring that the whole affair was after all—they are the only + words that express it—a very great lark indeed. At the bottom of her + heart she was not a bit afraid of Ramage. She had unaccountable gleams of + sympathy with and liking for him. And the grotesquest fact was that she + did not so much loathe, as experience with a quite critical condemnation + this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before had any human being + kissed her lips.... + </p> + <p> + It was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements evaporated and + vanished and loathing came, and she really began to be thoroughly sick and + ashamed of the whole disgraceful quarrel and scuffle. + </p> + <p> + He, for his part, was trying to grasp the series of unexpected reactions + that had so wrecked their tete-a-tete. He had meant to be master of his + fate that evening and it had escaped him altogether. It had, as it were, + blown up at the concussion of his first step. It dawned upon him that he + had been abominably used by Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he said, “I brought you here to make love to you.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t understand—your idea of making love. You had better let me + go again.” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet,” he said. “I do love you. I love you all the more for the streak + of sheer devil in you.... You are the most beautiful, the most desirable + thing I have ever met in this world. It was good to kiss you, even at the + price. But, by Jove! you are fierce! You are like those Roman women who + carry stilettos in their hair.” + </p> + <p> + “I came here to talk reasonably, Mr. Ramage. It is abominable—” + </p> + <p> + “What is the use of keeping up this note of indignation, Ann Veronica? + Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean to have you! Don’t + frown me off now. Don’t go back into Victorian respectability and pretend + you don’t know and you can’t think and all the rest of it. One comes at + last to the step from dreams to reality. This is your moment. No one will + ever love you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of your body and you + night after night. I have been imaging—” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage, I came here—I didn’t suppose for one moment you would + dare—” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You want to do + everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses. You are afraid of the + warmth in your blood. It’s just because all that side of your life hasn’t + fairly begun.” + </p> + <p> + He made a step toward her. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” she said, sharply, “I have to make it plain to you. I don’t + think you understand. I don’t love you. I don’t. I can’t love you. I love + some one else. It is repulsive. It disgusts me that you should touch me.” + </p> + <p> + He stared in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. “You love some + one else?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “I love some one else. I could not dream of loving you.” + </p> + <p> + And then he flashed his whole conception of the relations of men and women + upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went with an almost + instinctive inquiry to his jawbone again. “Then why the devil,” he + demanded, “do you let me stand you dinners and the opera—and why do + you come to a cabinet particuliar with me?” + </p> + <p> + He became radiant with anger. “You mean to tell me” he said, “that you + have a lover? While I have been keeping you! Yes—keeping you!” + </p> + <p> + This view of life he hurled at her as if it were an offensive missile. It + stunned her. She felt she must fly before it and could no longer do so. + She did not think for one moment what interpretation he might put upon the + word “lover.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” she said, clinging to her one point, “I want to get out of + this horrible little room. It has all been a mistake. I have been stupid + and foolish. Will you unlock that door?” + </p> + <p> + “Never!” he said. “Confound your lover! Look here! Do you really think I + am going to run you while he makes love to you? No fear! I never heard of + anything so cool. If he wants you, let him get you. You’re mine. I’ve paid + for you and helped you, and I’m going to conquer you somehow—if I + have to break you to do it. Hitherto you’ve seen only my easy, kindly + side. But now confound it! how can you prevent it? I will kiss you.” + </p> + <p> + “You won’t!” said Ann Veronica; with the clearest note of determination. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped back quickly, and + her hand knocked a wine-glass from the table to smash noisily on the + floor. She caught at the idea. “If you come a step nearer to me,” she + said, “I will smash every glass on this table.” + </p> + <p> + “Then, by God!” he said, “you’ll be locked up!” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was disconcerted for a moment. She had a vision of policemen, + reproving magistrates, a crowded court, public disgrace. She saw her aunt + in tears, her father white-faced and hard hit. “Don’t come nearer!” she + said. + </p> + <p> + There was a discreet knocking at the door, and Ramage’s face changed. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said, under her breath, “you can’t face it.” And she knew that + she was safe. + </p> + <p> + He went to the door. “It’s all right,” he said, reassuringly to the + inquirer without. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and dishevelled + disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of her hair, while Ramage + parleyed with inaudible interrogations. “A glass slipped from the table,” + he explained.... “Non. Fas du tout. Non.... Niente.... Bitte!... Oui, dans + la note.... Presently. Presently.” That conversation ended and he turned + to her again. + </p> + <p> + “I am going,” she said grimly, with three hairpins in her mouth. + </p> + <p> + She took her hat from the peg in the corner and began to put it on. He + regarded that perennial miracle of pinning with wrathful eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Look here, Ann Veronica,” he began. “I want a plain word with you about + all this. Do you mean to tell me you didn’t understand why I wanted you to + come here?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit of it,” said Ann Veronica stoutly. + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t expect that I should kiss you?” + </p> + <p> + “How was I to know that a man would—would think it was possible—when + there was nothing—no love?” + </p> + <p> + “How did I know there wasn’t love?” + </p> + <p> + That silenced her for a moment. “And what on earth,” he said, “do you + think the world is made of? Why do you think I have been doing things for + you? The abstract pleasure of goodness? Are you one of the members of that + great white sisterhood that takes and does not give? The good accepting + woman! Do you really suppose a girl is entitled to live at free quarters + on any man she meets without giving any return?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought,” said Ann Veronica, “you were my friend.” + </p> + <p> + “Friend! What have a man and a girl in common to make them friends? Ask + that lover of yours! And even with friends, would you have it all Give on + one side and all Take on the other?... Does HE know I keep you?... You + won’t have a man’s lips near you, but you’ll eat out of his hand fast + enough.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was stung to helpless anger. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” she cried, “you are outrageous! You understand nothing. You + are—horrible. Will you let me go out of this room?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” cried Ramage; “hear me out! I’ll have that satisfaction, anyhow. You + women, with your tricks of evasion, you’re a sex of swindlers. You have + all the instinctive dexterity of parasites. You make yourself charming for + help. You climb by disappointing men. This lover of yours—” + </p> + <p> + “He doesn’t know!” cried Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you know.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica could have wept with vexation. Indeed, a note of weeping + broke her voice for a moment as she burst out, “You know as well as I do + that money was a loan!” + </p> + <p> + “Loan!” + </p> + <p> + “You yourself called it a loan!” + </p> + <p> + “Euphuism. We both understood that.” + </p> + <p> + “You shall have every penny of it back.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll frame it—when I get it.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll pay you if I have to work at shirt-making at threepence an hour.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll never pay me. You think you will. It’s your way of glossing over + the ethical position. It’s the sort of way a woman always does gloss over + her ethical positions. You’re all dependents—all of you. By + instinct. Only you good ones—shirk. You shirk a straightforward and + decent return for what you get from us—taking refuge in purity and + delicacy and such-like when it comes to payment.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage,” said Ann Veronica, “I want to go—NOW!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + But she did not get away just then. + </p> + <p> + Ramage’s bitterness passed as abruptly as his aggression. “Oh, Ann + Veronica!” he cried, “I cannot let you go like this! You don’t understand. + You can’t possibly understand!” + </p> + <p> + He began a confused explanation, a perplexing contradictory apology for + his urgency and wrath. He loved Ann Veronica, he said; he was so mad to + have her that he defeated himself, and did crude and alarming and + senseless things. His vicious abusiveness vanished. He suddenly became + eloquent and plausible. He did make her perceive something of the acute, + tormenting desire for her that had arisen in him and possessed him. She + stood, as it were, directed doorward, with her eyes watching every + movement, listening to him, repelled by him and yet dimly understanding. + </p> + <p> + At any rate he made it very clear that night that there was an + ineradicable discord in life, a jarring something that must shatter all + her dreams of a way of living for women that would enable them to be free + and spacious and friendly with men, and that was the passionate + predisposition of men to believe that the love of women can be earned and + won and controlled and compelled. + </p> + <p> + He flung aside all his talk of help and disinterested friendship as though + it had never been even a disguise between them, as though from the first + it was no more than a fancy dress they had put quite understandingly upon + their relationship. He had set out to win her, and she had let him start. + And at the thought of that other lover—he was convinced that that + beloved person was a lover, and she found herself unable to say a word to + explain to him that this other person, the person she loved, did not even + know of her love—Ramage grew angry and savage once more, and + returned suddenly to gibe and insult. Men do services for the love of + women, and the woman who takes must pay. Such was the simple code that + displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left that arid rule clear of the + least mist of refinement or delicacy. + </p> + <p> + That he should pay forty pounds to help this girl who preferred another + man was no less in his eyes than a fraud and mockery that made her denial + a maddening and outrageous disgrace to him. And this though he was + evidently passionately in love with her. + </p> + <p> + For a while he threatened her. “You have put all your life in my hands,” + he declared. “Think of that check you endorsed. There it is—against + you. I defy you to explain it away. What do you think people will make of + that? What will this lover of yours make of that?” + </p> + <p> + At intervals Ann Veronica demanded to go, declaring her undying resolve to + repay him at any cost, and made short movements doorward. + </p> + <p> + But at last this ordeal was over, and Ramage opened the door. She emerged + with a white face and wide-open eyes upon a little, red-lit landing. She + went past three keenly observant and ostentatiously preoccupied waiters + down the thick-carpeted staircase and out of the Hotel Rococo, that + remarkable laboratory of relationships, past a tall porter in blue and + crimson, into a cool, clear night. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + When Ann Veronica reached her little bed-sitting-room again, every nerve + in her body was quivering with shame and self-disgust. + </p> + <p> + She threw hat and coat on the bed and sat down before the fire. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” she said, splintering the surviving piece of coal into + indignant flame-spurting fragments with one dexterous blow, “what am I to + do? + </p> + <p> + “I’m in a hole!—mess is a better word, expresses it better. I’m in a + mess—a nasty mess! a filthy mess! Oh, no end of a mess! + </p> + <p> + “Do you hear, Ann Veronica?—you’re in a nasty, filthy, unforgivable + mess! + </p> + <p> + “Haven’t I just made a silly mess of things? + </p> + <p> + “Forty pounds! I haven’t got twenty!” + </p> + <p> + She got up, stamped with her foot, and then, suddenly remembering the + lodger below, sat down and wrenched off her boots. + </p> + <p> + “This is what comes of being a young woman up to date. By Jove! I’m + beginning to have my doubts about freedom! + </p> + <p> + “You silly young woman, Ann Veronica! You silly young woman! The + smeariness of the thing! + </p> + <p> + “The smeariness of this sort of thing!... Mauled about!” + </p> + <p> + She fell to rubbing her insulted lips savagely with the back of her hand. + “Ugh!” she said. + </p> + <p> + “The young women of Jane Austen’s time didn’t get into this sort of + scrape! At least—one thinks so.... I wonder if some of them did—and + it didn’t get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet moments. Most of them + didn’t, anyhow. They were properly brought up, and sat still and straight, + and took the luck fate brought them as gentlewomen should. And they had an + idea of what men were like behind all their nicety. They knew they were + all Bogey in disguise. I didn’t! I didn’t! After all—” + </p> + <p> + For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its defensive restraints as + though it was the one desirable thing. That world of fine printed cambrics + and escorted maidens, of delicate secondary meanings and refined + allusiveness, presented itself to her imagination with the brightness of a + lost paradise, as indeed for many women it is a lost paradise. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if there is anything wrong with my manners,” she said. “I wonder + if I’ve been properly brought up. If I had been quite quiet and white and + dignified, wouldn’t it have been different? Would he have dared?...” + </p> + <p> + For some creditable moments in her life Ann Veronica was utterly disgusted + with herself; she was wrung with a passionate and belated desire to move + gently, to speak softly and ambiguously—to be, in effect, prim. + </p> + <p> + Horrible details recurred to her. + </p> + <p> + “Why, among other things, did I put my knuckles in his neck—deliberately + to hurt him?” + </p> + <p> + She tried to sound the humorous note. + </p> + <p> + “Are you aware, Ann Veronica, you nearly throttled that gentleman?” + </p> + <p> + Then she reviled her own foolish way of putting it. + </p> + <p> + “You ass and imbecile, Ann Veronica! You female cad! Cad! Cad!... Why + aren’t you folded up clean in lavender—as every young woman ought to + be? What have you been doing with yourself?...” + </p> + <p> + She raked into the fire with the poker. + </p> + <p> + “All of which doesn’t help me in the slightest degree to pay back that + money.” + </p> + <p> + That night was the most intolerable one that Ann Veronica had ever spent. + She washed her face with unwonted elaboration before she went to bed. This + time, there was no doubt, she did not sleep. The more she disentangled the + lines of her situation the deeper grew her self-disgust. Occasionally the + mere fact of lying in bed became unendurable, and she rolled out and + marched about her room and whispered abuse of herself—usually until + she hit against some article of furniture. + </p> + <p> + Then she would have quiet times, in which she would say to herself, “Now + look here! Let me think it all out!” + </p> + <p> + For the first time, it seemed to her, she faced the facts of a woman’s + position in the world—the meagre realities of such freedom as it + permitted her, the almost unavoidable obligation to some individual man + under which she must labor for even a foothold in the world. She had flung + away from her father’s support with the finest assumption of personal + independence. And here she was—in a mess because it had been + impossible for her to avoid leaning upon another man. She had thought—What + had she thought? That this dependence of women was but an illusion which + needed only to be denied to vanish. She had denied it with vigor, and here + she was! + </p> + <p> + She did not so much exhaust this general question as pass from it to her + insoluble individual problem again: “What am I to do?” + </p> + <p> + She wanted first of all to fling the forty pounds back into Ramage’s face. + But she had spent nearly half of it, and had no conception of how such a + sum could be made good again. She thought of all sorts of odd and + desperate expedients, and with passionate petulance rejected them all. + </p> + <p> + She took refuge in beating her pillow and inventing insulting epithets for + herself. She got up, drew up her blind, and stared out of window at a + dawn-cold vision of chimneys for a time, and then went and sat on the edge + of her bed. What was the alternative to going home? No alternative + appeared in that darkness. + </p> + <p> + It seemed intolerable that she should go home and admit herself beaten. + She did most urgently desire to save her face in Morningside Park, and for + long hours she could think of no way of putting it that would not be in + the nature of unconditional admission of defeat. + </p> + <p> + “I’d rather go as a chorus-girl,” she said. + </p> + <p> + She was not very clear about the position and duties of a chorus-girl, but + it certainly had the air of being a last desperate resort. There sprang + from that a vague hope that perhaps she might extort a capitulation from + her father by a threat to seek that position, and then with overwhelming + clearness it came to her that whatever happened she would never be able to + tell her father about her debt. The completest capitulation would not wipe + out that trouble. And she felt that if she went home it was imperative to + pay. She would always be going to and fro up the Avenue, getting glimpses + of Ramage, seeing him in trains.... + </p> + <p> + For a time she promenaded the room. + </p> + <p> + “Why did I ever take that loan? An idiot girl in an asylum would have + known better than that! + </p> + <p> + “Vulgarity of soul and innocence of mind—the worst of all + conceivable combinations. I wish some one would kill Ramage by + accident!... + </p> + <p> + “But then they would find that check endorsed in his bureau.... + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what he will do?” She tried to imagine situations that might + arise out of Ramage’s antagonism, for he had been so bitter and savage + that she could not believe that he would leave things as they were. + </p> + <p> + The next morning she went out with her post-office savings bank-book, and + telegraphed for a warrant to draw out all the money she had in the world. + It amounted to two-and-twenty pounds. She addressed an envelope to Ramage, + and scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, “The rest shall follow.” The money + would be available in the afternoon, and she would send him four + five-pound notes. The rest she meant to keep for her immediate + necessities. A little relieved by this step toward reinstatement, she went + on to the Imperial College to forget her muddle of problems for a time, if + she could, in the presence of Capes. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + For a time the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue. Her + sleepless night had left her languid but not stupefied, and for an hour or + so the work distracted her altogether from her troubles. + </p> + <p> + Then, after Capes had been through her work and had gone on, it came to + her that the fabric of this life of hers was doomed to almost immediate + collapse; that in a little while these studies would cease, and perhaps + she would never set eyes on him again. After that consolations fled. + </p> + <p> + The overnight nervous strain began to tell; she became inattentive to the + work before her, and it did not get on. She felt sleepy and unusually + irritable. She lunched at a creamery in Great Portland Street, and as the + day was full of wintry sunshine, spent the rest of the lunch-hour in a + drowsy gloom, which she imagined to be thought upon the problems of her + position, on a seat in Regent’s Park. A girl of fifteen or sixteen gave + her a handbill that she regarded as a tract until she saw “Votes for + Women” at the top. That turned her mind to the more generalized aspects of + her perplexities again. She had never been so disposed to agree that the + position of women in the modern world is intolerable. + </p> + <p> + Capes joined the students at tea, and displayed himself in an impish mood + that sometimes possessed him. He did not notice that Ann Veronica was + preoccupied and heavy-eyed. Miss Klegg raised the question of women’s + suffrage, and he set himself to provoke a duel between her and Miss + Garvice. The youth with the hair brushed back and the spectacled Scotchman + joined in the fray for and against the women’s vote. + </p> + <p> + Ever and again Capes appealed to Ann Veronica. He liked to draw her in, + and she did her best to talk. But she did not talk readily, and in order + to say something she plunged a little, and felt she plunged. Capes scored + back with an uncompromising vigor that was his way of complimenting her + intelligence. But this afternoon it discovered an unusual vein of + irritability in her. He had been reading Belfort Bax, and declared himself + a convert. He contrasted the lot of women in general with the lot of men, + presented men as patient, self-immolating martyrs, and women as the + pampered favorites of Nature. A vein of conviction mingled with his + burlesque. + </p> + <p> + For a time he and Miss Klegg contradicted one another. + </p> + <p> + The question ceased to be a tea-table talk, and became suddenly tragically + real for Ann Veronica. There he sat, cheerfully friendly in his sex’s + freedom—the man she loved, the one man she cared should unlock the + way to the wide world for her imprisoned feminine possibilities, and he + seemed regardless that she stifled under his eyes; he made a jest of all + this passionate insurgence of the souls of women against the fate of their + conditions. + </p> + <p> + Miss Garvice repeated again, and almost in the same words she used at + every discussion, her contribution to the great question. + </p> + <p> + She thought that women were not made for the struggle and turmoil of life—their + place was the little world, the home; that their power lay not in votes + but in influence over men and in making the minds of their children fine + and splendid. + </p> + <p> + “Women should understand men’s affairs, perhaps,” said Miss Garvice, “but + to mingle in them is just to sacrifice that power of influencing they can + exercise now.” + </p> + <p> + “There IS something sound in that position,” said Capes, intervening as if + to defend Miss Garvice against a possible attack from Ann Veronica. “It + may not be just and so forth, but, after all, it is how things are. Women + are not in the world in the same sense that men are—fighting + individuals in a scramble. I don’t see how they can be. Every home is a + little recess, a niche, out of the world of business and competition, in + which women and the future shelter.” + </p> + <p> + “A little pit!” said Ann Veronica; “a little prison!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s just as often a little refuge. Anyhow, that is how things are.” + </p> + <p> + “And the man stands as the master at the mouth of the den.” + </p> + <p> + “As sentinel. You forget all the mass of training and tradition and + instinct that go to make him a tolerable master. Nature is a mother; her + sympathies have always been feminist, and she has tempered the man to the + shorn woman.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish,” said Ann Veronica, with sudden anger, “that you could know what + it is to live in a pit!” + </p> + <p> + She stood up as she spoke, and put down her cup beside Miss Garvice’s. She + addressed Capes as though she spoke to him alone. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t endure it,” she said. + </p> + <p> + Every one turned to her in astonishment. + </p> + <p> + She felt she had to go on. “No man can realize,” she said, “what that pit + can be. The way—the way we are led on! We are taught to believe we + are free in the world, to think we are queens.... Then we find out. We + find out no man will treat a woman fairly as man to man—no man. He + wants you—or he doesn’t; and then he helps some other woman against + you.... What you say is probably all true and necessary.... But think of + the disillusionment! Except for our sex we have minds like men, desires + like men. We come out into the world, some of us—” + </p> + <p> + She paused. Her words, as she said them, seemed to her to mean nothing, + and there was so much that struggled for expression. “Women are mocked,” + she said. “Whenever they try to take hold of life a man intervenes.” + </p> + <p> + She felt, with a sudden horror, that she might weep. She wished she had + not stood up. She wondered wildly why she had stood up. No one spoke, and + she was impelled to flounder on. “Think of the mockery!” she said. “Think + how dumb we find ourselves and stifled! I know we seem to have a sort of + freedom.... Have you ever tried to run and jump in petticoats, Mr. Capes? + Well, think what it must be to live in them—soul and mind and body! + It’s fun for a man to jest at our position.” + </p> + <p> + “I wasn’t jesting,” said Capes, abruptly. + </p> + <p> + She stood face to face with him, and his voice cut across her speech and + made her stop abruptly. She was sore and overstrung, and it was + intolerable to her that he should stand within three yards of her + unsuspectingly, with an incalculably vast power over her happiness. She + was sore with the perplexities of her preposterous position. She was sick + of herself, of her life, of everything but him; and for him all her masked + and hidden being was crying out. + </p> + <p> + She stopped abruptly at the sound of his voice, and lost the thread of + what she was saying. In the pause she realized the attention of the others + converged upon her, and that the tears were brimming over her eyes. She + felt a storm of emotion surging up within her. She became aware of the + Scotch student regarding her with stupendous amazement, a tea-cup poised + in one hairy hand and his faceted glasses showing a various enlargement of + segments of his eye. + </p> + <p> + The door into the passage offered itself with an irresistible invitation—the + one alternative to a public, inexplicable passion of weeping. + </p> + <p> + Capes flashed to an understanding of her intention, sprang to his feet, + and opened the door for her retreat. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 8 + </h2> + <p> + “Why should I ever come back?” she said to herself, as she went down the + staircase. + </p> + <p> + She went to the post-office and drew out and sent off her money to Ramage. + And then she came out into the street, sure only of one thing—that + she could not return directly to her lodgings. She wanted air—and + the distraction of having moving and changing things about her. The + evenings were beginning to draw out, and it would not be dark for an hour. + She resolved to walk across the Park to the Zoological gardens, and so on + by way of Primrose Hill to Hampstead Heath. There she would wander about + in the kindly darkness. And think things out.... + </p> + <p> + Presently she became aware of footsteps hurrying after her, and glanced + back to find Miss Klegg, a little out of breath, in pursuit. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica halted a pace, and Miss Klegg came alongside. + </p> + <p> + “Do YOU go across the Park?” + </p> + <p> + “Not usually. But I’m going to-day. I want a walk.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not surprised at it. I thought Mr. Capes most trying.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, it wasn’t that. I’ve had a headache all day.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought Mr. Capes most unfair,” Miss Klegg went on in a small, even + voice; “MOST unfair! I’m glad you spoke out as you did.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t mind that little argument.” + </p> + <p> + “You gave it him well. What you said wanted saying. After you went he got + up and took refuge in the preparation-room. Or else <i>I</i> would have + finished him.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica said nothing, and Miss Klegg went on: “He very often IS—most + unfair. He has a way of sitting on people. He wouldn’t like it if people + did it to him. He jumps the words out of your mouth; he takes hold of what + you have to say before you have had time to express it properly.” + </p> + <p> + Pause. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose he’s frightfully clever,” said Miss Klegg. + </p> + <p> + “He’s a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he can’t be much over thirty,” + said Miss Klegg. + </p> + <p> + “He writes very well,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “He can’t be more than thirty. He must have married when he was quite a + young man.” + </p> + <p> + “Married?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you know he was married?” asked Miss Klegg, and was struck by a + thought that made her glance quickly at her companion. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had no answer for a moment. She turned her head away sharply. + Some automaton within her produced in a quite unfamiliar voice the remark, + “They’re playing football.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s too far for the ball to reach us,” said Miss Klegg. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know Mr. Capes was married,” said Ann Veronica, resuming the + conversation with an entire disappearance of her former lassitude. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes,” said Miss Klegg; “I thought every one knew.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Ann Veronica, offhandedly. “Never heard anything of it.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought every one knew. I thought every one had heard about it.” + </p> + <p> + “But why?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s married—and, I believe, living separated from his wife. There + was a case, or something, some years ago.” + </p> + <p> + “What case?” + </p> + <p> + “A divorce—or something—I don’t know. But I have heard that he + almost had to leave the schools. If it hadn’t been for Professor Russell + standing up for him, they say he would have had to leave.” + </p> + <p> + “Was he divorced, do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but he got himself mixed up in a divorce case. I forget the + particulars, but I know it was something very disagreeable. It was among + artistic people.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was silent for a while. + </p> + <p> + “I thought every one had heard,” said Miss Klegg. “Or I wouldn’t have said + anything about it.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose all men,” said Ann Veronica, in a tone of detached criticism, + “get some such entanglement. And, anyhow, it doesn’t matter to us.” She + turned abruptly at right angles to the path they followed. “This is my way + back to my side of the Park,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I thought you were coming right across the Park.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh no,” said Ann Veronica; “I have some work to do. I just wanted a + breath of air. And they’ll shut the gates presently. It’s not far from + twilight.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 9 + </h2> + <p> + She was sitting brooding over her fire about ten o’clock that night when a + sealed and registered envelope was brought up to her. + </p> + <p> + She opened it and drew out a letter, and folded within it were the notes + she had sent off to Ramage that day. The letter began: + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAREST GIRL,—I cannot let you do this foolish thing—” + </p> + <p> + She crumpled notes and letter together in her hand, and then with a + passionate gesture flung them into the fire. Instantly she seized the + poker and made a desperate effort to get them out again. But she was only + able to save a corner of the letter. The twenty pounds burned with + avidity. + </p> + <p> + She remained for some seconds crouching at the fender, poker in hand. + </p> + <p> + “By Jove!” she said, standing up at last, “that about finishes it, Ann + Veronica!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE TENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE SUFFRAGETTES + </h3> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + “There is only one way out of all this,” said Ann Veronica, sitting up in + her little bed in the darkness and biting at her nails. + </p> + <p> + “I thought I was just up against Morningside Park and father, but it’s the + whole order of things—the whole blessed order of things....” + </p> + <p> + She shivered. She frowned and gripped her hands about her knees very + tightly. Her mind developed into savage wrath at the present conditions of + a woman’s life. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose all life is an affair of chances. But a woman’s life is all + chance. It’s artificially chance. Find your man, that’s the rule. All the + rest is humbug and delicacy. He’s the handle of life for you. He will let + you live if it pleases him.... + </p> + <p> + “Can’t it be altered? + </p> + <p> + “I suppose an actress is free?...” + </p> + <p> + She tried to think of some altered state of affairs in which these + monstrous limitations would be alleviated, in which women would stand on + their own feet in equal citizenship with men. For a time she brooded on + the ideals and suggestions of the Socialists, on the vague intimations of + an Endowment of Motherhood, of a complete relaxation of that intense + individual dependence for women which is woven into the existing social + order. At the back of her mind there seemed always one irrelevant + qualifying spectator whose presence she sought to disregard. She would not + look at him, would not think of him; when her mind wavered, then she + muttered to herself in the darkness so as to keep hold of her + generalizations. + </p> + <p> + “It is true. It is no good waiving the thing; it is true. Unless women are + never to be free, never to be even respected, there must be a generation + of martyrs.... Why shouldn’t we be martyrs? There’s nothing else for most + of us, anyhow. It’s a sort of blacklegging to want to have a life of one’s + own....” + </p> + <p> + She repeated, as if she answered an objector: “A sort of blacklegging. + </p> + <p> + “A sex of blacklegging clients.” + </p> + <p> + Her mind diverged to other aspects, and another type of womanhood. + </p> + <p> + “Poor little Miniver! What can she be but what she is?... Because she + states her case in a tangle, drags it through swamps of nonsense, it + doesn’t alter the fact that she is right.” + </p> + <p> + That phrase about dragging the truth through swamps of nonsense she + remembered from Capes. At the recollection that it was his, she seemed to + fall through a thin surface, as one might fall through the crust of a lava + into glowing depths. She wallowed for a time in the thought of Capes, + unable to escape from his image and the idea of his presence in her life. + </p> + <p> + She let her mind run into dreams of that cloud paradise of an altered + world in which the Goopes and Minivers, the Fabians and reforming people + believed. Across that world was written in letters of light, “Endowment of + Motherhood.” Suppose in some complex yet conceivable way women were + endowed, were no longer economically and socially dependent on men. “If + one was free,” she said, “one could go to him.... This vile hovering to + catch a man’s eye!... One could go to him and tell him one loved him. I + want to love him. A little love from him would be enough. It would hurt no + one. It would not burden him with any obligation.” + </p> + <p> + She groaned aloud and bowed her forehead to her knees. She floundered + deep. She wanted to kiss his feet. His feet would have the firm texture of + his hands. + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly her spirit rose in revolt. “I will not have this slavery,” + she said. “I will not have this slavery.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her fist ceilingward. “Do you hear!” she said “whatever you are, + wherever you are! I will not be slave to the thought of any man, slave to + the customs of any time. Confound this slavery of sex! I am a man! I will + get this under if I am killed in doing it!” + </p> + <p> + She scowled into the cold blacknesses about her. + </p> + <p> + “Manning,” she said, and contemplated a figure of inaggressive + persistence. “No!” Her thoughts had turned in a new direction. + </p> + <p> + “It doesn’t matter,” she said, after a long interval, “if they are absurd. + They mean something. They mean everything that women can mean—except + submission. The vote is only the beginning, the necessary beginning. If we + do not begin—” + </p> + <p> + She had come to a resolution. Abruptly she got out of bed, smoothed her + sheet and straightened her pillow and lay down, and fell almost instantly + asleep. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + The next morning was as dark and foggy as if it was mid-November instead + of early March. Ann Veronica woke rather later than usual, and lay awake + for some minutes before she remembered a certain resolution she had taken + in the small hours. Then instantly she got out of bed and proceeded to + dress. + </p> + <p> + She did not start for the Imperial College. She spent the morning up to + ten in writing a series of unsuccessful letters to Ramage, which she tore + up unfinished; and finally she desisted and put on her jacket and went out + into the lamp-lit obscurity and slimy streets. She turned a resolute face + southward. + </p> + <p> + She followed Oxford Street into Holborn, and then she inquired for + Chancery Lane. There she sought and at last found 107A, one of those + heterogeneous piles of offices which occupy the eastern side of the lane. + She studied the painted names of firms and persons and enterprises on the + wall, and discovered that the Women’s Bond of Freedom occupied several + contiguous suites on the first floor. She went up-stairs and hesitated + between four doors with ground-glass panes, each of which professed “The + Women’s Bond of Freedom” in neat black letters. She opened one and found + herself in a large untidy room set with chairs that were a little + disarranged as if by an overnight meeting. On the walls were notice-boards + bearing clusters of newspaper slips, three or four big posters of monster + meetings, one of which Ann Veronica had attended with Miss Miniver, and a + series of announcements in purple copying-ink, and in one corner was a + pile of banners. There was no one at all in this room, but through the + half-open door of one of the small apartments that gave upon it she had a + glimpse of two very young girls sitting at a littered table and writing + briskly. + </p> + <p> + She walked across to this apartment and, opening the door a little wider, + discovered a press section of the movement at work. + </p> + <p> + “I want to inquire,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Next door,” said a spectacled young person of seventeen or eighteen, with + an impatient indication of the direction. + </p> + <p> + In the adjacent apartment Ann Veronica found a middle-aged woman with a + tired face under the tired hat she wore, sitting at a desk opening letters + while a dusky, untidy girl of eight-or nine-and-twenty hammered + industriously at a typewriter. The tired woman looked up in inquiring + silence at Ann Veronica’s diffident entry. + </p> + <p> + “I want to know more about this movement,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Are you with us?” said the tired woman. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know,” said Ann Veronica; “I think I am. I want very much to do + something for women. But I want to know what you are doing.” + </p> + <p> + The tired woman sat still for a moment. “You haven’t come here to make a + lot of difficulties?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said Ann Veronica, “but I want to know.” + </p> + <p> + The tired woman shut her eyes tightly for a moment, and then looked with + them at Ann Veronica. “What can you do?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Do?” + </p> + <p> + “Are you prepared to do things for us? Distribute bills? Write letters? + Interrupt meetings? Canvass at elections? Face dangers?” + </p> + <p> + “If I am satisfied—” + </p> + <p> + “If we satisfy you?” + </p> + <p> + “Then, if possible, I would like to go to prison.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t nice going to prison.” + </p> + <p> + “It would suit me.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t nice getting there.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s a question of detail,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + The tired woman looked quietly at her. “What are your objections?” she + said. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t objections exactly. I want to know what you are doing; how you + think this work of yours really does serve women.” + </p> + <p> + “We are working for the equal citizenship of men and women,” said the + tired woman. “Women have been and are treated as the inferiors of men, we + want to make them their equals.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Ann Veronica, “I agree to that. But—” + </p> + <p> + The tired woman raised her eyebrows in mild protest. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t the question more complicated than that?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “You could have a talk to Miss Kitty Brett this afternoon, if you liked. + Shall I make an appointment for you?” + </p> + <p> + Miss Kitty Brett was one of the most conspicuous leaders of the movement. + Ann Veronica snatched at the opportunity, and spent most of the + intervening time in the Assyrian Court of the British Museum, reading and + thinking over a little book upon the feminist movement the tired woman had + made her buy. She got a bun and some cocoa in the little refreshment-room, + and then wandered through the galleries up-stairs, crowded with Polynesian + idols and Polynesian dancing-garments, and all the simple immodest + accessories to life in Polynesia, to a seat among the mummies. She was + trying to bring her problems to a head, and her mind insisted upon being + even more discursive and atmospheric than usual. It generalized everything + she put to it. + </p> + <p> + “Why should women be dependent on men?” she asked; and the question was at + once converted into a system of variations upon the theme of “Why are + things as they are?”—“Why are human beings viviparous?”—“Why + are people hungry thrice a day?”—“Why does one faint at danger?” + </p> + <p> + She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human face of that + desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings of social life. It + looked very patient, she thought, and a little self-satisfied. It looked + as if it had taken its world for granted and prospered on that assumption—a + world in which children were trained to obey their elders and the wills of + women over-ruled as a matter of course. It was wonderful to think this + thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps once it had desired some + other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one had kissed the brow that + was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken cheek with loving fingers, held + that stringy neck with passionately living hands. But all of that was + forgotten. “In the end,” it seemed to be thinking, “they embalmed me with + the utmost respect—sound spices chosen to endure—the best! I + took my world as I found it. THINGS ARE SO!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s first impression of Kitty Brett was that she was aggressive + and disagreeable; her next that she was a person of amazing persuasive + power. She was perhaps three-and-twenty, and very pink and + healthy-looking, showing a great deal of white and rounded neck above her + business-like but altogether feminine blouse, and a good deal of plump, + gesticulating forearm out of her short sleeve. She had animated dark + blue-gray eyes under her fine eyebrows, and dark brown hair that rolled + back simply and effectively from her broad low forehead. And she was about + as capable of intelligent argument as a runaway steam-roller. She was a + trained being—trained by an implacable mother to one end. + </p> + <p> + She spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She did not so much deal with Ann + Veronica’s interpolations as dispose of them with quick and use-hardened + repartee, and then she went on with a fine directness to sketch the case + for her agitation, for that remarkable rebellion of the women that was + then agitating the whole world of politics and discussion. She assumed + with a kind of mesmeric force all the propositions that Ann Veronica + wanted her to define. + </p> + <p> + “What do we want? What is the goal?” asked Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Freedom! Citizenship! And the way to that—the way to everything—is + the Vote.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica said something about a general change of ideas. + </p> + <p> + “How can you change people’s ideas if you have no power?” said Kitty + Brett. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was not ready enough to deal with that counter-stroke. + </p> + <p> + “One doesn’t want to turn the whole thing into a mere sex antagonism.” + </p> + <p> + “When women get justice,” said Kitty Brett, “there will be no sex + antagonism. None at all. Until then we mean to keep on hammering away.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems to me that much of a woman’s difficulties are economic.” + </p> + <p> + “That will follow,” said Kitty Brett—“that will follow.” + </p> + <p> + She interrupted as Ann Veronica was about to speak again, with a bright + contagious hopefulness. “Everything will follow,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Ann Veronica, trying to think where they were, trying to get + things plain again that had seemed plain enough in the quiet of the night. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing was ever done,” Miss Brett asserted, “without a certain element + of Faith. After we have got the Vote and are recognized as citizens, then + we can come to all these other things.” + </p> + <p> + Even in the glamour of Miss Brett’s assurance it seemed to Ann Veronica + that this was, after all, no more than the gospel of Miss Miniver with a + new set of resonances. And like that gospel it meant something, something + different from its phrases, something elusive, and yet something that in + spite of the superficial incoherence of its phrasing, was largely + essentially true. There was something holding women down, holding women + back, and if it wasn’t exactly man-made law, man-made law was an aspect of + it. There was something indeed holding the whole species back from the + imaginable largeness of life.... + </p> + <p> + “The Vote is the symbol of everything,” said Miss Brett. + </p> + <p> + She made an abrupt personal appeal. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! please don’t lose yourself in a wilderness of secondary + considerations,” she said. “Don’t ask me to tell you all that women can + do, all that women can be. There is a new life, different from the old + life of dependence, possible. If only we are not divided. If only we work + together. This is the one movement that brings women of different classes + together for a common purpose. If you could see how it gives them souls, + women who have taken things for granted, who have given themselves up + altogether to pettiness and vanity....” + </p> + <p> + “Give me something to do,” said Ann Veronica, interrupting her persuasions + at last. “It has been very kind of you to see me, but I don’t want to sit + and talk and use your time any longer. I want to do something. I want to + hammer myself against all this that pens women in. I feel that I shall + stifle unless I can do something—and do something soon.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + It was not Ann Veronica’s fault that the night’s work should have taken + upon itself the forms of wild burlesque. She was in deadly earnest in + everything she did. It seemed to her the last desperate attack upon the + universe that would not let her live as she desired to live, that penned + her in and controlled her and directed her and disapproved of her, the + same invincible wrappering, the same leaden tyranny of a universe that she + had vowed to overcome after that memorable conflict with her father at + Morningside Park. + </p> + <p> + She was listed for the raid—she was informed it was to be a raid + upon the House of Commons, though no particulars were given her—and + told to go alone to 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, and not to ask any + policeman to direct her. 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, she found was not + a house but a yard in an obscure street, with big gates and the name of + Podgers & Carlo, Carriers and Furniture Removers, thereon. She was + perplexed by this, and stood for some seconds in the empty street + hesitating, until the appearance of another circumspect woman under the + street lamp at the corner reassured her. In one of the big gates was a + little door, and she rapped at this. It was immediately opened by a man + with light eyelashes and a manner suggestive of restrained passion. “Come + right in,” he hissed under his breath, with the true conspirator’s note, + closed the door very softly and pointed, “Through there!” + </p> + <p> + By the meagre light of a gas lamp she perceived a cobbled yard with four + large furniture vans standing with horses and lamps alight. A slender + young man, wearing glasses, appeared from the shadow of the nearest van. + “Are you A, B, C, or D?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “They told me D,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Through there,” he said, and pointed with the pamphlet he was carrying. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica found herself in a little stirring crowd of excited women, + whispering and tittering and speaking in undertones. + </p> + <p> + The light was poor, so that she saw their gleaming faces dimly and + indistinctly. No one spoke to her. She stood among them, watching them and + feeling curiously alien to them. The oblique ruddy lighting distorted them + oddly, made queer bars and patches of shadow upon their clothes. “It’s + Kitty’s idea,” said one, “we are to go in the vans.” + </p> + <p> + “Kitty is wonderful,” said another. + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful!” + </p> + <p> + “I have always longed for prison service,” said a voice, “always. From the + beginning. But it’s only now I’m able to do it.” + </p> + <p> + A little blond creature close at hand suddenly gave way to a fit of + hysterical laughter, and caught up the end of it with a sob. + </p> + <p> + “Before I took up the Suffrage,” a firm, flat voice remarked, “I could + scarcely walk up-stairs without palpitations.” + </p> + <p> + Some one hidden from Ann Veronica appeared to be marshalling the assembly. + “We have to get in, I think,” said a nice little old lady in a bonnet to + Ann Veronica, speaking with a voice that quavered a little. “My dear, can + you see in this light? I think I would like to get in. Which is C?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica, with a curious sinking of the heart, regarded the black + cavities of the vans. Their doors stood open, and placards with big + letters indicated the section assigned to each. She directed the little + old woman and then made her way to van D. A young woman with a white badge + on her arm stood and counted the sections as they entered their vans. + </p> + <p> + “When they tap the roof,” she said, in a voice of authority, “you are to + come out. You will be opposite the big entrance in Old Palace Yard. It’s + the public entrance. You are to make for that and get into the lobby if + you can, and so try and reach the floor of the House, crying ‘Votes for + Women!’ as you go.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke like a mistress addressing school-children. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t bunch too much as you come out,” she added. + </p> + <p> + “All right?” asked the man with the light eyelashes, suddenly appearing in + the doorway. He waited for an instant, wasting an encouraging smile in the + imperfect light, and then shut the doors of the van, leaving the women in + darkness.... + </p> + <p> + The van started with a jerk and rumbled on its way. + </p> + <p> + “It’s like Troy!” said a voice of rapture. “It’s exactly like Troy!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + So Ann Veronica, enterprising and a little dubious as ever, mingled with + the stream of history and wrote her Christian name upon the police-court + records of the land. + </p> + <p> + But out of a belated regard for her father she wrote the surname of some + one else. + </p> + <p> + Some day, when the rewards of literature permit the arduous research + required, the Campaign of the Women will find its Carlyle, and the + particulars of that marvellous series of exploits by which Miss Brett and + her colleagues nagged the whole Western world into the discussion of + women’s position become the material for the most delightful and amazing + descriptions. At present the world waits for that writer, and the confused + record of the newspapers remains the only resource of the curious. When he + comes he will do that raid of the pantechnicons the justice it deserves; + he will picture the orderly evening scene about the Imperial Legislature + in convincing detail, the coming and going of cabs and motor-cabs and + broughams through the chill, damp evening into New Palace Yard, the + reinforced but untroubled and unsuspecting police about the entries of + those great buildings whose square and panelled Victorian Gothic streams + up from the glare of the lamps into the murkiness of the night; Big Ben + shining overhead, an unassailable beacon, and the incidental traffic of + Westminster, cabs, carts, and glowing omnibuses going to and from the + bridge. About the Abbey and Abingdon Street stood the outer pickets and + detachments of the police, their attention all directed westward to where + the women in Caxton Hall, Westminster, hummed like an angry hive. Squads + reached to the very portal of that centre of disturbance. And through all + these defences and into Old Palace Yard, into the very vitals of the + defenders’ position, lumbered the unsuspected vans. + </p> + <p> + They travelled past the few idle sightseers who had braved the uninviting + evening to see what the Suffragettes might be doing; they pulled up + unchallenged within thirty yards of those coveted portals. + </p> + <p> + And then they disgorged. + </p> + <p> + Were I a painter of subject pictures, I would exhaust all my skill in + proportion and perspective and atmosphere upon the august seat of empire, + I would present it gray and dignified and immense and respectable beyond + any mere verbal description, and then, in vivid black and very small, I + would put in those valiantly impertinent vans, squatting at the base of + its altitudes and pouring out a swift, straggling rush of ominous little + black objects, minute figures of determined women at war with the + universe. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica was in their very forefront. + </p> + <p> + In an instant the expectant calm of Westminster was ended, and the very + Speaker in the chair blenched at the sound of the policemen’s whistles. + The bolder members in the House left their places to go lobbyward, + grinning. Others pulled hats over their noses, cowered in their seats, and + feigned that all was right with the world. In Old Palace Yard everybody + ran. They either ran to see or ran for shelter. Even two Cabinet Ministers + took to their heels, grinning insincerely. At the opening of the van doors + and the emergence into the fresh air Ann Veronica’s doubt and depression + gave place to the wildest exhilaration. That same adventurousness that had + already buoyed her through crises that would have overwhelmed any normally + feminine girl with shame and horror now became uppermost again. Before her + was a great Gothic portal. Through that she had to go. + </p> + <p> + Past her shot the little old lady in the bonnet, running incredibly fast, + but otherwise still alertly respectable, and she was making a strange + threatening sound as she ran, such as one would use in driving ducks out + of a garden—“B-r-r-r-r-r—!” and pawing with black-gloved + hands. The policemen were closing in from the sides to intervene. The + little old lady struck like a projectile upon the resounding chest of the + foremost of these, and then Ann Veronica had got past and was ascending + the steps. + </p> + <p> + Then most horribly she was clasped about the waist from behind and lifted + from the ground. + </p> + <p> + At that a new element poured into her excitement, an element of wild + disgust and terror. She had never experienced anything so disagreeable in + her life as the sense of being held helplessly off her feet. She screamed + involuntarily—she had never in her life screamed before—and + then she began to wriggle and fight like a frightened animal against the + men who were holding her. + </p> + <p> + The affair passed at one leap from a spree to a nightmare of violence and + disgust. Her hair got loose, her hat came over one eye, and she had no arm + free to replace it. She felt she must suffocate if these men did not put + her down, and for a time they would not put her down. Then with an + indescribable relief her feet were on the pavement, and she was being + urged along by two policemen, who were gripping her wrists in an + irresistible expert manner. She was writhing to get her hands loose and + found herself gasping with passionate violence, “It’s damnable!—damnable!” + to the manifest disgust of the fatherly policeman on her right. + </p> + <p> + Then they had released her arms and were trying to push her away. + </p> + <p> + “You be off, missie,” said the fatherly policeman. “This ain’t no place + for you.” + </p> + <p> + He pushed her a dozen yards along the greasy pavement with flat, + well-trained hands that there seemed to be no opposing. Before her + stretched blank spaces, dotted with running people coming toward her, and + below them railings and a statue. She almost submitted to this ending of + her adventure. But at the word “home” she turned again. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t go home,” she said; “I won’t!” and she evaded the clutch of the + fatherly policeman and tried to thrust herself past him in the direction + of that big portal. “Steady on!” he cried. + </p> + <p> + A diversion was created by the violent struggles of the little old lady. + She seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. A knot of three + policemen in conflict with her staggered toward Ann Veronica’s attendants + and distracted their attention. “I WILL be arrested! I WON’T go home!” the + little old lady was screaming over and over again. They put her down, and + she leaped at them; she smote a helmet to the ground. + </p> + <p> + “You’ll have to take her!” shouted an inspector on horseback, and she + echoed his cry: “You’ll have to take me!” They seized upon her and lifted + her, and she screamed. Ann Veronica became violently excited at the sight. + “You cowards!” said Ann Veronica, “put her down!” and tore herself from a + detaining hand and battered with her fists upon the big red ear and blue + shoulder of the policeman who held the little old lady. + </p> + <p> + So Ann Veronica also was arrested. + </p> + <p> + And then came the vile experience of being forced and borne along the + street to the police-station. Whatever anticipation Ann Veronica had + formed of this vanished in the reality. Presently she was going through a + swaying, noisy crowd, whose faces grinned and stared pitilessly in the + light of the electric standards. “Go it, miss!” cried one. “Kick aht at + ‘em!” though, indeed, she went now with Christian meekness, resenting only + the thrusting policemen’s hands. Several people in the crowd seemed to be + fighting. Insulting cries became frequent and various, but for the most + part she could not understand what was said. “Who’ll mind the baby nar?” + was one of the night’s inspirations, and very frequent. A lean young man + in spectacles pursued her for some time, crying “Courage! Courage!” + Somebody threw a dab of mud at her, and some of it got down her neck. + Immeasurable disgust possessed her. She felt draggled and insulted beyond + redemption. + </p> + <p> + She could not hide her face. She attempted by a sheer act of will to end + the scene, to will herself out of it anywhere. She had a horrible glimpse + of the once nice little old lady being also borne stationward, still + faintly battling and very muddy—one lock of grayish hair straggling + over her neck, her face scared, white, but triumphant. Her bonnet dropped + off and was trampled into the gutter. A little Cockney recovered it, and + made ridiculous attempts to get to her and replace it. + </p> + <p> + “You must arrest me!” she gasped, breathlessly, insisting insanely on a + point already carried; “you shall!” + </p> + <p> + The police-station at the end seemed to Ann Veronica like a refuge from + unnamable disgraces. She hesitated about her name, and, being prompted, + gave it at last as Ann Veronica Smith, 107A, Chancery Lane.... + </p> + <p> + Indignation carried her through that night, that men and the world could + so entreat her. The arrested women were herded in a passage of the Panton + Street Police-station that opened upon a cell too unclean for occupation, + and most of them spent the night standing. Hot coffee and cakes were sent + in to them in the morning by some intelligent sympathizer, or she would + have starved all day. Submission to the inevitable carried her through the + circumstances of her appearance before the magistrate. + </p> + <p> + He was no doubt doing his best to express the attitude of society toward + these wearily heroic defendants, but he seemed to be merely rude and + unfair to Ann Veronica. He was not, it seemed, the proper stipendiary at + all, and there had been some demur to his jurisdiction that had ruffled + him. He resented being regarded as irregular. He felt he was human wisdom + prudentially interpolated.... “You silly wimmin,” he said over and over + again throughout the hearing, plucking at his blotting-pad with busy + hands. “You silly creatures! Ugh! Fie upon you!” The court was crowded + with people, for the most part supporters and admirers of the defendants, + and the man with the light eyelashes was conspicuously active and + omnipresent. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s appearance was brief and undistinguished. She had nothing + to say for herself. She was guided into the dock and prompted by a helpful + police inspector. She was aware of the body of the court, of clerks seated + at a black table littered with papers, of policemen standing about stiffly + with expressions of conscious integrity, and a murmuring background of the + heads and shoulders of spectators close behind her. On a high chair behind + a raised counter the stipendiary’s substitute regarded her malevolently + over his glasses. A disagreeable young man, with red hair and a loose + mouth, seated at the reporter’s table, was only too manifestly sketching + her. + </p> + <p> + She was interested by the swearing of the witnesses. The kissing of the + book struck her as particularly odd, and then the policemen gave their + evidence in staccato jerks and stereotyped phrases. + </p> + <p> + “Have you anything to ask the witness?” asked the helpful inspector. + </p> + <p> + The ribald demons that infested the back of Ann Veronica’s mind urged + various facetious interrogations upon her, as, for example, where the + witness had acquired his prose style. She controlled herself, and answered + meekly, “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Ann Veronica Smith,” the magistrate remarked when the case was all + before him, “you’re a good-looking, strong, respectable gell, and it’s a + pity you silly young wimmin can’t find something better to do with your + exuberance. Two-and-twenty! I can’t imagine what your parents can be + thinking about to let you get into these scrapes.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s mind was filled with confused unutterable replies. + </p> + <p> + “You are persuaded to come and take part in these outrageous proceedings—many + of you, I am convinced, have no idea whatever of their nature. I don’t + suppose you could tell me even the derivation of suffrage if I asked you. + No! not even the derivation! But the fashion’s been set and in it you must + be.” + </p> + <p> + The men at the reporter’s table lifted their eyebrows, smiled faintly, and + leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One with the appearance of + a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. They had got all this down already—they + heard the substance of it now for the fourteenth time. The stipendiary + would have done it all very differently. + </p> + <p> + She found presently she was out of the dock and confronted with the + alternative of being bound over in one surety for the sum of forty pounds—whatever + that might mean or a month’s imprisonment. + </p> + <p> + “Second class,” said some one, but first and second were all alike to her. + She elected to go to prison. + </p> + <p> + At last, after a long rumbling journey in a stuffy windowless van, she + reached Canongate Prison—for Holloway had its quota already. It was + bad luck to go to Canongate. + </p> + <p> + Prison was beastly. Prison was bleak without spaciousness, and pervaded by + a faint, oppressive smell; and she had to wait two hours in the sullenly + defiant company of two unclean women thieves before a cell could be + assigned to her. Its dreariness, like the filthiness of the police cell, + was a discovery for her. She had imagined that prisons were white-tiled + places, reeking of lime-wash and immaculately sanitary. Instead, they + appeared to be at the hygienic level of tramps’ lodging-houses. She was + bathed in turbid water that had already been used. She was not allowed to + bathe herself: another prisoner, with a privileged manner, washed her. + Conscientious objectors to that process are not permitted, she found, in + Canongate. Her hair was washed for her also. Then they dressed her in a + dirty dress of coarse serge and a cap, and took away her own clothes. The + dress came to her only too manifestly unwashed from its former wearer; + even the under-linen they gave her seemed unclean. Horrible memories of + things seen beneath the microscope of the baser forms of life crawled + across her mind and set her shuddering with imagined irritations. She sat + on the edge of the bed—the wardress was too busy with the flood of + arrivals that day to discover that she had it down—and her skin was + shivering from the contact of these garments. She surveyed accommodation + that seemed at first merely austere, and became more and more manifestly + inadequate as the moments fled by. She meditated profoundly through + several enormous cold hours on all that had happened and all that she had + done since the swirl of the suffrage movement had submerged her personal + affairs.... + </p> + <p> + Very slowly emerging out of a phase of stupefaction, these personal + affairs and her personal problem resumed possession of her mind. She had + imagined she had drowned them altogether. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THOUGHTS IN PRISON + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + The first night in prison she found it impossible to sleep. The bed was + hard beyond any experience of hers, the bed-clothes coarse and + insufficient, the cell at once cold and stuffy. The little grating in the + door, the sense of constant inspection, worried her. She kept opening her + eyes and looking at it. She was fatigued physically and mentally, and + neither mind nor body could rest. She became aware that at regular + intervals a light flashed upon her face and a bodiless eye regarded her, + and this, as the night wore on, became a torment.... + </p> + <p> + Capes came back into her mind. He haunted a state between hectic dreaming + and mild delirium, and she found herself talking aloud to him. All through + the night an entirely impossible and monumental Capes confronted her, and + she argued with him about men and women. She visualized him as in a + policeman’s uniform and quite impassive. On some insane score she fancied + she had to state her case in verse. “We are the music and you are the + instrument,” she said; “we are verse and you are prose. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “For men have reason, women rhyme + A man scores always, all the time.” + </pre> + <p> + This couplet sprang into her mind from nowhere, and immediately begot an + endless series of similar couplets that she began to compose and address + to Capes. They came teeming distressfully through her aching brain: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A man can kick, his skirts don’t tear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “His dress for no man lays a snare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + For hats that fail and hats that flare; + Toppers their universal wear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “Men’s waists are neither here nor there; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “A man can manage without hair; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “There are no males at men to stare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + “And children must we women bear— +</pre> + <p> + “Oh, damn!” she cried, as the hundred-and-first couplet or so presented + itself in her unwilling brain. + </p> + <p> + For a time she worried about that compulsory bath and cutaneous diseases. + </p> + <p> + Then she fell into a fever of remorse for the habit of bad language she + had acquired. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A man can smoke, a man can swear; + A man scores always, everywhere.” + </pre> + <p> + She rolled over on her face, and stuffed her fingers in her ears to shut + out the rhythm from her mind. She lay still for a long time, and her mind + resumed at a more tolerable pace. She found herself talking to Capes in an + undertone of rational admission. + </p> + <p> + “There is something to be said for the lady-like theory after all,” she + admitted. “Women ought to be gentle and submissive persons, strong only in + virtue and in resistance to evil compulsion. My dear—I can call you + that here, anyhow—I know that. The Victorians over-did it a little, + I admit. Their idea of maidenly innocence was just a blank white—the + sort of flat white that doesn’t shine. But that doesn’t alter the fact + that there IS innocence. And I’ve read, and thought, and guessed, and + looked—until MY innocence—it’s smirched. + </p> + <p> + “Smirched!... + </p> + <p> + “You see, dear, one IS passionately anxious for something—what is + it? One wants to be CLEAN. You want me to be clean. You would want me to + be clean, if you gave me a thought, that is.... + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if you give me a thought.... + </p> + <p> + “I’m not a good woman. I don’t mean I’m not a good woman—I mean that + I’m not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I hardly know what + I am saying. I mean I’m not a good specimen of a woman. I’ve got a streak + of male. Things happen to women—proper women—and all they have + to do is to take them well. They’ve just got to keep white. But I’m always + trying to make things happen. And I get myself dirty... + </p> + <p> + “It’s all dirt that washes off, dear, but it’s dirt. + </p> + <p> + “The white unaggressive woman who corrects and nurses and serves, and is + worshipped and betrayed—the martyr-queen of men, the white + mother.... You can’t do that sort of thing unless you do it over religion, + and there’s no religion in me—of that sort—worth a rap. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not gentle. Certainly not a gentlewoman. + </p> + <p> + “I’m not coarse—no! But I’ve got no purity of mind—no real + purity of mind. A good woman’s mind has angels with flaming swords at the + portals to keep out fallen thoughts.... + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if there are any good women really. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I didn’t swear. I do swear. It began as a joke.... It developed + into a sort of secret and private bad manners. It’s got to be at last like + tobacco-ash over all my sayings and doings.... + </p> + <p> + “‘Go it, missie,’ they said; “kick aht!’ + </p> + <p> + “I swore at that policeman—and disgusted him. Disgusted him! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “For men policemen never blush; + A man in all things scores so much... +</pre> + <p> + “Damn! Things are getting plainer. It must be the dawn creeping in. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Now here hath been dawning another blue day; + I’m just a poor woman, please take it away. +</pre> + <p> + “Oh, sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + “Now,” said Ann Veronica, after the half-hour of exercise, and sitting on + the uncomfortable wooden seat without a back that was her perch by day, + “it’s no good staying here in a sort of maze. I’ve got nothing to do for a + month but think. I may as well think. I ought to be able to think things + out. + </p> + <p> + “How shall I put the question? What am I? What have I got to do with + myself?... + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if many people HAVE thought things out? + </p> + <p> + “Are we all just seizing hold of phrases and obeying moods? + </p> + <p> + “It wasn’t so with old-fashioned people, they knew right from wrong; they + had a clear-cut, religious faith that seemed to explain everything and + give a rule for everything. We haven’t. I haven’t, anyhow. And it’s no + good pretending there is one when there isn’t.... I suppose I believe in + God.... Never really thought about Him—people don’t.. .. I suppose + my creed is, ‘I believe rather indistinctly in God the Father Almighty, + substratum of the evolutionary process, and, in a vein of vague + sentimentality that doesn’t give a datum for anything at all, in Jesus + Christ, His Son.’... + </p> + <p> + “It’s no sort of good, Ann Veronica, pretending one does believe when one + doesn’t.... + </p> + <p> + “And as for praying for faith—this sort of monologue is about as + near as any one of my sort ever gets to prayer. Aren’t I asking—asking + plainly now?... + </p> + <p> + “We’ve all been mixing our ideas, and we’ve got intellectual hot coppers—every + blessed one of us.... + </p> + <p> + “A confusion of motives—that’s what I am!... + </p> + <p> + “There is this absurd craving for Mr. Capes—the ‘Capes crave,’ they + would call it in America. Why do I want him so badly? Why do I want him, + and think about him, and fail to get away from him? + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t all of me. + </p> + <p> + “The first person you love, Ann Veronica, is yourself—get hold of + that! The soul you have to save is Ann Veronica’s soul....” + </p> + <p> + She knelt upon the floor of her cell and clasped her hands, and remained + for a long time in silence. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, God!” she said at last, “how I wish I had been taught to pray!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + She had some idea of putting these subtle and difficult issues to the + chaplain when she was warned of his advent. But she had not reckoned with + the etiquette of Canongate. She got up, as she had been told to do, at his + appearance, and he amazed her by sitting down, according to custom, on her + stool. He still wore his hat, to show that the days of miracles and Christ + being civil to sinners are over forever. She perceived that his + countenance was only composed by a great effort, his features severely + compressed. He was ruffled, and his ears were red, no doubt from some + adjacent controversy. He classified her as he seated himself. + </p> + <p> + “Another young woman, I suppose,” he said, “who knows better than her + Maker about her place in the world. Have you anything to ask me?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica readjusted her mind hastily. Her back stiffened. She produced + from the depths of her pride the ugly investigatory note of the modern + district visitor. “Are you a special sort of clergyman,” she said, after a + pause, and looking down her nose at him, “or do you go to the + Universities?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” he said, profoundly. + </p> + <p> + He panted for a moment with unuttered replies, and then, with a scornful + gesture, got up and left the cell. + </p> + <p> + So that Ann Veronica was not able to get the expert advice she certainly + needed upon her spiritual state. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + After a day or so she thought more steadily. She found herself in a phase + of violent reaction against the suffrage movement, a phase greatly + promoted by one of those unreasonable objections people of Ann Veronica’s + temperament take at times—to the girl in the next cell to her own. + She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still more + foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. She was + noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably + done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that silenced Ann + Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard slouched round with + carelessly dispersed feet. Ann Veronica decided that “hoydenish ragger” + was the only phrase to express her. She was always breaking rules, + whispering asides, intimating signals. She became at times an embodiment + for Ann Veronica of all that made the suffrage movement defective and + unsatisfying. + </p> + <p> + She was always initiating petty breaches of discipline. Her greatest + exploit was the howling before the mid-day meal. This was an imitation of + the noises made by the carnivora at the Zoological Gardens at + feeding-time; the idea was taken up by prisoner after prisoner until the + whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican + chatterings, and feline yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of hysterical + laughter. To many in that crowded solitude it came as an extraordinary + relief. It was better even than the hymn-singing. But it annoyed Ann + Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Idiots!” she said, when she heard this pandemonium, and with particular + reference to this young lady with the throaty contralto next door. + “Intolerable idiots!...” + </p> + <p> + It took some days for this phase to pass, and it left some scars and + something like a decision. “Violence won’t do it,” said Ann Veronica. + “Begin violence, and the woman goes under.... + </p> + <p> + “But all the rest of our case is right.... Yes.” + </p> + <p> + As the long, solitary days wore on, Ann Veronica found a number of + definite attitudes and conclusions in her mind. + </p> + <p> + One of these was a classification of women into women who are and women + who are not hostile to men. “The real reason why I am out of place here,” + she said, “is because I like men. I can talk with them. I’ve never found + them hostile. I’ve got no feminine class feeling. I don’t want any laws or + freedoms to protect me from a man like Mr. Capes. I know that in my heart + I would take whatever he gave.... + </p> + <p> + “A woman wants a proper alliance with a man, a man who is better stuff + than herself. She wants that and needs it more than anything else in the + world. It may not be just, it may not be fair, but things are so. It isn’t + law, nor custom, nor masculine violence settled that. It is just how + things happen to be. She wants to be free—she wants to be legally + and economically free, so as not to be subject to the wrong man; but only + God, who made the world, can alter things to prevent her being slave to + the right one. + </p> + <p> + “And if she can’t have the right one? + </p> + <p> + “We’ve developed such a quality of preference!” + </p> + <p> + She rubbed her knuckles into her forehead. “Oh, but life is difficult!” + she groaned. “When you loosen the tangle in one place you tie a knot in + another.... Before there is any change, any real change, I shall be dead—dead—dead + and finished—two hundred years!...” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + One afternoon, while everything was still, the wardress heard her cry out + suddenly and alarmingly, and with great and unmistakable passion, “Why in + the name of goodness did I burn that twenty pounds?” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + She sat regarding her dinner. The meat was coarse and disagreeably served. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose some one makes a bit on the food,” she said.... + </p> + <p> + “One has such ridiculous ideas of the wicked common people and the + beautiful machinery of order that ropes them in. And here are these + places, full of contagion! + </p> + <p> + “Of course, this is the real texture of life, this is what we refined + secure people forget. We think the whole thing is straight and noble at + bottom, and it isn’t. We think if we just defy the friends we have and go + out into the world everything will become easy and splendid. One doesn’t + realize that even the sort of civilization one has at Morningside Park is + held together with difficulty. By policemen one mustn’t shock. + </p> + <p> + “This isn’t a world for an innocent girl to walk about in. It’s a world of + dirt and skin diseases and parasites. It’s a world in which the law can be + a stupid pig and the police-stations dirty dens. One wants helpers and + protectors—and clean water. + </p> + <p> + “Am I becoming reasonable or am I being tamed? + </p> + <p> + “I’m simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and puzzling. + I thought one had only to take it by the throat. + </p> + <p> + “It hasn’t GOT a throat!” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + One day the idea of self-sacrifice came into her head, and she made, she + thought, some important moral discoveries. + </p> + <p> + It came with an extreme effect of re-discovery, a remarkable novelty. + “What have I been all this time?” she asked herself, and answered, “Just + stark egotism, crude assertion of Ann Veronica, without a modest rag of + religion or discipline or respect for authority to cover me!” + </p> + <p> + It seemed to her as though she had at last found the touchstone of + conduct. She perceived she had never really thought of any one but herself + in all her acts and plans. Even Capes had been for her merely an excitant + to passionate love—a mere idol at whose feet one could enjoy + imaginative wallowings. She had set out to get a beautiful life, a free, + untrammelled life, self-development, without counting the cost either for + herself or others. + </p> + <p> + “I have hurt my father,” she said; “I have hurt my aunt. I have hurt and + snubbed poor Teddy. I’ve made no one happy. I deserve pretty much what + I’ve got.... + </p> + <p> + “If only because of the way one hurts others if one kicks loose and free, + one has to submit.... + </p> + <p> + “Broken-in people! I suppose the world is just all egotistical children + and broken-in people. + </p> + <p> + “Your little flag of pride must flutter down with the rest of them, Ann + Veronica.... + </p> + <p> + “Compromise—and kindness. + </p> + <p> + “Compromise and kindness. + </p> + <p> + “Who are YOU that the world should lie down at your feet? + </p> + <p> + “You’ve got to be a decent citizen, Ann Veronica. Take your half loaf with + the others. You mustn’t go clawing after a man that doesn’t belong to you—that + isn’t even interested in you. That’s one thing clear. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve got to take the decent reasonable way. You’ve got to adjust + yourself to the people God has set about you. Every one else does.” + </p> + <p> + She thought more and more along that line. There was no reason why she + shouldn’t be Capes’ friend. He did like her, anyhow; he was always pleased + to be with her. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be his restrained + and dignified friend. After all, that was life. Nothing was given away, + and no one came so rich to the stall as to command all that it had to + offer. Every one has to make a deal with the world. + </p> + <p> + It would be very good to be Capes’ friend. + </p> + <p> + She might be able to go on with biology, possibly even work upon the same + questions that he dealt with.... + </p> + <p> + Perhaps her granddaughter might marry his grandson.... + </p> + <p> + It grew clear to her that throughout all her wild raid for independence + she had done nothing for anybody, and many people had done things for her. + She thought of her aunt and that purse that was dropped on the table, and + of many troublesome and ill-requited kindnesses; she thought of the help + of the Widgetts, of Teddy’s admiration; she thought, with a new-born + charity, of her father, of Manning’s conscientious unselfishness, of Miss + Miniver’s devotion. + </p> + <p> + “And for me it has been Pride and Pride and Pride! + </p> + <p> + “I am the prodigal daughter. I will arise and go to my father, and will + say unto him— + </p> + <p> + “I suppose pride and self-assertion are sin? Sinned against heaven—Yes, + I have sinned against heaven and before thee.... + </p> + <p> + “Poor old daddy! I wonder if he’ll spend much on the fatted calf?... + </p> + <p> + “The wrappered life-discipline! One comes to that at last. I begin to + understand Jane Austen and chintz covers and decency and refinement and + all the rest of it. One puts gloves on one’s greedy fingers. One learns to + sit up... + </p> + <p> + “And somehow or other,” she added, after a long interval, “I must pay Mr. + Ramage back his forty pounds.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE TWELFTH + </h2> + <h3> + ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + </h3> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + Ann Veronica made a strenuous attempt to carry out her good resolutions. + She meditated long and carefully upon her letter to her father before she + wrote it, and gravely and deliberately again before she despatched it. + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR FATHER,” she wrote,—“I have been thinking hard about + everything since I was sent to this prison. All these experiences have + taught me a great deal about life and realities. I see that compromise is + more necessary to life than I ignorantly supposed it to be, and I have + been trying to get Lord Morley’s book on that subject, but it does not + appear to be available in the prison library, and the chaplain seems to + regard him as an undesirable writer.” + </p> + <p> + At this point she had perceived that she was drifting from her subject. + </p> + <p> + “I must read him when I come out. But I see very clearly that as things + are a daughter is necessarily dependent on her father and bound while she + is in that position to live harmoniously with his ideals.” + </p> + <p> + “Bit starchy,” said Ann Veronica, and altered the key abruptly. Her + concluding paragraph was, on the whole, perhaps, hardly starchy enough. + </p> + <p> + “Really, daddy, I am sorry for all I have done to put you out. May I come + home and try to be a better daughter to you? + </p> + <p> + “ANN VERONICA.” + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Her aunt came to meet her outside Canongate, and, being a little confused + between what was official and what was merely a rebellious slight upon our + national justice, found herself involved in a triumphal procession to the + Vindicator Vegetarian Restaurant, and was specifically and personally + cheered by a small, shabby crowd outside that rendezvous. They decided + quite audibly, “She’s an Old Dear, anyhow. Voting wouldn’t do no ‘arm to + ‘er.” She was on the very verge of a vegetarian meal before she recovered + her head again. Obeying some fine instinct, she had come to the prison in + a dark veil, but she had pushed this up to kiss Ann Veronica and never + drawn it down again. Eggs were procured for her, and she sat out the + subsequent emotions and eloquence with the dignity becoming an injured + lady of good family. The quiet encounter and home-coming Ann Veronica and + she had contemplated was entirely disorganized by this misadventure; there + were no adequate explanations, and after they had settled things at Ann + Veronica’s lodgings, they reached home in the early afternoon estranged + and depressed, with headaches and the trumpet voice of the indomitable + Kitty Brett still ringing in their ears. + </p> + <p> + “Dreadful women, my dear!” said Miss Stanley. “And some of them quite + pretty and well dressed. No need to do such things. We must never let your + father know we went. Why ever did you let me get into that wagonette?” + </p> + <p> + “I thought we had to,” said Ann Veronica, who had also been a little under + the compulsion of the marshals of the occasion. “It was very tiring.” + </p> + <p> + “We will have some tea in the drawing-room as soon as ever we can—and + I will take my things off. I don’t think I shall ever care for this bonnet + again. We’ll have some buttered toast. Your poor cheeks are quite sunken + and hollow....” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + When Ann Veronica found herself in her father’s study that evening it + seemed to her for a moment as though all the events of the past six months + had been a dream. The big gray spaces of London, the shop-lit, greasy, + shining streets, had become very remote; the biological laboratory with + its work and emotions, the meetings and discussions, the rides in hansoms + with Ramage, were like things in a book read and closed. The study seemed + absolutely unaltered, there was still the same lamp with a little chip out + of the shade, still the same gas fire, still the same bundle of blue and + white papers, it seemed, with the same pink tape about them, at the elbow + of the arm-chair, still the same father. He sat in much the same attitude, + and she stood just as she had stood when he told her she could not go to + the Fadden Dance. Both had dropped the rather elaborate politeness of the + dining-room, and in their faces an impartial observer would have + discovered little lines of obstinate wilfulness in common; a certain + hardness—sharp, indeed, in the father and softly rounded in the + daughter—but hardness nevertheless, that made every compromise a + bargain and every charity a discount. + </p> + <p> + “And so you have been thinking?” her father began, quoting her letter and + looking over his slanting glasses at her. “Well, my girl, I wish you had + thought about all these things before these bothers began.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica perceived that she must not forget to remain eminently + reasonable. + </p> + <p> + “One has to live and learn,” she remarked, with a passable imitation of + her father’s manner. + </p> + <p> + “So long as you learn,” said Mr. Stanley. + </p> + <p> + Their conversation hung. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose, daddy, you’ve no objection to my going on with my work at the + Imperial College?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “If it will keep you busy,” he said, with a faintly ironical smile. + </p> + <p> + “The fees are paid to the end of the session.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded twice, with his eyes on the fire, as though that was a formal + statement. + </p> + <p> + “You may go on with that work,” he said, “so long as you keep in harmony + with things at home. I’m convinced that much of Russell’s investigations + are on wrong lines, unsound lines. Still—you must learn for + yourself. You’re of age—you’re of age.” + </p> + <p> + “The work’s almost essential for the B.Sc. exam.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s scandalous, but I suppose it is.” + </p> + <p> + Their agreement so far seemed remarkable, and yet as a home-coming the + thing was a little lacking in warmth. But Ann Veronica had still to get to + her chief topic. They were silent for a time. “It’s a period of crude + views and crude work,” said Mr. Stanley. “Still, these Mendelian fellows + seem likely to give Mr. Russell trouble, a good lot of trouble. Some of + their specimens—wonderfully selected, wonderfully got up.” + </p> + <p> + “Daddy,” said Ann Veronica, “these affairs—being away from home has—cost + money.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you would find that out.” + </p> + <p> + “As a matter of fact, I happen to have got a little into debt.” + </p> + <p> + “NEVER!” + </p> + <p> + Her heart sank at the change in his expression. + </p> + <p> + “Well, lodgings and things! And I paid my fees at the College.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. But how could you get—Who gave you credit? + </p> + <p> + “You see,” said Ann Veronica, “my landlady kept on my room while I was in + Holloway, and the fees for the College mounted up pretty considerably.” + She spoke rather quickly, because she found her father’s question the most + awkward she had ever had to answer in her life. + </p> + <p> + “Molly and you settled about the rooms. She said you HAD some money.” + </p> + <p> + “I borrowed it,” said Ann Veronica in a casual tone, with white despair in + her heart. + </p> + <p> + “But who could have lent you money?” + </p> + <p> + “I pawned my pearl necklace. I got three pounds, and there’s three on my + watch.” + </p> + <p> + “Six pounds. H’m. Got the tickets? Yes, but then—you said you + borrowed?” + </p> + <p> + “I did, too,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Who from?” + </p> + <p> + She met his eye for a second and her heart failed her. The truth was + impossible, indecent. If she mentioned Ramage he might have a fit—anything + might happen. She lied. “The Widgetts,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Tut, tut!” he said. “Really, Vee, you seem to have advertised our + relations pretty generally!” + </p> + <p> + “They—they knew, of course. Because of the Dance.” + </p> + <p> + “How much do you owe them?” + </p> + <p> + She knew forty pounds was a quite impossible sum for their neighbors. She + knew, too, she must not hesitate. “Eight pounds,” she plunged, and added + foolishly, “fifteen pounds will see me clear of everything.” She muttered + some unlady-like comment upon herself under her breath and engaged in + secret additions. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley determined to improve the occasion. He seemed to deliberate. + “Well,” he said at last slowly, “I’ll pay it. I’ll pay it. But I do hope, + Vee, I do hope—this is the end of these adventures. I hope you have + learned your lesson now and come to see—come to realize—how + things are. People, nobody, can do as they like in this world. Everywhere + there are limitations.” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Ann Veronica (fifteen pounds!). “I have learned that. I + mean—I mean to do what I can.” (Fifteen pounds. Fifteen from forty + is twenty-five.) + </p> + <p> + He hesitated. She could think of nothing more to say. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” she achieved at last. “Here goes for the new life!” + </p> + <p> + “Here goes for the new life,” he echoed and stood up. Father and daughter + regarded each other warily, each more than a little insecure with the + other. He made a movement toward her, and then recalled the circumstances + of their last conversation in that study. She saw his purpose and his + doubt hesitated also, and then went to him, took his coat lapels, and + kissed him on the cheek. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, Vee,” he said, “that’s better! and kissed her back rather clumsily. + </p> + <p> + “We’re going to be sensible.” + </p> + <p> + She disengaged herself from him and went out of the room with a grave, + preoccupied expression. (Fifteen pounds! And she wanted forty!) + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + It was, perhaps, the natural consequence of a long and tiring and exciting + day that Ann Veronica should pass a broken and distressful night, a night + in which the noble and self-subduing resolutions of Canongate displayed + themselves for the first time in an atmosphere of almost lurid dismay. Her + father’s peculiar stiffness of soul presented itself now as something + altogether left out of the calculations upon which her plans were based, + and, in particular, she had not anticipated the difficulty she would find + in borrowing the forty pounds she needed for Ramage. That had taken her by + surprise, and her tired wits had failed her. She was to have fifteen + pounds, and no more. She knew that to expect more now was like + anticipating a gold-mine in the garden. The chance had gone. It became + suddenly glaringly apparent to her that it was impossible to return + fifteen pounds or any sum less than twenty pounds to Ramage—absolutely + impossible. She realized that with a pang of disgust and horror. + </p> + <p> + Already she had sent him twenty pounds, and never written to explain to + him why it was she had not sent it back sharply directly he returned it. + She ought to have written at once and told him exactly what had happened. + Now if she sent fifteen pounds the suggestion that she had spent a + five-pound note in the meanwhile would be irresistible. No! That was + impossible. She would have just to keep the fifteen pounds until she could + make it twenty. That might happen on her birthday—in August. + </p> + <p> + She turned about, and was persecuted by visions, half memories, half + dreams, of Ramage. He became ugly and monstrous, dunning her, threatening + her, assailing her. + </p> + <p> + “Confound sex from first to last!” said Ann Veronica. “Why can’t we + propagate by sexless spores, as the ferns do? We restrict each other, we + badger each other, friendship is poisoned and buried under it!... I MUST + pay off that forty pounds. I MUST.” + </p> + <p> + For a time there seemed no comfort for her even in Capes. She was to see + Capes to-morrow, but now, in this state of misery she had achieved, she + felt assured he would turn his back upon her, take no notice of her at + all. And if he didn’t, what was the good of seeing him? + </p> + <p> + “I wish he was a woman,” she said, “then I could make him my friend. I + want him as my friend. I want to talk to him and go about with him. Just + go about with him.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent for a time, with her nose on the pillow, and that brought + her to: “What’s the good of pretending? + </p> + <p> + “I love him,” she said aloud to the dim forms of her room, and repeated + it, and went on to imagine herself doing acts of tragically dog-like + devotion to the biologist, who, for the purposes of the drama, remained + entirely unconscious of and indifferent to her proceedings. + </p> + <p> + At last some anodyne formed itself from these exercises, and, with + eyelashes wet with such feeble tears as only three-o’clock-in-the-morning + pathos can distil, she fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + Pursuant to some altogether private calculations she did not go up to the + Imperial College until after mid-day, and she found the laboratory + deserted, even as she desired. She went to the table under the end window + at which she had been accustomed to work, and found it swept and garnished + with full bottles of re-agents. Everything was very neat; it had evidently + been straightened up and kept for her. She put down the sketch-books and + apparatus she had brought with her, pulled out her stool, and sat down. As + she did so the preparation-room door opened behind her. She heard it open, + but as she felt unable to look round in a careless manner she pretended + not to hear it. Then Capes’ footsteps approached. She turned with an + effort. + </p> + <p> + “I expected you this morning,” he said. “I saw—they knocked off your + fetters yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “I think it is very good of me to come this afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “I began to be afraid you might not come at all.” + </p> + <p> + “Afraid!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I’m glad you’re back for all sorts of reasons.” He spoke a little + nervously. “Among other things, you know, I didn’t understand quite—I + didn’t understand that you were so keenly interested in this suffrage + question. I have it on my conscience that I offended you—” + </p> + <p> + “Offended me when?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been haunted by the memory of you. I was rude and stupid. We were + talking about the suffrage—and I rather scoffed.” + </p> + <p> + “You weren’t rude,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know you were so keen on this suffrage business.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor I. You haven’t had it on your mind all this time?” + </p> + <p> + “I have rather. I felt somehow I’d hurt you.” + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t. I—I hurt myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I mean—” + </p> + <p> + “I behaved like an idiot, that’s all. My nerves were in rags. I was + worried. We’re the hysterical animal, Mr. Capes. I got myself locked up to + cool off. By a sort of instinct. As a dog eats grass. I’m right again + now.” + </p> + <p> + “Because your nerves were exposed, that was no excuse for my touching + them. I ought to have seen—” + </p> + <p> + “It doesn’t matter a rap—if you’re not disposed to resent the—the + way I behaved.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> resent!” + </p> + <p> + “I was only sorry I’d been so stupid.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I take it we’re straight again,” said Capes with a note of relief, + and assumed an easier position on the edge of her table. “But if you + weren’t keen on the suffrage business, why on earth did you go to prison?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica reflected. “It was a phase,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He smiled. “It’s a new phase in the life history,” he remarked. “Everybody + seems to have it now. Everybody who’s going to develop into a woman.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s Miss Garvice.” + </p> + <p> + “She’s coming on,” said Capes. “And, you know, you’re altering us all. I’M + shaken. The campaign’s a success.” He met her questioning eye, and + repeated, “Oh! it IS a success. A man is so apt to—to take women a + little too lightly. Unless they remind him now and then not to.... YOU + did.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I didn’t waste my time in prison altogether?” + </p> + <p> + “It wasn’t the prison impressed me. But I liked the things you said here. + I felt suddenly I understood you—as an intelligent person. If you’ll + forgive my saying that, and implying what goes with it. There’s something—puppyish + in a man’s usual attitude to women. That is what I’ve had on my + conscience.... I don’t think we’re altogether to blame if we don’t take + some of your lot seriously. Some of your sex, I mean. But we smirk a + little, I’m afraid, habitually when we talk to you. We smirk, and we’re a + bit—furtive.” + </p> + <p> + He paused, with his eyes studying her gravely. “You, anyhow, don’t deserve + it,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Their colloquy was ended abruptly by the apparition of Miss Klegg at the + further door. When she saw Ann Veronica she stood for a moment as if + entranced, and then advanced with outstretched hands. “Veronique!” she + cried with a rising intonation, though never before had she called Ann + Veronica anything but Miss Stanley, and seized her and squeezed her and + kissed her with profound emotion. “To think that you were going to do it—and + never said a word! You are a little thin, but except for that you look—you + look better than ever. Was it VERY horrible? I tried to get into the + police-court, but the crowd was ever so much too big, push as I would.... + </p> + <p> + “I mean to go to prison directly the session is over,” said Miss Klegg. + “Wild horses—not if they have all the mounted police in London—shan’t + keep me out.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + Capes lit things wonderfully for Ann Veronica all that afternoon, he was + so friendly, so palpably interested in her, and glad to have her back with + him. Tea in the laboratory was a sort of suffragette reception. Miss + Garvice assumed a quality of neutrality, professed herself almost won over + by Ann Veronica’s example, and the Scotchman decided that if women had a + distinctive sphere it was, at any rate, an enlarging sphere, and no one + who believed in the doctrine of evolution could logically deny the vote to + women “ultimately,” however much they might be disposed to doubt the + advisability of its immediate concession. It was a refusal of expediency, + he said, and not an absolute refusal. The youth with his hair like Russell + cleared his throat and said rather irrelevantly that he knew a man who + knew Thomas Bayard Simmons, who had rioted in the Strangers’ Gallery, and + then Capes, finding them all distinctly pro-Ann Veronica, if not + pro-feminist, ventured to be perverse, and started a vein of speculation + upon the Scotchman’s idea—that there were still hopes of women + evolving into something higher. + </p> + <p> + He was unusually absurd and ready, and all the time it seemed to Ann + Veronica as a delightful possibility, as a thing not indeed to be + entertained seriously, but to be half furtively felt, that he was being so + agreeable because she had come back again. She returned home through a + world that was as roseate as it had been gray overnight. + </p> + <p> + But as she got out of the train at Morningside Park Station she had a + shock. She saw, twenty yards down the platform, the shiny hat and broad + back and inimitable swagger of Ramage. She dived at once behind the cover + of the lamp-room and affected serious trouble with her shoe-lace until he + was out of the station, and then she followed slowly and with extreme + discretion until the bifurcation of the Avenue from the field way insured + her escape. Ramage went up the Avenue, and she hurried along the path with + a beating heart and a disagreeable sense of unsolved problems in her mind. + </p> + <p> + “That thing’s going on,” she told herself. “Everything goes on, confound + it! One doesn’t change anything one has set going by making good + resolutions.” + </p> + <p> + And then ahead of her she saw the radiant and welcoming figure of Manning. + He came as an agreeable diversion from an insoluble perplexity. She smiled + at the sight of him, and thereat his radiation increased. + </p> + <p> + “I missed the hour of your release,” he said, “but I was at the Vindicator + Restaurant. You did not see me, I know. I was among the common herd in the + place below, but I took good care to see you.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you’re converted?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “To the view that all those Splendid Women in the movement ought to have + votes. Rather! Who could help it?” + </p> + <p> + He towered up over her and smiled down at her in his fatherly way. + </p> + <p> + “To the view that all women ought to have votes whether they like it or + not.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head, and his eyes and the mouth under the black mustache + wrinkled with his smile. And as he walked by her side they began a wrangle + that was none the less pleasant to Ann Veronica because it served to + banish a disagreeable preoccupation. It seemed to her in her restored + geniality that she liked Manning extremely. The brightness Capes had + diffused over the world glorified even his rival. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + The steps by which Ann Veronica determined to engage herself to marry + Manning were never very clear to her. A medley of motives warred in her, + and it was certainly not one of the least of these that she knew herself + to be passionately in love with Capes; at moments she had a giddy + intimation that he was beginning to feel keenly interested in her. She + realized more and more the quality of the brink upon which she stood—the + dreadful readiness with which in certain moods she might plunge, the + unmitigated wrongness and recklessness of such a self-abandonment. “He + must never know,” she would whisper to herself, “he must never know. Or + else—Else it will be impossible that I can be his friend.” + </p> + <p> + That simple statement of the case was by no means all that went on in Ann + Veronica’s mind. But it was the form of her ruling determination; it was + the only form that she ever allowed to see daylight. What else was there + lurked in shadows and deep places; if in some mood of reverie it came out + into the light, it was presently overwhelmed and hustled back again into + hiding. She would never look squarely at these dream forms that mocked the + social order in which she lived, never admit she listened to the soft + whisperings in her ear. But Manning seemed more and more clearly indicated + as a refuge, as security. Certain simple purposes emerged from the + disingenuous muddle of her feelings and desires. Seeing Capes from day to + day made a bright eventfulness that hampered her in the course she had + resolved to follow. She vanished from the laboratory for a week, a week of + oddly interesting days.... + </p> + <p> + When she renewed her attendance at the Imperial College the third finger + of her left hand was adorned with a very fine old ring with dark blue + sapphires that had once belonged to a great-aunt of Manning’s. + </p> + <p> + That ring manifestly occupied her thoughts a great deal. She kept pausing + in her work and regarding it, and when Capes came round to her, she first + put her hand in her lap and then rather awkwardly in front of him. But men + are often blind to rings. He seemed to be. + </p> + <p> + In the afternoon she had considered certain doubts very carefully, and + decided on a more emphatic course of action. “Are these ordinary + sapphires?” she said. He bent to her hand, and she slipped off the ring + and gave it to him to examine. + </p> + <p> + “Very good,” he said. “Rather darker than most of them. But I’m generously + ignorant of gems. Is it an old ring?” he asked, returning it. + </p> + <p> + “I believe it is. It’s an engagement ring....” She slipped it on her + finger, and added, in a voice she tried to make matter-of-fact: “It was + given to me last week.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” he said, in a colorless tone, and with his eyes on her face. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Last week.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced at him, and it was suddenly apparent for one instant of + illumination that this ring upon her finger was the crowning blunder of + her life. It was apparent, and then it faded into the quality of an + inevitable necessity. + </p> + <p> + “Odd!” he remarked, rather surprisingly, after a little interval. + </p> + <p> + There was a brief pause, a crowded pause, between them. + </p> + <p> + She sat very still, and his eyes rested on that ornament for a moment, and + then travelled slowly to her wrist and the soft lines of her forearm. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I ought to congratulate you,” he said. Their eyes met, and his + expressed perplexity and curiosity. “The fact is—I don’t know why—this + takes me by surprise. Somehow I haven’t connected the idea with you. You + seemed complete—without that.” + </p> + <p> + “Did I?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know why. But this is like—like walking round a house that + looks square and complete and finding an unexpected long wing running out + behind.” + </p> + <p> + She looked up at him, and found he was watching her closely. For some + seconds of voluminous thinking they looked at the ring between them, and + neither spoke. Then Capes shifted his eyes to her microscope and the + little trays of unmounted sections beside it. “How is that carmine + working?” he asked, with a forced interest. + </p> + <p> + “Better,” said Ann Veronica, with an unreal alacrity. “But it still misses + the nucleolus.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE SAPPHIRE RING + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + For a time that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all, the + satisfactory solution of Ann Veronica’s difficulties. It was like pouring + a strong acid over dulled metal. A tarnish of constraint that had recently + spread over her intercourse with Capes vanished again. They embarked upon + an open and declared friendship. They even talked about friendship. They + went to the Zoological Gardens together one Saturday to see for themselves + a point of morphological interest about the toucan’s bill—that + friendly and entertaining bird—and they spent the rest of the + afternoon walking about and elaborating in general terms this theme and + the superiority of intellectual fellowship to all merely passionate + relationships. Upon this topic Capes was heavy and conscientious, but that + seemed to her to be just exactly what he ought to be. He was also, had she + known it, more than a little insincere. “We are only in the dawn of the + Age of Friendship,” he said, “when interest, I suppose, will take the + place of passions. Either you have had to love people or hate them—which + is a sort of love, too, in its way—to get anything out of them. Now, + more and more, we’re going to be interested in them, to be curious about + them and—quite mildly-experimental with them.” He seemed to be + elaborating ideas as he talked. They watched the chimpanzees in the new + apes’ house, and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes—“so much + more human than human beings”—and they watched the Agile Gibbon in + the next apartment doing wonderful leaps and aerial somersaults. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder which of us enjoys that most,” said Capes—“does he, or do + we?” + </p> + <p> + “He seems to get a zest—” + </p> + <p> + “He does it and forgets it. We remember it. These joyful bounds just lace + into the stuff of my memories and stay there forever. Living’s just + material.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s very good to be alive.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s better to know life than be life.” + </p> + <p> + “One may do both,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + She was in a very uncritical state that afternoon. When he said, “Let’s go + and see the wart-hog,” she thought no one ever had had so quick a flow of + good ideas as he; and when he explained that sugar and not buns was the + talisman of popularity among the animals, she marvelled at his practical + omniscience. + </p> + <p> + Finally, at the exit into Regent’s Park, they ran against Miss Klegg. It + was the expression of Miss Klegg’s face that put the idea into Ann + Veronica’s head of showing Manning at the College one day, an idea which + she didn’t for some reason or other carry out for a fortnight. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + When at last she did so, the sapphire ring took on a new quality in the + imagination of Capes. It ceased to be the symbol of liberty and a remote + and quite abstracted person, and became suddenly and very disagreeably the + token of a large and portentous body visible and tangible. + </p> + <p> + Manning appeared just at the end of the afternoon’s work, and the + biologist was going through some perplexities the Scotchman had created by + a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of Hyrax and a young African + elephant. He was clearing up these difficulties by tracing a partially + obliterated suture the Scotchman had overlooked when the door from the + passage opened, and Manning came into his universe. + </p> + <p> + Seen down the length of the laboratory, Manning looked a very handsome and + shapely gentleman indeed, and, at the sight of his eager advance to his + fiancee, Miss Klegg replaced one long-cherished romance about Ann Veronica + by one more normal and simple. He carried a cane and a silk hat with a + mourning-band in one gray-gloved hand; his frock-coat and trousers were + admirable; his handsome face, his black mustache, his prominent brow + conveyed an eager solicitude. + </p> + <p> + “I want,” he said, with a white hand outstretched, “to take you out to + tea.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been clearing up,” said Ann Veronica, brightly. + </p> + <p> + “All your dreadful scientific things?” he said, with a smile that Miss + Klegg thought extraordinarily kindly. + </p> + <p> + “All my dreadful scientific things,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + He stood back, smiling with an air of proprietorship, and looking about + him at the business-like equipment of the room. The low ceiling made him + seem abnormally tall. Ann Veronica wiped a scalpel, put a card over a + watch-glass containing thin shreds of embryonic guinea-pig swimming in + mauve stain, and dismantled her microscope. + </p> + <p> + “I wish I understood more of biology,” said Manning. + </p> + <p> + “I’m ready,” said Ann Veronica, closing her microscope-box with a click, + and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. “We have no airs and + graces here, and my hat hangs from a peg in the passage.” + </p> + <p> + She led the way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and round her + and opened the door for her. When Capes glanced up at them for a moment, + Manning seemed to be holding his arms all about her, and there was nothing + but quiet acquiescence in her bearing. + </p> + <p> + After Capes had finished the Scotchman’s troubles he went back into the + preparation-room. He sat down on the sill of the open window, folded his + arms, and stared straight before him for a long time over the wilderness + of tiles and chimney-pots into a sky that was blue and empty. He was not + addicted to monologue, and the only audible comment he permitted himself + at first upon a universe that was evidently anything but satisfactory to + him that afternoon, was one compact and entirely unassigned “Damn!” + </p> + <p> + The word must have had some gratifying quality, because he repeated it. + Then he stood up and repeated it again. “The fool I have been!” he cried; + and now speech was coming to him. He tried this sentence with expletives. + “Ass!” he went on, still warming. “Muck-headed moral ass! I ought to have + done anything. + </p> + <p> + “I ought to have done anything! + </p> + <p> + “What’s a man for? + </p> + <p> + “Friendship!” + </p> + <p> + He doubled up his fist, and seemed to contemplate thrusting it through the + window. He turned his back on that temptation. Then suddenly he seized a + new preparation bottle that stood upon his table and contained the better + part of a week’s work—a displayed dissection of a snail, beautifully + done—and hurled it across the room, to smash resoundingly upon the + cemented floor under the bookcase; then, without either haste or pause, he + swept his arm along a shelf of re-agents and sent them to mingle with the + debris on the floor. They fell in a diapason of smashes. “H’m!” he said, + regarding the wreckage with a calmer visage. “Silly!” he remarked after a + pause. “One hardly knows—all the time.” + </p> + <p> + He put his hands in his pockets, his mouth puckered to a whistle, and he + went to the door of the outer preparation-room and stood there, looking, + save for the faintest intensification of his natural ruddiness, the + embodiment of blond serenity. + </p> + <p> + “Gellett,” he called, “just come and clear up a mess, will you? I’ve + smashed some things.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + There was one serious flaw in Ann Veronica’s arrangements for + self-rehabilitation, and that was Ramage. He hung over her—he and + his loan to her and his connection with her and that terrible evening—a + vague, disconcerting possibility of annoyance and exposure. She could not + see any relief from this anxiety except repayment, and repayment seemed + impossible. The raising of twenty-five pounds was a task altogether beyond + her powers. Her birthday was four months away, and that, at its extremist + point, might give her another five pounds. + </p> + <p> + The thing rankled in her mind night and day. She would wake in the night + to repeat her bitter cry: “Oh, why did I burn those notes?” + </p> + <p> + It added greatly to the annoyance of the situation that she had twice seen + Ramage in the Avenue since her return to the shelter of her father’s roof. + He had saluted her with elaborate civility, his eyes distended with + indecipherable meanings. + </p> + <p> + She felt she was bound in honor to tell the whole affair to Manning sooner + or later. Indeed, it seemed inevitable that she must clear it up with his + assistance, or not at all. And when Manning was not about the thing seemed + simple enough. She would compose extremely lucid and honorable + explanations. But when it came to broaching them, it proved to be much + more difficult than she had supposed. + </p> + <p> + They went down the great staircase of the building, and, while she sought + in her mind for a beginning, he broke into appreciation of her simple + dress and self-congratulations upon their engagement. + </p> + <p> + “It makes me feel,” he said, “that nothing is impossible—to have you + here beside me. I said, that day at Surbiton, ‘There’s many good things in + life, but there’s only one best, and that’s the wild-haired girl who’s + pulling away at that oar. I will make her my Grail, and some day, perhaps, + if God wills, she shall become my wife!’” + </p> + <p> + He looked very hard before him as he said this, and his voice was full of + deep feeling. + </p> + <p> + “Grail!” said Ann Veronica, and then: “Oh, yes—of course! Anything + but a holy one, I’m afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “Altogether holy, Ann Veronica. Ah! but you can’t imagine what you are to + me and what you mean to me! I suppose there is something mystical and + wonderful about all women.” + </p> + <p> + “There is something mystical and wonderful about all human beings. I don’t + see that men need bank it with the women.” + </p> + <p> + “A man does,” said Manning—“a true man, anyhow. And for me there is + only one treasure-house. By Jove! When I think of it I want to leap and + shout!” + </p> + <p> + “It would astonish that man with the barrow.” + </p> + <p> + “It astonishes me that I don’t,” said Manning, in a tone of intense + self-enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + “I think,” began Ann Veronica, “that you don’t realize—” + </p> + <p> + He disregarded her entirely. He waved an arm and spoke with a peculiar + resonance. “I feel like a giant! I believe now I shall do great things. + Gods! what it must be to pour out strong, splendid verse—mighty + lines! mighty lines! If I do, Ann Veronica, it will be you. It will be + altogether you. I will dedicate my books to you. I will lay them all at + your feet.” + </p> + <p> + He beamed upon her. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think you realize,” Ann Veronica began again, “that I am rather a + defective human being.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t want to,” said Manning. “They say there are spots on the sun. Not + for me. It warms me, and lights me, and fills my world with flowers. Why + should I peep at it through smoked glass to see things that don’t affect + me?” He smiled his delight at his companion. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got bad faults.” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head slowly, smiling mysteriously. + </p> + <p> + “But perhaps I want to confess them.” + </p> + <p> + “I grant you absolution.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t want absolution. I want to make myself visible to you.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could make you visible to yourself. I don’t believe in the + faults. They’re just a joyous softening of the outline—more + beautiful than perfection. Like the flaws of an old marble. If you talk of + your faults, I shall talk of your splendors.” + </p> + <p> + “I do want to tell you things, nevertheless.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have, thank God! ten myriad days to tell each other things. When I + think of it—” + </p> + <p> + “But these are things I want to tell you now!” + </p> + <p> + “I made a little song of it. Let me say it to you. I’ve no name for it + yet. Epithalamy might do. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Like him who stood on Darien + I view uncharted sea + Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights + Before my Queen and me. +</pre> + <p> + “And that only brings me up to about sixty-five! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A glittering wilderness of time + That to the sunset reaches + No keel as yet its waves has ploughed + Or gritted on its beaches. + + “And we will sail that splendor wide, + From day to day together, + From isle to isle of happiness + Through year’s of God’s own weather.” + </pre> + <p> + “Yes,” said his prospective fellow-sailor, “that’s very pretty.” She + stopped short, full of things un-said. Pretty! Ten thousand days, ten + thousand nights! + </p> + <p> + “You shall tell me your faults,” said Manning. “If they matter to you, + they matter.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t precisely faults,” said Ann Veronica. “It’s something that + bothers me.” Ten thousand! Put that way it seemed so different. + </p> + <p> + “Then assuredly!” said Manning. + </p> + <p> + She found a little difficulty in beginning. She was glad when he went on: + “I want to be your city of refuge from every sort of bother. I want to + stand between you and all the force and vileness of the world. I want to + make you feel that here is a place where the crowd does not clamor nor + ill-winds blow.” + </p> + <p> + “That is all very well,” said Ann Veronica, unheeded. + </p> + <p> + “That is my dream of you,” said Manning, warming. “I want my life to be + beaten gold just in order to make it a fitting setting for yours. There + you will be, in an inner temple. I want to enrich it with hangings and + gladden it with verses. I want to fill it with fine and precious things. + And by degrees, perhaps, that maiden distrust of yours that makes you + shrink from my kisses, will vanish.... Forgive me if a certain warmth + creeps into my words! The Park is green and gray to-day, but I am glowing + pink and gold.... It is difficult to express these things.” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + They sat with tea and strawberries and cream before them at a little table + in front of the pavilion in Regent’s Park. Her confession was still + unmade. Manning leaned forward on the table, talking discursively on the + probable brilliance of their married life. Ann Veronica sat back in an + attitude of inattention, her eyes on a distant game of cricket, her mind + perplexed and busy. She was recalling the circumstances under which she + had engaged herself to Manning, and trying to understand a curious + development of the quality of this relationship. + </p> + <p> + The particulars of her engagement were very clear in her memory. She had + taken care he should have this momentous talk with her on a garden-seat + commanded by the windows of the house. They had been playing tennis, with + his manifest intention looming over her. + </p> + <p> + “Let us sit down for a moment,” he had said. He made his speech a little + elaborately. She plucked at the knots of her racket and heard him to the + end, then spoke in a restrained undertone. + </p> + <p> + “You ask me to be engaged to you, Mr. Manning,” she began. + </p> + <p> + “I want to lay all my life at your feet.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Manning, I do not think I love you.... I want to be very plain with + you. I have nothing, nothing that can possibly be passion for you. I am + sure. Nothing at all.” + </p> + <p> + He was silent for some moments. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps that is only sleeping,” he said. “How can you know?” + </p> + <p> + “I think—perhaps I am rather a cold-blooded person.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped. He remained listening attentively. + </p> + <p> + “You have been very kind to me,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I would give my life for you.” + </p> + <p> + Her heart had warmed toward him. It had seemed to her that life might be + very good indeed with his kindliness and sacrifice about her. She thought + of him as always courteous and helpful, as realizing, indeed, his ideal of + protection and service, as chivalrously leaving her free to live her own + life, rejoicing with an infinite generosity in every detail of her + irresponsive being. She twanged the catgut under her fingers. + </p> + <p> + “It seems so unfair,” she said, “to take all you offer me and give so + little in return.” + </p> + <p> + “It is all the world to me. And we are not traders looking at + equivalents.” + </p> + <p> + “You know, Mr. Manning, I do not really want to marry.” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “It seems so—so unworthy”—she picked among her phrases “of the + noble love you give—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, through the difficulty she found in expressing herself. + </p> + <p> + “But I am judge of that,” said Manning. + </p> + <p> + “Would you wait for me?” + </p> + <p> + Manning was silent for a space. “As my lady wills.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you let me go on studying for a time?” + </p> + <p> + “If you order patience.” + </p> + <p> + “I think, Mr. Manning... I do not know. It is so difficult. When I think + of the love you give me—One ought to give you back love.” + </p> + <p> + “You like me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. And I am grateful to you....” + </p> + <p> + Manning tapped with his racket on the turf through some moments of + silence. “You are the most perfect, the most glorious of created things—tender, + frank intellectual, brave, beautiful. I am your servitor. I am ready to + wait for you, to wait your pleasure, to give all my life to winning it. + Let me only wear your livery. Give me but leave to try. You want to think + for a time, to be free for a time. That is so like you, Diana—Pallas + Athene! (Pallas Athene is better.) You are all the slender goddesses. I + understand. Let me engage myself. That is all I ask.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him; his face, downcast and in profile, was handsome and + strong. Her gratitude swelled within her. + </p> + <p> + “You are too good for me,” she said in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “Then you—you will?” + </p> + <p> + A long pause. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t fair....” + </p> + <p> + “But will you?” + </p> + <p> + “YES.” + </p> + <p> + For some seconds he had remained quite still. + </p> + <p> + “If I sit here,” he said, standing up before her abruptly, “I shall have + to shout. Let us walk about. Tum, tum, tirray, tum, tum, tum, te-tum—that + thing of Mendelssohn’s! If making one human being absolutely happy is any + satisfaction to you—” + </p> + <p> + He held out his hands, and she also stood up. + </p> + <p> + He drew her close up to him with a strong, steady pull. Then suddenly, in + front of all those windows, he folded her in his arms and pressed her to + him, and kissed her unresisting face. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t!” cried Ann Veronica, struggling faintly, and he released her. + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me,” he said. “But I am at singing-pitch.” + </p> + <p> + She had a moment of sheer panic at the thing she had done. “Mr. Manning,” + she said, “for a time—Will you tell no one? Will you keep this—our + secret? I’m doubtful—Will you please not even tell my aunt?” + </p> + <p> + “As you will,” he said. “But if my manner tells! I cannot help it if that + shows. You only mean a secret for a little time?” + </p> + <p> + “Just for a little time,” she said; “yes....” + </p> + <p> + But the ring, and her aunt’s triumphant eye, and a note of approval in her + father’s manner, and a novel disposition in him to praise Manning in a + just, impartial voice had soon placed very definite qualifications upon + that covenanted secrecy. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + At first the quality of her relationship to Manning seemed moving and + beautiful to Ann Veronica. She admired and rather pitied him, and she was + unfeignedly grateful to him. She even thought that perhaps she might come + to love him, in spite of that faint indefinable flavor of absurdity that + pervaded his courtly bearing. She would never love him as she loved Capes, + of course, but there are grades and qualities of love. For Manning it + would be a more temperate love altogether. Much more temperate; the + discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending wife. + She had been quite convinced that an engagement with him and at last a + marriage had exactly that quality of compromise which distinguishes the + ways of the wise. It would be the wrappered world almost at its best. She + saw herself building up a life upon that—a life restrained, kindly, + beautiful, a little pathetic and altogether dignified; a life of great + disciplines and suppressions and extensive reserves... + </p> + <p> + But the Ramage affair needed clearing up, of course; it was a flaw upon + that project. She had to explain about and pay off that forty pounds.... + </p> + <p> + Then, quite insensibly, her queenliness had declined. She was never able + to trace the changes her attitude had undergone, from the time when she + believed herself to be the pampered Queen of Fortune, the crown of a good + man’s love (and secretly, but nobly, worshipping some one else), to the + time when she realized she was in fact just a mannequin for her lover’s + imagination, and that he cared no more for the realities of her being, for + the things she felt and desired, for the passions and dreams that might + move her, than a child cares for the sawdust in its doll. She was the + actress his whim had chosen to play a passive part.... + </p> + <p> + It was one of the most educational disillusionments in Ann Veronica’s + career. + </p> + <p> + But did many women get anything better? + </p> + <p> + This afternoon, when she was urgent to explain her hampering and tainting + complication with Ramage, the realization of this alien quality in her + relationship with Manning became acute. Hitherto it had been qualified by + her conception of all life as a compromise, by her new effort to be + unexacting of life. But she perceived that to tell Manning of her Ramage + adventures as they had happened would be like tarring figures upon a + water-color. They were in different key, they had a different timbre. How + could she tell him what indeed already began to puzzle herself, why she + had borrowed that money at all? The plain fact was that she had grabbed a + bait. She had grabbed! She became less and less attentive to his + meditative, self-complacent fragments of talk as she told herself this. + Her secret thoughts made some hasty, half-hearted excursions into the + possibility of telling the thing in romantic tones—Ramage was as a + black villain, she as a white, fantastically white, maiden.... She doubted + if Manning would even listen to that. He would refuse to listen and + absolve her unshriven. + </p> + <p> + Then it came to her with a shock, as an extraordinary oversight, that she + could never tell Manning about Ramage—never. + </p> + <p> + She dismissed the idea of doing so. But that still left the forty + pounds!... + </p> + <p> + Her mind went on generalizing. So it would always be between herself and + Manning. She saw her life before her robbed of all generous illusions, the + wrappered life unwrappered forever, vistas of dull responses, crises of + make-believe, years of exacting mutual disregard in a misty garden of fine + sentiments. + </p> + <p> + But did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps every woman + conceals herself from a man perforce!... + </p> + <p> + She thought of Capes. She could not help thinking of Capes. Surely Capes + was different. Capes looked at one and not over one, spoke to one, treated + one as a visible concrete fact. Capes saw her, felt for her, cared for her + greatly, even if he did not love her. Anyhow, he did not sentimentalize + her. And she had been doubting since that walk in the Zoological Gardens + whether, indeed, he did simply care for her. Little things, almost + impalpable, had happened to justify that doubt; something in his manner + had belied his words. Did he not look for her in the morning when she + entered—come very quickly to her? She thought of him as she had last + seen him looking down the length of the laboratory to see her go. Why had + he glanced up—quite in that way?... + </p> + <p> + The thought of Capes flooded her being like long-veiled sunlight breaking + again through clouds. It came to her like a dear thing rediscovered, that + she loved Capes. It came to her that to marry any one but Capes was + impossible. If she could not marry him, she would not marry any one. She + would end this sham with Manning. It ought never to have begun. It was + cheating, pitiful cheating. And then if some day Capes wanted her—saw + fit to alter his views upon friendship.... + </p> + <p> + Dim possibilities that she would not seem to look at even to herself + gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind. + </p> + <p> + She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution, and in one moment had made + it into a new self. She flung aside every plan she had in life, every + discretion. Of course, why not? She would be honest, anyhow! + </p> + <p> + She turned her eyes to Manning. + </p> + <p> + He was sitting back from the table now, with one arm over the back of his + green chair and the other resting on the little table. He was smiling + under his heavy mustache, and his head was a little on one side as he + looked at her. + </p> + <p> + “And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?” he was saying. + His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene disbelief in any confessible + thing. Ann Veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and the vestiges of her + strawberries and cream, and put her elbows before her on the table. “Mr. + Manning,” she said, “I HAVE a confession to make.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you would use my Christian name,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She attended to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant. + </p> + <p> + Something in her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted gravity + to him. For the first time he seemed to wonder what it might be that she + had to confess. His smile faded. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think our engagement can go on,” she plunged, and felt exactly + that loss of breath that comes with a dive into icy water. + </p> + <p> + “But, how,” he said, sitting up astonished beyond measure, “not go on?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been thinking while you have been talking. You see—I didn’t + understand.” + </p> + <p> + She stared hard at her finger-nails. “It is hard to express one’s self, + but I do want to be honest with you. When I promised to marry you I + thought I could; I thought it was a possible arrangement. I did think it + could be done. I admired your chivalry. I was grateful.” + </p> + <p> + She paused. + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a still lower tone. “I told + you I did not love you.” + </p> + <p> + “I know,” said Manning, nodding gravely. “It was fine and brave of you.” + </p> + <p> + “But there is something more.” + </p> + <p> + She paused again. + </p> + <p> + “I—I am sorry—I didn’t explain. These things are difficult. It + wasn’t clear to me that I had to explain.... I love some one else.” + </p> + <p> + They remained looking at each other for three or four seconds. Then + Manning flopped back in his chair and dropped his chin like a man shot. + There was a long silence between them. + </p> + <p> + “My God!” he said at last, with tremendous feeling, and then again, “My + God!” + </p> + <p> + Now that this thing was said her mind was clear and calm. She heard this + standard expression of a strong soul wrung with a critical coldness that + astonished herself. She realized dimly that there was no personal thing + behind his cry, that countless myriads of Mannings had “My God!”-ed with + an equal gusto at situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated her + remorse enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and conveyed + magnificent tragedy by his pose. + </p> + <p> + “But why,” he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, and + looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, “why did you not tell me + this before?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t know—I thought I might be able to control myself.” + </p> + <p> + “And you can’t?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think I ought to control myself.” + </p> + <p> + “And I have been dreaming and thinking—” + </p> + <p> + “I am frightfully sorry....” + </p> + <p> + “But—This bolt from the blue! My God! Ann Veronica, you don’t + understand. This—this shatters a world!” + </p> + <p> + She tried to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism was strong + and clear. + </p> + <p> + He went on with intense urgency. + </p> + <p> + “Why did you ever let me love you? Why did you ever let me peep through + the gates of Paradise? Oh! my God! I don’t begin to feel and realize this + yet. It seems to me just talk; it seems to me like the fancy of a dream. + Tell me I haven’t heard. This is a joke of yours.” He made his voice very + low and full, and looked closely into her face. + </p> + <p> + She twisted her fingers tightly. “It isn’t a joke,” she said. “I feel + shabby and disgraced.... I ought never to have thought of it. Of you, I + mean....” + </p> + <p> + He fell back in his chair with an expression of tremendous desolation. “My + God!” he said again.... + </p> + <p> + They became aware of the waitress standing over them with book and pencil + ready for their bill. “Never mind the bill,” said Manning tragically, + standing up and thrusting a four-shilling piece into her hand, and turning + a broad back on her astonishment. “Let us walk across the Park at least,” + he said to Ann Veronica. “Just at present my mind simply won’t take hold + of this at all.... I tell you—never mind the bill. Keep it! Keep + it!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + They walked a long way that afternoon. They crossed the Park to the + westward, and then turned back and walked round the circle about the Royal + Botanical Gardens and then southwardly toward Waterloo. They trudged and + talked, and Manning struggled, as he said, to “get the hang of it all.” + </p> + <p> + It was a long, meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and unavoidable. Ann + Veronica was apologetic to the bottom of her soul. At the same time she + was wildly exultant at the resolution she had taken, the end she had made + to her blunder. She had only to get through this, to solace Manning as + much as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as were + possible, and then, anyhow, she would be free—free to put her fate + to the test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action in + accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them or care + for them. Then she realized that it was her business to let Manning talk + and impose his own interpretations upon the situation so far as he was + concerned. She did her best to do this. But about his unknown rival he was + acutely curious. + </p> + <p> + He made her tell him the core of the difficulty. + </p> + <p> + “I cannot say who he is,” said Ann Veronica, “but he is a married man.... + No! I do not even know that he cares for me. It is no good going into + that. Only I just want him. I just want him, and no one else will do. It + is no good arguing about a thing like that.” + </p> + <p> + “But you thought you could forget him.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I must have thought so. I didn’t understand. Now I do.” + </p> + <p> + “By God!” said Manning, making the most of the word, “I suppose it’s fate. + Fate! You are so frank so splendid! + </p> + <p> + “I’m taking this calmly now,” he said, almost as if he apologized, + “because I’m a little stunned.” + </p> + <p> + Then he asked, “Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love to you?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. “I wish he had,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “But—” + </p> + <p> + The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on her + nerves. “When one wants a thing more than anything else in the world,” she + said with outrageous frankness, “one naturally wishes one had it.” + </p> + <p> + She shocked him by that. She shattered the edifice he was building up of + himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win her from a + hopeless and consuming passion. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Manning,” she said, “I warned you not to idealize me. Men ought not + to idealize any woman. We aren’t worth it. We’ve done nothing to deserve + it. And it hampers us. You don’t know the thoughts we have; the things we + can do and say. You are a sisterless man; you have never heard the + ordinary talk that goes on at a girls’ boarding-school.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! but you ARE splendid and open and fearless! As if I couldn’t allow! + What are all these little things? Nothing! Nothing! You can’t sully + yourself. You can’t! I tell you frankly you may break off your engagement + to me—I shall hold myself still engaged to you, yours just the same. + As for this infatuation—it’s like some obsession, some magic thing + laid upon you. It’s not you—not a bit. It’s a thing that’s happened + to you. It is like some accident. I don’t care. In a sense I don’t care. + It makes no difference.... All the same, I wish I had that fellow by the + throat! Just the virile, unregenerate man in me wishes that.... + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I should let go if I had. + </p> + <p> + “You know,” he went on, “this doesn’t seem to me to end anything. + </p> + <p> + “I’m rather a persistent person. I’m the sort of dog, if you turn it out + of the room it lies down on the mat at the door. I’m not a lovesick boy. + I’m a man, and I know what I mean. It’s a tremendous blow, of course—but + it doesn’t kill me. And the situation it makes!—the situation!” + </p> + <p> + Thus Manning, egotistical, inconsecutive, unreal. And Ann Veronica walked + beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to him by the thought of + how she had ill-used him, and all the time, as her feet and mind grew + weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the cost of this one + interminable walk she escaped the prospect of—what was it?—“Ten + thousand days, ten thousand nights” in his company. Whatever happened she + need never return to that possibility. + </p> + <p> + “For me,” Manning went on, “this isn’t final. In a sense it alters + nothing. I shall still wear your favor—even if it is a stolen and + forbidden favor—in my casque.... I shall still believe in you. Trust + you.” + </p> + <p> + He repeated several times that he would trust her, though it remained + obscure just exactly where the trust came in. + </p> + <p> + “Look here,” he cried out of a silence, with a sudden flash of + understanding, “did you mean to throw me over when you came out with me + this afternoon?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica hesitated, and with a startled mind realized the truth. “No,” + she answered, reluctantly. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Manning. “Then I don’t take this as final. That’s all. + I’ve bored you or something.... You think you love this other man! No + doubt you do love him. Before you have lived—” + </p> + <p> + He became darkly prophetic. He thrust out a rhetorical hand. + </p> + <p> + “I will MAKE you love me! Until he has faded—faded into a memory...” + </p> + <p> + He saw her into the train at Waterloo, and stood, a tall, grave figure, + with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward slowly and hid him. Ann + Veronica sat back with a sigh of relief. Manning might go on now + idealizing her as much as he liked. She was no longer a confederate in + that. He might go on as the devoted lover until he tired. She had done + forever with the Age of Chivalry, and her own base adaptations of its + traditions to the compromising life. She was honest again. + </p> + <p> + But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the + tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic + importunity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + Spring had held back that year until the dawn of May, and then spring and + summer came with a rush together. Two days after this conversation between + Manning and Ann Veronica, Capes came into the laboratory at lunch-time and + found her alone there standing by the open window, and not even pretending + to be doing anything. + </p> + <p> + He came in with his hands in his trousers pockets and a general air of + depression in his bearing. He was engaged in detesting Manning and himself + in almost equal measure. His face brightened at the sight of her, and he + came toward her. + </p> + <p> + “What are you doing?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” said Ann Veronica, and stared over her shoulder out of the + window. + </p> + <p> + “So am I.... Lassitude?” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> can’t work.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor I,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + Pause. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the spring,” he said. “It’s the warming up of the year, the coming + of the light mornings, the way in which everything begins to run about and + begin new things. Work becomes distasteful; one thinks of holidays. This + year—I’ve got it badly. I want to get away. I’ve never wanted to get + away so much.” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you go?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!—Alps.” + </p> + <p> + “Climbing?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s rather a fine sort of holiday!” + </p> + <p> + He made no answer for three or four seconds. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said, “I want to get away. I feel at moments as though I could + bolt for it.... Silly, isn’t it? Undisciplined.” + </p> + <p> + He went to the window and fidgeted with the blind, looking out to where + the tree-tops of Regent’s Park showed distantly over the houses. He turned + round toward her and found her looking at him and standing very still. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the stir of spring,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I believe it is.” + </p> + <p> + She glanced out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth of hard + spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild resolution, and, lest + she should waver from it, she set about at once to realize it. “I’ve + broken off my engagement,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and found + her heart thumping in her neck. He moved slightly, and she went on, with a + slight catching of her breath: “It’s a bother and disturbance, but you see—” + She had to go through with it now, because she could think of nothing but + her preconceived words. Her voice was weak and flat. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve fallen in love.” + </p> + <p> + He never helped her by a sound. + </p> + <p> + “I—I didn’t love the man I was engaged to,” she said. She met his + eyes for a moment, and could not interpret their expression. They struck + her as cold and indifferent. + </p> + <p> + Her heart failed her and her resolution became water. She remained + standing stiffly, unable even to move. She could not look at him through + an interval that seemed to her a vast gulf of time. But she felt his lax + figure become rigid. + </p> + <p> + At last his voice came to release her tension. + </p> + <p> + “I thought you weren’t keeping up to the mark. You—It’s jolly of you + to confide in me. Still—” Then, with incredible and obviously + deliberate stupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, he asked, “Who is + the man?” + </p> + <p> + Her spirit raged within her at the dumbness, the paralysis that had fallen + upon her. Grace, confidence, the power of movement even, seemed gone from + her. A fever of shame ran through her being. Horrible doubts assailed her. + She sat down awkwardly and helplessly on one of the little stools by her + table and covered her face with her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Can’t you SEE how things are?” she said. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Before Capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of the + laboratory opened noisily and Miss Klegg appeared. She went to her own + table and sat down. At the sound of the door Ann Veronica uncovered a + tearless face, and with one swift movement assumed a conversational + attitude. Things hung for a moment in an awkward silence. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” said Ann Veronica, staring before her at the window-sash, + “that’s the form my question takes at the present time.” + </p> + <p> + Capes had not quite the same power of recovery. He stood with his hands in + his pockets looking at Miss Klegg’s back. His face was white. “It’s—it’s + a difficult question.” He appeared to be paralyzed by abstruse acoustic + calculations. Then, very awkwardly, he took a stool and placed it at the + end of Ann Veronica’s table, and sat down. He glanced at Miss Klegg again, + and spoke quickly and furtively, with eager eyes on Ann Veronica’s face. + </p> + <p> + “I had a faint idea once that things were as you say they are, but the + affair of the ring—of the unexpected ring—puzzled me. Wish + SHE”—he indicated Miss Klegg’s back with a nod—“was at the + bottom of the sea.... I would like to talk to you about this—soon. + If you don’t think it would be a social outrage, perhaps I might walk with + you to your railway station.” + </p> + <p> + “I will wait,” said Ann Veronica, still not looking at him, “and we will + go into Regent’s Park. No—you shall come with me to Waterloo.” + </p> + <p> + “Right!” he said, and hesitated, and then got up and went into the + preparation-room. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that lead + southward from the College. Capes bore a face of infinite perplexity. + </p> + <p> + “The thing I feel most disposed to say, Miss Stanley,” he began at last, + “is that this is very sudden.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s been coming on since first I came into the laboratory.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you want?” he asked, bluntly. + </p> + <p> + “You!” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + The sense of publicity, of people coming and going about them, kept them + both unemotional. And neither had any of that theatricality which demands + gestures and facial expression. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you know I like you tremendously?” he pursued. + </p> + <p> + “You told me that in the Zoological Gardens.” + </p> + <p> + She found her muscles a-tremble. But there was nothing in her bearing that + a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the excitement that possessed + her. + </p> + <p> + “I”—he seemed to have a difficulty with the word—“I love you. + I’ve told you that practically already. But I can give it its name now. + You needn’t be in any doubt about it. I tell you that because it puts us + on a footing....” + </p> + <p> + They went on for a time without another word. + </p> + <p> + “But don’t you know about me?” he said at last. + </p> + <p> + “Something. Not much.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m a married man. And my wife won’t live with me for reasons that I + think most women would consider sound.... Or I should have made love to + you long ago.” + </p> + <p> + There came a silence again. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “But if you knew anything of that—” + </p> + <p> + “I did. It doesn’t matter.” + </p> + <p> + “Why did you tell me? I thought—I thought we were going to be + friends.” + </p> + <p> + He was suddenly resentful. He seemed to charge her with the ruin of their + situation. “Why on earth did you TELL me?” he cried. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn’t help it. It was an impulse. I HAD to.” + </p> + <p> + “But it changes things. I thought you understood.” + </p> + <p> + “I had to,” she repeated. “I was sick of the make-believe. I don’t care! + I’m glad I did. I’m glad I did.” + </p> + <p> + “Look here!” said Capes, “what on earth do you want? What do you think we + can do? Don’t you know what men are, and what life is?—to come to me + and talk to me like this!” + </p> + <p> + “I know—something, anyhow. But I don’t care; I haven’t a spark of + shame. I don’t see any good in life if it hasn’t got you in it. I wanted + you to know. And now you know. And the fences are down for good. You can’t + look me in the eyes and say you don’t care for me.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve told you,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Ann Veronica, with an air of concluding the discussion. + </p> + <p> + They walked side by side for a time. + </p> + <p> + “In that laboratory one gets to disregard these passions,” began Capes. + “Men are curious animals, with a trick of falling in love readily with + girls about your age. One has to train one’s self not to. I’ve accustomed + myself to think of you—as if you were like every other girl who + works at the schools—as something quite outside these possibilities. + If only out of loyalty to co-education one has to do that. Apart from + everything else, this meeting of ours is a breach of a good rule.” + </p> + <p> + “Rules are for every day,” said Ann Veronica. “This is not every day. This + is something above all rules.” + </p> + <p> + “For you.” + </p> + <p> + “Not for you?” + </p> + <p> + “No. No; I’m going to stick to the rules.... It’s odd, but nothing but + cliche seems to meet this case. You’ve placed me in a very exceptional + position, Miss Stanley.” The note of his own voice exasperated him. “Oh, + damn!” he said. + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems with himself. + </p> + <p> + “No!” he said aloud at last. + </p> + <p> + “The plain common-sense of the case,” he said, “is that we can’t possibly + be lovers in the ordinary sense. That, I think, is manifest. You know, + I’ve done no work at all this afternoon. I’ve been smoking cigarettes in + the preparation-room and thinking this out. We can’t be lovers in the + ordinary sense, but we can be great and intimate friends.” + </p> + <p> + “We are,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve interested me enormously....” + </p> + <p> + He paused with a sense of ineptitude. “I want to be your friend,” he said. + “I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let us be friends—as near + and close as friends can be.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica gave him a pallid profile. + </p> + <p> + “What is the good of pretending?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “We don’t pretend.” + </p> + <p> + “We do. Love is one thing and friendship quite another. Because I’m + younger than you.... I’ve got imagination.... I know what I am talking + about. Mr. Capes, do you think... do you think I don’t know the meaning of + love?” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + Capes made no answer for a time. + </p> + <p> + “My mind is full of confused stuff,” he said at length. “I’ve been + thinking—all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of thought and + feeling there are bottled up too.... I feel a mixture of beast and uncle. + I feel like a fraudulent trustee. Every rule is against me—Why did I + let you begin this? I might have told—” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see that you could help—” + </p> + <p> + “I might have helped—” + </p> + <p> + “You couldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I ought to have—all the same. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” he said, and went off at a tangent. “You know about my + scandalous past?” + </p> + <p> + “Very little. It doesn’t seem to matter. Does it?” + </p> + <p> + “I think it does. Profoundly.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “It prevents our marrying. It forbids—all sorts of things.” + </p> + <p> + “It can’t prevent our loving.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid it can’t. But, by Jove! it’s going to make our loving a + fiercely abstract thing.” + </p> + <p> + “You are separated from your wife?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but do you know how?” + </p> + <p> + “Not exactly.” + </p> + <p> + “Why on earth—? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I’m separated + from my wife. But she doesn’t and won’t divorce me. You don’t understand + the fix I am in. And you don’t know what led to our separation. And, in + fact, all round the problem you don’t know and I don’t see how I could + possibly have told you before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I + trusted to that ring of yours.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor old ring!” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I ought never have gone to the Zoo, I suppose. I asked you to go. But a + man is a mixed creature.... I wanted the time with you. I wanted it + badly.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about yourself,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “To begin with, I was—I was in the divorce court. I was—I was + a co-respondent. You understand that term?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica smiled faintly. “A modern girl does understand these terms. + She reads novels—and history—and all sorts of things. Did you + really doubt if I knew?” + </p> + <p> + “No. But I don’t suppose you can understand.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see why I shouldn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “To know things by name is one thing; to know them by seeing them and + feeling them and being them quite another. That is where life takes + advantage of youth. You don’t understand.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t. That’s the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I expect, + since you are in love with me, you’d explain the whole business as being + very fine and honorable for me—the Higher Morality, or something of + that sort.... It wasn’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t deal very much,” said Ann Veronica, “in the Higher Morality, or + the Higher Truth, or any of those things.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps you don’t. But a human being who is young and clean, as you are, + is apt to ennoble—or explain away.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve had a biological training. I’m a hard young woman.” + </p> + <p> + “Nice clean hardness, anyhow. I think you are hard. There’s something—something + ADULT about you. I’m talking to you now as though you had all the wisdom + and charity in the world. I’m going to tell you things plainly. Plainly. + It’s best. And then you can go home and think things over before we talk + again. I want you to be clear what you’re really and truly up to, anyhow.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t mind knowing,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “It’s precious unromantic.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “I married pretty young,” said Capes. “I’ve got—I have to tell you + this to make myself clear—a streak of ardent animal in my + composition. I married—I married a woman whom I still think one of + the most beautiful persons in the world. She is a year or so older than I + am, and she is, well, of a very serene and proud and dignified + temperament. If you met her you would, I am certain, think her as fine as + I do. She has never done a really ignoble thing that I know of—never. + I met her when we were both very young, as young as you are. I loved her + and made love to her, and I don’t think she quite loved me back in the + same way.” + </p> + <p> + He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing. + </p> + <p> + “These are the sort of things that aren’t supposed to happen. They leave + them out of novels—these incompatibilities. Young people ignore them + until they find themselves up against them. My wife doesn’t understand, + doesn’t understand now. She despises me, I suppose.... We married, and for + a time we were happy. She was fine and tender. I worshipped her and + subdued myself.” + </p> + <p> + He left off abruptly. “Do you understand what I am talking about? It’s no + good if you don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I think so,” said Ann Veronica, and colored. “In fact, yes, I do.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think of these things—these matters—as belonging to + our Higher Nature or our Lower?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t deal in Higher Things, I tell you,” said Ann Veronica, “or Lower, + for the matter of that. I don’t classify.” She hesitated. “Flesh and + flowers are all alike to me.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a fever in my + blood. Don’t think it was anything better than fever—or a bit + beautiful. It wasn’t. Quite soon, after we were married—it was just + within a year—I formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a + woman eight years older than myself.... It wasn’t anything splendid, you + know. It was just a shabby, stupid, furtive business that began between + us. Like stealing. We dressed it in a little music.... I want you to + understand clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I + was mean to him.... It was the gratification of an immense necessity. We + were two people with a craving. We felt like thieves. We WERE thieves.... + We LIKED each other well enough. Well, my friend found us out, and would + give no quarter. He divorced her. How do you like the story?” + </p> + <p> + “Go on,” said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, “tell me all of it.” + </p> + <p> + “My wife was astounded—wounded beyond measure. She thought me—filthy. + All her pride raged at me. One particularly humiliating thing came out—humiliating + for me. There was a second co-respondent. I hadn’t heard of him before the + trial. I don’t know why that should be so acutely humiliating. There’s no + logic in these things. It was.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor you!” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me. She could + hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a separation. She had + money of her own—much more than I have—and there was no need + to squabble about that. She has given herself up to social work.” + </p> + <p> + “Well—” + </p> + <p> + “That’s all. Practically all. And yet—Wait a little, you’d better + have every bit of it. One doesn’t go about with these passions allayed + simply because they have made wreckage and a scandal. There one is! The + same stuff still! One has a craving in one’s blood, a craving roused, cut + off from its redeeming and guiding emotional side. A man has more freedom + to do evil than a woman. Irregularly, in a quite inglorious and unromantic + way, you know, I am a vicious man. That’s—that’s my private life. + Until the last few months. It isn’t what I have been but what I am. I + haven’t taken much account of it until now. My honor has been in my + scientific work and public discussion and the things I write. Lots of us + are like that. But, you see, I’m smirched. For the sort of love-making you + think about. I’ve muddled all this business. I’ve had my time and lost my + chances. I’m damaged goods. And you’re as clean as fire. You come with + those clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel....” + </p> + <p> + He stopped abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “That’s all.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s so strange to think of you—troubled by such things. I didn’t + think—I don’t know what I thought. Suddenly all this makes you + human. Makes you real.” + </p> + <p> + “But don’t you see how I must stand to you? Don’t you see how it bars us + from being lovers—You can’t—at first. You must think it over. + It’s all outside the world of your experience.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think it makes a rap of difference, except for one thing. I love + you more. I’ve wanted you—always. I didn’t dream, not even in my + wildest dreaming, that—you might have any need of me.” + </p> + <p> + He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried out within + him, and for a time they were both too full for speech. + </p> + <p> + They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station. + </p> + <p> + “You go home and think of all this,” he said, “and talk about it + to-morrow. Don’t, don’t say anything now, not anything. As for loving you, + I do. I do—with all my heart. It’s no good hiding it any more. I + could never have talked to you like this, forgetting everything that parts + us, forgetting even your age, if I did not love you utterly. If I were a + clean, free man—We’ll have to talk of all these things. Thank + goodness there’s plenty of opportunity! And we two can talk. Anyhow, now + you’ve begun it, there’s nothing to keep us in all this from being the + best friends in the world. And talking of every conceivable thing. Is + there?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” said Ann Veronica, with a radiant face. + </p> + <p> + “Before this there was a sort of restraint—a make-believe. It’s + gone.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s gone.” + </p> + <p> + “Friendship and love being separate things. And that confounded + engagement!” + </p> + <p> + “Gone!” + </p> + <p> + They came upon a platform, and stood before her compartment. + </p> + <p> + He took her hand and looked into her eyes and spoke, divided against + himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere. + </p> + <p> + “I shall be very glad to have you for a friend,” he said, “loving friend. + I had never dreamed of such a friend as you.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled, sure of herself beyond any pretending, into his troubled eyes. + Hadn’t they settled that already? + </p> + <p> + “I want you as a friend,” he persisted, almost as if he disputed + something. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + The next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour in the + reasonable certainty that he would come to her. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you have thought it over?” he said, sitting down beside her. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been thinking of you all night,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care a rap for all these things.” + </p> + <p> + He said nothing for a space. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see there’s any getting away from the fact that you and I love + each other,” he said, slowly. “So far you’ve got me and I you.... You’ve + got me. I’m like a creature just wakened up. My eyes are open to you. I + keep on thinking of you. I keep on thinking of little details and aspects + of your voice, your eyes, the way you walk, the way your hair goes back + from the side of your forehead. I believe I have always been in love with + you. Always. Before ever I knew you.” + </p> + <p> + She sat motionless, with her hand tightening over the edge of the table, + and he, too, said no more. She began to tremble violently. + </p> + <p> + He stood up abruptly and went to the window. + </p> + <p> + “We have,” he said, “to be the utmost friends.” + </p> + <p> + She stood up and held her arms toward him. “I want you to kiss me,” she + said. + </p> + <p> + He gripped the window-sill behind him. + </p> + <p> + “If I do,” he said.... “No! I want to do without that. I want to do + without that for a time. I want to give you time to think. I am a man—of + a sort of experience. You are a girl with very little. Just sit down on + that stool again and let’s talk of this in cold blood. People of your sort—I + don’t want the instincts to—to rush our situation. Are you sure what + it is you want of me?” + </p> + <p> + “I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. I + want to be whatever I can to you.” She paused for a moment. “Is that + plain?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “If I didn’t love you better than myself,” said Capes, “I wouldn’t fence + like this with you. + </p> + <p> + “I am convinced you haven’t thought this out,” he went on. “You do not + know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our heads swim with the + thought of being together. But what can we do? Here am I, fixed to + respectability and this laboratory; you’re living at home. It means... + just furtive meetings.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care how we meet,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “It will spoil your life.” + </p> + <p> + “It will make it. I want you. I am clear I want you. You are different + from all the world for me. You can think all round me. You are the one + person I can understand and feel—feel right with. I don’t idealize + you. Don’t imagine that. It isn’t because you’re good, but because I may + be rotten bad; and there’s something—something living and + understanding in you. Something that is born anew each time we meet, and + pines when we are separated. You see, I’m selfish. I’m rather scornful. I + think too much about myself. You’re the only person I’ve really given + good, straight, unselfish thought to. I’m making a mess of my life—unless + you come in and take it. I am. In you—if you can love me—there + is salvation. Salvation. I know what I am doing better than you do. Think—think + of that engagement!” + </p> + <p> + Their talk had come to eloquent silences that contradicted all he had to + say. + </p> + <p> + She stood up before him, smiling faintly. + </p> + <p> + “I think we’ve exhausted this discussion,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I think we have,” he answered, gravely, and took her in his arms, and + smoothed her hair from her forehead, and very tenderly kissed her lips. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + They spent the next Sunday in Richmond Park, and mingled the happy + sensation of being together uninterruptedly through the long sunshine of a + summer’s day with the ample discussion of their position. “This has all + the clean freshness of spring and youth,” said Capes; “it is love with the + down on; it is like the glitter of dew in the sunlight to be lovers such + as we are, with no more than one warm kiss between us. I love everything + to-day, and all of you, but I love this, this—this innocence upon us + most of all. + </p> + <p> + “You can’t imagine,” he said, “what a beastly thing a furtive love affair + can be. + </p> + <p> + “This isn’t furtive,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit of it. And we won’t make it so.... We mustn’t make it so.” + </p> + <p> + They loitered under trees, they sat on mossy banks they gossiped on + friendly benches, they came back to lunch at the “Star and Garter,” and + talked their afternoon away in the garden that looks out upon the crescent + of the river. They had a universe to talk about—two universes. + </p> + <p> + “What are we going to do?” said Capes, with his eyes on the broad + distances beyond the ribbon of the river. + </p> + <p> + “I will do whatever you want,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “My first love was all blundering,” said Capes. + </p> + <p> + He thought for a moment, and went on: “Love is something that has to be + taken care of. One has to be so careful.... It’s a beautiful plant, but a + tender one.... I didn’t know. I’ve a dread of love dropping its petals, + becoming mean and ugly. How can I tell you all I feel? I love you beyond + measure. And I’m afraid.... I’m anxious, joyfully anxious, like a man when + he has found a treasure.” + </p> + <p> + “YOU know,” said Ann Veronica. “I just came to you and put myself in your + hands.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s why, in a way, I’m prudish. I’ve—dreads. I don’t want to + tear at you with hot, rough hands.” + </p> + <p> + “As you will, dear lover. But for me it doesn’t matter. Nothing is wrong + that you do. Nothing. I am quite clear about this. I know exactly what I + am doing. I give myself to you.” + </p> + <p> + “God send you may never repent it!” cried Capes. + </p> + <p> + She put her hand in his to be squeezed. + </p> + <p> + “You see,” he said, “it is doubtful if we can ever marry. Very doubtful. I + have been thinking—I will go to my wife again. I will do my utmost. + But for a long time, anyhow, we lovers have to be as if we were no more + than friends.” + </p> + <p> + He paused. She answered slowly. “That is as you will,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Why should it matter?” he said. + </p> + <p> + And then, as she answered nothing, “Seeing that we are lovers.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + It was rather less than a week after that walk that Capes came and sat + down beside Ann Veronica for their customary talk in the lunch hour. He + took a handful of almonds and raisins that she held out to him—for + both these young people had given up the practice of going out for + luncheon—and kept her hand for a moment to kiss her finger-tips. He + did not speak for a moment. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I say!” he said, without any movement. “Let’s go.” + </p> + <p> + “Go!” She did not understand him at first, and then her heart began to + beat very rapidly. + </p> + <p> + “Stop this—this humbugging,” he explained. “It’s like the Picture + and the Bust. I can’t stand it. Let’s go. Go off and live together—until + we can marry. Dare you?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean NOW?” + </p> + <p> + “At the end of the session. It’s the only clean way for us. Are you + prepared to do it?” + </p> + <p> + Her hands clenched. “Yes,” she said, very faintly. And then: “Of course! + Always. It is what I have wanted, what I have meant all along.” + </p> + <p> + She stared before her, trying to keep back a rush of tears. + </p> + <p> + Capes kept obstinately stiff, and spoke between his teeth. + </p> + <p> + “There’s endless reasons, no doubt, why we shouldn’t,” he said. “Endless. + It’s wrong in the eyes of most people. For many of them it will smirch us + forever.... You DO understand?” + </p> + <p> + “Who cares for most people?” she said, not looking at him. + </p> + <p> + “I do. It means social isolation—struggle.” + </p> + <p> + “If you dare—I dare,” said Ann Veronica. “I was never so clear in + all my life as I have been in this business.” She lifted steadfast eyes to + him. “Dare!” she said. The tears were welling over now, but her voice was + steady. “You’re not a man for me—not one of a sex, I mean. You’re + just a particular being with nothing else in the world to class with you. + You are just necessary to life for me. I’ve never met any one like you. To + have you is all important. Nothing else weighs against it. Morals only + begin when that is settled. I sha’n’t care a rap if we can never marry. + I’m not a bit afraid of anything—scandal, difficulty, struggle.... I + rather want them. I do want them.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ll get them,” he said. “This means a plunge.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you afraid?” + </p> + <p> + “Only for you! Most of my income will vanish. Even unbelieving biological + demonstrators must respect decorum; and besides, you see—you were a + student. We shall have—hardly any money.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care.” + </p> + <p> + “Hardship and danger.” + </p> + <p> + “With you!” + </p> + <p> + “And as for your people?” + </p> + <p> + “They don’t count. That is the dreadful truth. This—all this swamps + them. They don’t count, and I don’t care.” + </p> + <p> + Capes suddenly abandoned his attitude of meditative restraint. “By Jove!” + he broke out, “one tries to take a serious, sober view. I don’t quite know + why. But this is a great lark, Ann Veronica! This turns life into a + glorious adventure!” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” she cried in triumph. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have to give up biology, anyhow. I’ve always had a sneaking + desire for the writing-trade. That is what I must do. I can.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course you can.” + </p> + <p> + “And biology was beginning to bore me a bit. One research is very like + another.... Latterly I’ve been doing things.... Creative work appeals to + me wonderfully. Things seem to come rather easily.... But that, and that + sort of thing, is just a day-dream. For a time I must do journalism and + work hard.... What isn’t a day-dream is this: that you and I are going to + put an end to flummery—and go!” + </p> + <p> + “Go!” said Ann Veronica, clenching her hands. + </p> + <p> + “For better or worse.” + </p> + <p> + “For richer or poorer.” + </p> + <p> + She could not go on, for she was laughing and crying at the same time. “We + were bound to do this when you kissed me,” she sobbed through her tears. + “We have been all this time—Only your queer code of honor—Honor! + Once you begin with love you have to see it through.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + </h3> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + They decided to go to Switzerland at the session’s end. “We’ll clean up + everything tidy,” said Capes.... + </p> + <p> + For her pride’s sake, and to save herself from long day-dreams and an + unappeasable longing for her lover, Ann Veronica worked hard at her + biology during those closing weeks. She was, as Capes had said, a hard + young woman. She was keenly resolved to do well in the school examination, + and not to be drowned in the seas of emotion that threatened to submerge + her intellectual being. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, she could not prevent a rising excitement as the dawn of the + new life drew near to her—a thrilling of the nerves, a secret and + delicious exaltation above the common circumstances of existence. + Sometimes her straying mind would become astonishingly active—embroidering + bright and decorative things that she could say to Capes; sometimes it + passed into a state of passive acquiescence, into a radiant, formless, + golden joy. She was aware of people—her aunt, her father, her + fellow-students, friends, and neighbors—moving about outside this + glowing secret, very much as an actor is aware of the dim audience beyond + the barrier of the footlights. They might applaud, or object, or + interfere, but the drama was her very own. She was going through with + that, anyhow. + </p> + <p> + The feeling of last days grew stronger with her as their number + diminished. She went about the familiar home with a clearer and clearer + sense of inevitable conclusions. She became exceptionally considerate and + affectionate with her father and aunt, and more and more concerned about + the coming catastrophe that she was about to precipitate upon them. Her + aunt had a once exasperating habit of interrupting her work with demands + for small household services, but now Ann Veronica rendered them with a + queer readiness of anticipatory propitiation. She was greatly exercised by + the problem of confiding in the Widgetts; they were dears, and she talked + away two evenings with Constance without broaching the topic; she made + some vague intimations in letters to Miss Miniver that Miss Miniver failed + to mark. But she did not bother her head very much about her relations + with these sympathizers. + </p> + <p> + And at length her penultimate day in Morningside Park dawned for her. She + got up early, and walked about the garden in the dewy June sunshine and + revived her childhood. She was saying good-bye to childhood and home, and + her making; she was going out into the great, multitudinous world; this + time there would be no returning. She was at the end of girlhood and on + the eve of a woman’s crowning experience. She visited the corner that had + been her own little garden—her forget-me-nots and candytuft had long + since been elbowed into insignificance by weeds; she visited the + raspberry-canes that had sheltered that first love affair with the little + boy in velvet, and the greenhouse where she had been wont to read her + secret letters. Here was the place behind the shed where she had used to + hide from Roddy’s persecutions, and here the border of herbaceous + perennials under whose stems was fairyland. The back of the house had been + the Alps for climbing, and the shrubs in front of it a Terai. The knots + and broken pale that made the garden-fence scalable, and gave access to + the fields behind, were still to be traced. And here against a wall were + the plum-trees. In spite of God and wasps and her father, she had stolen + plums; and once because of discovered misdeeds, and once because she had + realized that her mother was dead, she had lain on her face in the unmown + grass, beneath the elm-trees that came beyond the vegetables, and poured + out her soul in weeping. + </p> + <p> + Remote little Ann Veronica! She would never know the heart of that child + again! That child had loved fairy princes with velvet suits and golden + locks, and she was in love with a real man named Capes, with little gleams + of gold on his cheek and a pleasant voice and firm and shapely hands. She + was going to him soon and certainly, going to his strong, embracing arms. + She was going through a new world with him side by side. She had been so + busy with life that, for a vast gulf of time, as it seemed, she had given + no thought to those ancient, imagined things of her childhood. Now, + abruptly, they were real again, though very distant, and she had come to + say farewell to them across one sundering year. + </p> + <p> + She was unusually helpful at breakfast, and unselfish about the eggs: and + then she went off to catch the train before her father’s. She did this to + please him. He hated travelling second-class with her—indeed, he + never did—but he also disliked travelling in the same train when his + daughter was in an inferior class, because of the look of the thing. So he + liked to go by a different train. And in the Avenue she had an encounter + with Ramage. + </p> + <p> + It was an odd little encounter, that left vague and dubitable impressions + in her mind. She was aware of him—a silk-hatted, shiny-black figure + on the opposite side of the Avenue; and then, abruptly and startlingly, he + crossed the road and saluted and spoke to her. + </p> + <p> + “I MUST speak to you,” he said. “I can’t keep away from you.” + </p> + <p> + She made some inane response. She was struck by a change in his + appearance. His eyes looked a little bloodshot to her; his face had lost + something of its ruddy freshness. + </p> + <p> + He began a jerky, broken conversation that lasted until they reached the + station, and left her puzzled at its drift and meaning. She quickened her + pace, and so did he, talking at her slightly averted ear. She made lumpish + and inadequate interruptions rather than replies. At times he seemed to be + claiming pity from her; at times he was threatening her with her check and + exposure; at times he was boasting of his inflexible will, and how, in the + end, he always got what he wanted. He said that his life was boring and + stupid without her. Something or other—she did not catch what—he + was damned if he could stand. He was evidently nervous, and very anxious + to be impressive; his projecting eyes sought to dominate. The crowning + aspect of the incident, for her mind, was the discovery that he and her + indiscretion with him no longer mattered very much. Its importance had + vanished with her abandonment of compromise. Even her debt to him was a + triviality now. + </p> + <p> + And of course! She had a brilliant idea. It surprised her she hadn’t + thought of it before! She tried to explain that she was going to pay him + forty pounds without fail next week. She said as much to him. She repeated + this breathlessly. + </p> + <p> + “I was glad you did not send it back again,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He touched a long-standing sore, and Ann Veronica found herself vainly + trying to explain—the inexplicable. “It’s because I mean to send it + back altogether,” she said. + </p> + <p> + He ignored her protests in order to pursue some impressive line of his + own. + </p> + <p> + “Here we are, living in the same suburb,” he began. “We have to be—modern.” + </p> + <p> + Her heart leaped within her as she caught that phrase. That knot also + would be cut. Modern, indeed! She was going to be as primordial as chipped + flint. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + In the late afternoon, as Ann Veronica was gathering flowers for the + dinner-table, her father came strolling across the lawn toward her with an + affectation of great deliberation. + </p> + <p> + “I want to speak to you about a little thing, Vee,” said Mr. Stanley. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica’s tense nerves started, and she stood still with her eyes + upon him, wondering what it might be that impended. + </p> + <p> + “You were talking to that fellow Ramage to-day—in the Avenue. + Walking to the station with him.” + </p> + <p> + So that was it! + </p> + <p> + “He came and talked to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ye—e—es.” Mr. Stanley considered. “Well, I don’t want you to + talk to him,” he said, very firmly. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica paused before she answered. “Don’t you think I ought to?” she + asked, very submissively. + </p> + <p> + “No.” Mr. Stanley coughed and faced toward the house. “He is not—I + don’t like him. I think it inadvisable—I don’t want an intimacy to + spring up between you and a man of that type.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica reflected. “I HAVE—had one or two talks with him, + daddy.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t let there be any more. I—In fact, I dislike him extremely.” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose he comes and talks to me?” + </p> + <p> + “A girl can always keep a man at a distance if she cares to do it. She—She + can snub him.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica picked a cornflower. + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn’t make this objection,” Mr. Stanley went on, “but there are + things—there are stories about Ramage. He’s—He lives in a + world of possibilities outside your imagination. His treatment of his wife + is most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. A bad man, in fact. A + dissipated, loose-living man.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll try not to see him again,” said Ann Veronica. “I didn’t know you + objected to him, daddy.” + </p> + <p> + “Strongly,” said Mr. Stanley, “very strongly.” + </p> + <p> + The conversation hung. Ann Veronica wondered what her father would do if + she were to tell him the full story of her relations with Ramage. + </p> + <p> + “A man like that taints a girl by looking at her, by his mere + conversation.” He adjusted his glasses on his nose. There was another + little thing he had to say. “One has to be so careful of one’s friends and + acquaintances,” he remarked, by way of transition. “They mould one + insensibly.” His voice assumed an easy detached tone. “I suppose, Vee, you + don’t see much of those Widgetts now?” + </p> + <p> + “I go in and talk to Constance sometimes.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you?” + </p> + <p> + “We were great friends at school.” + </p> + <p> + “No doubt.... Still—I don’t know whether I quite like—Something + ramshackle about those people, Vee. While I am talking about your friends, + I feel—I think you ought to know how I look at it.” His voice + conveyed studied moderation. “I don’t mind, of course, your seeing her + sometimes, still there are differences—differences in social + atmospheres. One gets drawn into things. Before you know where you are you + find yourself in a complication. I don’t want to influence you unduly—But—They’re + artistic people, Vee. That’s the fact about them. We’re different.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose we are,” said Vee, rearranging the flowers in her hand. + </p> + <p> + “Friendships that are all very well between school-girls don’t always go + on into later life. It’s—it’s a social difference.” + </p> + <p> + “I like Constance very much.” + </p> + <p> + “No doubt. Still, one has to be reasonable. As you admitted to me—one + has to square one’s self with the world. You don’t know. With people of + that sort all sorts of things may happen. We don’t want things to happen.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica made no answer. + </p> + <p> + A vague desire to justify himself ruffled her father. “I may seem unduly—anxious. + I can’t forget about your sister. It’s that has always made me—SHE, + you know, was drawn into a set—didn’t discriminate Private + theatricals.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica remained anxious to hear more of her sister’s story from her + father’s point of view, but he did not go on. Even so much allusion as + this to that family shadow, she felt, was an immense recognition of her + ripening years. She glanced at him. He stood a little anxious and fussy, + bothered by the responsibility of her, entirely careless of what her life + was or was likely to be, ignoring her thoughts and feelings, ignorant of + every fact of importance in her life, explaining everything he could not + understand in her as nonsense and perversity, concerned only with a terror + of bothers and undesirable situations. “We don’t want things to happen!” + Never had he shown his daughter so clearly that the womenkind he was + persuaded he had to protect and control could please him in one way, and + in one way only, and that was by doing nothing except the punctual + domestic duties and being nothing except restful appearances. He had quite + enough to see to and worry about in the City without their doing things. + He had no use for Ann Veronica; he had never had a use for her since she + had been too old to sit upon his knee. Nothing but the constraint of + social usage now linked him to her. And the less “anything” happened the + better. The less she lived, in fact, the better. These realizations rushed + into Ann Veronica’s mind and hardened her heart against him. She spoke + slowly. “I may not see the Widgetts for some little time, father,” she + said. “I don’t think I shall.” + </p> + <p> + “Some little tiff?” + </p> + <p> + “No; but I don’t think I shall see them.” + </p> + <p> + Suppose she were to add, “I am going away!” + </p> + <p> + “I’m glad to hear you say it,” said Mr. Stanley, and was so evidently + pleased that Ann Veronica’s heart smote her. + </p> + <p> + “I am very glad to hear you say it,” he repeated, and refrained from + further inquiry. “I think we are growing sensible,” he said. “I think you + are getting to understand me better.” + </p> + <p> + He hesitated, and walked away from her toward the house. Her eyes followed + him. The curve of his shoulders, the very angle of his feet, expressed + relief at her apparent obedience. “Thank goodness!” said that retreating + aspect, “that’s said and over. Vee’s all right. There’s nothing happened + at all!” She didn’t mean, he concluded, to give him any more trouble ever, + and he was free to begin a fresh chromatic novel—he had just + finished the Blue Lagoon, which he thought very beautiful and tender and + absolutely irrelevant to Morningside Park—or work in peace at his + microtome without bothering about her in the least. + </p> + <p> + The immense disillusionment that awaited him! The devastating + disillusionment! She had a vague desire to run after him, to state her + case to him, to wring some understanding from him of what life was to her. + She felt a cheat and a sneak to his unsuspecting retreating back. + </p> + <p> + “But what can one do?” asked Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + She dressed carefully for dinner in a black dress that her father liked, + and that made her look serious and responsible. Dinner was quite + uneventful. Her father read a draft prospectus warily, and her aunt + dropped fragments of her projects for managing while the cook had a + holiday. After dinner Ann Veronica went into the drawing-room with Miss + Stanley, and her father went up to his den for his pipe and pensive + petrography. Later in the evening she heard him whistling, poor man! + </p> + <p> + She felt very restless and excited. She refused coffee, though she knew + that anyhow she was doomed to a sleepless night. She took up one of her + father’s novels and put it down again, fretted up to her own room for some + work, sat on her bed and meditated upon the room that she was now really + abandoning forever, and returned at length with a stocking to darn. Her + aunt was making herself cuffs out of little slips of insertion under the + newly lit lamp. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica sat down in the other arm-chair and darned badly for a minute + or so. Then she looked at her aunt, and traced with a curious eye the + careful arrangement of her hair, her sharp nose, the little drooping lines + of mouth and chin and cheek. + </p> + <p> + Her thought spoke aloud. “Were you ever in love, aunt?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt glanced up startled, and then sat very still, with hands that had + ceased to work. “What makes you ask such a question, Vee?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I wondered.” + </p> + <p> + Her aunt answered in a low voice: “I was engaged to him, dear, for seven + years, and then he died.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica made a sympathetic little murmur. + </p> + <p> + “He was in holy orders, and we were to have been married when he got a + living. He was a Wiltshire Edmondshaw, a very old family.” + </p> + <p> + She sat very still. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica hesitated with a question that had leaped up in her mind, and + that she felt was cruel. “Are you sorry you waited, aunt?” she said. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt was a long time before she answered. “His stipend forbade it,” + she said, and seemed to fall into a train of thought. “It would have been + rash and unwise,” she said at the end of a meditation. “What he had was + altogether insufficient.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica looked at the mildly pensive gray eyes and the comfortable, + rather refined face with a penetrating curiosity. Presently her aunt + sighed deeply and looked at the clock. “Time for my Patience,” she said. + She got up, put the neat cuffs she had made into her work-basket, and went + to the bureau for the little cards in the morocco case. Ann Veronica + jumped up to get her the card-table. “I haven’t seen the new Patience, + dear,” she said. “May I sit beside you?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a very difficult one,” said her aunt. “Perhaps you will help me + shuffle?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica did, and also assisted nimbly with the arrangements of the + rows of eight with which the struggle began. Then she sat watching the + play, sometimes offering a helpful suggestion, sometimes letting her + attention wander to the smoothly shining arms she had folded across her + knees just below the edge of the table. She was feeling extraordinarily + well that night, so that the sense of her body was a deep delight, a + realization of a gentle warmth and strength and elastic firmness. Then she + glanced at the cards again, over which her aunt’s many-ringed hand played, + and then at the rather weak, rather plump face that surveyed its + operations. + </p> + <p> + It came to Ann Veronica that life was wonderful beyond measure. It seemed + incredible that she and her aunt were, indeed, creatures of the same + blood, only by a birth or so different beings, and part of that same broad + interlacing stream of human life that has invented the fauns and nymphs, + Astarte, Aphrodite, Freya, and all the twining beauty of the gods. The + love-songs of all the ages were singing in her blood, the scent of night + stock from the garden filled the air, and the moths that beat upon the + closed frames of the window next the lamp set her mind dreaming of kisses + in the dusk. Yet her aunt, with a ringed hand flitting to her lips and a + puzzled, worried look in her eyes, deaf to all this riot of warmth and + flitting desire, was playing Patience—playing Patience, as if + Dionysius and her curate had died together. A faint buzz above the ceiling + witnessed that petrography, too, was active. Gray and tranquil world! + Amazing, passionless world! A world in which days without meaning, days in + which “we don’t want things to happen” followed days without meaning—until + the last thing happened, the ultimate, unavoidable, coarse, + “disagreeable.” It was her last evening in that wrappered life against + which she had rebelled. Warm reality was now so near her she could hear it + beating in her ears. Away in London even now Capes was packing and + preparing; Capes, the magic man whose touch turned one to trembling fire. + What was he doing? What was he thinking? It was less than a day now, less + than twenty hours. Seventeen hours, sixteen hours. She glanced at the + soft-ticking clock with the exposed brass pendulum upon the white marble + mantel, and made a rapid calculation. To be exact, it was just sixteen + hours and twenty minutes. The slow stars circled on to the moment of their + meeting. The softly glittering summer stars! She saw them shining over + mountains of snow, over valleys of haze and warm darkness.... There would + be no moon. + </p> + <p> + “I believe after all it’s coming out!” said Miss Stanley. “The aces made + it easy.” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica started from her reverie, sat up in her chair, became + attentive. “Look, dear,” she said presently, “you can put the ten on the + Jack.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH + </h2> + <h3> + IN THE MOUNTAINS + </h3> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + Next day Ann Veronica and Capes felt like newborn things. It seemed to + them they could never have been really alive before, but only dimly + anticipating existence. They sat face to face beneath an + experienced-looking rucksack and a brand new portmanteau and a leather + handbag, in the afternoon-boat train that goes from Charing Cross to + Folkestone for Boulogne. They tried to read illustrated papers in an + unconcerned manner and with forced attention, lest they should catch the + leaping exultation in each other’s eyes. And they admired Kent sedulously + from the windows. + </p> + <p> + They crossed the Channel in sunshine and a breeze that just ruffled the + sea to glittering scales of silver. Some of the people who watched them + standing side by side thought they must be newly wedded because of their + happy faces, and others that they were an old-established couple because + of their easy confidence in each other. + </p> + <p> + At Boulogne they took train to Basle; next morning they breakfasted + together in the buffet of that station, and thence they caught the + Interlaken express, and so went by way of Spies to Frutigen. There was no + railway beyond Frutigen in those days; they sent their baggage by post to + Kandersteg, and walked along the mule path to the left of the stream to + that queer hollow among the precipices, Blau See, where the petrifying + branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of an icy lake, and pine-trees + clamber among gigantic boulders. A little inn flying a Swiss flag nestles + under a great rock, and there they put aside their knapsacks and lunched + and rested in the mid-day shadow of the gorge and the scent of resin. And + later they paddled in a boat above the mysterious deeps of the See, and + peered down into the green-blues and the blue-greens together. By that + time it seemed to them they had lived together twenty years. + </p> + <p> + Except for one memorable school excursion to Paris, Ann Veronica had never + yet been outside England. So that it seemed to her the whole world had + changed—the very light of it had changed. Instead of English villas + and cottages there were chalets and Italian-built houses shining white; + there were lakes of emerald and sapphire and clustering castles, and such + sweeps of hill and mountain, such shining uplands of snow, as she had + never seen before. Everything was fresh and bright, from the kindly + manners of the Frutigen cobbler, who hammered mountain nails into her + boots, to the unfamiliar wild flowers that spangled the wayside. And Capes + had changed into the easiest and jolliest companion in the world. The mere + fact that he was there in the train alongside her, helping her, sitting + opposite to her in the dining-car, presently sleeping on a seat within a + yard of her, made her heart sing until she was afraid their fellow + passengers would hear it. It was too good to be true. She would not sleep + for fear of losing a moment of that sense of his proximity. To walk beside + him, dressed akin to him, rucksacked and companionable, was bliss in + itself; each step she took was like stepping once more across the + threshold of heaven. + </p> + <p> + One trouble, however, shot its slanting bolts athwart the shining warmth + of that opening day and marred its perfection, and that was the thought of + her father. + </p> + <p> + She had treated him badly; she had hurt him and her aunt; she had done + wrong by their standards, and she would never persuade them that she had + done right. She thought of her father in the garden, and of her aunt with + her Patience, as she had seen them—how many ages was it ago? Just + one day intervened. She felt as if she had struck them unawares. The + thought of them distressed her without subtracting at all from the oceans + of happiness in which she swam. But she wished she could put the thing she + had done in some way to them so that it would not hurt them so much as the + truth would certainly do. The thought of their faces, and particularly of + her aunt’s, as it would meet the fact—disconcerted, unfriendly, + condemning, pained—occurred to her again and again. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! I wish,” she said, “that people thought alike about these things.” + </p> + <p> + Capes watched the limpid water dripping from his oar. “I wish they did,” + he said, “but they don’t.” + </p> + <p> + “I feel—All this is the rightest of all conceivable things. I want + to tell every one. I want to boast myself.” + </p> + <p> + “I know.” + </p> + <p> + “I told them a lie. I told them lies. I wrote three letters yesterday and + tore them up. It was so hopeless to put it to them. At last—I told a + story.” + </p> + <p> + “You didn’t tell them our position?” + </p> + <p> + “I implied we had married.” + </p> + <p> + “They’ll find out. They’ll know.” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Sooner or later.” + </p> + <p> + “Possibly—bit by bit.... But it was hopelessly hard to put. I said I + knew he disliked and distrusted you and your work—that you shared + all Russell’s opinions: he hates Russell beyond measure—and that we + couldn’t possibly face a conventional marriage. What else could one say? I + left him to suppose—a registry perhaps....” + </p> + <p> + Capes let his oar smack on the water. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mind very much?” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. + </p> + <p> + “But it makes me feel inhuman,” he added. + </p> + <p> + “And me....” + </p> + <p> + “It’s the perpetual trouble,” he said, “of parent and child. They can’t + help seeing things in the way they do. Nor can we. WE don’t think they’re + right, but they don’t think we are. A deadlock. In a very definite sense + we are in the wrong—hopelessly in the wrong. But—It’s just + this: who was to be hurt?” + </p> + <p> + “I wish no one had to be hurt,” said Ann Veronica. “When one is happy—I + don’t like to think of them. Last time I left home I felt as hard as + nails. But this is all different. It is different.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s a sort of instinct of rebellion,” said Capes. “It isn’t anything + to do with our times particularly. People think it is, but they are wrong. + It’s to do with adolescence. Long before religion and Society heard of + Doubt, girls were all for midnight coaches and Gretna Green. It’s a sort + of home-leaving instinct.” + </p> + <p> + He followed up a line of thought. + </p> + <p> + “There’s another instinct, too,” he went on, “in a state of suppression, + unless I’m very much mistaken; a child-expelling instinct.... I wonder.... + There’s no family uniting instinct, anyhow; it’s habit and sentiment and + material convenience hold families together after adolescence. There’s + always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. Always! I don’t believe + there is any strong natural affection at all between parents and + growing-up children. There wasn’t, I know, between myself and my father. I + didn’t allow myself to see things as they were in those days; now I do. I + bored him. I hated him. I suppose that shocks one’s ideas.... It’s + true.... There are sentimental and traditional deferences and reverences, + I know, between father and son; but that’s just exactly what prevents the + development of an easy friendship. Father-worshipping sons are abnormal—and + they’re no good. No good at all. One’s got to be a better man than one’s + father, or what is the good of successive generations? Life is rebellion, + or nothing.” + </p> + <p> + He rowed a stroke and watched the swirl of water from his oar broaden and + die away. At last he took up his thoughts again: “I wonder if, some day, + one won’t need to rebel against customs and laws? If this discord will + have gone? Some day, perhaps—who knows?—the old won’t coddle + and hamper the young, and the young won’t need to fly in the faces of the + old. They’ll face facts as facts, and understand. Oh, to face facts! Gods! + what a world it might be if people faced facts! Understanding! + Understanding! There is no other salvation. Some day older people, + perhaps, will trouble to understand younger people, and there won’t be + these fierce disruptions; there won’t be barriers one must defy or + perish.... That’s really our choice now, defy—or futility.... The + world, perhaps, will be educated out of its idea of fixed standards.... I + wonder, Ann Veronica, if, when our time comes, we shall be any wiser?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica watched a water-beetle fussing across the green depths. “One + can’t tell. I’m a female thing at bottom. I like high tone for a flourish + and stars and ideas; but I want my things.” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + Capes thought. + </p> + <p> + “It’s odd—I have no doubt in my mind that what we are doing is + wrong,” he said. “And yet I do it without compunction.” + </p> + <p> + “I never felt so absolutely right,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “You ARE a female thing at bottom,” he admitted. “I’m not nearly so sure + as you. As for me, I look twice at it.... Life is two things, that’s how I + see it; two things mixed and muddled up together. Life is morality—life + is adventure. Squire and master. Adventure rules, and morality—looks + up the trains in the Bradshaw. Morality tells you what is right, and + adventure moves you. If morality means anything it means keeping bounds, + respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If individuality + means anything it means breaking bounds—adventure. + </p> + <p> + “Will you be moral and your species, or immoral and yourself? We’ve + decided to be immoral. We needn’t try and give ourselves airs. We’ve + deserted the posts in which we found ourselves, cut our duties, exposed + ourselves to risks that may destroy any sort of social usefulness in + us.... I don’t know. One keeps rules in order to be one’s self. One + studies Nature in order not to be blindly ruled by her. There’s no sense + in morality, I suppose, unless you are fundamentally immoral.” + </p> + <p> + She watched his face as he traced his way through these speculative + thickets. + </p> + <p> + “Look at our affair,” he went on, looking up at her. “No power on earth + will persuade me we’re not two rather disreputable persons. You desert + your home; I throw up useful teaching, risk every hope in your career. + Here we are absconding, pretending to be what we are not; shady, to say + the least of it. It’s not a bit of good pretending there’s any Higher + Truth or wonderful principle in this business. There isn’t. We never + started out in any high-browed manner to scandalize and Shelleyfy. When + first you left your home you had no idea that <i>I</i> was the hidden + impulse. I wasn’t. You came out like an ant for your nuptial flight. It + was just a chance that we in particular hit against each other—nothing + predestined about it. We just hit against each other, and here we are + flying off at a tangent, a little surprised at what we are doing, all our + principles abandoned, and tremendously and quite unreasonably proud of + ourselves. Out of all this we have struck a sort of harmony.... And it’s + gorgeous!” + </p> + <p> + “Glorious!” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Would YOU like us—if some one told you the bare outline of our + story?—and what we are doing?” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t mind,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “But if some one else asked your advice? If some one else said, ‘Here is + my teacher, a jaded married man on the verge of middle age, and he and I + have a violent passion for one another. We propose to disregard all our + ties, all our obligations, all the established prohibitions of society, + and begin life together afresh.’ What would you tell her?” + </p> + <p> + “If she asked advice, I should say she wasn’t fit to do anything of the + sort. I should say that having a doubt was enough to condemn it.” + </p> + <p> + “But waive that point.” + </p> + <p> + “It would be different all the same. It wouldn’t be you.” + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn’t be you either. I suppose that’s the gist of the whole thing.” + He stared at a little eddy. “The rule’s all right, so long as there isn’t + a case. Rules are for established things, like the pieces and positions of + a game. Men and women are not established things; they’re experiments, all + of them. Every human being is a new thing, exists to do new things. Find + the thing you want to do most intensely, make sure that’s it, and do it + with all your might. If you live, well and good; if you die, well and + good. Your purpose is done.... Well, this is OUR thing.” + </p> + <p> + He woke the glassy water to swirling activity again, and made the + deep-blue shapes below writhe and shiver. + </p> + <p> + “This is MY thing,” said Ann Veronica, softly, with thoughtful eyes upon + him. + </p> + <p> + Then she looked up the sweep of pine-trees to the towering sunlit cliffs + and the high heaven above and then back to his face. She drew in a deep + breath of the sweet mountain air. Her eyes were soft and grave, and there + was the faintest of smiles upon her resolute lips. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + Later they loitered along a winding path above the inn, and made love to + one another. Their journey had made them indolent, the afternoon was warm, + and it seemed impossible to breathe a sweeter air. The flowers and turf, a + wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, and suchlike little intimate things had + become more interesting than mountains. Their flitting hands were always + touching. Deep silences came between them.... + </p> + <p> + “I had thought to go on to Kandersteg,” said Capes, “but this is a + pleasant place. There is not a soul in the inn but ourselves. Let us stay + the night here. Then we can loiter and gossip to our heart’s content.” + </p> + <p> + “Agreed,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “After all, it’s our honeymoon.” + </p> + <p> + “All we shall get,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “This place is very beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + “Any place would be beautiful,” said Ann Veronica, in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + For a time they walked in silence. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder,” she began, presently, “why I love you—and love you so + much?... I know now what it is to be an abandoned female. I AM an + abandoned female. I’m not ashamed—of the things I’m doing. I want to + put myself into your hands. You know—I wish I could roll my little + body up small and squeeze it into your hand and grip your fingers upon it. + Tight. I want you to hold me and have me SO.... Everything. Everything. + It’s a pure joy of giving—giving to YOU. I have never spoken of + these things to any human being. Just dreamed—and ran away even from + my dreams. It is as if my lips had been sealed about them. And now I break + the seals—for you. Only I wish—I wish to-day I was a thousand + times, ten thousand times more beautiful.” + </p> + <p> + Capes lifted her hand and kissed it. + </p> + <p> + “You are a thousand times more beautiful,” he said, “than anything else + could be.... You are you. You are all the beauty in the world. Beauty + doesn’t mean, never has meant, anything—anything at all but you. It + heralded you, promised you....” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 4 + </h2> + <p> + They lay side by side in a shallow nest of turf and mosses among bowlders + and stunted bushes on a high rock, and watched the day sky deepen to + evening between the vast precipices overhead and looked over the tree-tops + down the widening gorge. A distant suggestion of chalets and a glimpse of + the road set them talking for a time of the world they had left behind. + </p> + <p> + Capes spoke casually of their plans for work. “It’s a flabby, loose-willed + world we have to face. It won’t even know whether to be scandalized at us + or forgiving. It will hold aloof, a little undecided whether to pelt or + not—” + </p> + <p> + “That depends whether we carry ourselves as though we expected pelting,” + said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “We won’t.” + </p> + <p> + “No fear!” + </p> + <p> + “Then, as we succeed, it will begin to sidle back to us. It will do its + best to overlook things—” + </p> + <p> + “If we let it, poor dear.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s if we succeed. If we fail,” said Capes, “then—” + </p> + <p> + “We aren’t going to fail,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + Life seemed a very brave and glorious enterprise to Ann Veronica that day. + She was quivering with the sense of Capes at her side and glowing with + heroic love; it seemed to her that if they put their hands jointly against + the Alps and pushed they would be able to push them aside. She lay and + nibbled at a sprig of dwarf rhododendron. + </p> + <p> + “FAIL!” she said. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 5 + </h2> + <p> + Presently it occurred to Ann Veronica to ask about the journey he had + planned. He had his sections of the Siegfried map folded in his pocket, + and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an Indian idol while she lay + prone beside him and followed every movement of his indicatory finger. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he said, “is this Blau See, and here we rest until to-morrow. I + think we rest here until to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + There was a brief silence. + </p> + <p> + “It is a very pleasant place,” said Ann Veronica, biting a rhododendron + stalk through, and with that faint shadow of a smile returning to her + lips.... + </p> + <p> + “And then?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Then we go on to this place, the Oeschinensee. It’s a lake among + precipices, and there is a little inn where we can stay, and sit and eat + our dinner at a pleasant table that looks upon the lake. For some days we + shall be very idle there among the trees and rocks. There are boats on the + lake and shady depths and wildernesses of pine-wood. After a day or so, + perhaps, we will go on one or two little excursions and see how good your + head is—a mild scramble or so; and then up to a hut on a pass just + here, and out upon the Blumlis-alp glacier that spreads out so and so.” + </p> + <p> + She roused herself from some dream at the word. “Glaciers?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Under the Wilde Frau—which was named after you.” + </p> + <p> + He bent and kissed her hair and paused, and then forced his attention back + to the map. “One day,” he resumed, “we will start off early and come down + into Kandersteg and up these zigzags and here and here, and so past this + Daubensee to a tiny inn—it won’t be busy yet, though; we may get it + all to ourselves—on the brim of the steepest zigzag you can imagine, + thousands of feet of zigzag; and you will sit and eat lunch with me and + look out across the Rhone Valley and over blue distances beyond blue + distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa and a long regiment of sunny, + snowy mountains. And when we see them we shall at once want to go to them—that’s + the way with beautiful things—and down we shall go, like flies down + a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to Leuk Station, here, and then by train up + the Rhone Valley and this little side valley to Stalden; and there, in the + cool of the afternoon, we shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs + below us and above us, to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next day to + Saas Fee, Saas of the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People. And there, about + Saas, are ice and snows again, and sometimes we will loiter among the + rocks and trees about Saas or peep into Samuel Butler’s chapels, and + sometimes we will climb up out of the way of the other people on to the + glaciers and snow. And, for one expedition at least, we will go up this + desolate valley here to Mattmark, and so on to Monte Moro. There indeed + you see Monte Rosa. Almost the best of all.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it very beautiful?” + </p> + <p> + “When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. It was the + crowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining white. It towered up + high above the level of the pass, thousands of feet, still, shining, and + white, and below, thousands of feet below, was a floor of little woolly + clouds. And then presently these clouds began to wear thin and expose + steep, deep slopes, going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, down + and down, and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs, + shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of white + silk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day—it will have to + be, when first you set eyes on Italy.... That’s as far as we go.” + </p> + <p> + “Can’t we go down into Italy?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said; “it won’t run to that now. We must wave our hands at the + blue hills far away there and go back to London and work.” + </p> + <p> + “But Italy—” + </p> + <p> + “Italy’s for a good girl,” he said, and laid his hand for a moment on her + shoulder. “She must look forward to Italy.” + </p> + <p> + “I say,” she reflected, “you ARE rather the master, you know.” + </p> + <p> + The idea struck him as novel. “Of course I’m manager for this expedition,” + he said, after an interval of self-examination. + </p> + <p> + She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. “Nice sleeve,” she + said, and came to his hand and kissed it. + </p> + <p> + “I say!” he cried. “Look here! Aren’t you going a little too far? This—this + is degradation—making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn’t do things + like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “Free woman—and equal.” + </p> + <p> + “I do it—of my own free will,” said Ann Veronica, kissing his hand + again. “It’s nothing to what I WILL do.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, well!” he said, a little doubtfully, “it’s just a phase,” and bent + down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, with his heart + beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay very still, with her + hands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face, he came still + closer and softly kissed the nape of her neck.... + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 6 + </h2> + <p> + Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they climbed more + than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved rather a good climber, + steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to be cautious + at his command. + </p> + <p> + One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity for + blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things. + </p> + <p> + He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he had been + there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the straggling + pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and munch sandwiches and + talk together and do things together that were just a little difficult and + dangerous. And they could talk, they found; and never once, it seemed, did + their meaning and intention hitch. They were enormously pleased with one + another; they found each other beyond measure better than they had + expected, if only because of the want of substance in mere expectation. + Their conversation degenerated again and again into a strain of + self-congratulation that would have irked an eavesdropper. + </p> + <p> + “You’re—I don’t know,” said Ann Veronica. “You’re splendid.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t that you’re splendid or I,” said Capes. “But we satisfy one + another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest fitness! What + is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of mind? Complexion and voice. + I don’t think I’ve got illusions, nor you.... If I had never met anything + of you at all but a scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann Veronica, I + know I would have kept that somewhere near to me.... All your faults are + just jolly modelling to make you real and solid.” + </p> + <p> + “The faults are the best part of it,” said Ann Veronica; “why, even our + little vicious strains run the same way. Even our coarseness.” + </p> + <p> + “Coarse?” said Capes, “We’re not coarse.” + </p> + <p> + “But if we were?” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort,” said Capes; + “that’s the essence of it. It’s made up of things as small as the diameter + of hairs and big as life and death.... One always dreamed of this and + never believed it. It’s the rarest luck, the wildest, most impossible + accident. Most people, every one I know else, seem to have mated with + foreigners and to talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be afraid of the + knowledge the other one has, of the other one’s perpetual misjudgment and + misunderstandings. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t they wait?” he added. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight. + </p> + <p> + “One doesn’t wait,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + She expanded that. “<i>I</i> shouldn’t have waited,” she said. “I might + have muddled for a time. But it’s as you say. I’ve had the rarest luck and + fallen on my feet.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ve both fallen on our feet! We’re the rarest of mortals! The real + thing! There’s not a compromise nor a sham nor a concession between us. We + aren’t afraid; we don’t bother. We don’t consider each other; we needn’t. + That wrappered life, as you call it—we’ve burned the confounded + rags! Danced out of it! We’re stark!” + </p> + <p> + “Stark!” echoed Ann Veronica. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 7 + </h2> + <p> + As they came back from that day’s climb—it was up the Mittaghorn—they + had to cross a shining space of wet, steep rocks between two grass slopes + that needed a little care. There were a few loose, broken fragments of + rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one place where hands did as much + work as toes. They used the rope—not that a rope was at all + necessary, but because Ann Veronica’s exalted state of mind made the fact + of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a joint death + in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes went first, + finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges came like long, + awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica’s feet. About half-way across this + interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes had a shock. + </p> + <p> + “Heavens!” exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. “My God!” + and ceased to move. + </p> + <p> + Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. “All right?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll have to pay it.” + </p> + <p> + “Eh?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ve forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!” + </p> + <p> + “Eh?” + </p> + <p> + “He said I would.” + </p> + <p> + “What?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s the devil of it!” + </p> + <p> + “Devil of what?... You DO use vile language!” + </p> + <p> + “Forget about it like this.” + </p> + <p> + “Forget WHAT?” + </p> + <p> + “And I said I wouldn’t. I said I’d do anything. I said I’d make shirts.” + </p> + <p> + “Shirts?” + </p> + <p> + “Shirts at one—and—something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! + Ann Veronica, you’re a bilker!” + </p> + <p> + Pause. + </p> + <p> + “Will you tell me what all this is about?” said Capes. + </p> + <p> + “It’s about forty pounds.” + </p> + <p> + Capes waited patiently. + </p> + <p> + “G. I’m sorry.... But you’ve got to lend me forty pounds.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s some sort of delirium,” said Capes. “The rarefied air? I thought you + had a better head.” + </p> + <p> + “No! I’ll explain lower. It’s all right. Let’s go on climbing now. It’s a + thing I’ve unaccountably overlooked. All right really. It can wait a bit + longer. I borrowed forty pounds from Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness you’ll + understand. That’s why I chucked Manning.... All right, I’m coming. But + all this business has driven it clean out of my head.... That’s why he was + so annoyed, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “Who was annoyed?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ramage—about the forty pounds.” She took a step. “My dear,” she + added, by way of afterthought, “you DO obliterate things!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 8 + </h2> + <p> + They found themselves next day talking love to one another high up on some + rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice on the eastern + side of the Fee glacier. By this time Capes’ hair had bleached nearly + white, and his skin had become a skin of red copper shot with gold. They + were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness. And such + skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were + safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose + knickerbockers and puttees—a costume that suited the fine, long + lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could do. + Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had only + deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She had pushed + aside her azure veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling under + her hand at the shining glories—the lit cornices, the blue shadows, + the softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places full of + quivering luminosity—of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was + cloudless, effulgent blue. + </p> + <p> + Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising the day and + fortune and their love for each other. + </p> + <p> + “Here we are,” he said, “shining through each other like light through a + stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this sunlight soaking + us.... Life is so good. Can it ever be so good again?” + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. “It’s very good,” + she said. “It’s glorious good!” + </p> + <p> + “Suppose now—look at this long snow-slope and then that blue deep + beyond—do you see that round pool of color in the ice—a + thousand feet or more below? Yes? Well, think—we’ve got to go but + ten steps and lie down and put our arms about each other. See? Down we + should rush in a foam—in a cloud of snow—to flight and a + dream. All the rest of our lives would be together then, Ann Veronica. + Every moment. And no ill-chances.” + </p> + <p> + “If you tempt me too much,” she said, after a silence, “I shall do it. I + need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I’m a desperate young + woman. And then as we went down you’d try to explain. And that would spoil + it.... You know you don’t mean it.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I don’t. But I liked to say it.” + </p> + <p> + “Rather! But I wonder why you don’t mean it?” + </p> + <p> + “Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other reason could + there be? It’s more complex, but it’s better. THIS, this glissade, would + be damned scoundrelism. You know that, and I know that, though we might be + put to it to find a reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the pay of + life and then not living. And besides—We’re going to live, Ann + Veronica! Oh, the things we’ll do, the life we’ll lead! There’ll be + trouble in it at times—you and I aren’t going to run without + friction. But we’ve got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our + heads to talk to each other. We sha’n’t hang up on any misunderstanding. + Not us. And we’re going to fight that old world down there. That old world + that had shoved up that silly old hotel, and all the rest of it.... If we + don’t live it will think we are afraid of it.... Die, indeed! We’re going + to do work; we’re going to unfold about each other; we’re going to have + children.” + </p> + <p> + “Girls!” cried Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “Boys!” said Capes. + </p> + <p> + “Both!” said Ann Veronica. “Lots of ‘em!” + </p> + <p> + Capes chuckled. “You delicate female!” + </p> + <p> + “Who cares,” said Ann Veronica, “seeing it’s you? Warm, soft little + wonders! Of course I want them.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 9 + </h2> + <p> + “All sorts of things we’re going to do,” said Capes; “all sorts of times + we’re going to have. Sooner or later we’ll certainly do something to clean + those prisons you told me about—limewash the underside of life. You + and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we can love over a pail of + whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! Moonlight and music—pleasing, + you know, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish.... Do you + remember your first day with me?... Do you indeed remember? The smell of + decay and cheap methylated spirit!... My dear! we’ve had so many moments! + I used to go over the times we’d had together, the things we’d said—like + a rosary of beads. But now it’s beads by the cask—like the hold of a + West African trader. It feels like too much gold-dust clutched in one’s + hand. One doesn’t want to lose a grain. And one must—some of it must + slip through one’s fingers.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t care if it does,” said Ann Veronica. “I don’t care a rap for + remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn’t be better until the next + moment comes. That’s how it takes me. Why should WE hoard? We aren’t going + out presently, like Japanese lanterns in a gale. It’s the poor dears who + do, who know they will, know they can’t keep it up, who need to clutch at + way-side flowers. And put ‘em in little books for remembrance. Flattened + flowers aren’t for the likes of us. Moments, indeed! We like each other + fresh and fresh. It isn’t illusions—for us. We two just love each + other—the real, identical other—all the time.” + </p> + <p> + “The real, identical other,” said Capes, and took and bit the tip of her + little finger. + </p> + <p> + “There’s no delusions, so far as I know,” said Ann Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe there is one. If there is, it’s a mere wrapping—there’s + better underneath. It’s only as if I’d begun to know you the day before + yesterday or there-abouts. You keep on coming truer, after you have seemed + to come altogether true. You... brick!” + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 10 + </h2> + <p> + “To think,” he cried, “you are ten years younger than I!... There are + times when you make me feel a little thing at your feet—a young, + silly, protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about + your birth certificate; a forgery—and fooling at that. You are one + of the Immortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in + the world who have known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You + have converted me to—Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a + slip of a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on your + breast, when your heart has been beating close to my ears, when I have + known you for the goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when I + have wished that you could kill me for the joy of being killed by you. You + are the High Priestess of Life....” + </p> + <p> + “Your priestess,” whispered Ann Veronica, softly. “A silly little + priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you.” + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 11 + </h2> + <p> + They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous shining globe + of mutual satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Capes, at length, “we’ve to go down, Ann Veronica. Life waits + for us.” + </p> + <p> + He stood up and waited for her to move. + </p> + <p> + “Gods!” cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. “And to think that it’s + not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel school-girl, + distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding that this great force of + love was bursting its way through me! All those nameless discontents—they + were no more than love’s birth-pangs. I felt—I felt living in a + masked world. I felt as though I had bandaged eyes. I felt—wrapped + in thick cobwebs. They blinded me. They got in my mouth. And now—Dear! + Dear! The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love. I am loved. I + want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be alive because + you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you are a man! I am glad! I + am glad! I am glad! I thank God for life and you. I thank God for His + sunlight on your face. I thank God for the beauty you love and the faults + you love. I thank God for the very skin that is peeling from your nose, + for all things great and small that make us what we are. This is grace I + am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping of life are mixed in me + now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born dragon-fly that spread its + wings in the morning has felt as glad as I!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH + </h2> + <h3> + IN PERSPECTIVE + </h3> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 1 + </h2> + <p> + About four years and a quarter later—to be exact, it was four years + and four months—Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon an old + Persian carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the dining-room of their + flat and surveyed a shining dinner-table set for four people, lit by + skilfully-shaded electric lights, brightened by frequent gleams of silver, + and carefully and simply adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes had altered + scarcely at all during the interval, except for a new quality of smartness + in the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was nearly half an inch + taller; her face was at once stronger and softer, her neck firmer and + rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly than it had been in the + days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to the tips of her fingers; she + had said good-bye to her girlhood in the old garden four years and a + quarter ago. She was dressed in a simple evening gown of soft creamy silk, + with a yoke of dark old embroidery that enhanced the gentle gravity of her + style, and her black hair flowed off her open forehead to pass under the + control of a simple ribbon of silver. A silver necklace enhanced the dusky + beauty of her neck. Both husband and wife affected an unnatural ease of + manner for the benefit of the efficient parlor-maid, who was putting the + finishing touches to the sideboard arrangements. + </p> + <p> + “It looks all right,” said Capes. + </p> + <p> + “I think everything’s right,” said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye of a + capable but not devoted house-mistress. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if they will seem altered,” she remarked for the third time. + </p> + <p> + “There I can’t help,” said Capes. + </p> + <p> + He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue curtains, + into the apartment that served as a reception-room. Ann Veronica, after a + last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him, rustling, came to + his side by the high brass fender, and touched two or three ornaments on + the mantel above the cheerful fireplace. + </p> + <p> + “It’s still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven,” she said, turning. + </p> + <p> + “My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he’s very human.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you tell him of the registry office?” + </p> + <p> + “No—o—certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play.” + </p> + <p> + “It was an inspiration—your speaking to him?” + </p> + <p> + “I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been near the + Royal Society since—since you disgraced me. What’s that?” + </p> + <p> + They both stood listening. It was not the arrival of the guests, but + merely the maid moving about in the hall. + </p> + <p> + “Wonderful man!” said Ann Veronica, reassured, and stroking his cheek with + her finger. + </p> + <p> + Capes made a quick movement as if to bite that aggressive digit, but it + withdrew to Ann Veronica’s side. + </p> + <p> + “I was really interested in his stuff. I WAS talking to him before I saw + his name on the card beside the row of microscopes. Then, naturally, I + went on talking. He—he has rather a poor opinion of his + contemporaries. Of course, he had no idea who I was.” + </p> + <p> + “But how did you tell him? You’ve never told me. Wasn’t it—a little + bit of a scene?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! let me see. I said I hadn’t been at the Royal Society soiree for four + years, and got him to tell me about some of the fresh Mendelian work. He + loves the Mendelians because he hates all the big names of the eighties + and nineties. Then I think I remarked that science was disgracefully + under-endowed, and confessed I’d had to take to more profitable courses. + ‘The fact of it is,’ I said, ‘I’m the new playwright, Thomas More. Perhaps + you’ve heard—?’ Well, you know, he had.” + </p> + <p> + “Fame!” + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it? ‘I’ve not seen your play, Mr. More,’ he said, ‘but I’m told + it’s the most amusing thing in London at the present time. A friend of + mine, Ogilvy’—I suppose that’s Ogilvy & Ogilvy, who do so many + divorces, Vee?—‘was speaking very highly of it—very highly!’” + He smiled into her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You are developing far too retentive a memory for praises,” said Ann + Veronica. + </p> + <p> + “I’m still new to them. But after that it was easy. I told him instantly + and shamelessly that the play was going to be worth ten thousand pounds. + He agreed it was disgraceful. Then I assumed a rather portentous manner to + prepare him.” + </p> + <p> + “How? Show me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t be portentous, dear, when you’re about. It’s my other side of the + moon. But I was portentous, I can assure you. ‘My name’s NOT More, Mr. + Stanley,’ I said. ‘That’s my pet name.’” + </p> + <p> + “Yes?” + </p> + <p> + “I think—yes, I went on in a pleasing blend of the casual and sotto + voce, ‘The fact of it is, sir, I happen to be your son-in-law, Capes. I do + wish you could come and dine with us some evening. It would make my wife + very happy.’” + </p> + <p> + “What did he say?” + </p> + <p> + “What does any one say to an invitation to dinner point-blank? One tries + to collect one’s wits. ‘She is constantly thinking of you,’ I said.” + </p> + <p> + “And he accepted meekly?” + </p> + <p> + “Practically. What else could he do? You can’t kick up a scene on the spur + of the moment in the face of such conflicting values as he had before him. + With me behaving as if everything was infinitely matter-of-fact, what + could he do? And just then Heaven sent old Manningtree—I didn’t tell + you before of the fortunate intervention of Manningtree, did I? He was + looking quite infernally distinguished, with a wide crimson ribbon across + him—what IS a wide crimson ribbon? Some sort of knight, I suppose. + He is a knight. ‘Well, young man,’ he said, ‘we haven’t seen you lately,’ + and something about ‘Bateson & Co.’—he’s frightfully + anti-Mendelian—having it all their own way. So I introduced him to + my father-in-law like a shot. I think that WAS decision. Yes, it was + Manningtree really secured your father. He—” + </p> + <p> + “Here they are!” said Ann Veronica as the bell sounded. + </p> + + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 2 + </h2> + <p> + They received the guests in their pretty little hall with genuine + effusion. Miss Stanley threw aside a black cloak to reveal a discreet and + dignified arrangement of brown silk, and then embraced Ann Veronica with + warmth. “So very clear and cold,” she said. “I feared we might have a + fog.” The housemaid’s presence acted as a useful restraint. Ann Veronica + passed from her aunt to her father, and put her arms about him and kissed + his cheek. “Dear old daddy!” she said, and was amazed to find herself + shedding tears. She veiled her emotion by taking off his overcoat. “And + this is Mr. Capes?” she heard her aunt saying. + </p> + <p> + All four people moved a little nervously into the drawing-room, + maintaining a sort of fluttered amiability of sound and movement. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Stanley professed a great solicitude to warm his hands. “Quite + unusually cold for the time of year,” he said. “Everything very nice, I am + sure,” Miss Stanley murmured to Capes as he steered her to a place upon + the little sofa before the fire. Also she made little pussy-like sounds of + a reassuring nature. + </p> + <p> + “And let’s have a look at you, Vee!” said Mr. Stanley, standing up with a + sudden geniality and rubbing his hands together. + </p> + <p> + Ann Veronica, who knew her dress became her, dropped a curtsy to her + father’s regard. + </p> + <p> + Happily they had no one else to wait for, and it heartened her mightily to + think that she had ordered the promptest possible service of the dinner. + Capes stood beside Miss Stanley, who was beaming unnaturally, and Mr. + Stanley, in his effort to seem at ease, took entire possession of the + hearthrug. + </p> + <p> + “You found the flat easily?” said Capes in the pause. “The numbers are a + little difficult to see in the archway. They ought to put a lamp.” + </p> + <p> + Her father declared there had been no difficulty. + </p> + <p> + “Dinner is served, m’m,” said the efficient parlor-maid in the archway, + and the worst was over. + </p> + <p> + “Come, daddy,” said Ann Veronica, following her husband and Miss Stanley; + and in the fulness of her heart she gave a friendly squeeze to the + parental arm. + </p> + <p> + “Excellent fellow!” he answered a little irrelevantly. “I didn’t + understand, Vee.” + </p> + <p> + “Quite charming apartments,” Miss Stanley admired; “charming! Everything + is so pretty and convenient.” + </p> + <p> + The dinner was admirable as a dinner; nothing went wrong, from the golden + and excellent clear soup to the delightful iced marrons and cream; and + Miss Stanley’s praises died away to an appreciative acquiescence. A brisk + talk sprang up between Capes and Mr. Stanley, to which the two ladies + subordinated themselves intelligently. The burning topic of the Mendelian + controversy was approached on one or two occasions, but avoided + dexterously; and they talked chiefly of letters and art and the censorship + of the English stage. Mr. Stanley was inclined to think the censorship + should be extended to the supply of what he styled latter-day fiction; + good wholesome stories were being ousted, he said, by “vicious, corrupting + stuff” that “left a bad taste in the mouth.” He declared that no book + could be satisfactory that left a bad taste in the mouth, however much it + seized and interested the reader at the time. He did not like it, he said, + with a significant look, to be reminded of either his books or his dinners + after he had done with them. Capes agreed with the utmost cordiality. + </p> + <p> + “Life is upsetting enough, without the novels taking a share,” said Mr. + Stanley. + </p> + <p> + For a time Ann Veronica’s attention was diverted by her aunt’s interest in + the salted almonds. + </p> + <p> + “Quite particularly nice,” said her aunt. “Exceptionally so.” + </p> + <p> + When Ann Veronica could attend again she found the men were discussing the + ethics of the depreciation of house property through the increasing tumult + of traffic in the West End, and agreeing with each other to a devastating + extent. It came into her head with real emotional force that this must be + some particularly fantastic sort of dream. It seemed to her that her + father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she had supposed, + and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had demanded a + struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his first failure. Why + was she noting things like this? Capes seemed self-possessed and + elaborately genial and commonplace, but she knew him to be nervous by a + little occasional clumsiness, by the faintest shadow of vulgarity in the + urgency of his hospitality. She wished he could smoke and dull his nerves + a little. A gust of irrational impatience blew through her being. Well, + they’d got to the pheasants, and in a little while he would smoke. What + was it she had expected? Surely her moods were getting a little out of + hand. + </p> + <p> + She wished her father and aunt would not enjoy their dinner with such + quiet determination. Her father and her husband, who had both been a + little pale at their first encounter, were growing now just faintly + flushed. It was a pity people had to eat food. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose,” said her father, “I have read at least half the novels that + have been at all successful during the last twenty years. Three a week is + my allowance, and, if I get short ones, four. I change them in the morning + at Cannon Street, and take my book as I come down.” + </p> + <p> + It occurred to her that she had never seen her father dining out before, + never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he was almost + deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in the old time, + never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever anticipated. It was as if + she had grown right past her father into something older and of infinitely + wider outlook, as if he had always been unsuspectedly a flattened figure, + and now she had discovered him from the other side. + </p> + <p> + It was a great relief to arrive at last at that pause when she could say + to her aunt, “Now, dear?” and rise and hold back the curtain through the + archway. Capes and her father stood up, and her father made a belated + movement toward the curtain. She realized that he was the sort of man one + does not think much about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that his wife + was a supremely beautiful woman. He reached a silver cigar and cigarette + box from the sideboard and put it before his father-in-law, and for a time + the preliminaries of smoking occupied them both. Then Capes flittered to + the hearthrug and poked the fire, stood up, and turned about. “Ann + Veronica is looking very well, don’t you think?” he said, a little + awkwardly. + </p> + <p> + “Very,” said Mr. Stanley. “Very,” and cracked a walnut appreciatively. + </p> + <p> + “Life—things—I don’t think her prospects now—Hopeful + outlook.” + </p> + <p> + “You were in a difficult position,” Mr. Stanley pronounced, and seemed to + hesitate whether he had not gone too far. He looked at his port wine as + though that tawny ruby contained the solution of the matter. “All’s well + that ends well,” he said; “and the less one says about things the better.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the fire through + sheer nervousness. “Have some more port wine, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a very sound wine,” said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think,” said Capes, + clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the suppressed topic. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Part 3 + </h2> + <p> + At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone down to see + Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had waved an amiable + farewell from the pavement steps. + </p> + <p> + “Great dears!” said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, aren’t they?” said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. And then, + “They seem changed.” + </p> + <p> + “Come in out of the cold,” said Capes, and took her arm. + </p> + <p> + “They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve grown out of them.... Your aunt liked the pheasant.” + </p> + <p> + “She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, talking + cookery?” + </p> + <p> + They went up by the lift in silence. + </p> + <p> + “It’s odd,” said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat. + </p> + <p> + “What’s odd?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, everything!” + </p> + <p> + She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down in the + arm-chair beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Life’s so queer,” she said, kneeling and looking into the flames. “I + wonder—I wonder if we shall ever get like that.” + </p> + <p> + She turned a firelit face to her husband. “Did you tell him?” + </p> + <p> + Capes smiled faintly. “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “Well—a little clumsily.” + </p> + <p> + “But how?” + </p> + <p> + “I poured him out some port wine, and I said—let me see—oh, + ‘You are going to be a grandfather!’” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Was he pleased?” + </p> + <p> + “Calmly! He said—you won’t mind my telling you?” + </p> + <p> + “Not a bit.” + </p> + <p> + “He said, ‘Poor Alice has got no end!’” + </p> + <p> + “Alice’s are different,” said Ann Veronica, after an interval. “Quite + different. She didn’t choose her man.... Well, I told aunt.... Husband of + mine, I think we have rather overrated the emotional capacity of those—those + dears.” + </p> + <p> + “What did your aunt say?” + </p> + <p> + “She didn’t even kiss me. She said”—Ann Veronica shivered again—“‘I + hope it won’t make you uncomfortable, my dear’—like that—‘and + whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!’ I think—I judge from + her manner—that she thought it was just a little indelicate of us—considering + everything; but she tried to be practical and sympathetic and live down to + our standards.” + </p> + <p> + Capes looked at his wife’s unsmiling face. + </p> + <p> + “Your father,” he said, “remarked that all’s well that ends well, and that + he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then spoke with a certain + fatherly kindliness of the past....” + </p> + <p> + “And my heart has ached for him!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him.” + </p> + <p> + “We might even have—given it up for them!” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if we could.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night—I don’t + know.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose so. I’m glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. But if we had + gone under—!” + </p> + <p> + They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of her + penetrating flashes. + </p> + <p> + “We are not the sort that goes under,” said Ann Veronica, holding her + hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. “We settled long + ago—we’re hard stuff. We’re hard stuff!” + </p> + <p> + Then she went on: “To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood over + me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from everything + we have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom. And they + come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good; and they + are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we can dare to + have children.” + </p> + <p> + She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. “Oh, my + dear!” she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, into her husband’s + arms. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one another? + How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember the light on things + and the glory of things? I’m greedy, I’m greedy! I want children like the + mountains and life like the sky. Oh! and love—love! We’ve had so + splendid a time, and fought our fight and won. And it’s like the petals + falling from a flower. Oh, I’ve loved love, dear! I’ve loved love and you, + and the glory of you; and the great time is over, and I have to go + carefully and bear children, and—take care of my hair—and when + I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals have fallen—the + red petals we loved so. We’re hedged about with discretions—and all + this furniture—and successes! We are successful at last! Successful! + But the mountains, dear! We won’t forget the mountains, dear, ever. That + shining slope of snow, and how we talked of death! We might have died! + Even when we are old, when we are rich as we may be, we won’t forget the + tune when we cared nothing for anything but the joy of one another, when + we risked everything for one another, when all the wrappings and coverings + seemed to have fallen from life and left it light and fire. Stark and + stark! Do you remember it all?... Say you will never forget! That these + common things and secondary things sha’n’t overwhelm us. These petals! + I’ve been wanting to cry all the evening, cry here on your shoulder for my + petals. Petals!... Silly woman!... I’ve never had these crying fits + before....” + </p> + <p> + “Blood of my heart!” whispered Capes, holding her close to him. “I know. I + understand.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + +***** This file should be named 524-h.htm or 524-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/524/ + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” + or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. + +The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> @@ -0,0 +1,12492 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ann Veronica + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: March 18, 2006 [EBook #524] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + + + + + +ANN VERONICA + +A MODERN LOVE STORY + +By H. G. Wells + + + + + + CONTENTSCHAP. + I. ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + II. ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + III. THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + IV. THE CRISIS + V. THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + VI. EXPOSTULATIONS + VII. IDEALS AND A REALITY + VIII. BIOLOGY + IX. DISCORDS + X. THE SUFFRAGETTES + XI. THOUGHTS IN PRISON + XII. ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + XIII. THE SAPPHIRE RING + XIV. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + XV. THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + XVI. IN THE MOUNTAINS + XVII. IN PERSPECTIVE + + + + "The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every + well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even + ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge." + + + + +ANN VERONICA + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + + +Part 1 + + +One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came +down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to +have things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on +the verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely +she made it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had +been reached. She made up her mind in the train home that it should be +a decisive crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with +her there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of this +crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell. + +She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to Morningside +Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in an attitude that +would certainly have distressed her mother to see, and horrified her +grandmother beyond measure; she sat with her knees up to her chin and +her hands clasped before them, and she was so lost in thought that +she discovered with a start, from a lettered lamp, that she was at +Morningside Park, and thought she was moving out of the station, whereas +she was only moving in. "Lord!" she said. She jumped up at once, +caught up a leather clutch containing notebooks, a fat text-book, and +a chocolate-and-yellow-covered pamphlet, and leaped neatly from the +carriage, only to discover that the train was slowing down and that she +had to traverse the full length of the platform past it again as the +result of her precipitation. "Sold again," she remarked. "Idiot!" She +raged inwardly while she walked along with that air of self-contained +serenity that is proper to a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty under +the eye of the world. + +She walked down the station approach, past the neat, obtrusive offices +of the coal merchant and the house agent, and so to the wicket-gate by +the butcher's shop that led to the field path to her home. Outside the +post-office stood a no-hatted, blond young man in gray flannels, who was +elaborately affixing a stamp to a letter. At the sight of her he became +rigid and a singularly bright shade of pink. She made herself serenely +unaware of his existence, though it may be it was his presence that sent +her by the field detour instead of by the direct path up the Avenue. + +"Umph!" he said, and regarded his letter doubtfully before consigning it +to the pillar-box. "Here goes," he said. Then he hovered undecidedly for +some seconds with his hands in his pockets and his mouth puckered to a +whistle before he turned to go home by the Avenue. + +Ann Veronica forgot him as soon as she was through the gate, and her +face resumed its expression of stern preoccupation. "It's either now or +never," she said to herself.... + +Morningside Park was a suburb that had not altogether, as people say, +come off. It consisted, like pre-Roman Gaul, of three parts. There was +first the Avenue, which ran in a consciously elegant curve from the +railway station into an undeveloped wilderness of agriculture, with big, +yellow brick villas on either side, and then there was the pavement, the +little clump of shops about the post-office, and under the railway arch +was a congestion of workmen's dwellings. The road from Surbiton and +Epsom ran under the arch, and, like a bright fungoid growth in the +ditch, there was now appearing a sort of fourth estate of little +red-and-white rough-cast villas, with meretricious gables and very +brassy window-blinds. Behind the Avenue was a little hill, and an +iron-fenced path went over the crest of this to a stile under an +elm-tree, and forked there, with one branch going back into the Avenue +again. + +"It's either now or never," said Ann Veronica, again ascending this +stile. "Much as I hate rows, I've either got to make a stand or give in +altogether." + +She seated herself in a loose and easy attitude and surveyed the +backs of the Avenue houses; then her eyes wandered to where the new +red-and-white villas peeped among the trees. She seemed to be making +some sort of inventory. "Ye Gods!" she said at last. "WHAT a place! + +"Stuffy isn't the word for it. + +"I wonder what he takes me for?" + +When presently she got down from the stile a certain note of internal +conflict, a touch of doubt, had gone from her warm-tinted face. She had +now the clear and tranquil expression of one whose mind is made up. Her +back had stiffened, and her hazel eyes looked steadfastly ahead. + +As she approached the corner of the Avenue the blond, no-hatted man in +gray flannels appeared. There was a certain air of forced fortuity in +his manner. He saluted awkwardly. "Hello, Vee!" he said. + +"Hello, Teddy!" she answered. + +He hung vaguely for a moment as she passed. + +But it was clear she was in no mood for Teddys. He realized that he was +committed to the path across the fields, an uninteresting walk at the +best of times. + +"Oh, dammit!" he remarked, "dammit!" with great bitterness as he faced +it. + + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica Stanley was twenty-one and a half years old. She had black +hair, fine eyebrows, and a clear complexion; and the forces that had +modelled her features had loved and lingered at their work and made them +subtle and fine. She was slender, and sometimes she seemed tall, and +walked and carried herself lightly and joyfully as one who commonly +and habitually feels well, and sometimes she stooped a little and +was preoccupied. Her lips came together with an expression between +contentment and the faintest shadow of a smile, her manner was one of +quiet reserve, and behind this mask she was wildly discontented and +eager for freedom and life. + +She wanted to live. She was vehemently impatient--she did not clearly +know for what--to do, to be, to experience. And experience was slow in +coming. All the world about her seemed to be--how can one put it?--in +wrappers, like a house when people leave it in the summer. The blinds +were all drawn, the sunlight kept out, one could not tell what +colors these gray swathings hid. She wanted to know. And there was no +intimation whatever that the blinds would ever go up or the windows or +doors be opened, or the chandeliers, that seemed to promise such a blaze +of fire, unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted about her, +not only speaking but it would seem even thinking in undertones.... + +During her school days, especially her earlier school days, the world +had been very explicit with her, telling her what to do, what not to do, +giving her lessons to learn and games to play and interests of the most +suitable and various kinds. Presently she woke up to the fact that there +was a considerable group of interests called being in love and getting +married, with certain attractive and amusing subsidiary developments, +such as flirtation and "being interested" in people of the opposite sex. +She approached this field with her usual liveliness of apprehension. But +here she met with a check. These interests her world promptly, through +the agency of schoolmistresses, older school-mates, her aunt, and a +number of other responsible and authoritative people, assured her she +must on no account think about. Miss Moffatt, the history and moral +instruction mistress, was particularly explicit upon this score, and +they all agreed in indicating contempt and pity for girls whose minds +ran on such matters, and who betrayed it in their conversation or dress +or bearing. It was, in fact, a group of interests quite unlike any +other group, peculiar and special, and one to be thoroughly ashamed of. +Nevertheless, Ann Veronica found it a difficult matter not to think of +these things. However having a considerable amount of pride, she decided +she would disavow these undesirable topics and keep her mind away from +them just as far as she could, but it left her at the end of her school +days with that wrapped feeling I have described, and rather at loose +ends. + +The world, she discovered, with these matters barred had no particular +place for her at all, nothing for her to do, except a functionless +existence varied by calls, tennis, selected novels, walks, and dusting +in her father's house. She thought study would be better. She was a +clever girl, the best of her year in the High School, and she made +a valiant fight for Somerville or Newnham but her father had met and +argued with a Somerville girl at a friend's dinner-table and he thought +that sort of thing unsexed a woman. He said simply that he wanted her to +live at home. There was a certain amount of disputation, and meanwhile +she went on at school. They compromised at length on the science course +at the Tredgold Women's College--she had already matriculated into +London University from school--she came of age, and she bickered with +her aunt for latch-key privileges on the strength of that and her season +ticket. Shamefaced curiosities began to come back into her mind, thinly +disguised as literature and art. She read voraciously, and presently, +because of her aunt's censorship, she took to smuggling any books she +thought might be prohibited instead of bringing them home openly, and +she went to the theatre whenever she could produce an acceptable friend +to accompany her. She passed her general science examination with double +honors and specialized in science. She happened to have an acute sense +of form and unusual mental lucidity, and she found in biology, and +particularly in comparative anatomy, a very considerable interest, +albeit the illumination it cast upon her personal life was not +altogether direct. She dissected well, and in a year she found herself +chafing at the limitations of the lady B. Sc. who retailed a store of +faded learning in the Tredgold laboratory. She had already realized that +this instructress was hopelessly wrong and foggy--it is the test of the +good comparative anatomist--upon the skull. She discovered a desire to +enter as a student in the Imperial College at Westminster, where Russell +taught, and go on with her work at the fountain-head. + +She had asked about that already, and her father had replied, evasively: +"We'll have to see about that, little Vee; we'll have to see about +that." In that posture of being seen about the matter hung until she +seemed committed to another session at the Tredgold College, and in the +mean time a small conflict arose and brought the latch-key question, and +in fact the question of Ann Veronica's position generally, to an acute +issue. + +In addition to the various business men, solicitors, civil servants, +and widow ladies who lived in the Morningside Park Avenue, there was a +certain family of alien sympathies and artistic quality, the Widgetts, +with which Ann Veronica had become very friendly. Mr. Widgett was a +journalist and art critic, addicted to a greenish-gray tweed suit +and "art" brown ties; he smoked corncob pipes in the Avenue on Sunday +morning, travelled third class to London by unusual trains, and openly +despised golf. He occupied one of the smaller houses near the station. +He had one son, who had been co-educated, and three daughters with +peculiarly jolly red hair that Ann Veronica found adorable. Two of these +had been her particular intimates at the High School, and had done much +to send her mind exploring beyond the limits of the available literature +at home. It was a cheerful, irresponsible, shamelessly hard-up family in +the key of faded green and flattened purple, and the girls went on from +the High School to the Fadden Art School and a bright, eventful life of +art student dances, Socialist meetings, theatre galleries, talking about +work, and even, at intervals, work; and ever and again they drew Ann +Veronica from her sound persistent industry into the circle of these +experiences. They had asked her to come to the first of the two great +annual Fadden Dances, the October one, and Ann Veronica had accepted +with enthusiasm. And now her father said she must not go. + +He had "put his foot down," and said she must not go. + +Going involved two things that all Ann Veronica's tact had been +ineffectual to conceal from her aunt and father. Her usual dignified +reserve had availed her nothing. One point was that she was to wear +fancy dress in the likeness of a Corsair's bride, and the other was that +she was to spend whatever vestiges of the night remained after the dance +was over in London with the Widgett girls and a select party in "quite a +decent little hotel" near Fitzroy Square. + +"But, my dear!" said Ann Veronica's aunt. + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, with the air of one who shares a +difficulty, "I've promised to go. I didn't realize--I don't see how I +can get out of it now." + +Then it was her father issued his ultimatum. He had conveyed it to her, +not verbally, but by means of a letter, which seemed to her a singularly +ignoble method of prohibition. "He couldn't look me in the face and say +it," said Ann Veronica. + +"But of course it's aunt's doing really." + +And thus it was that as Ann Veronica neared the gates of home, she said +to herself: "I'll have it out with him somehow. I'll have it out with +him. And if he won't--" + +But she did not give even unspoken words to the alternative at that +time. + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica's father was a solicitor with a good deal of company +business: a lean, trustworthy, worried-looking, neuralgic, clean-shaven +man of fifty-three, with a hard mouth, a sharp nose, iron-gray hair, +gray eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, circular baldness at the +crown of his head. His name was Peter. He had had five children at +irregular intervals, of whom Ann Veronica was the youngest, so that as +a parent he came to her perhaps a little practised and jaded and +inattentive; and he called her his "little Vee," and patted her +unexpectedly and disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of +any age between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good +deal, and what energy he had left over he spent partly in golf, a game +he treated very seriously, and partly in the practices of microscopic +petrography. + +He "went in" for microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian manner as +his "hobby." A birthday present of a microscope had turned his mind to +technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and a chance friendship with +a Holborn microscope dealer had confirmed that bent. He had remarkably +skilful fingers and a love of detailed processes, and he had become one +of the most dexterous amateur makers of rock sections in the world. +He spent a good deal more money and time than he could afford upon the +little room at the top of the house, in producing new lapidary apparatus +and new microscopic accessories and in rubbing down slices of rock to +a transparent thinness and mounting them in a beautiful and dignified +manner. He did it, he said, "to distract his mind." His chief successes +he exhibited to the Lowndean Microscopical Society, where their high +technical merit never failed to excite admiration. Their scientific +value was less considerable, since he chose rocks entirely with a +view to their difficulty of handling or their attractiveness at +conversaziones when done. He had a great contempt for the sections the +"theorizers" produced. They proved all sorts of things perhaps, but they +were thick, unequal, pitiful pieces of work. Yet an indiscriminating, +wrong-headed world gave such fellows all sorts of distinctions.... + +He read but little, and that chiefly healthy light fiction with +chromatic titles, The Red Sword, The Black Helmet, The Purple Robe, also +in order "to distract his mind." He read it in winter in the evening +after dinner, and Ann Veronica associated it with a tendency to +monopolize the lamp, and to spread a very worn pair of dappled fawn-skin +slippers across the fender. She wondered occasionally why his mind +needed so much distraction. His favorite newspaper was the Times, which +he began at breakfast in the morning often with manifest irritation, and +carried off to finish in the train, leaving no other paper at home. + +It occurred to Ann Veronica once that she had known him when he was +younger, but day had followed day, and each had largely obliterated the +impression of its predecessor. But she certainly remembered that when +she was a little girl he sometimes wore tennis flannels, and also rode a +bicycle very dexterously in through the gates to the front door. And +in those days, too, he used to help her mother with her gardening, and +hover about her while she stood on the ladder and hammered creepers to +the scullery wall. + +It had been Ann Veronica's lot as the youngest child to live in a home +that became less animated and various as she grew up. Her mother had +died when she was thirteen, her two much older sisters had married +off--one submissively, one insubordinately; her two brothers had gone +out into the world well ahead of her, and so she had made what she could +of her father. But he was not a father one could make much of. + +His ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and modest +quality; they were creatures, he thought, either too bad for a modern +vocabulary, and then frequently most undesirably desirable, or too pure +and good for life. He made this simple classification of a large and +various sex to the exclusion of all intermediate kinds; he held that +the two classes had to be kept apart even in thought and remote from one +another. Women are made like the potter's vessels--either for worship +or contumely, and are withal fragile vessels. He had never wanted +daughters. Each time a daughter had been born to him he had concealed +his chagrin with great tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had +sworn unwontedly and with passionate sincerity in the bathroom. He was +a manly man, free from any strong maternal strain, and he had loved his +dark-eyed, dainty bright-colored, and active little wife with a real +vein of passion in his sentiment. But he had always felt (he had never +allowed himself to think of it) that the promptitude of their family +was a little indelicate of her, and in a sense an intrusion. He had, +however, planned brilliant careers for his two sons, and, with a certain +human amount of warping and delay, they were pursuing these. One was +in the Indian Civil Service and one in the rapidly developing motor +business. The daughters, he had hoped, would be their mother's care. + +He had no ideas about daughters. They happen to a man. + +Of course a little daughter is a delightful thing enough. It runs about +gayly, it romps, it is bright and pretty, it has enormous quantities of +soft hair and more power of expressing affection than its brothers. It +is a lovely little appendage to the mother who smiles over it, and it +does things quaintly like her, gestures with her very gestures. It makes +wonderful sentences that you can repeat in the City and are good +enough for Punch. You call it a lot of nicknames--"Babs" and "Bibs" and +"Viddles" and "Vee"; you whack at it playfully, and it whacks you back. +It loves to sit on your knee. All that is jolly and as it should be. + +But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter quite another. There +one comes to a relationship that Mr. Stanley had never thought out. +When he found himself thinking about it, it upset him so that he at once +resorted to distraction. The chromatic fiction with which he relieved +his mind glanced but slightly at this aspect of life, and never with any +quality of guidance. Its heroes never had daughters, they borrowed other +people's. The one fault, indeed, of this school of fiction for him was +that it had rather a light way with parental rights. His instinct was in +the direction of considering his daughters his absolute property, bound +to obey him, his to give away or his to keep to be a comfort in his +declining years just as he thought fit. About this conception of +ownership he perceived and desired a certain sentimental glamour, he +liked everything properly dressed, but it remained ownership. Ownership +seemed only a reasonable return for the cares and expenses of a +daughter's upbringing. Daughters were not like sons. He perceived, +however, that both the novels he read and the world he lived in +discountenanced these assumptions. Nothing else was put in their place, +and they remained sotto voce, as it were, in his mind. The new and +the old cancelled out; his daughters became quasi-independent +dependents--which is absurd. One married as he wished and one against +his wishes, and now here was Ann Veronica, his little Vee, discontented +with her beautiful, safe, and sheltering home, going about with hatless +friends to Socialist meetings and art-class dances, and displaying a +disposition to carry her scientific ambitions to unwomanly lengths. She +seemed to think he was merely the paymaster, handing over the means +of her freedom. And now she insisted that she MUST leave the chastened +security of the Tredgold Women's College for Russell's unbridled +classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dances in pirate costume and +spend the residue of the night with Widgett's ramshackle girls in some +indescribable hotel in Soho! + +He had done his best not to think about her at all, but the situation +and his sister had become altogether too urgent. He had finally put +aside The Lilac Sunbonnet, gone into his study, lit the gas fire, and +written the letter that had brought these unsatisfactory relations to a +head. + + +Part 4 + +MY DEAR VEE, he wrote. + +These daughters! He gnawed his pen and reflected, tore the sheet up, and +began again. + +"MY DEAR VERONICA,--Your aunt tells me you have involved yourself in +some arrangement with the Widgett girls about a Fancy Dress Ball in +London. I gather you wish to go up in some fantastic get-up, wrapped +about in your opera cloak, and that after the festivities you propose to +stay with these friends of yours, and without any older people in your +party, at an hotel. Now I am sorry to cross you in anything you have set +your heart upon, but I regret to say--" + +"H'm," he reflected, and crossed out the last four words. + +"--but this cannot be." + +"No," he said, and tried again: "but I must tell you quite definitely +that I feel it to be my duty to forbid any such exploit." + +"Damn!" he remarked at the defaced letter; and, taking a fresh sheet, he +recopied what he had written. A certain irritation crept into his manner +as he did so. + +"I regret that you should ever have proposed it," he went on. + +He meditated, and began a new paragraph. + +"The fact of it is, and this absurd project of yours only brings it to +a head, you have begun to get hold of some very queer ideas about what a +young lady in your position may or may not venture to do. I do not think +you quite understand my ideals or what is becoming as between father and +daughter. Your attitude to me--" + +He fell into a brown study. It was so difficult to put precisely. + +"--and your aunt--" + +For a time he searched for the mot juste. Then he went on: + +"--and, indeed, to most of the established things in life is, frankly, +unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical with all +the crude unthinking criticism of youth. You have no grasp upon the +essential facts of life (I pray God you never may), and in your rash +ignorance you are prepared to dash into positions that may end in +lifelong regret. The life of a young girl is set about with prowling +pitfalls." + +He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture of Veronica +reading this last sentence. But he was now too deeply moved to trace +a certain unsatisfactoriness to its source in a mixture of metaphors. +"Well," he said, argumentatively, "it IS. That's all about it. It's time +she knew." + +"The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls, from +which she must be shielded at all costs." + +His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution. + +"So long as I am your father, so long as your life is entrusted to my +care, I feel bound by every obligation to use my authority to check this +odd disposition of yours toward extravagant enterprises. A day will come +when you will thank me. It is not, my dear Veronica, that I think there +is any harm in you; there is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil +but by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do +her as serious an injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please +believe that in this matter I am acting for the best." + +He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door and +called "Mollie!" and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the +hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire. + +His sister appeared. + +She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all lace +and work and confused patternings of black and purple and cream about +the body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine version of the +same theme as himself. She had the same sharp nose--which, indeed, only +Ann Veronica, of all the family, had escaped. She carried herself well, +whereas her brother slouched, and there was a certain aristocratic +dignity about her that she had acquired through her long engagement to +a curate of family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died +before they married, and when her brother became a widower she had +come to his assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest +daughter. But from the first her rather old-fashioned conception of life +had jarred with the suburban atmosphere, the High School spirit and the +memories of the light and little Mrs. Stanley, whose family had been by +any reckoning inconsiderable--to use the kindliest term. Miss Stanley +had determined from the outset to have the warmest affection for her +youngest niece and to be a second mother in her life--a second and a +better one; but she had found much to battle with, and there was much in +herself that Ann Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an +air of reserved solicitude. + +Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from his +jacket pocket. "What do you think of that?" he asked. + +She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. He +filled his pipe slowly. + +"Yes," she said at last, "it is firm and affectionate." + +"I could have said more." + +"You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me exactly +what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair." + +She paused, and he waited for her to speak. + +"I don't think she quite sees the harm of those people or the sort of +life to which they would draw her," she said. "They would spoil every +chance." + +"She has chances?" he said, helping her out. + +"She is an extremely attractive girl," she said; and added, "to some +people. Of course, one doesn't like to talk about things until there are +things to talk about." + +"All the more reason why she shouldn't get herself talked about." + +"That is exactly what I feel." + +Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully +for a time. "I'd give anything," he remarked, "to see our little Vee +happily and comfortably married." + +He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an inadvertent, +casual manner just as he was leaving the house to catch his London +train. When Ann Veronica got it she had at first a wild, fantastic idea +that it contained a tip. + + +Part 5 + + +Ann Veronica's resolve to have things out with her father was not +accomplished without difficulty. + +He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and played +Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The atmosphere at +dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly amiable above a certain +tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a caller about the alarming +spread of marigolds that summer at the end of the garden, a sort of +Yellow Peril to all the smaller hardy annuals, while her father brought +some papers to table and presented himself as preoccupied with them. "It +really seems as if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next +year," Aunt Molly repeated three times, "and do away with marguerites. +They seed beyond all reason." Elizabeth, the parlormaid, kept coming in +to hand vegetables whenever there seemed a chance of Ann Veronica asking +for an interview. Directly dinner was over Mr. Stanley, having pretended +to linger to smoke, fled suddenly up-stairs to petrography, and when +Veronica tapped he answered through the locked door, "Go away, Vee! I'm +busy," and made a lapidary's wheel buzz loudly. + +Breakfast, too, was an impossible occasion. He read the Times with an +unusually passionate intentness, and then declared suddenly for the +earlier of the two trains he used. + +"I'll come to the station," said Ann Veronica. "I may as well come up by +this train." + +"I may have to run," said her father, with an appeal to his watch. + +"I'll run, too," she volunteered. + +Instead of which they walked sharply.... + +"I say, daddy," she began, and was suddenly short of breath. + +"If it's about that dance project," he said, "it's no good, Veronica. +I've made up my mind." + +"You'll make me look a fool before all my friends." + +"You shouldn't have made an engagement until you'd consulted your aunt." + +"I thought I was old enough," she gasped, between laughter and crying. + +Her father's step quickened to a trot. "I won't have you quarrelling and +crying in the Avenue," he said. "Stop it!... If you've got anything +to say, you must say it to your aunt--" + +"But look here, daddy!" + +He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture. + +"It's settled. You're not to go. You're NOT to go." + +"But it's about other things." + +"I don't care. This isn't the place." + +"Then may I come to the study to-night--after dinner?" + +"I'm--BUSY!" + +"It's important. If I can't talk anywhere else--I DO want an +understanding." + +Ahead of them walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at their +present pace very speedily overtake. It was Ramage, the occupant of the +big house at the end of the Avenue. He had recently made Mr. Stanley's +acquaintance in the train and shown him one or two trifling civilities. +He was an outside broker and the proprietor of a financial newspaper; he +had come up very rapidly in the last few years, and Mr. Stanley admired +and detested him in almost equal measure. It was intolerable to think +that he might overhear words and phrases. Mr. Stanley's pace slackened. + +"You've no right to badger me like this, Veronica," he said. "I can't +see what possible benefit can come of discussing things that are +settled. If you want advice, your aunt is the person. However, if you +must air your opinions--" + +"To-night, then, daddy!" + +He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and then Ramage +glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited for them to +come up. He was a square-faced man of nearly fifty, with iron-gray hair +a mobile, clean-shaven mouth and rather protuberant black eyes that now +scrutinized Ann Veronica. He dressed rather after the fashion of the +West End than the City, and affected a cultured urbanity that somehow +disconcerted and always annoyed Ann Veronica's father extremely. He +did not play golf, but took his exercise on horseback, which was also +unsympathetic. + +"Stuffy these trees make the Avenue," said Mr. Stanley as they drew +alongside, to account for his own ruffled and heated expression. "They +ought to have been lopped in the spring." + +"There's plenty of time," said Ramage. "Is Miss Stanley coming up with +us?" + +"I go second," she said, "and change at Wimbledon." + +"We'll all go second," said Ramage, "if we may?" + +Mr. Stanley wanted to object strongly, but as he could not immediately +think how to put it, he contented himself with a grunt, and the motion +was carried. "How's Mrs. Ramage?" he asked. + +"Very much as usual," said Ramage. "She finds lying up so much very +irksome. But, you see, she HAS to lie up." + +The topic of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at once to Ann +Veronica. "And where are YOU going?" he said. "Are you going on again +this winter with that scientific work of yours? It's an instance of +heredity, I suppose." For a moment Mr. Stanley almost liked Ramage. +"You're a biologist, aren't you?" + +He began to talk of his own impressions of biology as a commonplace +magazine reader who had to get what he could from the monthly reviews, +and was glad to meet with any information from nearer the fountainhead. +In a little while he and she were talking quite easily and agreeably. +They went on talking in the train--it seemed to her father a slight want +of deference to him--and he listened and pretended to read the Times. He +was struck disagreeably by Ramage's air of gallant consideration and Ann +Veronica's self-possessed answers. These things did not harmonize with +his conception of the forthcoming (if unavoidable) interview. After +all, it came to him suddenly as a harsh discovery that she might be in +a sense regarded as grownup. He was a man who in all things classified +without nuance, and for him there were in the matter of age just two +feminine classes and no more--girls and women. The distinction lay +chiefly in the right to pat their heads. But here was a girl--she must +be a girl, since she was his daughter and pat-able--imitating the +woman quite remarkably and cleverly. He resumed his listening. She was +discussing one of those modern advanced plays with a remarkable, with an +extraordinary, confidence. + +"His love-making," she remarked, "struck me as unconvincing. He seemed +too noisy." + +The full significance of her words did not instantly appear to him. Then +it dawned. Good heavens! She was discussing love-making. For a time he +heard no more, and stared with stony eyes at a Book-War proclamation in +leaded type that filled half a column of the Times that day. Could she +understand what she was talking about? Luckily it was a second-class +carriage and the ordinary fellow-travellers were not there. Everybody, +he felt, must be listening behind their papers. + +Of course, girls repeat phrases and opinions of which they cannot +possibly understand the meaning. But a middle-aged man like Ramage ought +to know better than to draw out a girl, the daughter of a friend and +neighbor.... + +Well, after all, he seemed to be turning the subject. "Broddick is a +heavy man," he was saying, "and the main interest of the play was the +embezzlement." Thank Heaven! Mr. Stanley allowed his paper to drop +a little, and scrutinized the hats and brows of their three +fellow-travellers. + +They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss Stanley +to the platform as though she had been a duchess, and she descended as +though such attentions from middle-aged, but still gallant, merchants +were a matter of course. Then, as Ramage readjusted himself in a corner, +he remarked: "These young people shoot up, Stanley. It seems only +yesterday that she was running down the Avenue, all hair and legs." + +Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something approaching +animosity. + +"Now she's all hat and ideas," he said, with an air of humor. + +"She seems an unusually clever girl," said Ramage. + +Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor's clean-shaven face almost warily. +"I'm not sure whether we don't rather overdo all this higher education," +he said, with an effect of conveying profound meanings. + + +Part 6 + + +He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as the +day wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his thoughts +all through the morning, and still more so in the afternoon. He saw her +young and graceful back as she descended from the carriage, severely +ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse he had of her face, bright and +serene, as his train ran out of Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating +perplexity her clear, matter-of-fact tone as she talked about +love-making being unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and +extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious +self-reliance that seemed to intimate her sense of absolute independence +of him, her absolute security without him. After all, she only LOOKED a +woman. She was rash and ignorant, absolutely inexperienced. Absolutely. +He began to think of speeches, very firm, explicit speeches, he would +make. + +He lunched in the Legal Club in Chancery Lane, and met Ogilvy. Daughters +were in the air that day. Ogilvy was full of a client's trouble in +that matter, a grave and even tragic trouble. He told some of the +particulars. + +"Curious case," said Ogilvy, buttering his bread and cutting it up in a +way he had. "Curious case--and sets one thinking." + +He resumed, after a mouthful: "Here is a girl of sixteen or seventeen, +seventeen and a half to be exact, running about, as one might say, in +London. Schoolgirl. Her family are solid West End people, Kensington +people. Father--dead. She goes out and comes home. Afterward goes on to +Oxford. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Why doesn't she marry? Plenty of money +under her father's will. Charming girl." + +He consumed Irish stew for some moments. + +"Married already," he said, with his mouth full. "Shopman." + +"Good God!" said Mr. Stanley. + +"Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing. Very romantic and all that. He +fixed it." + +"But--" + +"He left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense on her part. Sheer +calculation on his. Went up to Somerset House to examine the will before +he did it. Yes. Nice position." + +"She doesn't care for him now?" + +"Not a bit. What a girl of sixteen cares for is hair and a high color +and moonlight and a tenor voice. I suppose most of our daughters would +marry organ-grinders if they had a chance--at that age. My son wanted +to marry a woman of thirty in a tobacconist's shop. Only a son's another +story. We fixed that. Well, that's the situation. My people don't know +what to do. Can't face a scandal. Can't ask the gent to go abroad and +condone a bigamy. He misstated her age and address; but you can't get +home on him for a thing like that.... There you are! Girl spoilt for +life. Makes one want to go back to the Oriental system!" + +Mr. Stanley poured wine. "Damned Rascal!" he said. "Isn't there a +brother to kick him?" + +"Mere satisfaction," reflected Ogilvy. "Mere sensuality. I rather think +they have kicked him, from the tone of some of the letters. Nice, of +course. But it doesn't alter the situation." + +"It's these Rascals," said Mr. Stanley, and paused. + +"Always has been," said Ogilvy. "Our interest lies in heading them off." + +"There was a time when girls didn't get these extravagant ideas." + +"Lydia Languish, for example. Anyhow, they didn't run about so much." + +"Yes. That's about the beginning. It's these damned novels. All this +torrent of misleading, spurious stuff that pours from the press. These +sham ideals and advanced notions. Women who Dids, and all that kind of +thing...." + +Ogilvy reflected. "This girl--she's really a very charming, frank +person--had had her imagination fired, so she told me, by a school +performance of Romeo and Juliet." + +Mr. Stanley decided to treat that as irrelevant. "There ought to be a +Censorship of Books. We want it badly at the present time. Even WITH +the Censorship of Plays there's hardly a decent thing to which a man can +take his wife and daughters, a creeping taint of suggestion everywhere. +What would it be without that safeguard?" + +Ogilvy pursued his own topic. "I'm inclined to think, Stanley, myself +that as a matter of fact it was the expurgated Romeo and Juliet did the +mischief. If our young person hadn't had the nurse part cut out, eh? She +might have known more and done less. I was curious about that. All they +left it was the moon and stars. And the balcony and 'My Romeo!'" + +"Shakespeare is altogether different from the modern stuff. Altogether +different. I'm not discussing Shakespeare. I don't want to Bowdlerize +Shakespeare. I'm not that sort I quite agree. But this modern miasma--" + +Mr. Stanley took mustard savagely. + +"Well, we won't go into Shakespeare," said Ogilvy "What interests me +is that our young women nowadays are running about as free as air +practically, with registry offices and all sorts of accommodation round +the corner. Nothing to check their proceedings but a declining habit of +telling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And in that +respect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think +we ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other. +They're too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom. +That's my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? The +apple-tart's been very good lately--very good!" + + + +Part 7 + + +At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!" + +Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave +deliberation; "If there is anything you want to say to me," he said, +"you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and +then I shall go to the study. I don't see what you can have to say. I +should have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers +I have to look through to-night--important papers." + +"I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on +the table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee shouldn't +discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without bothering me." + +It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all +three of them were shy by habit. + +He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for her +aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the room +with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her own +room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confused +her that the girl should not come to her. + +It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited +disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt. + +When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of a +carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had been +moved a little so as to face each other on either side of the +fender, and in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay, +conspicuously waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tied +with pink tape. Her father held some printed document in his hand, +and appeared not to observe her entry. "Sit down," he said, and +perused--"perused" is the word for it--for some moments. Then he put +the paper by. "And what is it all about, Veronica?" he asked, with a +deliberate note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his +glasses. + +Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded +her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and +looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of great +reasonableness, "I MUST go to that dance, you know." + +Her father's irony deepened. "Why?" he asked, suavely. + +Her answer was not quite ready. "Well, because I don't see any reason +why I shouldn't." + +"You see I do." + +"Why shouldn't I go?" + +"It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering." + +"But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?" + +"And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't correct; +it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London--the idea is +preposterous. I can't imagine what possessed you, Veronica." + +He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and +looked at her over his glasses. + +"But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a +pipe on the mantel. + +"Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal. + +"You see, daddy, I don't think it IS preposterous. That's really what +I want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to take care of +myself, or am I not?" + +"To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not." + +"I think I am." + +"As long as you remain under my roof--" he began, and paused. + +"You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't think +that's fair." + +"Your ideas of fairness--" he remarked, and discontinued that sentence. +"My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, "you are a +mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of +its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, and so +forth. It isn't. It isn't. That's where you go wrong. In some things, +in many things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more of +life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this matter. There +it is. You can't go." + +The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep hold of +a complicated situation and not lose her head. She had turned round +sideways, so as to look down into the fire. + +"You see, father," she said, "it isn't only this affair of the dance. +I want to go to that because it's a new experience, because I think +it will be interesting and give me a view of things. You say I know +nothing. That's probably true. But how am I to know of things?" + +"Some things I hope you may never know," he said. + +"I'm not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can." + +"Tut!" he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the pink +tape. + +"Well, I do. It's just that I want to say. I want to be a human being; +I want to learn about things and know about things, and not to be +protected as something too precious for life, cooped up in one narrow +little corner." + +"Cooped up!" he cried. "Did I stand in the way of your going to college? +Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable hour? You've got +a bicycle!" + +"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and then went on "I want to be taken +seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with +my University work under proper conditions, now that I've done the +Intermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well. I've never muffed +an exam yet. Roddy muffed two...." + +Her father interrupted. "Now look here, Veronica, let us be plain with +each other. You are not going to that infidel Russell's classes. You are +not going anywhere but to the Tredgold College. I've thought that out, +and you must make up your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come +in. While you live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong +even about that man's scientific position and his standard of work. +There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at him. +And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as being--well, +next door to shameful. There's stories, too, about his demonstrator, +Capes Something or other. The kind of man who isn't content with his +science, and writes articles in the monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it +is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE." + +The girl received this intimation in silence, but the face that looked +down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy that brought out +a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and child. When she spoke, +her lips twitched. + +"Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?" + +"It seems the natural course--" + +"And do nothing?" + +"There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home." + +"Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?" + +He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped impatiently, and +he took up the papers. + +"Look here, father," she said, with a change in her voice, "suppose I +won't stand it?" + +He regarded her as though this was a new idea. + +"Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?" + +"You won't." + +"Well"--her breath failed her for a moment. "How would you prevent it?" +she asked. + +"But I have forbidden it!" he said, raising his voice. + +"Yes, I know. But suppose I go?" + +"Now, Veronica! No, no. This won't do. Understand me! I forbid it. I +do not want to hear from you even the threat of disobedience." He spoke +loudly. "The thing is forbidden!" + +"I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong." + +"You will give up anything I wish you to give up." + +They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were flushed +and obstinate. + +She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless gymnastics to +restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips quivered, and they +came. "I mean to go to that dance!" she blubbered. "I mean to go to +that dance! I meant to reason with you, but you won't reason. You're +dogmatic." + +At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of +triumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an +arm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She produced a +handkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a simultaneous gulp had +abolished her fit of weeping. His voice now had lost its ironies. + +"Now, Veronica," he pleaded, "Veronica, this is most unreasonable. All +we do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor I have any other thought +but what is best for you." + +"Only you won't let me live. Only you won't let me exist!" + +Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly. + +"What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO live, you +DO exist! You have this home. You have friends, acquaintances, social +standing, brothers and sisters, every advantage! Instead of which, you +want to go to some mixed classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance +about at nights in wild costumes with casual art student friends and God +knows who. That--that isn't living! You are beside yourself. You don't +know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor logic. +I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your good. You +MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I put my foot down +like--like adamant. And a time will come, Veronica, mark my words, a +time will come when you will bless me for my firmness to-night. It goes +to my heart to disappoint you, but this thing must not be." + +He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in +possession of the hearth-rug. + +"Well," she said, "good-night, father." + +"What!" he asked; "not a kiss?" + +She affected not to hear. + +The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained standing +before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat down and filled +his pipe slowly and thoughtfully.... + +"I don't see what else I could have said," he remarked. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + +Part 1 + + +"Are you coming to the Fadden Dance, Ann Veronica?" asked Constance +Widgett. + +Ann Veronica considered her answer. "I mean to," she replied. + +"You are making your dress?" + +"Such as it is." + +They were in the elder Widgett girl's bedroom; Hetty was laid up, she +said, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was gossiping +away her tedium. It was a large, littered, self-forgetful apartment, +decorated with unframed charcoal sketches by various incipient masters; +and an open bookcase, surmounted by plaster casts and the half of a +human skull, displayed an odd miscellany of books--Shaw and Swinburne, +Tom Jones, Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. Constance +Widgett's abundant copper-red hair was bent down over some dimly +remunerative work--stencilling in colors upon rough, white material--at +a kitchen table she had dragged up-stairs for the purpose, while on her +bed there was seated a slender lady of thirty or so in a dingy green +dress, whom Constance had introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss +Miniver. Miss Miniver looked out on the world through large emotional +blue eyes that were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and her +nose was pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her +glasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face. +She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for her +opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words "Votes +for Women." Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the sufferer's bed, while +Teddy Widgett, being something of an athlete, occupied the only +bed-room chair--a decadent piece, essentially a tripod and largely a +formality--and smoked cigarettes, and tried to conceal the fact that +he was looking all the time at Ann Veronica's eyebrows. Teddy was the +hatless young man who had turned Ann Veronica aside from the Avenue two +days before. He was the junior of both his sisters, co-educated and +much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses, just brought by +Ann Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, and Ann Veronica was +particularly trim in preparation for a call she was to make with her +aunt later in the afternoon. + +Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. "I've been," she said, +"forbidden to come." + +"Hul-LO!" said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy remarked +with profound emotion, "My God!" + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "and that complicates the situation." + +"Auntie?" asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica's +affairs. + +"No! My father. It's--it's a serious prohibition." + +"Why?" asked Hetty. + +"That's the point. I asked him why, and he hadn't a reason." + +"YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!" said Miss Miniver, with great +intensity. + +"Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn't have it out." Ann +Veronica reflected for an instant "That's why I think I ought to come." + +"You asked your father for a reason!" Miss Miniver repeated. + +"We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!" said Hetty. +"He's got almost to like it." + +"Men," said Miss Miniver, "NEVER have a reason. Never! And they don't +know it! They have no idea of it. It's one of their worst traits, one of +their very worst." + +"But I say, Vee," said Constance, "if you come and you are forbidden to +come there'll be the deuce of a row." + +Ann Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her situation +was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax and +sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't only the dance," +she said. + +"There's the classes," said Constance, the well-informed. + +"There's the whole situation. Apparently I'm not to exist yet. I'm not +to study, I'm not to grow. I've got to stay at home and remain in a +state of suspended animation." + +"DUSTING!" said Miss Miniver, in a sepulchral voice. + +"Until you marry, Vee," said Hetty. + +"Well, I don't feel like standing it." + +"Thousands of women have married merely for freedom," said Miss Miniver. +"Thousands! Ugh! And found it a worse slavery." + +"I suppose," said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink petals, +"it's our lot. But it's very beastly." + +"What's our lot?" asked her sister. + +"Slavery! Downtroddenness! When I think of it I feel all over boot +marks--men's boots. We hide it bravely, but so it is. Damn! I've +splashed." + +Miss Miniver's manner became impressive. She addressed Ann Veronica +with an air of conveying great open secrets to her. "As things are at +present," she said, "it is true. We live under man-made institutions, +and that is what they amount to. Every girl in the world practically, +except a few of us who teach or type-write, and then we're underpaid and +sweated--it's dreadful to think how we are sweated!" She had lost her +generalization, whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then went +on, conclusively, "Until we have the vote that is how things WILL be." + +"I'm all for the vote," said Teddy. + +"I suppose a girl MUST be underpaid and sweated," said Ann Veronica. "I +suppose there's no way of getting a decent income--independently." + +"Women have practically NO economic freedom," said Miss Miniver, +"because they have no political freedom. Men have seen to that. The one +profession, the one decent profession, I mean, for a woman--except the +stage--is teaching, and there we trample on one another. Everywhere +else--the law, medicine, the Stock Exchange--prejudice bars us." + +"There's art," said Ann Veronica, "and writing." + +"Every one hasn't the Gift. Even there a woman never gets a fair chance. +Men are against her. Whatever she does is minimized. All the best +novels have been written by women, and yet see how men sneer at the lady +novelist still! There's only one way to get on for a woman, and that is +to please men. That is what they think we are for!" + +"We're beasts," said Teddy. "Beasts!" + +But Miss Miniver took no notice of his admission. + +"Of course," said Miss Miniver--she went on in a regularly undulating +voice--"we DO please men. We have that gift. We can see round them and +behind them and through them, and most of us use that knowledge, in the +silent way we have, for our great ends. Not all of us, but some of us. +Too many. I wonder what men would say if we threw the mask aside--if +we really told them what WE thought of them, really showed them what WE +were." A flush of excitement crept into her cheeks. + +"Maternity," she said, "has been our undoing." + +From that she opened out into a long, confused emphatic discourse on the +position of women, full of wonderful statements, while Constance worked +at her stencilling and Ann Veronica and Hetty listened, and Teddy +contributed sympathetic noises and consumed cheap cigarettes. As she +talked she made weak little gestures with her hands, and she thrust her +face forward from her bent shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann +Veronica and sometimes at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near +Fluelen, that hung upon the wall. Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely +sympathizing with her, vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency and +her convulsive movements, and the fine eyebrows were knit with a faint +perplexity. Essentially the talk was a mixture of fragments of sentences +heard, of passages read, or arguments indicated rather than stated, and +all of it was served in a sauce of strange enthusiasm, thin yet +intense. Ann Veronica had had some training at the Tredgold College in +disentangling threads from confused statements, and she had a curious +persuasion that in all this fluent muddle there was something--something +real, something that signified. But it was very hard to follow. She did +not understand the note of hostility to men that ran through it all, the +bitter vindictiveness that lit Miss Miniver's cheeks and eyes, the +sense of some at last insupportable wrong slowly accumulated. She had no +inkling of that insupportable wrong. + +"We are the species," said Miss Miniver, "men are only incidents. +They give themselves airs, but so it is. In all the species of animals +the females are more important than the males; the males have to please +them. Look at the cock's feathers, look at the competition there is +everywhere, except among humans. The stags and oxen and things all +have to fight for us, everywhere. Only in man is the male made the +most important. And that happens through our maternity; it's our very +importance that degrades us. + +"While we were minding the children they stole our rights and liberties. +The children made us slaves, and the men took advantage of it. +It's--Mrs. Shalford says--the accidental conquering the essential. +Originally in the first animals there were no males, none at all. It +has been proved. Then they appear among the lower things"--she made +meticulous gestures to figure the scale of life; she seemed to be +holding up specimens, and peering through her glasses at them--"among +crustaceans and things, just as little creatures, ever so inferior to +the females. Mere hangers on. Things you would laugh at. And among human +beings, too, women to begin with were the rulers and leaders; they owned +all the property, they invented all the arts. + +"The primitive government was the Matriarchate. The Matriarchate! The +Lords of Creation just ran about and did what they were told." + +"But is that really so?" said Ann Veronica. + +"It has been proved," said Miss Miniver, and added, "by American +professors." + +"But how did they prove it?" + +"By science," said Miss Miniver, and hurried on, putting out a +rhetorical hand that showed a slash of finger through its glove. "And +now, look at us! See what we have become. Toys! Delicate trifles! A sex +of invalids. It is we who have become the parasites and toys." + +It was, Ann Veronica felt, at once absurd and extraordinarily right. +Hetty, who had periods of lucid expression, put the thing for her +from her pillow. She charged boldly into the space of Miss Miniver's +rhetorical pause. + +"It isn't quite that we're toys. Nobody toys with me. Nobody regards +Constance or Vee as a delicate trifle." + +Teddy made some confused noise, a thoracic street row; some remark was +assassinated by a rival in his throat and buried hastily under a cough. + +"They'd better not," said Hetty. "The point is we're not toys, toys +isn't the word; we're litter. We're handfuls. We're regarded as +inflammable litter that mustn't be left about. We are the species, and +maternity is our game; that's all right, but nobody wants that admitted +for fear we should all catch fire, and set about fulfilling the purpose +of our beings without waiting for further explanations. As if we didn't +know! The practical trouble is our ages. They used to marry us off at +seventeen, rush us into things before we had time to protest. They don't +now. Heaven knows why! They don't marry most of us off now until high up +in the twenties. And the age gets higher. We have to hang about in the +interval. There's a great gulf opened, and nobody's got any plans what +to do with us. So the world is choked with waste and waiting daughters. +Hanging about! And they start thinking and asking questions, and begin +to be neither one thing nor the other. We're partly human beings and +partly females in suspense." + +Miss Miniver followed with an expression of perplexity, her mouth shaped +to futile expositions. The Widgett method of thought puzzled her weakly +rhetorical mind. "There is no remedy, girls," she began, breathlessly, +"except the Vote. Give us that--" + +Ann Veronica came in with a certain disregard of Miss Miniver. "That's +it," she said. "They have no plans for us. They have no ideas what to do +with us." + +"Except," said Constance, surveying her work with her head on one side, +"to keep the matches from the litter." + +"And they won't let us make plans for ourselves." + +"We will," said Miss Miniver, refusing to be suppressed, "if some of us +have to be killed to get it." And she pressed her lips together in white +resolution and nodded, and she was manifestly full of that same passion +for conflict and self-sacrifice that has given the world martyrs since +the beginning of things. "I wish I could make every woman, every girl, +see this as clearly as I see it--just what the Vote means to us. Just +what it means...." + + + +Part 2 + + +As Ann Veronica went back along the Avenue to her aunt she became aware +of a light-footed pursuer running. Teddy overtook her, a little out of +breath, his innocent face flushed, his straw-colored hair disordered. He +was out of breath, and spoke in broken sentences. + +"I say, Vee. Half a minute, Vee. It's like this: You want freedom. Look +here. You know--if you want freedom. Just an idea of mine. You know +how those Russian students do? In Russia. Just a formal marriage. Mere +formality. Liberates the girl from parental control. See? You marry me. +Simply. No further responsibility whatever. Without hindrance--present +occupation. Why not? Quite willing. Get a license--just an idea of mine. +Doesn't matter a bit to me. Do anything to please you, Vee. Anything. +Not fit to be dust on your boots. Still--there you are!" + +He paused. + +Ann Veronica's desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the +tremendous earnestness of his expression. "Awfully good of you, Teddy." +she said. + +He nodded silently, too full for words. + +"But I don't see," said Ann Veronica, "just how it fits the present +situation." + +"No! Well, I just suggested it. Threw it out. Of course, if at any +time--see reason--alter your opinion. Always at your service. No +offence, I hope. All right! I'm off. Due to play hockey. Jackson's. +Horrid snorters! So long, Vee! Just suggested it. See? Nothing really. +Passing thought." + +"Teddy," said Ann Veronica, "you're a dear!" + +"Oh, quite!" said Teddy, convulsively, and lifted an imaginary hat and +left her. + + + +Part 3 + + +The call Ann Veronica paid with her aunt that afternoon had at first +much the same relation to the Widgett conversation that a plaster statue +of Mr. Gladstone would have to a carelessly displayed interior on a +dissecting-room table. The Widgetts talked with a remarkable absence of +external coverings; the Palsworthys found all the meanings of life on +its surfaces. They seemed the most wrapped things in all Ann Veronica's +wrappered world. The Widgett mental furniture was perhaps worn and +shabby, but there it was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an +almost pitiless sunlight. Lady Palsworthy was the widow of a knight +who had won his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was of good +seventeenth-century attorney blood, a county family, and distantly +related to Aunt Mollie's deceased curate. She was the social leader of +Morningside Park, and in her superficial and euphuistic way an extremely +kind and pleasant woman. With her lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of +the Morningside Park doctor, and a very active and useful member of the +Committee of the Impoverished Gentlewomen's Aid Society. Both ladies +were on easy and friendly terms with all that was best in Morningside +Park society; they had an afternoon once a month that was quite well +attended, they sometimes gave musical evenings, they dined out and gave +a finish to people's dinners, they had a full-sized croquet lawn and +tennis beyond, and understood the art of bringing people together. +And they never talked of anything at all, never discussed, never even +encouraged gossip. They were just nice. + +Ann Veronica found herself walking back down the Avenue that had just +been the scene of her first proposal beside her aunt, and speculating +for the first time in her life about that lady's mental attitudes. Her +prevailing effect was one of quiet and complete assurance, as though she +knew all about everything, and was only restrained by her instinctive +delicacy from telling what she knew. But the restraint exercised by her +instinctive delicacy was very great; over and above coarse or sexual +matters it covered religion and politics and any mention of money +matters or crime, and Ann Veronica found herself wondering whether these +exclusions represented, after all, anything more than suppressions. Was +there anything at all in those locked rooms of her aunt's mind? Were +they fully furnished and only a little dusty and cobwebby and in need of +an airing, or were they stark vacancy except, perhaps, for a cockroach +or so or the gnawing of a rat? What was the mental equivalent of a rat's +gnawing? The image was going astray. But what would her aunt think of +Teddy's recent off-hand suggestion of marriage? What would she think of +the Widgett conversation? Suppose she was to tell her aunt quietly +but firmly about the parasitic males of degraded crustacea. The girl +suppressed a chuckle that would have been inexplicable. + +There came a wild rush of anthropological lore into her brain, a flare +of indecorous humor. It was one of the secret troubles of her mind, this +grotesque twist her ideas would sometimes take, as though they rebelled +and rioted. After all, she found herself reflecting, behind her aunt's +complacent visage there was a past as lurid as any one's--not, of +course, her aunt's own personal past, which was apparently just that +curate and almost incredibly jejune, but an ancestral past with all +sorts of scandalous things in it: fire and slaughterings, exogamy, +marriage by capture, corroborees, cannibalism! Ancestresses with perhaps +dim anticipatory likenesses to her aunt, their hair less neatly done, +no doubt, their manners and gestures as yet undisciplined, but still +ancestresses in the direct line, must have danced through a brief and +stirring life in the woady buff. Was there no echo anywhere in Miss +Stanley's pacified brain? Those empty rooms, if they were empty, were +the equivalents of astoundingly decorated predecessors. Perhaps it was +just as well there was no inherited memory. + +Ann Veronica was by this time quite shocked at her own thoughts, and yet +they would go on with their freaks. Great vistas of history opened, and +she and her aunt were near reverting to the primitive and passionate and +entirely indecorous arboreal--were swinging from branches by the +arms, and really going on quite dreadfully--when their arrival at +the Palsworthys' happily checked this play of fancy, and brought Ann +Veronica back to the exigencies of the wrappered life again. + +Lady Palsworthy liked Ann Veronica because she was never awkward, +had steady eyes, and an almost invariable neatness and dignity in her +clothes. She seemed just as stiff and shy as a girl ought to be, Lady +Palsworthy thought, neither garrulous nor unready, and free from nearly +all the heavy aggressiveness, the overgrown, overblown quality, the +egotism and want of consideration of the typical modern girl. But then +Lady Palsworthy had never seen Ann Veronica running like the wind +at hockey. She had never seen her sitting on tables nor heard her +discussing theology, and had failed to observe that the graceful figure +was a natural one and not due to ably chosen stays. She took it for +granted Ann Veronica wore stays--mild stays, perhaps, but stays, and +thought no more of the matter. She had seen her really only at teas, +with the Stanley strain in her uppermost. There are so many girls +nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea, with their untrimmed +laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when they sit down, their +slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it is true, like the girls of +the eighties and nineties, nevertheless to a fine intelligence they have +the flavor of tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the +mellow surface of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and +Lady Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed +surfaces of things. Ann Veronica was one of the few young people--and +one must have young people just as one must have flowers--one could ask +to a little gathering without the risk of a painful discord. Then the +distant relationship to Miss Stanley gave them a slight but pleasant +sense of proprietorship in the girl. They had their little dreams about +her. + +Mrs. Pramlay received them in the pretty chintz drawing-room, which +opened by French windows on the trim garden, with its croquet lawn, its +tennis-net in the middle distance, and its remote rose alley lined +with smart dahlias and flaming sunflowers. Her eye met Miss Stanley's +understandingly, and she was if anything a trifle more affectionate in +her greeting to Ann Veronica. Then Ann Veronica passed on toward the +tea in the garden, which was dotted with the elite of Morningside Park +society, and there she was pounced upon by Lady Palsworthy and given tea +and led about. Across the lawn and hovering indecisively, Ann Veronica +saw and immediately affected not to see Mr. Manning, Lady Palsworthy's +nephew, a tall young man of seven-and-thirty with a handsome, +thoughtful, impassive face, a full black mustache, and a certain heavy +luxuriousness of gesture. The party resolved itself for Ann Veronica +into a game in which she manoeuvred unostentatiously and finally +unsuccessfully to avoid talking alone with this gentleman. + +Mr. Manning had shown on previous occasions that he found Ann Veronica +interesting and that he wished to interest her. He was a civil servant +of some standing, and after a previous conversation upon aesthetics of +a sententious, nebulous, and sympathetic character, he had sent her a +small volume, which he described as the fruits of his leisure and which +was as a matter of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with +fine aspects of Mr. Manning's feelings, and as Ann Veronica's mind +was still largely engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in +metrical forms, she had not as yet cut its pages. So that as she saw him +she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely, "Oh, golly!" and +set up a campaign of avoidance that Mr. Manning at last broke down by +coming directly at her as she talked with the vicar's aunt about some of +the details of the alleged smell of the new church lamps. He did not so +much cut into this conversation as loom over it, for he was a tall, if +rather studiously stooping, man. + +The face that looked down upon Ann Veronica was full of amiable +intention. "Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley," he said. +"How well and jolly you must be feeling." + +He beamed over the effect of this and shook hands with effusion, and +Lady Palsworthy suddenly appeared as his confederate and disentangled +the vicar's aunt. + +"I love this warm end of summer more than words can tell," he said. +"I've tried to make words tell it. It's no good. Mild, you know, and +boon. You want music." + +Ann Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of her assent cover a +possible knowledge of a probable poem. + +"Splendid it must be to be a composer. Glorious! The Pastoral. +Beethoven; he's the best of them. Don't you think? Tum, tay, tum, tay." + +Ann Veronica did. + +"What have you been doing since our last talk? Still cutting up +rabbits and probing into things? I've often thought of that talk of +ours--often." + +He did not appear to require any answer to his question. + +"Often," he repeated, a little heavily. + +"Beautiful these autumn flowers are," said Ann Veronica, in a wide, +uncomfortable pause. + +"Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the garden," said +Mr. Manning, "they're a dream." And Ann Veronica found herself being +carried off to an isolation even remoter and more conspicuous than the +corner of the lawn, with the whole of the party aiding and abetting and +glancing at them. "Damn!" said Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself +for a conflict. + +Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar admission +from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of beauty. He said that +for him beauty justified life, that he could not imagine a good action +that was not a beautiful one nor any beautiful thing that could be +altogether bad. Ann Veronica hazarded an opinion that as a matter of +history some very beautiful people had, to a quite considerable extent, +been bad, but Mr. Manning questioned whether when they were bad they +were really beautiful or when they were beautiful bad. Ann Veronica +found her attention wandering a little as he told her that he was not +ashamed to feel almost slavish in the presence of really beautiful +people, and then they came to the Michaelmas daisies. They were really +very fine and abundant, with a blaze of perennial sunflowers behind +them. + +"They make me want to shout," said Mr. Manning, with a sweep of the arm. + +"They're very good this year," said Ann Veronica, avoiding controversial +matter. + +"Either I want to shout," said Mr. Manning, "when I see beautiful +things, or else I want to weep." He paused and looked at her, and said, +with a sudden drop into a confidential undertone, "Or else I want to +pray." + +"When is Michaelmas Day?" said Ann Veronica, a little abruptly. + +"Heaven knows!" said Mr. Manning; and added, "the twenty-ninth." + +"I thought it was earlier," said Ann Veronica. "Wasn't Parliament to +reassemble?" + +He put out his hand and leaned against a tree and crossed his legs. +"You're not interested in politics?" he asked, almost with a note of +protest. + +"Well, rather," said Ann Veronica. "It seems--It's interesting." + +"Do you think so? I find my interest in that sort of thing decline and +decline." + +"I'm curious. Perhaps because I don't know. I suppose an intelligent +person OUGHT to be interested in political affairs. They concern us +all." + +"I wonder," said Mr. Manning, with a baffling smile. + +"I think they do. After all, they're history in the making." + +"A sort of history," said Mr. Manning; and repeated, "a sort of history. +But look at these glorious daisies!" + +"But don't you think political questions ARE important?" + +"I don't think they are this afternoon, and I don't think they are to +you." + +Ann Veronica turned her back on the Michaelmas daisies, and faced toward +the house with an air of a duty completed. + +"Just come to that seat now you are here, Miss Stanley, and look down +the other path; there's a vista of just the common sort. Better even +than these." + +Ann Veronica walked as he indicated. + +"You know I'm old-fashioned, Miss Stanley. I don't think women need to +trouble about political questions." + +"I want a vote," said Ann Veronica. + +"Really!" said Mr. Manning, in an earnest voice, and waved his hand to +the alley of mauve and purple. "I wish you didn't." + +"Why not?" She turned on him. + +"It jars. It jars with all my ideas. Women to me are something so +serene, so fine, so feminine, and politics are so dusty, so sordid, +so wearisome and quarrelsome. It seems to me a woman's duty to be +beautiful, to BE beautiful and to behave beautifully, and politics +are by their very nature ugly. You see, I--I am a woman worshipper. +I worshipped women long before I found any woman I might ever hope +to worship. Long ago. And--the idea of committees, of hustings, of +agenda-papers!" + +"I don't see why the responsibility of beauty should all be shifted on +to the women," said Ann Veronica, suddenly remembering a part of Miss +Miniver's discourse. + +"It rests with them by the nature of things. Why should you who are +queens come down from your thrones? If you can afford it, WE can't. We +can't afford to turn our women, our Madonnas, our Saint Catherines, our +Mona Lisas, our goddesses and angels and fairy princesses, into a sort +of man. Womanhood is sacred to me. My politics in that matter wouldn't +be to give women votes. I'm a Socialist, Miss Stanley." + +"WHAT?" said Ann Veronica, startled. + +"A Socialist of the order of John Ruskin. Indeed I am! I would make this +country a collective monarchy, and all the girls and women in it should +be the Queen. They should never come into contact with politics or +economics--or any of those things. And we men would work for them and +serve them in loyal fealty." + +"That's rather the theory now," said Ann Veronica. "Only so many men +neglect their duties." + +"Yes," said Mr. Manning, with an air of emerging from an elaborate +demonstration, "and so each of us must, under existing conditions, being +chivalrous indeed to all women, choose for himself his own particular +and worshipful queen." + +"So far as one can judge from the system in practice," said Ann +Veronica, speaking in a loud, common-sense, detached tone, and beginning +to walk slowly but resolutely toward the lawn, "it doesn't work." + +"Every one must be experimental," said Mr. Manning, and glanced round +hastily for further horticultural points of interest in secluded +corners. None presented themselves to save him from that return. + +"That's all very well when one isn't the material experimented upon," +Ann Veronica had remarked. + +"Women would--they DO have far more power than they think, as +influences, as inspirations." + +Ann Veronica said nothing in answer to that. + +"You say you want a vote," said Mr. Manning, abruptly. + +"I think I ought to have one." + +"Well, I have two," said Mr. Manning--"one in Oxford University and one +in Kensington." He caught up and went on with a sort of clumsiness: "Let +me present you with them and be your voter." + +There followed an instant's pause, and then Ann Veronica had decided to +misunderstand. + +"I want a vote for myself," she said. "I don't see why I should take it +second-hand. Though it's very kind of you. And rather unscrupulous. Have +you ever voted, Mr. Manning? I suppose there's a sort of place like a +ticket-office. And a ballot-box--" Her face assumed an expression of +intellectual conflict. "What is a ballot-box like, exactly?" she asked, +as though it was very important to her. + +Mr. Manning regarded her thoughtfully for a moment and stroked his +mustache. "A ballot-box, you know," he said, "is very largely just a +box." He made quite a long pause, and went on, with a sigh: "You have a +voting paper given you--" + +They emerged into the publicity of the lawn. + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "yes," to his explanation, and saw across +the lawn Lady Palsworthy talking to her aunt, and both of them staring +frankly across at her and Mr. Manning as they talked. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + +Part 1 + +Two days after came the day of the Crisis, the day of the Fadden Dance. +It would have been a crisis anyhow, but it was complicated in Ann +Veronica's mind by the fact that a letter lay on the breakfast-table +from Mr. Manning, and that her aunt focussed a brightly tactful +disregard upon this throughout the meal. Ann Veronica had come down +thinking of nothing in the world but her inflexible resolution to go to +the dance in the teeth of all opposition. She did not know Mr. Manning's +handwriting, and opened his letter and read some lines before its import +appeared. Then for a time she forgot the Fadden affair altogether. +With a well-simulated unconcern and a heightened color she finished her +breakfast. + +She was not obliged to go to the Tredgold College, because as yet the +College had not settled down for the session. She was supposed to be +reading at home, and after breakfast she strolled into the vegetable +garden, and having taken up a position upon the staging of a disused +greenhouse that had the double advantage of being hidden from the +windows of the house and secure from the sudden appearance of any one, +she resumed the reading of Mr. Manning's letter. + +Mr. Manning's handwriting had an air of being clear without being easily +legible; it was large and rather roundish, with a lack of definition +about the letters and a disposition to treat the large ones as +liberal-minded people nowadays treat opinions, as all amounting to the +same thing really--a years-smoothed boyish rather than an adult hand. +And it filled seven sheets of notepaper, each written only on one side. + + +"MY DEAR MISS STANLEY," it began,--"I hope you will forgive my +bothering you with a letter, but I have been thinking very much over our +conversation at Lady Palsworthy's, and I feel there are things I want +to say to you so much that I cannot wait until we meet again. It is the +worst of talk under such social circumstances that it is always getting +cut off so soon as it is beginning; and I went home that afternoon +feeling I had said nothing--literally nothing--of the things I had meant +to say to you and that were coursing through my head. They were things I +had meant very much to talk to you about, so that I went home vexed and +disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses. +I wonder if you will mind very much when I tell you they were suggested +by you. You must forgive the poet's license I take. Here is one verse. +The metrical irregularity is intentional, because I want, as it were, to +put you apart: to change the lilt and the mood altogether when I speak +of you. + + "'A SONG OF LADIES AND MY LADY + + "'Saintly white and a lily is Mary, + Margaret's violets, sweet and shy; + Green and dewy is Nellie-bud fairy, + Forget-me-nots live in Gwendolen's eye. + Annabel shines like a star in the darkness, + Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose; + But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather, + She gleams and gladdens, she warms--and goes.' + +"Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret. All bad +verse--originally the epigram was Lang's, I believe--is written in a +state of emotion. + +"My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon of work +and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the time resenting it +beyond measure. There we were discussing whether you should have a vote, +and I remembered the last occasion we met it was about your prospects of +success in the medical profession or as a Government official such as a +number of women now are, and all the time my heart was crying out within +me, 'Here is the Queen of your career.' I wanted, as I have never wanted +before, to take you up, to make you mine, to carry you off and set you +apart from all the strain and turmoil of life. For nothing will ever +convince me that it is not the man's share in life to shield, to +protect, to lead and toil and watch and battle with the world at large. +I want to be your knight, your servant, your protector, your--I dare +scarcely write the word--your husband. So I come suppliant. I am +five-and-thirty, and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the +quality of life. I had a hard fight to begin with to win my way into the +Upper Division--I was third on a list of forty-seven--and since then I +have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening sphere of social +service. Before I met you I never met any one whom I felt I could +love, but you have discovered depths in my own nature I had scarcely +suspected. Except for a few early ebullitions of passion, natural to +a warm and romantic disposition, and leaving no harmful +after-effects--ebullitions that by the standards of the higher truth I +feel no one can justly cast a stone at, and of which I for one am by no +means ashamed--I come to you a pure and unencumbered man. I love you. +In addition to my public salary I have a certain private property and +further expectations through my aunt, so that I can offer you a life +of wide and generous refinement, travel, books, discussion, and easy +relations with a circle of clever and brilliant and thoughtful people +with whom my literary work has brought me into contact, and of which, +seeing me only as you have done alone in Morningside Park, you can have +no idea. I have a certain standing not only as a singer but as a critic, +and I belong to one of the most brilliant causerie dinner clubs of +the day, in which successful Bohemianism, politicians, men of affairs, +artists, sculptors, and cultivated noblemen generally, mingle together +in the easiest and most delightful intercourse. That is my real milieu, +and one that I am convinced you would not only adorn but delight in. + +"I find it very hard to write this letter. There are so many things +I want to tell you, and they stand on such different levels, that +the effect is necessarily confusing and discordant, and I find myself +doubting if I am really giving you the thread of emotion that should run +through all this letter. For although I must confess it reads very much +like an application or a testimonial or some such thing as that, I can +assure you I am writing this in fear and trembling with a sinking heart. +My mind is full of ideas and images that I have been cherishing and +accumulating--dreams of travelling side by side, of lunching quietly +together in some jolly restaurant, of moonlight and music and all that +side of life, of seeing you dressed like a queen and shining in some +brilliant throng--mine; of your looking at flowers in some old-world +garden, our garden--there are splendid places to be got down in Surrey, +and a little runabout motor is quite within my means. You know they say, +as, indeed, I have just quoted already, that all bad poetry is written +in a state of emotion, but I have no doubt that this is true of bad +offers of marriage. I have often felt before that it is only when one +has nothing to say that one can write easy poetry. Witness Browning. And +how can I get into one brief letter the complex accumulated desires of +what is now, I find on reference to my diary, nearly sixteen months of +letting my mind run on you--ever since that jolly party at Surbiton, +where we raced and beat the other boat. You steered and I rowed stroke. +My very sentences stumble and give way. But I do not even care if I am +absurd. I am a resolute man, and hitherto when I have wanted a thing I +have got it; but I have never yet wanted anything in my life as I have +wanted you. It isn't the same thing. I am afraid because I love you, so +that the mere thought of failure hurts. If I did not love you so much I +believe I could win you by sheer force of character, for people tell me +I am naturally of the dominating type. Most of my successes in life have +been made with a sort of reckless vigor. + +"Well, I have said what I had to say, stumblingly and badly, and baldly. +But I am sick of tearing up letters and hopeless of getting what I have +to say better said. It would be easy enough for me to write an eloquent +letter about something else. Only I do not care to write about anything +else. Let me put the main question to you now that I could not put the +other afternoon. Will you marry me, Ann Veronica? + +"Very sincerely yours, + +"HUBERT MANNING." + + +Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes. + +Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. Twice she +smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up the sheets in +a search for particular passages. Finally she fell into reflection. + +"Odd!" she said. "I suppose I shall have to write an answer. It's so +different from what one has been led to expect." + +She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the greenhouse, +advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry +canes. + +"No you don't!" said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and +business-like pace toward the house. + +"I'm going for a long tramp, auntie," she said. + +"Alone, dear?" + +"Yes, aunt. I've got a lot of things to think about." + +Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. She +thought her niece very hard and very self-possessed and self-confident. +She ought to be softened and tender and confidential at this phase of +her life. She seemed to have no idea whatever of the emotional states +that were becoming to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round +the garden thinking, and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann +Veronica's slamming of the front door. + +"I wonder!" said Miss Stanley. + +For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as though +they offered an explanation. Then she went in and up-stairs, hesitated +on the landing, and finally, a little breathless and with an air of +great dignity, opened the door and walked into Ann Veronica's room. It +was a neat, efficient-looking room, with a writing-table placed with a +business-like regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a +pig's skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of +shiny, black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two +hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann Veronica, +by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art. But Miss +Stanley took no notice of these things. She walked straight across to +the wardrobe and opened it. There, hanging among Ann Veronica's more +normal clothing, was a skimpy dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap +and tawdry braid, and short--it could hardly reach below the knee. On +the same peg and evidently belonging to it was a black velvet Zouave +jacket. And then! a garment that was conceivably a secondary skirt. + +Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of the +constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it. + +The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. As she +raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy crimson masses. + +"TROUSERS!" she whispered. + +Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very chairs. + +Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish +slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She walked +over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and stooped to +examine them. They were ingenious disguises of gilt paper destructively +gummed, it would seem, to Ann Veronicas' best dancing-slippers. + +Then she reverted to the trousers. + +"How CAN I tell him?" whispered Miss Stanley. + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. She walked +with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the proletarian +portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields came into a +pretty overhung lane that led toward Caddington and the Downs. And +then her pace slackened. She tucked her stick under her arm and re-read +Manning's letter. + +"Let me think," said Ann Veronica. "I wish this hadn't turned up to-day +of all days." + +She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything +but clear what it was she had to think about. Practically it was most +of the chief interests in life that she proposed to settle in this +pedestrian meditation. Primarily it was her own problem, and in +particular the answer she had to give to Mr. Manning's letter, but in +order to get data for that she found that she, having a logical and +ordered mind, had to decide upon the general relations of men to women, +the objects and conditions of marriage and its bearing upon the +welfare of the race, the purpose of the race, the purpose, if any, of +everything.... + +"Frightful lot of things aren't settled," said Ann Veronica. In +addition, the Fadden Dance business, all out of proportion, occupied +the whole foreground of her thoughts and threw a color of rebellion +over everything. She kept thinking she was thinking about Mr. Manning's +proposal of marriage and finding she was thinking of the dance. + +For a time her efforts to achieve a comprehensive concentration were +dispersed by the passage of the village street of Caddington, the +passing of a goggled car-load of motorists, and the struggles of a +stable lad mounted on one recalcitrant horse and leading another. When +she got back to her questions again in the monotonous high-road that led +up the hill, she found the image of Mr. Manning central in her mind. +He stood there, large and dark, enunciating, in his clear voice from +beneath his large mustache, clear flat sentences, deliberately kindly. +He proposed, he wanted to possess her! He loved her. + +Ann Veronica felt no repulsion at the prospect. That Mr. Manning loved +her presented itself to her bloodlessly, stilled from any imaginative +quiver or thrill of passion or disgust. The relationship seemed to have +almost as much to do with blood and body as a mortgage. It was something +that would create a mutual claim, a relationship. It was in another +world from that in which men will die for a kiss, and touching hands +lights fires that burn up lives--the world of romance, the world of +passionately beautiful things. + +But that other world, in spite of her resolute exclusion of it, was +always looking round corners and peeping through chinks and crannies, +and rustling and raiding into the order in which she chose to live, +shining out of pictures at her, echoing in lyrics and music; it invaded +her dreams, it wrote up broken and enigmatical sentences upon the +passage walls of her mind. She was aware of it now as if it were a +voice shouting outside a house, shouting passionate verities in a hot +sunlight, a voice that cries while people talk insincerely in a darkened +room and pretend not to hear. Its shouting now did in some occult manner +convey a protest that Mr. Manning would on no account do, though he +was tall and dark and handsome and kind, and thirty-five and adequately +prosperous, and all that a husband should be. But there was, it +insisted, no mobility in his face, no movement, nothing about him that +warmed. If Ann Veronica could have put words to that song they +would have been, "Hot-blooded marriage or none!" but she was far too +indistinct in this matter to frame any words at all. + +"I don't love him," said Ann Veronica, getting a gleam. "I don't see +that his being a good sort matters. That really settles about that.... +But it means no end of a row." + +For a time she sat on a rail before leaving the road for the downland +turf. "But I wish," she said, "I had some idea what I was really up to." + +Her thoughts went into solution for a time, while she listened to a lark +singing. + +"Marriage and mothering," said Ann Veronica, with her mind crystallizing +out again as the lark dropped to the nest in the turf. "And all the rest +of it perhaps is a song." + + + +Part 3 + + +Her mind got back to the Fadden Ball. + +She meant to go, she meant to go, she meant to go. Nothing would stop +her, and she was prepared to face the consequences. Suppose her father +turned her out of doors! She did not care, she meant to go. She would +just walk out of the house and go.... + +She thought of her costume in some detail and with considerable +satisfaction, and particularly of a very jolly property dagger with +large glass jewels in the handle, that reposed in a drawer in her room. +She was to be a Corsair's Bride. "Fancy stabbing a man for jealousy!" +she thought. "You'd have to think how to get in between his bones." + +She thought of her father, and with an effort dismissed him from her +mind. + +She tried to imagine the collective effect of the Fadden Ball; she had +never seen a fancy-dress gathering in her life. Mr. Manning came into +her thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark, self-contained presence +at the Fadden. One might suppose him turning up; he knew a lot of clever +people, and some of them might belong to the class. What would he come +as? + +Presently she roused herself with a guilty start from the task of +dressing and re-dressing Mr. Manning in fancy costume, as though he +was a doll. She had tried him as a Crusader, in which guise he seemed +plausible but heavy--"There IS something heavy about him; I wonder if +it's his mustache?"--and as a Hussar, which made him preposterous, and +as a Black Brunswicker, which was better, and as an Arab sheik. Also +she had tried him as a dragoman and as a gendarme, which seemed the most +suitable of all to his severely handsome, immobile profile. She felt +he would tell people the way, control traffic, and refuse admission +to public buildings with invincible correctness and the very finest +explicit feelings possible. For each costume she had devised a suitable +form of matrimonial refusal. "Oh, Lord!" she said, discovering what she +was up to, and dropped lightly from the fence upon the turf and went on +her way toward the crest. + +"I shall never marry," said Ann Veronica, resolutely; "I'm not the sort. +That's why it's so important I should take my own line now." + + +Part 4 + + +Ann Veronica's ideas of marriage were limited and unsystematic. Her +teachers and mistresses had done their best to stamp her mind with an +ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously important, and on no +account to be thought about. Her first intimations of marriage as a fact +of extreme significance in a woman's life had come with the marriage of +Alice and the elopement of her second sister, Gwen. + +These convulsions occurred when Ann Veronica was about twelve. There +was a gulf of eight years between her and the youngest of her brace of +sisters--an impassable gulf inhabited chaotically by two noisy brothers. +These sisters moved in a grown-up world inaccessible to Ann Veronica's +sympathies, and to a large extent remote from her curiosity. She got +into rows through meddling with their shoes and tennis-rackets, and had +moments of carefully concealed admiration when she was privileged to see +them just before her bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in white or pink +or amber and prepared to go out with her mother. She thought Alice a bit +of a sneak, an opinion her brothers shared, and Gwen rather a snatch +at meals. She saw nothing of their love-making, and came home from her +boarding-school in a state of decently suppressed curiosity for Alice's +wedding. + +Her impressions of this cardinal ceremony were rich and confused, +complicated by a quite transitory passion that awakened no reciprocal +fire for a fat curly headed cousin in black velveteen and a lace +collar, who assisted as a page. She followed him about persistently, and +succeeded, after a brisk, unchivalrous struggle (in which he pinched and +asked her to "cheese it"), in kissing him among the raspberries behind +the greenhouse. Afterward her brother Roddy, also strange in velveteen, +feeling rather than knowing of this relationship, punched this Adonis's +head. + +A marriage in the house proved to be exciting but extremely +disorganizing. Everything seemed designed to unhinge the mind and +make the cat wretched. All the furniture was moved, all the meals were +disarranged, and everybody, Ann Veronica included, appeared in new, +bright costumes. She had to wear cream and a brown sash and a short +frock and her hair down, and Gwen cream and a brown sash and a long +skirt and her hair up. And her mother, looking unusually alert and +hectic, wore cream and brown also, made up in a more complicated manner. + +Ann Veronica was much impressed by a mighty trying on and altering and +fussing about Alice's "things"--Alice was being re-costumed from garret +to cellar, with a walking-dress and walking-boots to measure, and a +bride's costume of the most ravishing description, and stockings and +such like beyond the dreams of avarice--and a constant and increasing +dripping into the house of irrelevant remarkable objects, such as-- + +Real lace bedspread; + +Gilt travelling clock; + +Ornamental pewter plaque; + +Salad bowl (silver mounted) and servers; + +Madgett's "English Poets" (twelve volumes), bound purple morocco; + +Etc., etc. + +Through all this flutter of novelty there came and went a solicitous, +preoccupied, almost depressed figure. It was Doctor Ralph, formerly +the partner of Doctor Stickell in the Avenue, and now with a thriving +practice of his own in Wamblesmith. He had shaved his side-whiskers and +come over in flannels, but he was still indisputably the same person +who had attended Ann Veronica for the measles and when she swallowed +the fish-bone. But his role was altered, and he was now playing the +bridegroom in this remarkable drama. Alice was going to be Mrs. Ralph. +He came in apologetically; all the old "Well, and how ARE we?" note +gone; and once he asked Ann Veronica, almost furtively, + +"How's Alice getting on, Vee?" Finally, on the Day, he appeared like +his old professional self transfigured, in the most beautiful light gray +trousers Ann Veronica had ever seen and a new shiny silk hat with a most +becoming roll.... + +It was not simply that all the rooms were rearranged and everybody +dressed in unusual fashions, and all the routines of life abolished and +put away: people's tempers and emotions also seemed strangely disturbed +and shifted about. Her father was distinctly irascible, and disposed +more than ever to hide away among the petrological things--the study was +turned out. At table he carved in a gloomy but resolute manner. On the +Day he had trumpet-like outbreaks of cordiality, varied by a watchful +preoccupation. Gwen and Alice were fantastically friendly, which seemed +to annoy him, and Mrs. Stanley was throughout enigmatical, with an +anxious eye on her husband and Alice. + +There was a confused impression of livery carriages and whips with white +favors, people fussily wanting other people to get in before them, +and then the church. People sat in unusual pews, and a wide margin of +hassocky emptiness intervened between the ceremony and the walls. + +Ann Veronica had a number of fragmentary impressions of Alice strangely +transfigured in bridal raiment. It seemed to make her sister downcast +beyond any precedent. The bridesmaids and pages got rather jumbled +in the aisle, and she had an effect of Alice's white back and +sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some +incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also +she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, +drooping and spiritless, mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while +the Rev. Edward Bribble stood between them with an open book. Doctor +Ralph looked kind and large, and listened to Alice's responses as though +he was listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole she was +progressing favorably. + +And afterward her mother and Alice kissed long and clung to each other. +And Doctor Ralph stood by looking considerate. He and her father shook +hands manfully. + +Ann Veronica had got quite interested in Mr. Bribble's rendering of the +service--he had the sort of voice that brings out things--and was still +teeming with ideas about it when finally a wild outburst from the organ +made it clear that, whatever snivelling there might be down in the +chancel, that excellent wind instrument was, in its Mendelssohnian +way, as glad as ever it could be. "Pump, pump, per-um-pump, Pum, Pump, +Per-um...." + +The wedding-breakfast was for Ann Veronica a spectacle of the unreal +consuming the real; she liked that part very well, until she was +carelessly served against her expressed wishes with mayonnaise. She +was caught by an uncle, whose opinion she valued, making faces at Roddy +because he had exulted at this. + +Of the vast mass of these impressions Ann Veronica could make nothing +at the time; there they were--Fact! She stored them away in a mind +naturally retentive, as a squirrel stores away nuts, for further +digestion. Only one thing emerged with any reasonable clarity in her +mind at once, and that was that unless she was saved from drowning by +an unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is unavoidable, or totally +destitute of under-clothing, and so driven to get a trousseau, in which +hardship a trousseau would certainly be "ripping," marriage was an +experience to be strenuously evaded. + +When they were going home she asked her mother why she and Gwen and +Alice had cried. + +"Ssh!" said her mother, and then added, "A little natural feeling, +dear." + +"But didn't Alice want to marry Doctor Ralph?" + +"Oh, ssh, Vee!" said her mother, with an evasion as patent as an +advertisement board. "I am sure she will be very happy indeed with +Doctor Ralph." + +But Ann Veronica was by no means sure of that until she went over +to Wamblesmith and saw her sister, very remote and domestic and +authoritative, in a becoming tea-gown, in command of Doctor Ralph's +home. Doctor Ralph came in to tea and put his arm round Alice and kissed +her, and Alice called him "Squiggles," and stood in the shelter of his +arms for a moment with an expression of satisfied proprietorship. She +HAD cried, Ann Veronica knew. There had been fusses and scenes dimly +apprehended through half-open doors. She had heard Alice talking and +crying at the same time, a painful noise. Perhaps marriage hurt. But now +it was all over, and Alice was getting on well. It reminded Ann Veronica +of having a tooth stopped. + +And after that Alice became remoter than ever, and, after a time, ill. +Then she had a baby and became as old as any really grown-up person, or +older, and very dull. Then she and her husband went off to a Yorkshire +practice, and had four more babies, none of whom photographed well, and +so she passed beyond the sphere of Ann Veronica's sympathies altogether. + + + +Part 5 + + +The Gwen affair happened when she was away at school at +Marticombe-on-Sea, a term before she went to the High School, and was +never very clear to her. + +Her mother missed writing for a week, and then she wrote in an unusual +key. "My dear," the letter ran, "I have to tell you that your sister +Gwen has offended your father very much. I hope you will always love +her, but I want you to remember she has offended your father and married +without his consent. Your father is very angry, and will not have her +name mentioned in his hearing. She has married some one he could not +approve of, and gone right away...." + +When the next holidays came Ann Veronica's mother was ill, and Gwen was +in the sick-room when Ann Veronica returned home. She was in one of her +old walking-dresses, her hair was done in an unfamiliar manner, she wore +a wedding-ring, and she looked as if she had been crying. + +"Hello, Gwen!" said Ann Veronica, trying to put every one at their ease. +"Been and married?... What's the name of the happy man?" + +Gwen owned to "Fortescue." + +"Got a photograph of him or anything?" said Ann Veronica, after kissing +her mother. + +Gwen made an inquiry, and, directed by Mrs. Stanley, produced a portrait +from its hiding-place in the jewel-drawer under the mirror. It presented +a clean-shaven face with a large Corinthian nose, hair tremendously +waving off the forehead and more chin and neck than is good for a man. + +"LOOKS all right," said Ann Veronica, regarding him with her head first +on one side and then on the other, and trying to be agreeable. "What's +the objection?" + +"I suppose she ought to know?" said Gwen to her mother, trying to alter +the key of the conversation. + +"You see, Vee," said Mrs. Stanley, "Mr. Fortescue is an actor, and your +father does not approve of the profession." + +"Oh!" said Ann Veronica. "I thought they made knights of actors?" + +"They may of Hal some day," said Gwen. "But it's a long business." + +"I suppose this makes you an actress?" said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't know whether I shall go on," said Gwen, a novel note of +languorous professionalism creeping into her voice. "The other women +don't much like it if husband and wife work together, and I don't think +Hal would like me to act away from him." + +Ann Veronica regarded her sister with a new respect, but the traditions +of family life are strong. "I don't suppose you'll be able to do it +much," said Ann Veronica. + +Later Gwen's trouble weighed so heavily on Mrs. Stanley in her illness +that her husband consented to receive Mr. Fortescue in the drawing-room, +and actually shake hands with him in an entirely hopeless manner and +hope everything would turn out for the best. + +The forgiveness and reconciliation was a cold and formal affair, and +afterwards her father went off gloomily to his study, and Mr. Fortescue +rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, the Corinthian +nose upraised and his hands behind his back, pausing to look long and +hard at the fruit-trees against the wall. + +Ann Veronica watched him from the dining-room window, and after some +moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden in a reverse +direction to Mr. Fortescue's steps, and encountered him with an air of +artless surprise. + +"Hello!" said Ann Veronica, with arms akimbo and a careless, breathless +manner. "You Mr. Fortescue?" + +"At your service. You Ann Veronica?" + +"Rather! I say--did you marry Gwen?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +Mr. Fortescue raised his eyebrows and assumed a light-comedy expression. +"I suppose I fell in love with her, Ann Veronica." + +"Rum," said Ann Veronica. "Have you got to keep her now?" + +"To the best of my ability," said Mr. Fortescue, with a bow. + +"Have you much ability?" asked Ann Veronica. + +Mr. Fortescue tried to act embarrassment in order to conceal its +reality, and Ann Veronica went on to ask a string of questions about +acting, and whether her sister would act, and was she beautiful enough +for it, and who would make her dresses, and so on. + +As a matter of fact Mr. Fortescue had not much ability to keep her +sister, and a little while after her mother's death Ann Veronica +met Gwen suddenly on the staircase coming from her father's study, +shockingly dingy in dusty mourning and tearful and resentful, and after +that Gwen receded from the Morningside Park world, and not even the +begging letters and distressful communications that her father and aunt +received, but only a vague intimation of dreadfulness, a leakage of +incidental comment, flashes of paternal anger at "that blackguard," came +to Ann Veronica's ears. + + + +Part 6 + + +These were Ann Veronica's leading cases in the question of marriage. +They were the only real marriages she had seen clearly. For the rest, +she derived her ideas of the married state from the observed behavior of +married women, which impressed her in Morningside Park as being tied and +dull and inelastic in comparison with the life of the young, and from a +remarkably various reading among books. As a net result she had come to +think of all married people much as one thinks of insects that have +lost their wings, and of her sisters as new hatched creatures who had +scarcely for a moment had wings. She evolved a dim image of herself +cooped up in a house under the benevolent shadow of Mr. Manning. +Who knows?--on the analogy of "Squiggles" she might come to call him +"Mangles!" + +"I don't think I can ever marry any one," she said, and fell suddenly +into another set of considerations that perplexed her for a time. Had +romance to be banished from life?... + +It was hard to part with romance, but she had never thirsted so keenly +to go on with her University work in her life as she did that day. She +had never felt so acutely the desire for free initiative, for a life +unhampered by others. At any cost! Her brothers had it practically--at +least they had it far more than it seemed likely she would unless she +exerted herself with quite exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair, +far prospect of freedom and self-development manoeuvred Mr. Manning, her +aunt and father, neighbors, customs, traditions, forces. They seemed to +her that morning to be all armed with nets and prepared to throw them +over her directly her movements became in any manner truly free. + +She had a feeling as though something had dropped from her eyes, as +though she had just discovered herself for the first time--discovered +herself as a sleep-walker might do, abruptly among dangers, hindrances, +and perplexities, on the verge of a cardinal crisis. + +The life of a girl presented itself to her as something happy and +heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by others, and +going on amidst unsuspected screens and concealments. + +And in its way it was very well. Then suddenly with a rush came reality, +came "growing up"; a hasty imperative appeal for seriousness, for +supreme seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings and Fortescues came down +upon the raw inexperience, upon the blinking ignorance of the newcomer; +and before her eyes were fairly open, before she knew what had +happened, a new set of guides and controls, a new set of obligations and +responsibilities and limitations, had replaced the old. "I want to be +a Person," said Ann Veronica to the downs and the open sky; "I will not +have this happen to me, whatever else may happen in its place." + +Ann Veronica had three things very definitely settled by the time when, +a little after mid-day, she found herself perched up on a gate between a +bridle-path and a field that commanded the whole wide stretch of country +between Chalking and Waldersham. Firstly, she did not intend to marry at +all, and particularly she did not mean to marry Mr. Manning; secondly, +by some measure or other, she meant to go on with her studies, not at +the Tredgold Schools but at the Imperial College; and, thirdly, she was, +as an immediate and decisive act, a symbol of just exactly where she +stood, a declaration of free and adult initiative, going that night to +the Fadden Ball. + +But the possible attitude of her father she had still to face. So far +she had the utmost difficulty in getting on to that vitally important +matter. The whole of that relationship persisted in remaining obscure. +What would happen when next morning she returned to Morningside Park? + +He couldn't turn her out of doors. But what he could do or might do she +could not imagine. She was not afraid of violence, but she was afraid of +something mean, some secondary kind of force. Suppose he stopped all her +allowance, made it imperative that she should either stay ineffectually +resentful at home or earn a living for herself at once.... It +appeared highly probable to her that he would stop her allowance. + +What can a girl do? + +Somewhere at this point Ann Veronica's speculations were interrupted +and turned aside by the approach of a horse and rider. Mr. Ramage, that +iron-gray man of the world, appeared dressed in a bowler hat and a suit +of hard gray, astride of a black horse. He pulled rein at the sight of +her, saluted, and regarded her with his rather too protuberant eyes. The +girl's gaze met his in interested inquiry. + +"You've got my view," he said, after a pensive second. "I always get off +here and lean over that rail for a bit. May I do so to-day?" + +"It's your gate," she said, amiably; "you got it first. It's for you to +say if I may sit on it." + +He slipped off the horse. "Let me introduce you to Caesar," he said; +and she patted Caesar's neck, and remarked how soft his nose was, and +secretly deplored the ugliness of equine teeth. Ramage tethered the +horse to the farther gate-post, and Caesar blew heavily and began to +investigate the hedge. + +Ramage leaned over the gate at Ann Veronica's side, and for a moment +there was silence. + +He made some obvious comments on the wide view warming toward its +autumnal blaze that spread itself in hill and valley, wood and village, +below. + +"It's as broad as life," said Mr. Ramage, regarding it and putting a +well-booted foot up on the bottom rail. + + + +Part 7 + + +"And what are you doing here, young lady," he said, looking up at her +face, "wandering alone so far from home?" + +"I like long walks," said Ann Veronica, looking down on him. + +"Solitary walks?" + +"That's the point of them. I think over all sorts of things." + +"Problems?" + +"Sometimes quite difficult problems." + +"You're lucky to live in an age when you can do so. Your mother, +for instance, couldn't. She had to do her thinking at home--under +inspection." + +She looked down on him thoughtfully, and he let his admiration of her +free young poise show in his face. + +"I suppose things have changed?" she said. + +"Never was such an age of transition." + +She wondered what to. Mr. Ramage did not know. "Sufficient unto me is +the change thereof," he said, with all the effect of an epigram. + +"I must confess," he said, "the New Woman and the New Girl intrigue me +profoundly. I am one of those people who are interested in women, more +interested than I am in anything else. I don't conceal it. And the +change, the change of attitude! The way all the old clingingness +has been thrown aside is amazing. And all the old--the old trick of +shrinking up like a snail at a touch. If you had lived twenty years ago +you would have been called a Young Person, and it would have been your +chief duty in life not to know, never to have heard of, and never to +understand." + +"There's quite enough still," said Ann Veronica, smiling, "that one +doesn't understand." + +"Quite. But your role would have been to go about saying, 'I beg your +pardon' in a reproving tone to things you understood quite well in your +heart and saw no harm in. That terrible Young Person! she's vanished. +Lost, stolen, or strayed, the Young Person!... I hope we may never +find her again." + +He rejoiced over this emancipation. "While that lamb was about every man +of any spirit was regarded as a dangerous wolf. We wore invisible chains +and invisible blinkers. Now, you and I can gossip at a gate, and Honi +soit qui mal y pense. The change has given man one good thing he never +had before," he said. "Girl friends. And I am coming to believe the best +as well as the most beautiful friends a man can have are girl friends." + +He paused, and went on, after a keen look at her: + +"I had rather gossip to a really intelligent girl than to any man +alive." + +"I suppose we ARE more free than we were?" said Ann Veronica, keeping +the question general. + +"Oh, there's no doubt of it! Since the girls of the eighties broke +bounds and sailed away on bicycles--my young days go back to the very +beginnings of that--it's been one triumphant relaxation." + +"Relaxation, perhaps. But are we any more free?" + +"Well?" + +"I mean we've long strings to tether us, but we are bound all the same. +A woman isn't much freer--in reality." + +Mr. Ramage demurred. + +"One runs about," said Ann Veronica. + +"Yes." + +"But it's on condition one doesn't do anything." + +"Do what?" + +"Oh!--anything." + +He looked interrogation with a faint smile. + +"It seems to me it comes to earning one's living in the long run," said +Ann Veronica, coloring faintly. "Until a girl can go away as a son does +and earn her independent income, she's still on a string. It may be a +long string, long enough if you like to tangle up all sorts of people; +but there it is! If the paymaster pulls, home she must go. That's what I +mean." + +Mr. Ramage admitted the force of that. He was a little impressed by +Ann Veronica's metaphor of the string, which, indeed, she owed to Hetty +Widgett. "YOU wouldn't like to be independent?" he asked, abruptly. "I +mean REALLY independent. On your own. It isn't such fun as it seems." + +"Every one wants to be independent," said Ann Veronica. "Every one. Man +or woman." + +"And you?" + +"Rather!" + +"I wonder why?" + +"There's no why. It's just to feel--one owns one's self." + +"Nobody does that," said Ramage, and kept silence for a moment. + +"But a boy--a boy goes out into the world and presently stands on his +own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company, makes his +own way of living." + +"You'd like to do that?" + +"Exactly." + +"Would you like to be a boy?" + +"I wonder! It's out of the question, any way." + +Ramage reflected. "Why don't you?" + +"Well, it might mean rather a row." + +"I know--" said Ramage, with sympathy. + +"And besides," said Ann Veronica, sweeping that aspect aside, "what +could I do? A boy sails out into a trade or profession. But--it's one +of the things I've just been thinking over. Suppose--suppose a girl +did want to start in life, start in life for herself--" She looked him +frankly in the eyes. "What ought she to do?" + +"Suppose you--" + +"Yes, suppose I--" + +He felt that his advice was being asked. He became a little more +personal and intimate. "I wonder what you could do?" he said. "I should +think YOU could do all sorts of things.... + +"What ought you to do?" He began to produce his knowledge of the world +for her benefit, jerkily and allusively, and with a strong, rank flavor +of "savoir faire." He took an optimist view of her chances. Ann Veronica +listened thoughtfully, with her eyes on the turf, and now and then she +asked a question or looked up to discuss a point. In the meanwhile, +as he talked, he scrutinized her face, ran his eyes over her careless, +gracious poise, wondered hard about her. He described her privately to +himself as a splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away from +home, that she was impatient to get away from home. Why? While the front +of his mind was busy warning her not to fall into the hopeless miseries +of underpaid teaching, and explaining his idea that for women of +initiative, quite as much as for men, the world of business had by far +the best chances, the back chambers of his brain were busy with the +problem of that "Why?" + +His first idea as a man of the world was to explain her unrest by a +lover, some secret or forbidden or impossible lover. But he dismissed +that because then she would ask her lover and not him all these things. +Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple restlessness: home bored +her. He could quite understand the daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored +and feeling limited. But was that enough? Dim, formless suspicions +of something more vital wandered about his mind. Was the young lady +impatient for experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he +did not think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more than +a mask. Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept. If it +was not an actual personal lover, it still might be the lover not yet +incarnate, not yet perhaps suspected.... + +He had diverged only a little from the truth when he said that his +chief interest in life was women. It wasn't so much women as Woman that +engaged his mind. His was the Latin turn of thinking; he had fallen +in love at thirteen, and he was still capable--he prided himself--of +falling in love. His invalid wife and her money had been only the thin +thread that held his life together; beaded on that permanent relation +had been an inter-weaving series of other feminine experiences, +disturbing, absorbing, interesting, memorable affairs. Each one had +been different from the others, each had had a quality all its own, a +distinctive freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how +men could live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful +research into personality and the possibilities of pleasing, these +complex, fascinating expeditions that began in interest and mounted to +the supremest, most passionate intimacy. All the rest of his existence +was subordinate to this pursuit; he lived for it, worked for it, kept +himself in training for it. + +So while he talked to this girl of work and freedom, his slightly +protuberant eyes were noting the gracious balance of her limbs and body +across the gate, the fine lines of her chin and neck. Her grave fine +face, her warm clear complexion, had already aroused his curiosity as he +had gone to and fro in Morningside Park, and here suddenly he was +near to her and talking freely and intimately. He had found her in +a communicative mood, and he used the accumulated skill of years in +turning that to account. + +She was pleased and a little flattered by his interest and sympathy. She +became eager to explain herself, to show herself in the right light. He +was manifestly exerting his mind for her, and she found herself fully +disposed to justify his interest. + +She, perhaps, displayed herself rather consciously as a fine +person unduly limited. She even touched lightly on her father's +unreasonableness. + +"I wonder," said Ramage, "that more girls don't think as you do and want +to strike out in the world." + +And then he speculated. "I wonder if you will?" + +"Let me say one thing," he said. "If ever you do and I can help you +in any way, by advice or inquiry or recommendation--You see, I'm no +believer in feminine incapacity, but I do perceive there is such a thing +as feminine inexperience. As a sex you're a little under-trained--in +affairs. I'd take it--forgive me if I seem a little urgent--as a sort of +proof of friendliness. I can imagine nothing more pleasant in life than +to help you, because I know it would pay to help you. There's something +about you, a little flavor of Will, I suppose, that makes one feel--good +luck about you and success...." + +And while he talked and watched her as he talked, she answered, and +behind her listening watched and thought about him. She liked the +animated eagerness of his manner. + +His mind seemed to be a remarkably full one; his knowledge of detailed +reality came in just where her own mind was most weakly equipped. +Through all he said ran one quality that pleased her--the quality of a +man who feels that things can be done, that one need not wait for the +world to push one before one moved. Compared with her father and Mr. +Manning and the men in "fixed" positions generally that she knew, +Ramage, presented by himself, had a fine suggestion of freedom, of +power, of deliberate and sustained adventure.... + +She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It was really +very jolly to talk to a man in this way--who saw the woman in her and +did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps +for a girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a +man beyond the range of anything "nonsensical," was, perhaps, the most +interesting sort of friend one could meet. But in that reservation it +may be she went a little beyond the converse of his view.... + +They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the better part +of an hour, and at last walked together to the junction of highroad +and the bridle-path. There, after protestations of friendliness and +helpfulness that were almost ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and +rode off at an amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with +his riding gaiters, smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned +northward and so came to Micklechesil. There, in a little tea and +sweet-stuff shop, she bought and consumed slowly and absent-mindedly the +insufficient nourishment that is natural to her sex on such occasions. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE CRISIS + + +Part 1 + + +We left Miss Stanley with Ann Veronica's fancy dress in her hands and +her eyes directed to Ann Veronica's pseudo-Turkish slippers. + +When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six--an earlier train by +fifteen minutes than he affected--his sister met him in the hall with +a hushed expression. "I'm so glad you're here, Peter," she said. "She +means to go." + +"Go!" he said. "Where?" + +"To that ball." + +"What ball?" The question was rhetorical. He knew. + +"I believe she's dressing up-stairs--now." + +"Then tell her to undress, confound her!" The City had been thoroughly +annoying that day, and he was angry from the outset. + +Miss Stanley reflected on this proposal for a moment. + +"I don't think she will," she said. + +"She must," said Mr. Stanley, and went into his study. His sister +followed. "She can't go now. She'll have to wait for dinner," he said, +uncomfortably. + +"She's going to have some sort of meal with the Widgetts down the +Avenue, and go up with them. + +"She told you that?" + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +"At tea." + +"But why didn't you prohibit once for all the whole thing? How dared she +tell you that?" + +"Out of defiance. She just sat and told me that was her arrangement. +I've never seen her quite so sure of herself." + +"What did you say?" + +"I said, 'My dear Veronica! how can you think of such things?'" + +"And then?" + +"She had two more cups of tea and some cake, and told me of her walk." + +"She'll meet somebody one of these days--walking about like that." + +"She didn't say she'd met any one." + +"But didn't you say some more about that ball?" + +"I said everything I could say as soon as I realized she was trying to +avoid the topic. I said, 'It is no use your telling me about this walk +and pretend I've been told about the ball, because you haven't. Your +father has forbidden you to go!'" + +"Well?" + +"She said, 'I hate being horrid to you and father, but I feel it my duty +to go to that ball!'" + +"Felt it her duty!" + +"'Very well,' I said, 'then I wash my hands of the whole business. Your +disobedience be upon your own head.'" + +"But that is flat rebellion!" said Mr. Stanley, standing on the +hearthrug with his back to the unlit gas-fire. "You ought at once--you +ought at once to have told her that. What duty does a girl owe to any +one before her father? Obedience to him, that is surely the first law. +What CAN she put before that?" His voice began to rise. "One would think +I had said nothing about the matter. One would think I had agreed to +her going. I suppose this is what she learns in her infernal London +colleges. I suppose this is the sort of damned rubbish--" + +"Oh! Ssh, Peter!" cried Miss Stanley. + +He stopped abruptly. In the pause a door could be heard opening and +closing on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became audible, +descending the staircase with a certain deliberation and a faint rustle +of skirts. + +"Tell her," said Mr. Stanley, with an imperious gesture, "to come in +here." + + + +Part 2 + + +Miss Stanley emerged from the study and stood watching Ann Veronica +descend. + +The girl was flushed with excitement, bright-eyed, and braced for a +struggle; her aunt had never seen her looking so fine or so pretty. +Her fancy dress, save for the green-gray stockings, the pseudo-Turkish +slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to a Corsair's bride, +was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood +it was evident that her rebellious hair was bound up with red silk, and +fastened by some device in her ears (unless she had them pierced, which +was too dreadful a thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings. + +"I'm just off, aunt," said Ann Veronica. + +"Your father is in the study and wishes to speak to you." + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and then stood in the open doorway and regarded +her father's stern presence. She spoke with an entirely false note of +cheerful off-handedness. "I'm just in time to say good-bye before I go, +father. I'm going up to London with the Widgetts to that ball." + +"Now look here, Ann Veronica," said Mr. Stanley, "just a moment. You are +NOT going to that ball!" + +Ann Veronica tried a less genial, more dignified note. + +"I thought we had discussed that, father." + +"You are not going to that ball! You are not going out of this house in +that get-up!" + +Ann Veronica tried yet more earnestly to treat him, as she would treat +any man, with an insistence upon her due of masculine respect. "You +see," she said, very gently, "I AM going. I am sorry to seem to disobey +you, but I am. I wish"--she found she had embarked on a bad sentence--"I +wish we needn't have quarrelled." + +She stopped abruptly, and turned about toward the front door. In a +moment he was beside her. "I don't think you can have heard me, Vee," +he said, with intensely controlled fury. "I said you were"--he +shouted--"NOT TO GO!" + +She made, and overdid, an immense effort to be a princess. She tossed +her head, and, having no further words, moved toward the door. Her +father intercepted her, and for a moment she and he struggled with their +hands upon the latch. A common rage flushed their faces. "Let go!" she +gasped at him, a blaze of anger. + +"Veronica!" cried Miss Stanley, warningly, and, "Peter!" + +For a moment they seemed on the verge of an altogether desperate +scuffle. Never for a moment had violence come between these two since +long ago he had, in spite of her mother's protest in the background, +carried her kicking and squalling to the nursery for some forgotten +crime. With something near to horror they found themselves thus +confronted. + +The door was fastened by a catch and a latch with an inside key, to +which at night a chain and two bolts were added. Carefully abstaining +from thrusting against each other, Ann Veronica and her father began an +absurdly desperate struggle, the one to open the door, the other to keep +it fastened. She seized the key, and he grasped her hand and squeezed +it roughly and painfully between the handle and the ward as she tried to +turn it. His grip twisted her wrist. She cried out with the pain of it. + +A wild passion of shame and self-disgust swept over her. Her spirit +awoke in dismay to an affection in ruins, to the immense undignified +disaster that had come to them. + +Abruptly she desisted, recoiled, and turned and fled up-stairs. + +She made noises between weeping and laughter as she went. She gained her +room, and slammed her door and locked it as though she feared violence +and pursuit. + +"Oh God!" she cried, "Oh God!" and flung aside her opera-cloak, and for +a time walked about the room--a Corsair's bride at a crisis of emotion. +"Why can't he reason with me," she said, again and again, "instead of +doing this?" + + + +Part 3 + + +There presently came a phase in which she said: "I WON'T stand it even +now. I will go to-night." + +She went as far as her door, then turned to the window. She opened +this and scrambled out--a thing she had not done for five long years of +adolescence--upon the leaded space above the built-out bath-room on the +first floor. Once upon a time she and Roddy had descended thence by the +drain-pipe. + +But things that a girl of sixteen may do in short skirts are not +things to be done by a young lady of twenty-one in fancy dress and +an opera-cloak, and just as she was coming unaided to an adequate +realization of this, she discovered Mr. Pragmar, the wholesale druggist, +who lived three gardens away, and who had been mowing his lawn to get +an appetite for dinner, standing in a fascinated attitude beside the +forgotten lawn-mower and watching her intently. + +She found it extremely difficult to infuse an air of quiet correctitude +into her return through the window, and when she was safely inside she +waved clinched fists and executed a noiseless dance of rage. + +When she reflected that Mr. Pragmar probably knew Mr. Ramage, and might +describe the affair to him, she cried "Oh!" with renewed vexation, and +repeated some steps of her dance in a new and more ecstatic measure. + + + +Part 4 + + +At eight that evening Miss Stanley tapped at Ann Veronica's bedroom +door. + +"I've brought you up some dinner, Vee," she said. + +Ann Veronica was lying on her bed in a darkling room staring at the +ceiling. She reflected before answering. She was frightfully hungry. +She had eaten little or no tea, and her mid-day meal had been worse than +nothing. + +She got up and unlocked the door. + +Her aunt did not object to capital punishment or war, or the industrial +system or casual wards, or flogging of criminals or the Congo Free +State, because none of these things really got hold of her imagination; +but she did object, she did not like, she could not bear to think of +people not having and enjoying their meals. It was her distinctive test +of an emotional state, its interference with a kindly normal digestion. +Any one very badly moved choked down a few mouthfuls; the symptom of +supreme distress was not to be able to touch a bit. So that the thought +of Ann Veronica up-stairs had been extremely painful for her through all +the silent dinner-time that night. As soon as dinner was over she went +into the kitchen and devoted herself to compiling a tray--not a tray +merely of half-cooled dinner things, but a specially prepared "nice" +tray, suitable for tempting any one. With this she now entered. + +Ann Veronica found herself in the presence of the most disconcerting +fact in human experience, the kindliness of people you believe to be +thoroughly wrong. She took the tray with both hands, gulped, and gave +way to tears. + +Her aunt leaped unhappily to the thought of penitence. + +"My dear," she began, with an affectionate hand on Ann Veronica's +shoulder, "I do SO wish you would realize how it grieves your father." + +Ann Veronica flung away from her hand, and the pepper-pot on the tray +upset, sending a puff of pepper into the air and instantly filling them +both with an intense desire to sneeze. + +"I don't think you see," she replied, with tears on her cheeks, and her +brows knitting, "how it shames and, ah!--disgraces me--AH TISHU!" + +She put down the tray with a concussion on her toilet-table. + +"But, dear, think! He is your father. SHOOH!" + +"That's no reason," said Ann Veronica, speaking through her handkerchief +and stopping abruptly. + +Niece and aunt regarded each other for a moment over their +pocket-handkerchiefs with watery but antagonistic eyes, each far too +profoundly moved to see the absurdity of the position. + +"I hope," said Miss Stanley, with dignity, and turned doorward with +features in civil warfare. "Better state of mind," she gasped.... + +Ann Veronica stood in the twilight room staring at the door that had +slammed upon her aunt, her pocket-handkerchief rolled tightly in her +hand. Her soul was full of the sense of disaster. She had made her first +fight for dignity and freedom as a grown-up and independent Person, and +this was how the universe had treated her. It had neither succumbed +to her nor wrathfully overwhelmed her. It had thrust her back with an +undignified scuffle, with vulgar comedy, with an unendurable, scornful +grin. + +"By God!" said Ann Veronica for the first time in her life. "But I will! +I will!" + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica had an impression that she did not sleep at all that night, +and at any rate she got through an immense amount of feverish feeling +and thinking. + +What was she going to do? + +One main idea possessed her: she must get away from home, she must +assert herself at once or perish. "Very well," she would say, "then I +must go." To remain, she felt, was to concede everything. And she would +have to go to-morrow. It was clear it must be to-morrow. If she delayed +a day she would delay two days, if she delayed two days she would delay +a week, and after a week things would be adjusted to submission forever. +"I'll go," she vowed to the night, "or I'll die!" She made plans and +estimated means and resources. These and her general preparations had +perhaps a certain disproportion. She had a gold watch, a very good gold +watch that had been her mother's, a pearl necklace that was also pretty +good, some unpretending rings, some silver bangles and a few other such +inferior trinkets, three pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her +dress and book allowance and a few good salable books. So equipped, she +proposed to set up a separate establishment in the world. + +And then she would find work. + +For most of a long and fluctuating night she was fairly confident that +she would find work; she knew herself to be strong, intelligent, and +capable by the standards of most of the girls she knew. She was not +quite clear how she should find it, but she felt she would. Then +she would write and tell her father what she had done, and put their +relationship on a new footing. + +That was how she projected it, and in general terms it seemed plausible +and possible. But in between these wider phases of comparative +confidence were gaps of disconcerting doubt, when the universe was +presented as making sinister and threatening faces at her, defying her +to defy, preparing a humiliating and shameful overthrow. "I don't care," +said Ann Veronica to the darkness; "I'll fight it." + +She tried to plan her proceedings in detail. The only difficulties that +presented themselves clearly to her were the difficulties of getting +away from Morningside Park, and not the difficulties at the other end +of the journey. These were so outside her experience that she found it +possible to thrust them almost out of sight by saying they would be "all +right" in confident tones to herself. But still she knew they were not +right, and at times they became a horrible obsession as of something +waiting for her round the corner. She tried to imagine herself "getting +something," to project herself as sitting down at a desk and writing, +or as returning after her work to some pleasantly equipped and free and +independent flat. For a time she furnished the flat. But even with +that furniture it remained extremely vague, the possible good and the +possible evil as well! + +The possible evil! "I'll go," said Ann Veronica for the hundredth time. +"I'll go. I don't care WHAT happens." + +She awoke out of a doze, as though she had never been sleeping. It was +time to get up. + +She sat on the edge of her bed and looked about her, at her room, at the +row of black-covered books and the pig's skull. "I must take them," +she said, to help herself over her own incredulity. "How shall I get my +luggage out of the house?..." + +The figure of her aunt, a little distant, a little propitiatory, behind +the coffee things, filled her with a sense of almost catastrophic +adventure. Perhaps she might never come back to that breakfast-room +again. Never! Perhaps some day, quite soon, she might regret that +breakfast-room. She helped herself to the remainder of the slightly +congealed bacon, and reverted to the problem of getting her luggage +out of the house. She decided to call in the help of Teddy Widgett, or, +failing him, of one of his sisters. + + + +Part 2 + + +She found the younger generation of the Widgetts engaged in languid +reminiscences, and all, as they expressed it, a "bit decayed." Every +one became tremendously animated when they heard that Ann Veronica had +failed them because she had been, as she expressed it, "locked in." + +"My God!" said Teddy, more impressively than ever. + +"But what are you going to do?" asked Hetty. + +"What can one do?" asked Ann Veronica. "Would you stand it? I'm going to +clear out." + +"Clear out?" cried Hetty. + +"Go to London," said Ann Veronica. + +She had expected sympathetic admiration, but instead the whole Widgett +family, except Teddy, expressed a common dismay. "But how can you?" +asked Constance. "Who will you stop with?" + +"I shall go on my own. Take a room!" + +"I say!" said Constance. "But who's going to pay for the room?" + +"I've got money," said Ann Veronica. "Anything is better than this--this +stifled life down here." And seeing that Hetty and Constance were +obviously developing objections, she plunged at once into a demand for +help. "I've got nothing in the world to pack with except a toy size +portmanteau. Can you lend me some stuff?" + +"You ARE a chap!" said Constance, and warmed only slowly from the idea +of dissuasion to the idea of help. But they did what they could for her. +They agreed to lend her their hold-all and a large, formless bag which +they called the communal trunk. And Teddy declared himself ready to go +to the ends of the earth for her, and carry her luggage all the way. + +Hetty, looking out of the window--she always smoked her after-breakfast +cigarette at the window for the benefit of the less advanced section of +Morningside Park society--and trying not to raise objections, saw Miss +Stanley going down toward the shops. + +"If you must go on with it," said Hetty, "now's your time." And Ann +Veronica at once went back with the hold-all, trying not to hurry +indecently but to keep up her dignified air of being a wronged person +doing the right thing at a smart trot, to pack. Teddy went round by the +garden backs and dropped the bag over the fence. All this was exciting +and entertaining. Her aunt returned before the packing was done, and +Ann Veronica lunched with an uneasy sense of bag and hold-all packed +up-stairs and inadequately hidden from chance intruders by the valance +of the bed. She went down, flushed and light-hearted, to the Widgetts' +after lunch to make some final arrangements and then, as soon as her +aunt had retired to lie down for her usual digestive hour, took the +risk of the servants having the enterprise to report her proceedings +and carried her bag and hold-all to the garden gate, whence Teddy, in +a state of ecstatic service, bore them to the railway station. Then she +went up-stairs again, dressed herself carefully for town, put on her +most businesslike-looking hat, and with a wave of emotion she found it +hard to control, walked down to catch the 3.17 up-train. + +Teddy handed her into the second-class compartment her season-ticket +warranted, and declared she was "simply splendid." "If you want +anything," he said, "or get into any trouble, wire me. I'd come back +from the ends of the earth. I'd do anything, Vee. It's horrible to think +of you!" + +"You're an awful brick, Teddy!" she said. + +"Who wouldn't be for you?" + +The train began to move. "You're splendid!" said Teddy, with his hair +wild in the wind. "Good luck! Good luck!" + +She waved from the window until the bend hid him. + +She found herself alone in the train asking herself what she must do +next, and trying not to think of herself as cut off from home or any +refuge whatever from the world she had resolved to face. She felt +smaller and more adventurous even than she had expected to feel. "Let +me see," she said to herself, trying to control a slight sinking of the +heart, "I am going to take a room in a lodging-house because that is +cheaper.... But perhaps I had better get a room in an hotel to-night +and look round.... + +"It's bound to be all right," she said. + +But her heart kept on sinking. What hotel should she go to? If she told +a cabman to drive to an hotel, any hotel, what would he do--or say? He +might drive to something dreadfully expensive, and not at all the quiet +sort of thing she required. Finally she decided that even for an hotel +she must look round, and that meanwhile she would "book" her luggage at +Waterloo. She told the porter to take it to the booking-office, and it +was only after a disconcerting moment or so that she found she ought to +have directed him to go to the cloak-room. But that was soon put right, +and she walked out into London with a peculiar exaltation of mind, an +exaltation that partook of panic and defiance, but was chiefly a sense +of vast unexampled release. + +She inhaled a deep breath of air--London air. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dismissed the first hotels she passed, she scarcely knew why, mainly +perhaps from the mere dread of entering them, and crossed Waterloo +Bridge at a leisurely pace. It was high afternoon, there was no great +throng of foot-passengers, and many an eye from omnibus and pavement +rested gratefully on her fresh, trim presence as she passed young +and erect, with the light of determination shining through the quiet +self-possession of her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress +for town, without either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse +confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her dark +hair waved loosely and graciously over her ears.... + +It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all time to her, +and perhaps the thrill of her excitement did add a distinctive and +culminating keenness to the day. The river, the big buildings on the +north bank, Westminster, and St. Paul's, were rich and wonderful with +the soft sunshine of London, the softest, the finest grained, the most +penetrating and least emphatic sunshine in the world. The very carts +and vans and cabs that Wellington Street poured out incessantly upon +the bridge seemed ripe and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious barges +slumbered over the face of the river-barges either altogether stagnant +or dreaming along in the wake of fussy tugs; and above circled, urbanely +voracious, the London seagulls. She had never been there before at that +hour, in that light, and it seemed to her as if she came to it all for +the first time. And this great mellow place, this London, now was hers, +to struggle with, to go where she pleased in, to overcome and live in. +"I am glad," she told herself, "I came." + +She marked an hotel that seemed neither opulent nor odd in a little side +street opening on the Embankment, made up her mind with an effort, and, +returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, took a cab to this chosen +refuge with her two pieces of luggage. There was just a minute's +hesitation before they gave her a room. + +The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire, and Ann Veronica, +while she affected to read the appeal on a hospital collecting-box upon +the bureau counter, had a disagreeable sense of being surveyed from +behind by a small, whiskered gentleman in a frock-coat, who came out of +the inner office and into the hall among a number of equally observant +green porters to look at her and her bags. But the survey was +satisfactory, and she found herself presently in Room No. 47, +straightening her hat and waiting for her luggage to appear. + +"All right so far," she said to herself.... + + + +Part 4 + + +But presently, as she sat on the one antimacassared red silk chair +and surveyed her hold-all and bag in that tidy, rather vacant, and +dehumanized apartment, with its empty wardrobe and desert toilet-table +and pictureless walls and stereotyped furnishings, a sudden blankness +came upon her as though she didn't matter, and had been thrust away into +this impersonal corner, she and her gear.... + +She decided to go out into the London afternoon again and get something +to eat in an Aerated Bread shop or some such place, and perhaps find a +cheap room for herself. Of course that was what she had to do; she had +to find a cheap room for herself and work! + +This Room No. 47 was no more than a sort of railway compartment on the +way to that. + +How does one get work? + +She walked along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, and by the +Haymarket to Piccadilly, and so through dignified squares and palatial +alleys to Oxford Street; and her mind was divided between a speculative +treatment of employment on the one hand, and breezes--zephyr breezes--of +the keenest appreciation for London, on the other. The jolly part of it +was that for the first time in her life so far as London was concerned, +she was not going anywhere in particular; for the first time in her life +it seemed to her she was taking London in. + +She tried to think how people get work. Ought she to walk into some +of these places and tell them what she could do? She hesitated at the +window of a shipping-office in Cockspur Street and at the Army and +Navy Stores, but decided that perhaps there would be some special and +customary hour, and that it would be better for her to find this out +before she made her attempt. And, besides, she didn't just immediately +want to make her attempt. + +She fell into a pleasant dream of positions and work. Behind every one +of these myriad fronts she passed there must be a career or careers. Her +ideas of women's employment and a modern woman's pose in life were based +largely on the figure of Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession. She +had seen Mrs. Warren's Profession furtively with Hetty Widgett from the +gallery of a Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most of +it had been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way that +checked further curiosity, but the figure of Vivien, hard, capable, +successful, and bullying, and ordering about a veritable Teddy in the +person of Frank Gardner, appealed to her. She saw herself in very much +Vivie's position--managing something. + +Her thoughts were deflected from Vivie Warren by the peculiar behavior +of a middle-aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared suddenly from +the infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington Arcade, crossing +the pavement toward her and with his eyes upon her. He seemed to her +indistinguishably about her father's age. He wore a silk hat a little +tilted, and a morning coat buttoned round a tight, contained figure; +and a white slip gave a finish to his costume and endorsed the quiet +distinction of his tie. His face was a little flushed perhaps, and his +small, brown eyes were bright. He stopped on the curb-stone, not facing +her but as if he was on his way to cross the road, and spoke to her +suddenly over his shoulder. + +"Whither away?" he said, very distinctly in a curiously wheedling voice. +Ann Veronica stared at his foolish, propitiatory smile, his hungry gaze, +through one moment of amazement, then stepped aside and went on her way +with a quickened step. But her mind was ruffled, and its mirror-like +surface of satisfaction was not easily restored. + +Queer old gentleman! + +The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every well-bred +girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even ignore her own +thoughts and her own knowledge. Ann Veronica could at the same time ask +herself what this queer old gentleman could have meant by speaking to +her, and know--know in general terms, at least--what that accosting +signified. About her, as she had gone day by day to and from the +Tredgold College, she had seen and not seen many an incidental aspect +of those sides of life about which girls are expected to know nothing, +aspects that were extraordinarily relevant to her own position and +outlook on the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For all +that she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never +yet considered these things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed them +askance, and without exchanging ideas with any one else in the world +about them. + +She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but +disturbed and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serene +contentment. + +That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone. + +As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman +approaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at the +first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came along with +the fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as she drew nearer +paint showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose behind the quiet +expression of her open countenance, and a sort of unreality in her +splendor betrayed itself for which Ann Veronica could not recall the +right word--a word, half understood, that lurked and hid in her mind, +the word "meretricious." Behind this woman and a little to the side +of her, walked a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in his +eyes. Something insisted that those two were mysteriously linked--that +the woman knew the man was there. + +It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free and +untrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was true +that a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor ever has +gone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad and dangers, and +petty insults more irritating than dangers, lurk. + +It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street that +it first came into her head disagreeably that she herself was being +followed. She observed a man walking on the opposite side of the way and +looking toward her. + +"Bother it all!" she swore. "Bother!" and decided that this was not so, +and would not look to right or left again. + +Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table Company +shop to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her tea to come she +saw this man again. Either it was an unfortunate recovery of a trail, or +he had followed her from Mayfair. There was no mistaking his intentions +this time. He came down the shop looking for her quite obviously, and +took up a position on the other side against a mirror in which he was +able to regard her steadfastly. + +Beneath the serene unconcern of Ann Veronica's face was a boiling +tumult. She was furiously angry. She gazed with a quiet detachment +toward the window and the Oxford Street traffic, and in her heart she +was busy kicking this man to death. He HAD followed her! What had he +followed her for? He must have followed her all the way from beyond +Grosvenor Square. + +He was a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were rather +protuberant, and long white hands of which he made a display. He had +removed his silk hat, and now sat looking at Ann Veronica over an +untouched cup of tea; he sat gloating upon her, trying to catch her eye. +Once, when he thought he had done so, he smiled an ingratiating smile. +He moved, after quiet intervals, with a quick little movement, and ever +and again stroked his small mustache and coughed a self-conscious cough. + +"That he should be in the same world with me!" said Ann Veronica, +reduced to reading the list of good things the British Tea-Table Company +had priced for its patrons. + +Heaven knows what dim and tawdry conceptions of passion and desire were +in that blond cranium, what romance-begotten dreams of intrigue and +adventure! but they sufficed, when presently Ann Veronica went out +into the darkling street again, to inspire a flitting, dogged pursuit, +idiotic, exasperating, indecent. + +She had no idea what she should do. If she spoke to a policeman she did +not know what would ensue. Perhaps she would have to charge this man and +appear in a police-court next day. + +She became angry with herself. She would not be driven in by this +persistent, sneaking aggression. She would ignore him. Surely she could +ignore him. She stopped abruptly, and looked in a flower-shop window. He +passed, and came loitering back and stood beside her, silently looking +into her face. + +The afternoon had passed now into twilight. The shops were lighting +up into gigantic lanterns of color, the street lamps were glowing +into existence, and she had lost her way. She had lost her sense of +direction, and was among unfamiliar streets. She went on from street to +street, and all the glory of London had departed. Against the sinister, +the threatening, monstrous inhumanity of the limitless city, there was +nothing now but this supreme, ugly fact of a pursuit--the pursuit of the +undesired, persistent male. + +For a second time Ann Veronica wanted to swear at the universe. + +There were moments when she thought of turning upon this man and +talking to him. But there was something in his face at once stupid and +invincible that told her he would go on forcing himself upon her, that +he would esteem speech with her a great point gained. In the twilight +he had ceased to be a person one could tackle and shame; he had become +something more general, a something that crawled and sneaked toward her +and would not let her alone.... + +Then, when the tension was getting unendurable, and she was on the verge +of speaking to some casual passer-by and demanding help, her follower +vanished. For a time she could scarcely believe he was gone. He had. The +night had swallowed him up, but his work on her was done. She had lost +her nerve, and there was no more freedom in London for her that night. +She was glad to join in the stream of hurrying homeward workers that was +now welling out of a thousand places of employment, and to imitate their +driven, preoccupied haste. She had followed a bobbing white hat and gray +jacket until she reached the Euston Road corner of Tottenham Court Road, +and there, by the name on a bus and the cries of a conductor, she made +a guess of her way. And she did not merely affect to be driven--she felt +driven. She was afraid people would follow her, she was afraid of the +dark, open doorways she passed, and afraid of the blazes of light; she +was afraid to be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared. + +It was past seven when she got back to her hotel. She thought then that +she had shaken off the man of the bulging blue eyes forever, but that +night she found he followed her into her dreams. He stalked her, he +stared at her, he craved her, he sidled slinking and propitiatory +and yet relentlessly toward her, until at last she awoke from the +suffocating nightmare nearness of his approach, and lay awake in fear +and horror listening to the unaccustomed sounds of the hotel. + +She came very near that night to resolving that she would return to +her home next morning. But the morning brought courage again, and those +first intimations of horror vanished completely from her mind. + + + +Part 5 + + +She had sent her father a telegram from the East Strand post-office +worded thus: + + | All | is | well | with | me | + |---------|-----------|----------|----------|---------| + | and | quite | safe | Veronica | | + ----------------------------------------------------- + +and afterward she had dined a la carte upon a cutlet, and had then set +herself to write an answer to Mr. Manning's proposal of marriage. But +she had found it very difficult. + + +"DEAR MR. MANNING," she had begun. So far it had been plain sailing, +and it had seemed fairly evident to go on: "I find it very difficult to +answer your letter." + +But after that neither ideas nor phrases had come and she had fallen +thinking of the events of the day. She had decided that she would spend +the next morning answering advertisements in the papers that abounded in +the writing-room; and so, after half an hour's perusal of back numbers +of the Sketch in the drawing-room, she had gone to bed. + +She found next morning, when she came to this advertisement answering, +that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In the first place +there were not so many suitable advertisements as she had expected. +She sat down by the paper-rack with a general feeling of resemblance +to Vivie Warren, and looked through the Morning Post and Standard and +Telegraph, and afterward the half-penny sheets. The Morning Post was +hungry for governesses and nursery governesses, but held out no other +hopes; the Daily Telegraph that morning seemed eager only for skirt +hands. She went to a writing-desk and made some memoranda on a sheet of +note-paper, and then remembered that she had no address as yet to which +letters could be sent. + +She decided to leave this matter until the morrow and devote the morning +to settling up with Mr. Manning. At the cost of quite a number of torn +drafts she succeeded in evolving this: + +"DEAR MR. MANNING,--I find it very difficult to answer your letter. +I hope you won't mind if I say first that I think it does me an +extraordinary honor that you should think of any one like myself +so highly and seriously, and, secondly, that I wish it had not been +written." + +She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on. "I wonder," +she said, "why one writes him sentences like that? It'll have to go," +she decided, "I've written too many already." She went on, with a +desperate attempt to be easy and colloquial: + +"You see, we were rather good friends, I thought, and now perhaps it +will be difficult for us to get back to the old friendly footing. But if +that can possibly be done I want it to be done. You see, the plain fact +of the case is that I think I am too young and ignorant for marriage. +I have been thinking these things over lately, and it seems to me that +marriage for a girl is just the supremest thing in life. It isn't just +one among a number of important things; for her it is the important +thing, and until she knows far more than I know of the facts of life, +how is she to undertake it? So please; if you will, forget that you +wrote that letter, and forgive this answer. I want you to think of me +just as if I was a man, and quite outside marriage altogether. + +"I do hope you will be able to do this, because I value men friends. +I shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for a friend. I think that +there is no better friend for a girl than a man rather older than +herself. + +"Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the step I have taken in +leaving my home. Very likely you will disapprove highly of what I have +done--I wonder? You may, perhaps, think I have done it just in a fit of +childish petulance because my father locked me in when I wanted to go +to a ball of which he did not approve. But really it is much more +than that. At Morningside Park I feel as though all my growing up was +presently to stop, as though I was being shut in from the light of life, +and, as they say in botany, etiolated. I was just like a sort of dummy +that does things as it is told--that is to say, as the strings are +pulled. I want to be a person by myself, and to pull my own strings. I +had rather have trouble and hardship like that than be taken care of by +others. I want to be myself. I wonder if a man can quite understand that +passionate feeling? It is quite a passionate feeling. So I am already +no longer the girl you knew at Morningside Park. I am a young person +seeking employment and freedom and self-development, just as in quite +our first talk of all I said I wanted to be. + +"I do hope you will see how things are, and not be offended with me or +frightfully shocked and distressed by what I have done. + +"Very sincerely yours, + +"ANN VERONICA STANLEY." + + + +Part 6 + + +In the afternoon she resumed her search for apartments. The intoxicating +sense of novelty had given place to a more business-like mood. She +drifted northward from the Strand, and came on some queer and dingy +quarters. + +She had never imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to her in +the beginning of these investigations. She found herself again in the +presence of some element in life about which she had been trained not +to think, about which she was perhaps instinctively indisposed to think; +something which jarred, in spite of all her mental resistance, with +all her preconceptions of a clean and courageous girl walking out from +Morningside Park as one walks out of a cell into a free and spacious +world. One or two landladies refused her with an air of conscious virtue +that she found hard to explain. "We don't let to ladies," they said. + +She drifted, via Theobald's Road, obliquely toward the region about +Titchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either scandalously +dirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were adorned with +engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and undesirable than +anything she had ever seen in her life. Ann Veronica loved beautiful +things, and the beauty of undraped loveliness not least among them; but +these were pictures that did but insist coarsely upon the roundness of +women's bodies. The windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, +their floors a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels +were of a class apart. After the first onset several of the women who +had apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in effect +dismissed her. This also struck her as odd. + +About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of something +weakly and commonly and dustily evil; the women who negotiated the rooms +looked out through a friendly manner as though it was a mask, with hard, +defiant eyes. Then one old crone, short-sighted and shaky-handed, called +Ann Veronica "dearie," and made some remark, obscure and slangy, of +which the spirit rather than the words penetrated to her understanding. + +For a time she looked at no more apartments, and walked through +gaunt and ill-cleaned streets, through the sordid under side of life, +perplexed and troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness. + +She had something of the feeling a Hindoo must experience who has been +into surroundings or touched something that offends his caste. She +passed people in the streets and regarded them with a quickening +apprehension, once or twice came girls dressed in slatternly finery, +going toward Regent Street from out these places. It did not occur to +her that they at least had found a way of earning a living, and had that +much economic superiority to herself. It did not occur to her that save +for some accidents of education and character they had souls like her +own. + +For a time Ann Veronica went on her way gauging the quality of sordid +streets. At last, a little way to the northward of Euston Road, the +moral cloud seemed to lift, the moral atmosphere to change; clean blinds +appeared in the windows, clean doorsteps before the doors, a different +appeal in the neatly placed cards bearing the word + + -------------------------- + | APARTMENTS | + -------------------------- + +in the clear bright windows. At last in a street near the Hampstead Road +she hit upon a room that had an exceptional quality of space and order, +and a tall woman with a kindly face to show it. "You're a student, +perhaps?" said the tall woman. "At the Tredgold Women's College," said +Ann Veronica. She felt it would save explanations if she did not state +she had left her home and was looking for employment. The room was +papered with green, large-patterned paper that was at worst a trifle +dingy, and the arm-chair and the seats of the other chairs were covered +with the unusual brightness of a large-patterned chintz, which also +supplied the window-curtain. There was a round table covered, not with +the usual "tapestry" cover, but with a plain green cloth that went +passably with the wall-paper. In the recess beside the fireplace +were some open bookshelves. The carpet was a quiet drugget and not +excessively worn, and the bed in the corner was covered by a white +quilt. There were neither texts nor rubbish on the walls, but only a +stirring version of Belshazzar's feast, a steel engraving in the early +Victorian manner that had some satisfactory blacks. And the woman who +showed this room was tall, with an understanding eye and the quiet +manner of the well-trained servant. + +Ann Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel; she tipped the +hotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman eighteenpence, unpacked +some of her books and possessions, and so made the room a little +homelike, and then sat down in a by no means uncomfortable arm-chair +before the fire. She had arranged for a supper of tea, a boiled egg, and +some tinned peaches. She had discussed the general question of supplies +with the helpful landlady. "And now," said Ann Veronica surveying her +apartment with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, "what is the +next step?" + +She spent the evening in writing--it was a little difficult--to her +father and--which was easier--to the Widgetts. She was greatly heartened +by doing this. The necessity of defending herself and assuming a +confident and secure tone did much to dispell the sense of being +exposed and indefensible in a huge dingy world that abounded in sinister +possibilities. She addressed her letters, meditated on them for a time, +and then took them out and posted them. Afterward she wanted to get her +letter to her father back in order to read it over again, and, if it +tallied with her general impression of it, re-write it. + +He would know her address to-morrow. She reflected upon that with a +thrill of terror that was also, somehow, in some faint remote way, +gleeful. + +"Dear old Daddy," she said, "he'll make a fearful fuss. Well, it had to +happen somewhen.... Somehow. I wonder what he'll say?" + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +EXPOSTULATIONS + + +Part 1 + + +The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own room, +her very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and read the +advertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began expostulations, +preluded by a telegram and headed by her aunt. The telegram reminded +Ann Veronica that she had no place for interviews except her +bed-sitting-room, and she sought her landlady and negotiated hastily for +the use of the ground floor parlor, which very fortunately was vacant. +She explained she was expecting an important interview, and asked that +her visitor should be duly shown in. Her aunt arrived about half-past +ten, in black and with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised this +with the air of a conspirator unmasking, and displayed a tear-flushed +face. For a moment she remained silent. + +"My dear," she said, when she could get her breath, "you must come home +at once." + +Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still. + +"This has almost killed your father.... After Gwen!" + +"I sent a telegram." + +"He cares so much for you. He did so care for you." + +"I sent a telegram to say I was all right." + +"All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going on. I +had no idea!" She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists limply upon the +table. "Oh, Veronica!" she said, "to leave your home!" + +She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was overcome by +this amount of emotion. + +"Why did you do it?" her aunt urged. "Why could you not confide in us?" + +"Do what?" said Ann Veronica. + +"What you have done." + +"But what have I done?" + +"Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a pride in +you, such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the happiest girl. +Everything I could do! Your father sat up all night. Until at last I +persuaded him to go to bed. He wanted to put on his overcoat and come +after you and look for you--in London. We made sure it was just like +Gwen. Only Gwen left a letter on the pincushion. You didn't even do that +Vee; not even that." + +"I sent a telegram, aunt," said Ann Veronica. + +"Like a stab. You didn't even put the twelve words." + +"I said I was all right." + +"Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn't even +know you were gone. He was just getting cross about your being late for +dinner--you know his way--when it came. He opened it--just off-hand, and +then when he saw what it was he hit at the table and sent his soup spoon +flying and splashing on to the tablecloth. 'My God!' he said, 'I'll go +after them and kill him. I'll go after them and kill him.' For the +moment I thought it was a telegram from Gwen." + +"But what did father imagine?" + +"Of course he imagined! Any one would! 'What has happened, Peter?' I +asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled in his hand. He +used a most awful word! Then he said, 'It's Ann Veronica gone to join +her sister!' 'Gone!' I said. 'Gone!' he said. 'Read that,' and threw the +telegram at me, so that it went into the tureen. He swore when I tried +to get it out with the ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat +down again in a chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be +strung up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of the +house there and then and coming after you. Never since I was a girl have +I seen your father so moved. 'Oh! little Vee!' he cried, 'little Vee!' +and put his face between his hands and sat still for a long time before +he broke out again." + +Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke. + +"Do you mean, aunt," she asked, "that my father thought I had gone +off--with some man?" + +"What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so mad as to +go off alone?" + +"After--after what had happened the night before?" + +"Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, his +poor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! He was +for coming up by the very first train and looking for you, but I said to +him, 'Wait for the letters,' and there, sure enough, was yours. He could +hardly open the envelope, he trembled so. Then he threw the letter at +me. 'Go and fetch her home,' he said; 'it isn't what we thought! It's +just a practical joke of hers.' And with that he went off to the City, +stern and silent, leaving his bacon on his plate--a great slice of bacon +hardly touched. No breakfast, he's had no dinner, hardly a mouthful of +soup--since yesterday at tea." + +She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently. + +"You must come home to him at once," said Miss Stanley. + +Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-colored +table-cloth. Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid picture +of her father as the masterful man, overbearing, emphatic, sentimental, +noisy, aimless. Why on earth couldn't he leave her to grow in her own +way? Her pride rose at the bare thought of return. + +"I don't think I CAN do that," she said. She looked up and said, a +little breathlessly, "I'm sorry, aunt, but I don't think I can." + + +Part 2 + + +Then it was the expostulations really began. + +From first to last, on this occasion, her aunt expostulated for about +two hours. "But, my dear," she began, "it is Impossible! It is quite out +of the Question. You simply can't." And to that, through vast rhetorical +meanderings, she clung. It reached her only slowly that Ann Veronica was +standing to her resolution. "How will you live?" she appealed. "Think +of what people will say!" That became a refrain. "Think of what Lady +Palsworthy will say! Think of what"--So-and-so--"will say! What are we +to tell people? + +"Besides, what am I to tell your father?" + +At first it had not been at all clear to Ann Veronica that she would +refuse to return home; she had had some dream of a capitulation that +should leave her an enlarged and defined freedom, but as her aunt put +this aspect and that of her flight to her, as she wandered illogically +and inconsistently from one urgent consideration to another, as she +mingled assurances and aspects and emotions, it became clearer and +clearer to the girl that there could be little or no change in the +position of things if she returned. "And what will Mr. Manning think?" +said her aunt. + +"I don't care what any one thinks," said Ann Veronica. + +"I can't imagine what has come over you," said her aunt. "I can't +conceive what you want. You foolish girl!" + +Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim and yet +disconcerting, was the perception that she herself did not know what she +wanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to call her a foolish girl. + +"Don't you care for Mr. Manning?" said her aunt. + +"I don't see what he has to do with my coming to London?" + +"He--he worships the ground you tread on. You don't deserve it, but he +does. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And here you are!" + +Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a rhetorical +gesture. "It seems to me all madness--madness! Just because your +father--wouldn't let you disobey him!" + + + +Part 3 + + +In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanley +in person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and +forcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas +chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace in +Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She +had intended to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage +from the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than +flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and that she +was coming home submissively. In his desire to be emphatic and to avenge +himself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became brutal, more +brutal than she had ever known him before. + +"A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young lady," he said, as he +entered the room. "I hope you're satisfied." + +She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in her +resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to what +she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She said she hoped +she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take, +and he told her not to be a fool. She tried to keep her side up by +declaring that he had put her into an impossible position, and he +replied by shouting, "Nonsense! Nonsense! Any father in my place would +have done what I did." + +Then he went on to say: "Well, you've had your little adventure, and I +hope now you've had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get your things +together while I look out for a hansom." + +To which the only possible reply seemed to be, "I'm not coming home." + +"Not coming home!" + +"No!" And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica began +to weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always doomed to weep +when she talked to her father. But he was always forcing her to say and +do such unexpectedly conclusive things. She feared he might take her +tears as a sign of weakness. So she said: "I won't come home. I'd rather +starve!" + +For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then Mr. +Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather of a +barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through his +glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, "And may I presume to +inquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you propose to live?" + +"I shall live," sobbed Ann Veronica. "You needn't be anxious about that! +I shall contrive to live." + +"But I AM anxious," said Mr. Stanley, "I am anxious. Do you think it's +nothing to me to have my daughter running about London looking for odd +jobs and disgracing herself?" + +"Sha'n't get odd jobs," said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes. + +And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering wrangle. +Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann Veronica to come home, +to which, of course, she said she wouldn't; and then he warned her not +to defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again. +He then said that if she would not obey him in this course she should +"never darken his doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. +This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs +and vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time both +talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she understood what +she was saying, and went on to say still more precisely that she should +never touch a penny of his money until she came home again--not one +penny. Ann Veronica said she didn't care. + +Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he said; +"don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings? Think! Think of +the love and affection you abandon! Think of your aunt, a second mother +to you. Think if your own mother was alive!" + +He paused, deeply moved. + +"If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she would +understand." + +The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann Veronica +found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding on +desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling with +him, wrangling with him, thinking of repartees--almost as if he was a +brother. It was horrible, but what could she do? She meant to live +her own life, and he meant, with contempt and insults, to prevent her. +Anything else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or +diversion from that. + +In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to pieces, +for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home again upon +terms. While waiting for his coming she had stated her present +and future relations with him with what had seemed to her the most +satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had looked forward to an +explanation. Instead had come this storm, this shouting, this weeping, +this confusion of threats and irrelevant appeals. It was not only that +her father had said all sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, +but that by some incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in +the same vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at +issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole alternative was +obedience, and she had fallen in with that assumption until rebellion +seemed a sacred principle. Moreover, atrociously and inexorably, he +allowed it to appear ever and again in horrible gleams that he suspected +there was some man in the case.... Some man! + +And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the doorway, +giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his umbrella in the +other, shaken at her to emphasize his point. + +"You understand, then," he was saying, "you understand?" + +"I understand," said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a +reciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that amazed +even herself, "I understand." She controlled a sob. "Not a penny--not +one penny--and never darken your doors again!" + + + +Part 4 + + +The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just saying +it was "an unheard-of thing" for a girl to leave her home as Ann +Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown in by the +pleasant-faced landlady. + +Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and +umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica +firmly. + +"Now," he said, quietly, "it's time we stopped this nonsense." + +Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still more +deadly quiet: "I am not here to bandy words with you. Let us have no +more of this humbug. You are to come home." + +"I thought I explained--" + +"I don't think you can have heard me," said her father; "I have told you +to come home." + +"I thought I explained--" + +"Come home!" + +Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders. + +"Very well," said her father. + +"I think this ends the business," he said, turning to his sister. + +"It's not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn wisdom--as God +pleases." + +"But, my dear Peter!" said Miss Stanley. + +"No," said her brother, conclusively, "it's not for a parent to go on +persuading a child." + +Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl stood with +her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and intelligent, a strand +of her black hair over one eye and looking more than usually +delicate-featured, and more than ever like an obdurate child. + +"She doesn't know." + +"She does." + +"I can't imagine what makes you fly out against everything like this," +said Miss Stanley to her niece. + +"What is the good of talking?" said her brother. "She must go her own +way. A man's children nowadays are not his own. That's the fact of the +matter. Their minds are turned against him.... Rubbishy novels and +pernicious rascals. We can't even protect them from themselves." + +An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he said +these words. + +"I don't see," gasped Ann Veronica, "why parents and children... +shouldn't be friends." + +"Friends!" said her father. "When we see you going through disobedience +to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way. I've tried to use my +authority. And she defies me. What more is there to be said? She defies +me!" + +It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of tremendous +pathos; she would have given anything to have been able to frame and +make some appeal, some utterance that should bridge this bottomless +chasm that had opened between her and her father, and she could find +nothing whatever to say that was in the least sincere and appealing. + +"Father," she cried, "I have to live!" + +He misunderstood her. "That," he said, grimly, with his hand on the +door-handle, "must be your own affair, unless you choose to live at +Morningside Park." + +Miss Stanley turned to her. "Vee," she said, "come home. Before it is +too late." + +"Come, Molly," said Mr. Stanley, at the door. + +"Vee!" said Miss Stanley, "you hear what your father says!" + +Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement toward +her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down something lumpy +on the table and turned to follow her brother. Ann Veronica stared for a +moment in amazement at this dark-green object that clashed as it was +put down. It was a purse. She made a step forward. "Aunt!" she said, "I +can't--" + +Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt's blue eye, halted, and the +door clicked upon them. + +There was a pause, and then the front door slammed.... + +Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And this time +the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She had to resist an +impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them and give in. + +"Gods," she said, at last, "I've done it this time!" + +"Well!" She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and examined the +contents. + +It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage stamps, a +small key, and her aunt's return half ticket to Morningside Park. + + + +Part 5 + + +After the interview Ann Veronica considered herself formally cut off +from home. If nothing else had clinched that, the purse had. + +Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her brother Roddy, +who was in the motor line, came to expostulate; her sister Alice wrote. +And Mr. Manning called. + +Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away there +in Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann Veronica's +mind. She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of "those unsexed +intellectuals, neither man nor woman." + +Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. "That's HIM," said Ann +Veronica, in sound, idiomatic English. "Poor old Alice!" + +Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to state +a case. "Bit thick on the old man, isn't it?" said Roddy, who had +developed a bluff, straightforward style in the motor shop. + +"Mind my smoking?" said Roddy. "I don't see quite what your game is, +Vee, but I suppose you've got a game on somewhere. + +"Rummy lot we are!" said Roddy. "Alice--Alice gone dotty, and all over +kids. Gwen--I saw Gwen the other day, and the paint's thicker than ever. +Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas and Theosophy and Higher Thought and +rot--writes letters worse than Alice. And now YOU'RE on the war-path. I +believe I'm the only sane member of the family left. The G.V.'s as mad +as any of you, in spite of all his respectability; not a bit of him +straight anywhere, not one bit." + +"Straight?" + +"Not a bit of it! He's been out after eight per cent. since the +beginning. Eight per cent.! He'll come a cropper one of these days, +if you ask me. He's been near it once or twice already. That's got his +nerves to rags. I suppose we're all human beings really, but what price +the sacred Institution of the Family! Us as a bundle! Eh?... I don't +half disagree with you, Vee, really; only thing is, I don't see +how you're going to pull it off. A home MAY be a sort of cage, but +still--it's a home. Gives you a right to hang on to the old man until he +busts--practically. Jolly hard life for a girl, getting a living. Not MY +affair." + +He asked questions and listened to her views for a time. + +"I'd chuck this lark right off if I were you, Vee," he said. "I'm five +years older than you, and no end wiser, being a man. What you're after +is too risky. It's a damned hard thing to do. It's all very handsome +starting out on your own, but it's too damned hard. That's my opinion, +if you ask me. There's nothing a girl can do that isn't sweated to the +bone. You square the G.V., and go home before you have to. That's my +advice. If you don't eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse +later. _I_ can't help you a cent. Life's hard enough nowadays for an +unprotected male. Let alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, +and the only possible trade for a girl that isn't sweated is to get hold +of a man and make him do it for her. It's no good flying out at that, +Vee; _I_ didn't arrange it. It's Providence. That's how things are; +that's the order of the world. Like appendicitis. It isn't pretty, but +we're made so. Rot, no doubt; but we can't alter it. You go home and +live on the G.V., and get some other man to live on as soon as possible. +It isn't sentiment but it's horse sense. All this Woman-who-Diddery--no +damn good. After all, old P.--Providence, I mean--HAS arranged it so +that men will keep you, more or less. He made the universe on those +lines. You've got to take what you can get." + +That was the quintessence of her brother Roddy. + +He played variations on this theme for the better part of an hour. + +"You go home," he said, at parting; "you go home. It's all very fine and +all that, Vee, this freedom, but it isn't going to work. The world isn't +ready for girls to start out on their own yet; that's the plain fact of +the case. Babies and females have got to keep hold of somebody or go +under--anyhow, for the next few generations. You go home and wait a +century, Vee, and then try again. Then you may have a bit of a chance. +Now you haven't the ghost of one--not if you play the game fair." + + + +Part 6 + + +It was remarkable to Ann Veronica how completely Mr. Manning, in his +entirely different dialect, indorsed her brother Roddy's view of things. +He came along, he said, just to call, with large, loud apologies, +radiantly kind and good. Miss Stanley, it was manifest, had given him +Ann Veronica's address. The kindly faced landlady had failed to catch +his name, and said he was a tall, handsome gentleman with a great black +mustache. Ann Veronica, with a sigh at the cost of hospitality, made a +hasty negotiation for an extra tea and for a fire in the ground-floor +apartment, and preened herself carefully for the interview. In the +little apartment, under the gas chandelier, his inches and his stoop +were certainly very effective. In the bad light he looked at once +military and sentimental and studious, like one of Ouida's guardsmen +revised by Mr. Haldane and the London School of Economics and finished +in the Keltic school. + +"It's unforgivable of me to call, Miss Stanley," he said, shaking hands +in a peculiar, high, fashionable manner; "but you know you said we might +be friends." + +"It's dreadful for you to be here," he said, indicating the yellow +presence of the first fog of the year without, "but your aunt told me +something of what had happened. It's just like your Splendid Pride to do +it. Quite!" + +He sat in the arm-chair and took tea, and consumed several of the +extra cakes which she had sent out for and talked to her and expressed +himself, looking very earnestly at her with his deep-set eyes, and +carefully avoiding any crumbs on his mustache the while. Ann Veronica +sat firelit by her tea-tray with, quite unconsciously, the air of an +expert hostess. + +"But how is it all going to end?" said Mr. Manning. + +"Your father, of course," he said, "must come to realize just how +Splendid you are! He doesn't understand. I've seen him, and he doesn't +a bit understand. _I_ didn't understand before that letter. It makes me +want to be just everything I CAN be to you. You're like some splendid +Princess in Exile in these Dreadful Dingy apartments!" + +"I'm afraid I'm anything but a Princess when it comes to earning a +salary," said Ann Veronica. "But frankly, I mean to fight this through +if I possibly can." + +"My God!" said Manning, in a stage-aside. "Earning a salary!" + +"You're like a Princess in Exile!" he repeated, overruling her. "You +come into these sordid surroundings--you mustn't mind my calling them +sordid--and it makes them seem as though they didn't matter.... I +don't think they do matter. I don't think any surroundings could throw a +shadow on you." + +Ann Veronica felt a slight embarrassment. "Won't you have some more tea, +Mr. Manning?" she asked. + +"You know--," said Mr. Manning, relinquishing his cup without answering +her question, "when I hear you talk of earning a living, it's as if I +heard of an archangel going on the Stock Exchange--or Christ selling +doves.... Forgive my daring. I couldn't help the thought." + +"It's a very good image," said Ann Veronica. + +"I knew you wouldn't mind." + +"But does it correspond with the facts of the case? You know, Mr. +Manning, all this sort of thing is very well as sentiment, but does it +correspond with the realities? Are women truly such angelic things and +men so chivalrous? You men have, I know, meant to make us Queens and +Goddesses, but in practice--well, look, for example, at the stream of +girls one meets going to work of a morning, round-shouldered, cheap, and +underfed! They aren't queens, and no one is treating them as queens. +And look, again, at the women one finds letting lodgings.... I was +looking for rooms last week. It got on my nerves--the women I saw. Worse +than any man. Everywhere I went and rapped at a door I found behind it +another dreadful dingy woman--another fallen queen, I suppose--dingier +than the last, dirty, you know, in grain. Their poor hands!" + +"I know," said Mr. Manning, with entirely suitable emotion. + +"And think of the ordinary wives and mothers, with their anxiety, their +limitations, their swarms of children!" + +Mr. Manning displayed distress. He fended these things off from him with +the rump of his fourth piece of cake. "I know that our social order is +dreadful enough," he said, "and sacrifices all that is best and most +beautiful in life. I don't defend it." + +"And besides, when it comes to the idea of queens," Ann Veronica went +on, "there's twenty-one and a half million women to twenty million men. +Suppose our proper place is a shrine. Still, that leaves over a million +shrines short, not reckoning widows who re-marry. And more boys die than +girls, so that the real disproportion among adults is even greater." + +"I know," said Mr Manning, "I know these Dreadful Statistics. I know +there's a sort of right in your impatience at the slowness of Progress. +But tell me one thing I don't understand--tell me one thing: How can you +help it by coming down into the battle and the mire? That's the thing +that concerns me." + +"Oh, I'm not trying to help it," said Ann Veronica. "I'm only arguing +against your position of what a woman should be, and trying to get +it clear in my own mind. I'm in this apartment and looking for work +because--Well, what else can I do, when my father practically locks me +up?" + +"I know," said Mr. Manning, "I know. Don't think I can't sympathize and +understand. Still, here we are in this dingy, foggy city. Ye gods! what +a wilderness it is! Every one trying to get the better of every one, +every one regardless of every one--it's one of those days when every one +bumps against you--every one pouring coal smoke into the air and making +confusion worse confounded, motor omnibuses clattering and smelling, +a horse down in the Tottenham Court Road, an old woman at the corner +coughing dreadfully--all the painful sights of a great city, and here +you come into it to take your chances. It's too valiant, Miss Stanley, +too valiant altogether!" + +Ann Veronica meditated. She had had two days of employment-seeking now. +"I wonder if it is." + +"It isn't," said Mr. Manning, "that I mind Courage in a Woman--I love +and admire Courage. What could be more splendid than a beautiful girl +facing a great, glorious tiger? Una and the Lion again, and all that! +But this isn't that sort of thing; this is just a great, ugly, endless +wilderness of selfish, sweating, vulgar competition!" + +"That you want to keep me out of?" + +"Exactly!" said Mr. Manning. + +"In a sort of beautiful garden-close--wearing lovely dresses and picking +beautiful flowers?" + +"Ah! If one could!" + +"While those other girls trudge to business and those other women let +lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close resolves itself +into a villa at Morningside Park and my father being more and more +cross and overbearing at meals--and a general feeling of insecurity and +futility." + +Mr. Manning relinquished his cup, and looked meaningly at Ann Veronica. +"There," he said, "you don't treat me fairly, Miss Stanley. My +garden-close would be a better thing than that." + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +IDEALS AND A REALITY + + +Part 1 + + +And now for some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value in the +world. She went about in a negligent November London that had become +very dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, and tried to find +that modest but independent employment she had so rashly assumed. She +went about, intent-looking and self-possessed, trim and fine, concealing +her emotions whatever they were, as the realities of her position opened +out before her. Her little bed-sitting-room was like a lair, and she +went out from it into this vast, dun world, with its smoke-gray houses, +its glaring streets of shops, its dark streets of homes, its orange-lit +windows, under skies of dull copper or muddy gray or black, much as an +animal goes out to seek food. She would come back and write letters, +carefully planned and written letters, or read some book she had fetched +from Mudie's--she had invested a half-guinea with Mudie's--or sit over +her fire and think. + +Slowly and reluctantly she came to realize that Vivie Warren was what +is called an "ideal." There were no such girls and no such positions. No +work that offered was at all of the quality she had vaguely postulated +for herself. With such qualifications as she possessed, two chief +channels of employment lay open, and neither attracted her, neither +seemed really to offer a conclusive escape from that subjection to +mankind against which, in the person of her father, she was rebelling. +One main avenue was for her to become a sort of salaried accessory wife +or mother, to be a governess or an assistant schoolmistress, or a very +high type of governess-nurse. The other was to go into business--into a +photographer's reception-room, for example, or a costumer's or hat-shop. +The first set of occupations seemed to her to be altogether too domestic +and restricted; for the latter she was dreadfully handicapped by her +want of experience. And also she didn't like them. She didn't like the +shops, she didn't like the other women's faces; she thought the +smirking men in frock-coats who dominated these establishments the +most intolerable persons she had ever had to face. One called her very +distinctly "My dear!" + +Two secretarial posts did indeed seem to offer themselves in which, at +least, there was no specific exclusion of womanhood; one was under +a Radical Member of Parliament, and the other under a Harley Street +doctor, and both men declined her proffered services with the utmost +civility and admiration and terror. There was also a curious interview +at a big hotel with a middle-aged, white-powdered woman, all covered +with jewels and reeking of scent, who wanted a Companion. She did not +think Ann Veronica would do as her companion. + +And nearly all these things were fearfully ill-paid. They carried no +more than bare subsistence wages; and they demanded all her time and +energy. She had heard of women journalists, women writers, and so +forth; but she was not even admitted to the presence of the editors she +demanded to see, and by no means sure that if she had been she could +have done any work they might have given her. One day she desisted from +her search and went unexpectedly to the Tredgold College. Her place +was not filled; she had been simply noted as absent, and she did a +comforting day of admirable dissection upon the tortoise. She was so +interested, and this was such a relief from the trudging anxiety of her +search for work, that she went on for a whole week as if she was still +living at home. Then a third secretarial opening occurred and renewed +her hopes again: a position as amanuensis--with which some of the +lighter duties of a nurse were combined--to an infirm gentleman of means +living at Twickenham, and engaged upon a great literary research to +prove that the "Faery Queen" was really a treatise upon molecular +chemistry written in a peculiar and picturesquely handled cipher. + + + +Part 2 + + +Now, while Ann Veronica was taking these soundings in the industrial +sea, and measuring herself against the world as it is, she was also +making extensive explorations among the ideas and attitudes of a number +of human beings who seemed to be largely concerned with the world as it +ought to be. She was drawn first by Miss Miniver, and then by her own +natural interest, into a curious stratum of people who are busied with +dreams of world progress, of great and fundamental changes, of a New Age +that is to replace all the stresses and disorders of contemporary life. + +Miss Miniver learned of her flight and got her address from the +Widgetts. She arrived about nine o'clock the next evening in a state of +tremulous enthusiasm. She followed the landlady half way up-stairs, and +called up to Ann Veronica, "May I come up? It's me! You know--Nettie +Miniver!" She appeared before Ann Veronica could clearly recall who +Nettie Miniver might be. + +There was a wild light in her eye, and her straight hair was out +demonstrating and suffragetting upon some independent notions of its +own. Her fingers were bursting through her gloves, as if to get at once +into touch with Ann Veronica. "You're Glorious!" said Miss Miniver in +tones of rapture, holding a hand in each of hers and peering up into Ann +Veronica's face. "Glorious! You're so calm, dear, and so resolute, so +serene! + +"It's girls like you who will show them what We are," said Miss Miniver; +"girls whose spirits have not been broken!" + +Ann Veronica sunned herself a little in this warmth. + +"I was watching you at Morningside Park, dear," said Miss Miniver. "I am +getting to watch all women. I thought then perhaps you didn't care, that +you were like so many of them. NOW it's just as though you had grown up +suddenly." + +She stopped, and then suggested: "I wonder--I should love--if it was +anything _I_ said." + +She did not wait for Ann Veronica's reply. She seemed to assume that it +must certainly be something she had said. "They all catch on," she said. +"It spreads like wildfire. This is such a grand time! Such a glorious +time! There never was such a time as this! Everything seems so close to +fruition, so coming on and leading on! The Insurrection of Women! They +spring up everywhere. Tell me all that happened, one sister-woman to +another." + +She chilled Ann Veronica a little by that last phrase, and yet the +magnetism of her fellowship and enthusiasm was very strong; and it was +pleasant to be made out a heroine after so much expostulation and so +many secret doubts. + +But she did not listen long; she wanted to talk. She sat, crouched +together, by the corner of the hearthrug under the bookcase that +supported the pig's skull, and looked into the fire and up at Ann +Veronica's face, and let herself go. "Let us put the lamp out," she +said; "the flames are ever so much better for talking," and Ann Veronica +agreed. "You are coming right out into life--facing it all." + +Ann Veronica sat with her chin on her hand, red-lit and saying little, +and Miss Miniver discoursed. As she talked, the drift and significance +of what she was saying shaped itself slowly to Ann Veronica's +apprehension. It presented itself in the likeness of a great, gray, dull +world--a brutal, superstitious, confused, and wrong-headed world, +that hurt people and limited people unaccountably. In remote times and +countries its evil tendencies had expressed themselves in the form of +tyrannies, massacres, wars, and what not; but just at present in England +they shaped as commercialism and competition, silk hats, suburban +morals, the sweating system, and the subjection of women. So far the +thing was acceptable enough. But over against the world Miss Miniver +assembled a small but energetic minority, the Children of Light--people +she described as "being in the van," or "altogether in the van," about +whom Ann Veronica's mind was disposed to be more sceptical. + +Everything, Miss Miniver said, was "working up," everything was "coming +on"--the Higher Thought, the Simple Life, Socialism, Humanitarianism, it +was all the same really. She loved to be there, taking part in it all, +breathing it, being it. Hitherto in the world's history there had been +precursors of this Progress at great intervals, voices that had spoken +and ceased, but now it was all coming on together in a rush. She +mentioned, with familiar respect, Christ and Buddha and Shelley and +Nietzsche and Plato. Pioneers all of them. Such names shone brightly in +the darkness, with black spaces of unilluminated emptiness about them, +as stars shine in the night; but now--now it was different; now it was +dawn--the real dawn. + +"The women are taking it up," said Miss Miniver; "the women and the +common people, all pressing forward, all roused." + +Ann Veronica listened with her eyes on the fire. + +"Everybody is taking it up," said Miss Miniver. "YOU had to come in. You +couldn't help it. Something drew you. Something draws everybody. From +suburbs, from country towns--everywhere. I see all the Movements. As +far as I can, I belong to them all. I keep my finger on the pulse of +things." + +Ann Veronica said nothing. + +"The dawn!" said Miss Miniver, with her glasses reflecting the fire like +pools of blood-red flame. + +"I came to London," said Ann Veronica, "rather because of my own +difficulty. I don't know that I understand altogether." + +"Of course you don't," said Miss Miniver, gesticulating triumphantly +with her thin hand and thinner wrist, and patting Ann Veronica's knee. +"Of course you don't. That's the wonder of it. But you will, you +will. You must let me take you to things--to meetings and things, to +conferences and talks. Then you will begin to see. You will begin to see +it all opening out. I am up to the ears in it all--every moment I can +spare. I throw up work--everything! I just teach in one school, one good +school, three days a week. All the rest--Movements! I can live now on +fourpence a day. Think how free that leaves me to follow things up! I +must take you everywhere. I must take you to the Suffrage people, and +the Tolstoyans, and the Fabians." + +"I have heard of the Fabians," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's THE Society!" said Miss Miniver. "It's the centre of the +intellectuals. Some of the meetings are wonderful! Such earnest, +beautiful women! Such deep-browed men!... And to think that there +they are making history! There they are putting together the plans of a +new world. Almost light-heartedly. There is Shaw, and Webb, and Wilkins +the author, and Toomer, and Doctor Tumpany--the most wonderful people! +There you see them discussing, deciding, planning! Just think--THEY ARE +MAKING A NEW WORLD!" + +"But ARE these people going to alter everything?" said Ann Veronica. + +"What else can happen?" asked Miss Miniver, with a little weak gesture +at the glow. "What else can possibly happen--as things are going now?" + + + +Part 3 + + +Miss Miniver let Ann Veronica into her peculiar levels of the world +with so enthusiastic a generosity that it seemed ingratitude to remain +critical. Indeed, almost insensibly Ann Veronica became habituated to +the peculiar appearance and the peculiar manners of the people "in the +van." The shock of their intellectual attitude was over, usage robbed +it of the first quaint effect of deliberate unreason. They were in many +respects so right; she clung to that, and shirked more and more the +paradoxical conviction that they were also somehow, and even in direct +relation to that rightness, absurd. + +Very central in Miss Miniver's universe were the Goopes. The Goopes were +the oddest little couple conceivable, following a fruitarian career upon +an upper floor in Theobald's Road. They were childless and servantless, +and they had reduced simple living to the finest of fine arts. Mr. +Goopes, Ann Veronica gathered, was a mathematical tutor and visited +schools, and his wife wrote a weekly column in New Ideas upon vegetarian +cookery, vivisection, degeneration, the lacteal secretion, appendicitis, +and the Higher Thought generally, and assisted in the management of +a fruit shop in the Tottenham Court Road. Their very furniture had +mysteriously a high-browed quality, and Mr. Goopes when at home dressed +simply in a pajama-shaped suit of canvas sacking tied with brown +ribbons, while his wife wore a purple djibbah with a richly +embroidered yoke. He was a small, dark, reserved man, with a large +inflexible-looking convex forehead, and his wife was very pink and +high-spirited, with one of those chins that pass insensibly into a full, +strong neck. Once a week, every Saturday, they had a little gathering +from nine till the small hours, just talk and perhaps reading aloud and +fruitarian refreshments--chestnut sandwiches buttered with nut tose, +and so forth--and lemonade and unfermented wine; and to one of these +symposia Miss Miniver after a good deal of preliminary solicitude, +conducted Ann Veronica. + +She was introduced, perhaps a little too obviously for her taste, as +a girl who was standing out against her people, to a gathering that +consisted of a very old lady with an extremely wrinkled skin and a deep +voice who was wearing what appeared to Ann Veronica's inexperienced +eye to be an antimacassar upon her head, a shy, blond young man with a +narrow forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts +and blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. +and Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. +These were seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very copper-adorned +fireplace, surmounted by a carved wood inscription: + +"DO IT NOW." + +And to them were presently added a roguish-looking young man, with +reddish hair, an orange tie, and a fluffy tweed suit, and others who, +in Ann Veronica's memory, in spite of her efforts to recall details, +remained obstinately just "others." + +The talk was animated, and remained always brilliant in form even when +it ceased to be brilliant in substance. There were moments when Ann +Veronica rather more than suspected the chief speakers to be, as +school-boys say, showing off at her. + +They talked of a new substitute for dripping in vegetarian cookery that +Mrs. Goopes was convinced exercised an exceptionally purifying influence +on the mind. And then they talked of Anarchism and Socialism, and +whether the former was the exact opposite of the latter or only a higher +form. The reddish-haired young man contributed allusions to the Hegelian +philosophy that momentarily confused the discussion. Then Alderman +Dunstable, who had hitherto been silent, broke out into speech and went +off at a tangent, and gave his personal impressions of quite a number +of his fellow-councillors. He continued to do this for the rest of the +evening intermittently, in and out, among other topics. He addressed +himself chiefly to Goopes, and spoke as if in reply to long-sustained +inquiries on the part of Goopes into the personnel of the Marylebone +Borough Council. "If you were to ask me," he would say, "I should say +Blinders is straight. An ordinary type, of course--" + +Mrs. Dunstable's contributions to the conversation were entirely in the +form of nods; whenever Alderman Dunstable praised or blamed she nodded +twice or thrice, according to the requirements of his emphasis. And +she seemed always to keep one eye on Ann Veronica's dress. Mrs. +Goopes disconcerted the Alderman a little by abruptly challenging the +roguish-looking young man in the orange tie (who, it seemed, was the +assistant editor of New Ideas) upon a critique of Nietzsche and Tolstoy +that had appeared in his paper, in which doubts had been cast upon the +perfect sincerity of the latter. Everybody seemed greatly concerned +about the sincerity of Tolstoy. + +Miss Miniver said that if once she lost her faith in Tolstoy's +sincerity, nothing she felt would really matter much any more, and she +appealed to Ann Veronica whether she did not feel the same; and Mr. +Goopes said that we must distinguish between sincerity and irony, which +was often indeed no more than sincerity at the sublimated level. + +Alderman Dunstable said that sincerity was often a matter of +opportunity, and illustrated the point to the fair young man with an +anecdote about Blinders on the Dust Destructor Committee, during which +the young man in the orange tie succeeded in giving the whole discussion +a daring and erotic flavor by questioning whether any one could be +perfectly sincere in love. + +Miss Miniver thought that there was no true sincerity except in love, +and appealed to Ann Veronica, but the young man in the orange tie went +on to declare that it was quite possible to be sincerely in love with +two people at the same time, although perhaps on different planes with +each individual, and deceiving them both. But that brought Mrs. Goopes +down on him with the lesson Titian teaches so beautifully in his "Sacred +and Profane Love," and became quite eloquent upon the impossibility of +any deception in the former. + +Then they discoursed on love for a time, and Alderman Dunstable, turning +back to the shy, blond young man and speaking in undertones of the +utmost clearness, gave a brief and confidential account of an unfounded +rumor of the bifurcation of the affections of Blinders that had led to a +situation of some unpleasantness upon the Borough Council. + +The very old lady in the antimacassar touched Ann Veronica's arm +suddenly, and said, in a deep, arch voice: + +"Talking of love again; spring again, love again. Oh! you young people!" + +The young man with the orange tie, in spite of Sisyphus-like efforts +on the part of Goopes to get the topic on to a higher plane, displayed +great persistence in speculating upon the possible distribution of the +affections of highly developed modern types. + +The old lady in the antimacassar said, abruptly, "Ah! you young people, +you young people, if you only knew!" and then laughed and then mused in +a marked manner; and the young man with the narrow forehead and glasses +cleared his throat and asked the young man in the orange tie whether he +believed that Platonic love was possible. Mrs. Goopes said she believed +in nothing else, and with that she glanced at Ann Veronica, rose a +little abruptly, and directed Goopes and the shy young man in the +handing of refreshments. + +But the young man with the orange tie remained in his place, disputing +whether the body had not something or other which he called its +legitimate claims. And from that they came back by way of the Kreutzer +Sonata and Resurrection to Tolstoy again. + +So the talk went on. Goopes, who had at first been a little reserved, +resorted presently to the Socratic method to restrain the young man with +the orange tie, and bent his forehead over him, and brought out at last +very clearly from him that the body was only illusion and everything +nothing but just spirit and molecules of thought. It became a sort of +duel at last between them, and all the others sat and listened--every +one, that is, except the Alderman, who had got the blond young man into +a corner by the green-stained dresser with the aluminum things, and was +sitting with his back to every one else, holding one hand over his mouth +for greater privacy, and telling him, with an accent of confidential +admission, in whispers of the chronic struggle between the natural +modesty and general inoffensiveness of the Borough Council and the +social evil in Marylebone. + +So the talk went on, and presently they were criticising novelists, and +certain daring essays of Wilkins got their due share of attention, +and then they were discussing the future of the theatre. Ann Veronica +intervened a little in the novelist discussion with a defence of Esmond +and a denial that the Egoist was obscure, and when she spoke every one +else stopped talking and listened. Then they deliberated whether Bernard +Shaw ought to go into Parliament. And that brought them to vegetarianism +and teetotalism, and the young man in the orange tie and Mrs. Goopes +had a great set-to about the sincerity of Chesterton and Belloc that was +ended by Goopes showing signs of resuming the Socratic method. + +And at last Ann Veronica and Miss Miniver came down the dark staircase +and out into the foggy spaces of the London squares, and crossed Russell +Square, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, making an oblique route to Ann +Veronica's lodging. They trudged along a little hungry, because of the +fruitarian refreshments, and mentally very active. And Miss Miniver fell +discussing whether Goopes or Bernard Shaw or Tolstoy or Doctor Tumpany +or Wilkins the author had the more powerful and perfect mind in +existence at the present time. She was clear there were no other minds +like them in all the world. + + + +Part 4 + + +Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the back seats +of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the giant leaders of the +Fabian Society who are re-making the world: Bernard Shaw and Toomer and +Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the author, all displayed upon a platform. +The place was crowded, and the people about her were almost equally +made up of very good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great +variety of Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest +mixture of things that were personal and petty with an idealist devotion +that was fine beyond dispute. In nearly every speech she heard was the +same implication of great and necessary changes in the world--changes +to be won by effort and sacrifice indeed, but surely to be won. And +afterward she saw a very much larger and more enthusiastic gathering, +a meeting of the advanced section of the woman movement in Caxton Hall, +where the same note of vast changes in progress sounded; and she went +to a soiree of the Dress Reform Association and visited a Food Reform +Exhibition, where imminent change was made even alarmingly visible. +The women's meeting was much more charged with emotional force than the +Socialists'. Ann Veronica was carried off her intellectual and critical +feet by it altogether, and applauded and uttered cries that subsequent +reflection failed to endorse. "I knew you would feel it," said Miss +Miniver, as they came away flushed and heated. "I knew you would begin +to see how it all falls into place together." + +It did begin to fall into place together. She became more and more +alive, not so much to a system of ideas as to a big diffused +impulse toward change, to a great discontent with and criticism of +life as it is lived, to a clamorous confusion of ideas for +reconstruction--reconstruction of the methods of business, of economic +development, of the rules of property, of the status of children, of the +clothing and feeding and teaching of every one; she developed a quite +exaggerated consciousness of a multitude of people going about the +swarming spaces of London with their minds full, their talk and gestures +full, their very clothing charged with the suggestion of the urgency of +this pervasive project of alteration. Some indeed carried themselves, +dressed themselves even, rather as foreign visitors from the land +of "Looking Backward" and "News from Nowhere" than as the indigenous +Londoners they were. For the most part these were detached people: men +practising the plastic arts, young writers, young men in employment, a +very large proportion of girls and women--self-supporting women or girls +of the student class. They made a stratum into which Ann Veronica was +now plunged up to her neck; it had become her stratum. + +None of the things they said and did were altogether new to Ann +Veronica, but now she got them massed and alive, instead of by glimpses +or in books--alive and articulate and insistent. The London backgrounds, +in Bloomsbury and Marylebone, against which these people went to +and fro, took on, by reason of their gray facades, their implacably +respectable windows and window-blinds, their reiterated unmeaning iron +railings, a stronger and stronger suggestion of the flavor of her father +at his most obdurate phase, and of all that she felt herself fighting +against. + +She was already a little prepared by her discursive reading and +discussion under the Widgett influence for ideas and "movements," though +temperamentally perhaps she was rather disposed to resist and criticise +than embrace them. But the people among whom she was now thrown through +the social exertions of Miss Miniver and the Widgetts--for Teddy and +Hetty came up from Morningside Park and took her to an eighteen-penny +dinner in Soho and introduced her to some art students, who were also +Socialists, and so opened the way to an evening of meandering talk in a +studio--carried with them like an atmosphere this implication, not only +that the world was in some stupid and even obvious way WRONG, with which +indeed she was quite prepared to agree, but that it needed only a +few pioneers to behave as such and be thoroughly and indiscriminately +"advanced," for the new order to achieve itself. + +When ninety per cent. out of the ten or twelve people one meets in a +month not only say but feel and assume a thing, it is very hard not +to fall into the belief that the thing is so. Imperceptibly almost Ann +Veronica began to acquire the new attitude, even while her mind still +resisted the felted ideas that went with it. And Miss Miniver began to +sway her. + +The very facts that Miss Miniver never stated an argument clearly, that +she was never embarrassed by a sense of self-contradiction, and had +little more respect for consistency of statement than a washerwoman +has for wisps of vapor, which made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at +their first encounter in Morningside Park, became at last with constant +association the secret of Miss Miniver's growing influence. The brain +tires of resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently +active, the same phrases, the same ideas that it has already slain, +exposed and dissected and buried, it becomes less and less energetic to +repeat the operation. There must be something, one feels, in ideas that +achieve persistently a successful resurrection. What Miss Miniver would +have called the Higher Truth supervenes. + +Yet through these talks, these meetings and conferences, these movements +and efforts, Ann Veronica, for all that she went with her friend, and +at times applauded with her enthusiastically, yet went nevertheless with +eyes that grew more and more puzzled, and fine eyebrows more and more +disposed to knit. She was with these movements--akin to them, she felt +it at times intensely--and yet something eluded her. Morningside Park +had been passive and defective; all this rushed about and was active, +but it was still defective. It still failed in something. It did seem +germane to the matter that so many of the people "in the van" were plain +people, or faded people, or tired-looking people. It did affect the +business that they all argued badly and were egotistical in their +manners and inconsistent in their phrases. There were moments when she +doubted whether the whole mass of movements and societies and gatherings +and talks was not simply one coherent spectacle of failure protecting +itself from abjection by the glamour of its own assertions. It happened +that at the extremest point of Ann Veronica's social circle from the +Widgetts was the family of the Morningside Park horse-dealer, a company +of extremely dressy and hilarious young women, with one equestrian +brother addicted to fancy waistcoats, cigars, and facial spots. These +girls wore hats at remarkable angles and bows to startle and kill; they +liked to be right on the spot every time and up to everything that +was it from the very beginning and they rendered their conception of +Socialists and all reformers by the words "positively frightening" +and "weird." Well, it was beyond dispute that these words did convey +a certain quality of the Movements in general amid which Miss Miniver +disported herself. They WERE weird. And yet for all that-- + +It got into Ann Veronica's nights at last and kept her awake, the +perplexing contrast between the advanced thought and the advanced +thinker. The general propositions of Socialism, for example, struck her +as admirable, but she certainly did not extend her admiration to any +of its exponents. She was still more stirred by the idea of the equal +citizenship of men and women, by the realization that a big and growing +organization of women were giving form and a generalized expression +to just that personal pride, that aspiration for personal freedom and +respect which had brought her to London; but when she heard Miss Miniver +discoursing on the next step in the suffrage campaign, or read of women +badgering Cabinet Ministers, padlocked to railings, or getting up in a +public meeting to pipe out a demand for votes and be carried out kicking +and screaming, her soul revolted. She could not part with dignity. +Something as yet unformulated within her kept her estranged from all +these practical aspects of her beliefs. + +"Not for these things, O Ann Veronica, have you revolted," it said; "and +this is not your appropriate purpose." + +It was as if she faced a darkness in which was something very beautiful +and wonderful as yet unimagined. The little pucker in her brows became +more perceptible. + + + +Part 5 + + +In the beginning of December Ann Veronica began to speculate privately +upon the procedure of pawning. She had decided that she would begin +with her pearl necklace. She spent a very disagreeable afternoon and +evening--it was raining fast outside, and she had very unwisely left +her soundest pair of boots in the boothole of her father's house in +Morningside Park--thinking over the economic situation and planning a +course of action. Her aunt had secretly sent on to Ann Veronica some new +warm underclothing, a dozen pairs of stockings, and her last winter's +jacket, but the dear lady had overlooked those boots. + +These things illuminated her situation extremely. Finally she decided +upon a step that had always seemed reasonable to her, but that hitherto +she had, from motives too faint for her to formulate, refrained from +taking. She resolved to go into the City to Ramage and ask for his +advice. And next morning she attired herself with especial care and +neatness, found his address in the Directory at a post-office, and went +to him. + +She had to wait some minutes in an outer office, wherein three young +men of spirited costume and appearance regarded her with ill-concealed +curiosity and admiration. Then Ramage appeared with effusion, and +ushered her into his inner apartment. The three young men exchanged +expressive glances. + +The inner apartment was rather gracefully furnished with a thick, fine +Turkish carpet, a good brass fender, a fine old bureau, and on the walls +were engravings of two young girls' heads by Greuze, and of some modern +picture of boys bathing in a sunlit pool. + +"But this is a surprise!" said Ramage. "This is wonderful! I've been +feeling that you had vanished from my world. Have you been away from +Morningside Park?" + +"I'm not interrupting you?" + +"You are. Splendidly. Business exists for such interruptions. There you +are, the best client's chair." + +Ann Veronica sat down, and Ramage's eager eyes feasted on her. + +"I've been looking out for you," he said. "I confess it." + +She had not, she reflected, remembered how prominent his eyes were. + +"I want some advice," said Ann Veronica. + +"Yes?" + +"You remember once, how we talked--at a gate on the Downs? We talked +about how a girl might get an independent living." + +"Yes, yes." + +"Well, you see, something has happened at home." + +She paused. + +"Nothing has happened to Mr. Stanley?" + +"I've fallen out with my father. It was about--a question of what I +might do or might not do. He--In fact, he--he locked me in my room. +Practically." + +Her breath left her for a moment. + +"I SAY!" said Mr. Ramage. + +"I wanted to go to an art-student ball of which he disapproved." + +"And why shouldn't you?" + +"I felt that sort of thing couldn't go on. So I packed up and came to +London next day." + +"To a friend?" + +"To lodgings--alone." + +"I say, you know, you have some pluck. You did it on your own?" + +Ann Veronica smiled. "Quite on my own," she said. + +"It's magnificent!" He leaned back and regarded her with his head a +little on one side. "By Jove!" he said, "there is something direct about +you. I wonder if I should have locked you up if I'd been your father. +Luckily I'm not. And you started out forthwith to fight the world and be +a citizen on your own basis?" He came forward again and folded his hands +under him on his desk. + +"How has the world taken it?" he asked. "If I was the world I think I +should have put down a crimson carpet, and asked you to say what you +wanted, and generally walk over me. But the world didn't do that." + +"Not exactly." + +"It presented a large impenetrable back, and went on thinking about +something else." + +"It offered from fifteen to two-and-twenty shillings a week--for +drudgery." + +"The world has no sense of what is due to youth and courage. It never +has had." + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica. "But the thing is, I want a job." + +"Exactly! And so you came along to me. And you see, I don't turn my +back, and I am looking at you and thinking about you from top to toe." + +"And what do you think I ought to do?" + +"Exactly!" He lifted a paper-weight and dabbed it gently down again. +"What ought you to do?" + +"I've hunted up all sorts of things." + +"The point to note is that fundamentally you don't want particularly to +do it." + +"I don't understand." + +"You want to be free and so forth, yes. But you don't particularly +want to do the job that sets you free--for its own sake. I mean that it +doesn't interest you in itself." + +"I suppose not." + +"That's one of our differences. We men are like children. We can get +absorbed in play, in games, in the business we do. That's really why +we do them sometimes rather well and get on. But women--women as a rule +don't throw themselves into things like that. As a matter of fact it +isn't their affair. And as a natural consequence, they don't do so well, +and they don't get on--and so the world doesn't pay them. They don't +catch on to discursive interests, you see, because they are more +serious, they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a +little impatient of its--its outer aspects. At least that, I think, is +what makes a clever woman's independent career so much more difficult +than a clever man's." + +"She doesn't develop a specialty." Ann Veronica was doing her best to +follow him. + +"She has one, that's why. Her specialty is the central thing in life, it +is life itself, the warmth of life, sex--and love." + +He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with his +eyes on Ann Veronica's face. He had an air of having told her a deep, +personal secret. She winced as he thrust the fact at her, was about to +answer, and checked herself. She colored faintly. + +"That doesn't touch the question I asked you," she said. "It may be +true, but it isn't quite what I have in mind." + +"Of course not," said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep +preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like way upon +the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made. He displayed +none of the airy optimism of their previous talk over the downland gate. +He was helpful, but gravely dubious. "You see," he said, "from my point +of view you're grown up--you're as old as all the goddesses and the +contemporary of any man alive. But from the--the economic point of view +you're a very young and altogether inexperienced person." + +He returned to and developed that idea. "You're still," he said, "in the +educational years. From the point of view of most things in the world +of employment which a woman can do reasonably well and earn a living +by, you're unripe and half-educated. If you had taken your degree, for +example." + +He spoke of secretarial work, but even there she would need to be able +to do typing and shorthand. He made it more and more evident to her that +her proper course was not to earn a salary but to accumulate equipment. +"You see," he said, "you are like an inaccessible gold-mine in all this +sort of matter. You're splendid stuff, you know, but you've got nothing +ready to sell. That's the flat business situation." + +He thought. Then he slapped his hand on his desk and looked up with +the air of a man struck by a brilliant idea. "Look here," he said, +protruding his eyes; "why get anything to do at all just yet? Why, if +you must be free, why not do the sensible thing? Make yourself worth +a decent freedom. Go on with your studies at the Imperial College, +for example, get a degree, and make yourself good value. Or become a +thorough-going typist and stenographer and secretarial expert." + +"But I can't do that." + +"Why not?" + +"You see, if I do go home my father objects to the College, and as for +typing--" + +"Don't go home." + +"Yes, but you forget; how am I to live?" + +"Easily. Easily.... Borrow.... From me." + +"I couldn't do that," said Ann Veronica, sharply. + +"I see no reason why you shouldn't." + +"It's impossible." + +"As one friend to another. Men are always doing it, and if you set up to +be a man--" + +"No, it's absolutely out of the question, Mr. Ramage." And Ann +Veronica's face was hot. + +Ramage pursed his rather loose lips and shrugged his shoulders, with +his eyes fixed steadily upon her. "Well anyhow--I don't see the force of +your objection, you know. That's my advice to you. Here I am. Consider +you've got resources deposited with me. Perhaps at the first blush--it +strikes you as odd. People are brought up to be so shy about money. As +though it was indelicate--it's just a sort of shyness. But here I am to +draw upon. Here I am as an alternative either to nasty work--or going +home." + +"It's very kind of you--" began Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit. Just a friendly polite suggestion. I don't suggest any +philanthropy. I shall charge you five per cent., you know, fair and +square." + +Ann Veronica opened her lips quickly and did not speak. But the five per +cent. certainly did seem to improve the aspect of Ramage's suggestion. + +"Well, anyhow, consider it open." He dabbed with his paper-weight again, +and spoke in an entirely indifferent tone. "And now tell me, please, how +you eloped from Morningside Park. How did you get your luggage out of +the house? Wasn't it--wasn't it rather in some respects--rather a lark? +It's one of my regrets for my lost youth. I never ran away from anywhere +with anybody anywhen. And now--I suppose I should be considered too +old. I don't feel it.... Didn't you feel rather EVENTFUL--in the +train--coming up to Waterloo?" + + + +Part 6 + + +Before Christmas Ann Veronica had gone to Ramage again and accepted this +offer she had at first declined. + +Many little things had contributed to that decision. The chief influence +was her awakening sense of the need of money. She had been forced to buy +herself that pair of boots and a walking-skirt, and the pearl necklace +at the pawnbrokers' had yielded very disappointingly. And, also, she +wanted to borrow that money. It did seem in so many ways exactly what +Ramage said it was--the sensible thing to do. There it was--to be +borrowed. It would put the whole adventure on a broader and better +footing; it seemed, indeed, almost the only possible way in which she +might emerge from her rebellion with anything like success. If only for +the sake of her argument with her home, she wanted success. And why, +after all, should she not borrow money from Ramage? + +It was so true what he said; middle-class people WERE ridiculously +squeamish about money. Why should they be? + +She and Ramage were friends, very good friends. If she was in a position +to help him she would help him; only it happened to be the other way +round. He was in a position to help her. What was the objection? + +She found it impossible to look her own diffidence in the face. So she +went to Ramage and came to the point almost at once. + +"Can you spare me forty pounds?" she said. + +Mr. Ramage controlled his expression and thought very quickly. + +"Agreed," he said, "certainly," and drew a checkbook toward him. + +"It's best," he said, "to make it a good round sum. + +"I won't give you a check though--Yes, I will. I'll give you an +uncrossed check, and then you can get it at the bank here, quite close +by.... You'd better not have all the money on you; you had better +open a small account in the post-office and draw it out a fiver at a +time. That won't involve references, as a bank account would--and all +that sort of thing. The money will last longer, and--it won't bother +you." + +He stood up rather close to her and looked into her eyes. He seemed to +be trying to understand something very perplexing and elusive. "It's +jolly," he said, "to feel you have come to me. It's a sort of guarantee +of confidence. Last time--you made me feel snubbed." + +He hesitated, and went off at a tangent. "There's no end of things I'd +like to talk over with you. It's just upon my lunch-time. Come and have +lunch with me." + +Ann Veronica fenced for a moment. "I don't want to take up your time." + +"We won't go to any of these City places. They're just all men, and no +one is safe from scandal. But I know a little place where we'll get a +little quiet talk." + +Ann Veronica for some indefinable reason did not want to lunch with him, +a reason indeed so indefinable that she dismissed it, and Ramage went +through the outer office with her, alert and attentive, to the vivid +interest of the three clerks. The three clerks fought for the only +window, and saw her whisked into a hansom. Their subsequent conversation +is outside the scope of our story. + +"Ritter's!" said Ramage to the driver, "Dean Street." + +It was rare that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was itself +eventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing of the thing +over its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the horse, the passage +of the teeming streets. She admitted her pleasure to Ramage. + +And Ritter's, too, was very amusing and foreign and discreet; a little +rambling room with a number of small tables, with red electric light +shades and flowers. It was an overcast day, albeit not foggy, and +the electric light shades glowed warmly, and an Italian waiter with +insufficient English took Ramage's orders, and waited with an appearance +of affection. Ann Veronica thought the whole affair rather jolly. Ritter +sold better food than most of his compatriots, and cooked it better, and +Ramage, with a fine perception of a feminine palate, ordered Vero Capri. +It was, Ann Veronica felt, as a sip or so of that remarkable blend +warmed her blood, just the sort of thing that her aunt would not +approve, to be lunching thus, tete-a-tete with a man; and yet at the +same time it was a perfectly innocent as well as agreeable proceeding. + +They talked across their meal in an easy and friendly manner about Ann +Veronica's affairs. He was really very bright and clever, with a sort of +conversational boldness that was just within the limits of permissible +daring. She described the Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave him +a sketch of her landlady; and he talked in the most liberal and +entertaining way of a modern young woman's outlook. He seemed to know +a great deal about life. He gave glimpses of possibilities. He roused +curiosities. He contrasted wonderfully with the empty showing-off of +Teddy. His friendship seemed a thing worth having.... + +But when she was thinking it over in her room that evening vague and +baffling doubts came drifting across this conviction. She doubted how +she stood toward him and what the restrained gleam of his face might +signify. She felt that perhaps, in her desire to play an adequate part +in the conversation, she had talked rather more freely than she ought to +have done, and given him a wrong impression of herself. + + + +Part 7 + + +That was two days before Christmas Eve. The next morning came a compact +letter from her father. + + +"MY DEAR DAUGHTER," it ran,--"Here, on the verge of the season +of forgiveness I hold out a last hand to you in the hope of a +reconciliation. I ask you, although it is not my place to ask you, to +return home. This roof is still open to you. You will not be taunted +if you return and everything that can be done will be done to make you +happy. + +"Indeed, I must implore you to return. This adventure of yours has gone +on altogether too long; it has become a serious distress to both your +aunt and myself. We fail altogether to understand your motives in doing +what you are doing, or, indeed, how you are managing to do it, or what +you are managing on. If you will think only of one trifling aspect--the +inconvenience it must be to us to explain your absence--I think you may +begin to realize what it all means for us. I need hardly say that your +aunt joins with me very heartily in this request. + +"Please come home. You will not find me unreasonable with you. + +"Your affectionate + +"FATHER." + + +Ann Veronica sat over her fire with her father's note in her hand. +"Queer letters he writes," she said. "I suppose most people's letters +are queer. Roof open--like a Noah's Ark. I wonder if he really wants me +to go home. It's odd how little I know of him, and of how he feels and +what he feels." + +"I wonder how he treated Gwen." + +Her mind drifted into a speculation about her sister. "I ought to look +up Gwen," she said. "I wonder what happened." + +Then she fell to thinking about her aunt. "I would like to go home," she +cried, "to please her. She has been a dear. Considering how little he +lets her have." + +The truth prevailed. "The unaccountable thing is that I wouldn't go home +to please her. She is, in her way, a dear. One OUGHT to want to please +her. And I don't. I don't care. I can't even make myself care." + +Presently, as if for comparison with her father's letter, she got out +Ramage's check from the box that contained her papers. For so far she +had kept it uncashed. She had not even endorsed it. + +"Suppose I chuck it," she remarked, standing with the mauve slip in her +hand--"suppose I chuck it, and surrender and go home! Perhaps, after +all, Roddy was right! + +"Father keeps opening the door and shutting it, but a time will come-- + +"I could still go home!" + +She held Ramage's check as if to tear it across. "No," she said at last; +"I'm a human being--not a timid female. What could I do at home? The +other's a crumple-up--just surrender. Funk! I'll see it out." + + + +CHAPTER THE EIGHTH + +BIOLOGY + + +Part 1 + + +January found Ann Veronica a student in the biological laboratory of the +Central Imperial College that towers up from among the back streets in +the angle between Euston Road and Great Portland Street. She was working +very steadily at the Advanced Course in Comparative Anatomy, wonderfully +relieved to have her mind engaged upon one methodically developing theme +in the place of the discursive uncertainties of the previous two months, +and doing her utmost to keep right in the back of her mind and out +of sight the facts, firstly, that she had achieved this haven of +satisfactory activity by incurring a debt to Ramage of forty pounds, +and, secondly, that her present position was necessarily temporary and +her outlook quite uncertain. + +The biological laboratory had an atmosphere that was all its own. + +It was at the top of the building, and looked clear over a clustering +mass of inferior buildings toward Regent's Park. It was long and narrow, +a well-lit, well-ventilated, quiet gallery of small tables and sinks, +pervaded by a thin smell of methylated spirit and of a mitigated +and sterilized organic decay. Along the inner side was a wonderfully +arranged series of displayed specimens that Russell himself had +prepared. The supreme effect for Ann Veronica was its surpassing +relevance; it made every other atmosphere she knew seem discursive and +confused. The whole place and everything in it aimed at one thing--to +illustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make ever +plainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable structure. +It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with the Theory of the +Forms of Life; the very duster by the blackboard was there to do its +share in that work, the very washers in the taps; the room was more +simply concentrated in aim even than a church. To that, perhaps, a +large part of its satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confused +movement and presences of a Fabian meeting, or the inexplicable +enthusiasm behind the suffrage demand, with the speeches that were +partly egotistical displays, partly artful manoeuvres, and partly +incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with the +comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were like the +eddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, methodical +chamber shone like a star seen through clouds. + +Day after day for a measured hour in the lecture-theatre, with elaborate +power and patience, Russell pieced together difficulty and suggestion, +instance and counter-instance, in the elaborate construction of the +family tree of life. And then the students went into the long laboratory +and followed out these facts in almost living tissue with microscope and +scalpel, probe and microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care, +making now and then a raid into the compact museum of illustration next +door, in which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplined +ranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was a couple +of blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and at these Capes, +with quick and nervous speech that contrasted vividly with Russell's +slow, definitive articulation, directed the dissection and made +illuminating comments on the structures under examination. Then he +would come along the laboratory, sitting down by each student in +turn, checking the work and discussing its difficulties, and answering +questions arising out of Russell's lecture. + +Ann Veronica had come to the Imperial College obsessed by the +great figure of Russell, by the part he had played in the Darwinian +controversies, and by the resolute effect of the grim-lipped, yellow, +leonine face beneath the mane of silvery hair. Capes was rather a +discovery. Capes was something superadded. Russell burned like a beacon, +but Capes illuminated by darting flashes and threw light, even if it +was but momentary light, into a hundred corners that Russell left +steadfastly in the shade. + +Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two or three-and-thirty, so +ruddily blond that it was a mercy he had escaped light eyelashes, and +with a minor but by no means contemptible reputation of his own. He +talked at the blackboard in a pleasant, very slightly lisping voice with +a curious spontaneity, and was sometimes very clumsy in his exposition, +and sometimes very vivid. He dissected rather awkwardly and hurriedly, +but, on the whole, effectively, and drew with an impatient directness +that made up in significance what it lacked in precision. Across the +blackboard the colored chalks flew like flights of variously tinted +rockets as diagram after diagram flickered into being. + +There happened that year to be an unusual proportion of girls and women +in the advanced laboratory, perhaps because the class as a whole was an +exceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four of these were women +students. As a consequence of its small size, it was possible to get +along with the work on a much easier and more colloquial footing than +a larger class would have permitted. And a custom had grown up of a +general tea at four o'clock, under the auspices of a Miss Garvice, a +tall and graceful girl of distinguished intellectual incompetence, in +whom the hostess instinct seemed to be abnormally developed. + +Capes would come to these teas; he evidently liked to come, and he +would appear in the doorway of the preparation-room, a pleasing note of +shyness in his manner, hovering for an invitation. + +From the first, Ann Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man. +To begin with, he struck her as being the most variable person she had +ever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful, talked round +and over every one, and would have been domineering if he had not +been extraordinarily kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, and +defeated Miss Garvice's most skilful attempts to draw him out. Sometimes +he was obviously irritable and uncomfortable and unfortunate in his +efforts to seem at ease. And sometimes he overflowed with a peculiarly +malignant wit that played, with devastating effect, upon any topics that +had the courage to face it. Ann Veronica's experiences of men had been +among more stable types--Teddy, who was always absurd; her father, +who was always authoritative and sentimental; Manning, who was always +Manning. And most of the others she had met had, she felt, the same +steadfastness. Goopes, she was sure was always high-browed and slow and +Socratic. And Ramage too--about Ramage there would always be that air of +avidity, that air of knowledge and inquiry, the mixture of things in his +talk that were rather good with things that were rather poor. But one +could not count with any confidence upon Capes. + +The five men students were a mixed company. There was a very white-faced +youngster of eighteen who brushed back his hair exactly in Russell's +manner, and was disposed to be uncomfortably silent when he was +near her, and to whom she felt it was only Christian kindness to be +consistently pleasant; and a lax young man of five-and-twenty in navy +blue, who mingled Marx and Bebel with the more orthodox gods of the +biological pantheon. There was a short, red-faced, resolute youth who +inherited an authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father; +a Japanese student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and had +an imperfect knowledge of English; and a dark, unwashed Scotchman +with complicated spectacles, who would come every morning as a sort of +volunteer supplementary demonstrator, look very closely at her work +and her, tell her that her dissections were "fairish," or "very fairish +indeed," or "high above the normal female standard," hover as if for +some outbreak of passionate gratitude and with admiring retrospects +that made the facetted spectacles gleam like diamonds, return to his own +place. + +The women, Ann Veronica thought, were not quite so interesting as the +men. There were two school-mistresses, one of whom--Miss Klegg--might +have been a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so many Miniver +traits; there was a preoccupied girl whose name Ann Veronica never +learned, but who worked remarkably well; and Miss Garvice, who began +by attracting her very greatly--she moved so beautifully--and ended by +giving her the impression that moving beautifully was the beginning and +end of her being. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next few weeks were a time of the very liveliest thought and growth +for Ann Veronica. The crowding impressions of the previous weeks seemed +to run together directly her mind left the chaotic search for employment +and came into touch again with a coherent and systematic development +of ideas. The advanced work at the Central Imperial College was in the +closest touch with living interests and current controversies; it drew +its illustrations and material from Russell's two great researches--upon +the relation of the brachiopods to the echinodermata, and upon the +secondary and tertiary mammalian and pseudo-mammalian factors in the +free larval forms of various marine organisms. Moreover, a vigorous fire +of mutual criticism was going on now between the Imperial College and +the Cambridge Mendelians and echoed in the lectures. From beginning to +end it was first-hand stuff. + +But the influence of the science radiated far beyond its own special +field--beyond those beautiful but highly technical problems with which +we do not propose for a moment to trouble the naturally terrified +reader. Biology is an extraordinarily digestive science. It throws out a +number of broad experimental generalizations, and then sets out to +bring into harmony or relation with these an infinitely multifarious +collection of phenomena. The little streaks upon the germinating area +of an egg, the nervous movements of an impatient horse, the trick of +a calculating boy, the senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of a +garden flower, and the slime upon a sea-wet rock--ten thousand such +things bear their witness and are illuminated. And not only did these +tentacular generalizations gather all the facts of natural history and +comparative anatomy together, but they seemed always stretching out +further and further into a world of interests that lay altogether +outside their legitimate bounds. + +It came to Ann Veronica one night after a long talk with Miss Miniver, +as a sudden remarkable thing, as a grotesque, novel aspect, that this +slowly elaborating biological scheme had something more than an academic +interest for herself. And not only so, but that it was after all, a more +systematic and particular method of examining just the same questions +that underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of the +West Central Arts Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, the +bottomless discussions of the simple-life homes. It was the same Bios +whose nature and drift and ways and methods and aspects engaged +them all. And she, she in her own person too, was this eternal Bios, +beginning again its recurrent journey to selection and multiplication +and failure or survival. + +But this was but a momentary gleam of personal application, and at this +time she followed it up no further. + +And now Ann Veronica's evenings were also becoming very busy. She +pursued her interest in the Socialist movement and in the Suffragist +agitation in the company of Miss Miniver. They went to various central +and local Fabian gatherings, and to a number of suffrage meetings. Teddy +Widgett hovered on the fringe of all these gatherings, blinking at Ann +Veronica and occasionally making a wildly friendly dash at her, and +carrying her and Miss Miniver off to drink cocoa with a choice diversity +of other youthful and congenial Fabians after the meetings. Then Mr. +Manning loomed up ever and again into her world, full of a futile +solicitude, and almost always declaring she was splendid, splendid, and +wishing he could talk things out with her. Teas he contributed to the +commissariat of Ann Veronica's campaign--quite a number of teas. He +would get her to come to tea with him, usually in a pleasant tea-room +over a fruit-shop in Tottenham Court Road, and he would discuss his own +point of view and hint at a thousand devotions were she but to command +him. And he would express various artistic sensibilities and aesthetic +appreciations in carefully punctuated sentences and a large, clear +voice. At Christmas he gave her a set of a small edition of Meredith's +novels, very prettily bound in flexible leather, being guided in the +choice of an author, as he intimated, rather by her preferences than his +own. + +There was something markedly and deliberately liberal-minded in his +manner in all their encounters. He conveyed not only his sense of the +extreme want of correctitude in their unsanctioned meetings, but also +that, so far as he was concerned, this irregularity mattered not at +all, that he had flung--and kept on flinging--such considerations to the +wind. + +And, in addition, she was now seeing and talking to Ramage almost +weekly, on a theory which she took very gravely, that they were +exceptionally friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with him in +some little Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the district toward +Soho, or in one of the more stylish and magnificent establishments about +Piccadilly Circus, and for the most part she did not care to refuse. +Nor, indeed, did she want to refuse. These dinners, from their lavish +display of ambiguous hors d'oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes of +frilled paper, with their Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and their +polyglot waiters and polyglot clientele, were very funny and bright; +and she really liked Ramage, and valued his help and advice. It was +interesting to see how different and characteristic his mode of approach +was to all sorts of questions that interested her, and it was amusing to +discover this other side to the life of a Morningside Park inhabitant. +She had thought that all Morningside Park householders came home before +seven at the latest, as her father usually did. Ramage talked always +about women or some woman's concern, and very much about Ann Veronica's +own outlook upon life. He was always drawing contrasts between a woman's +lot and a man's, and treating her as a wonderful new departure in this +comparison. Ann Veronica liked their relationship all the more because +it was an unusual one. + +After these dinners they would have a walk, usually to the Thames +Embankment to see the two sweeps of river on either side of Waterloo +Bridge; and then they would part at Westminster Bridge, perhaps, and +he would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they should go to a +music-hall and see a wonderful new dancer, but Ann Veronica did not feel +she cared to see a new dancer. So, instead, they talked of dancing +and what it might mean in a human life. Ann Veronica thought it was +a spontaneous release of energy expressive of well-being, but Ramage +thought that by dancing, men, and such birds and animals as dance, come +to feel and think of their bodies. + +This intercourse, which had been planned to warm Ann Veronica to a +familiar affection with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to a +constantly deepening interest in Ann Veronica. He felt that he was +getting on with her very slowly indeed, but he did not see how he could +get on faster. He had, he felt, to create certain ideas and vivify +certain curiosities and feelings in her. Until that was done a certain +experience of life assured him that a girl is a locked coldness against +a man's approach. She had all the fascination of being absolutely +perplexing in this respect. On the one hand, she seemed to think plainly +and simply, and would talk serenely and freely about topics that most +women have been trained either to avoid or conceal; and on the other she +was unconscious, or else she had an air of being unconscious--that was +the riddle--to all sorts of personal applications that almost any girl +or woman, one might have thought, would have made. He was always doing +his best to call her attention to the fact that he was a man of spirit +and quality and experience, and she a young and beautiful woman, and +that all sorts of constructions upon their relationship were possible, +trusting her to go on from that to the idea that all sorts of +relationships were possible. She responded with an unfaltering +appearance of insensibility, and never as a young and beautiful woman +conscious of sex; always in the character of an intelligent girl +student. + +His perception of her personal beauty deepened and quickened with each +encounter. Every now and then her general presence became radiantly +dazzling in his eyes; she would appear in the street coming toward him, +a surprise, so fine and smiling and welcoming was she, so expanded and +illuminated and living, in contrast with his mere expectation. Or he +would find something--a wave in her hair, a little line in the contour +of her brow or neck, that made an exquisite discovery. + +He was beginning to think about her inordinately. He would sit in +his inner office and compose conversations with her, penetrating, +illuminating, and nearly conclusive--conversations that never proved to +be of the slightest use at all with her when he met her face to face. +And he began also at times to wake at night and think about her. + +He thought of her and himself, and no longer in that vein of incidental +adventure in which he had begun. He thought, too, of the fretful invalid +who lay in the next room to his, whose money had created his business +and made his position in the world. + +"I've had most of the things I wanted," said Ramage, in the stillness of +the night. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time Ann Veronica's family had desisted from direct offers of a +free pardon; they were evidently waiting for her resources to come to +an end. Neither father, aunt, nor brothers made a sign, and then +one afternoon in early February her aunt came up in a state between +expostulation and dignified resentment, but obviously very anxious for +Ann Veronica's welfare. "I had a dream in the night," she said. "I saw +you in a sort of sloping, slippery place, holding on by your hands and +slipping. You seemed to me to be slipping and slipping, and your face +was white. It was really most vivid, most vivid! You seemed to be +slipping and just going to tumble and holding on. It made me wake up, +and there I lay thinking of you, spending your nights up here all alone, +and no one to look after you. I wondered what you could be doing and +what might be happening to you. I said to myself at once, 'Either this +is a coincidence or the caper sauce.' But I made sure it was you. I felt +I MUST do something anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I could to see +you." + +She had spoken rather rapidly. "I can't help saying it," she said, with +the quality of her voice altering, "but I do NOT think it is right for +an unprotected girl to be in London alone as you are." + +"But I'm quite equal to taking care of myself, aunt." + +"It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable for every +one concerned." + +She spoke with a certain asperity. She felt that Ann Veronica had duped +her in that dream, and now that she had come up to London she might as +well speak her mind. + +"No Christmas dinner," she said, "or anything nice! One doesn't even +know what you are doing." + +"I'm going on working for my degree." + +"Why couldn't you do that at home?" + +"I'm working at the Imperial College. You see, aunt, it's the only +possible way for me to get a good degree in my subjects, and father +won't hear of it. There'd only be endless rows if I was at home. And how +could I come home--when he locks me in rooms and all that?" + +"I do wish this wasn't going on," said Miss Stanley, after a pause. "I +do wish you and your father could come to some agreement." + +Ann Veronica responded with conviction: "I wish so, too." + +"Can't we arrange something? Can't we make a sort of treaty?" + +"He wouldn't keep it. He would get very cross one evening and no one +would dare to remind him of it." + +"How can you say such things?" + +"But he would!" + +"Still, it isn't your place to say so." + +"It prevents a treaty." + +"Couldn't _I_ make a treaty?" + +Ann Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty that would +leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners with Ramage +or go on walking round the London squares discussing Socialism with Miss +Miniver toward the small hours. She had tasted freedom now, and so far +she had not felt the need of protection. Still, there certainly was +something in the idea of a treaty. + +"I don't see at all how you can be managing," said Miss Stanley, and Ann +Veronica hastened to reply, "I do on very little." Her mind went back to +that treaty. + +"And aren't there fees to pay at the Imperial College?" her aunt was +saying--a disagreeable question. + +"There are a few fees." + +"Then how have you managed?" + +"Bother!" said Ann Veronica to herself, and tried not to look guilty. "I +was able to borrow the money." + +"Borrow the money! But who lent you the money?" + +"A friend," said Ann Veronica. + +She felt herself getting into a corner. She sought hastily in her mind +for a plausible answer to an obvious question that didn't come. Her aunt +went off at a tangent. "But my dear Ann Veronica, you will be getting +into debt!" + +Ann Veronica at once, and with a feeling of immense relief, took refuge +in her dignity. "I think, aunt," she said, "you might trust to my +self-respect to keep me out of that." + +For the moment her aunt could not think of any reply to this +counterstroke, and Ann Veronica followed up her advantage by a sudden +inquiry about her abandoned boots. + +But in the train going home her aunt reasoned it out. + +"If she is borrowing money," said Miss Stanley, "she MUST be getting +into debt. It's all nonsense...." + + + +Part 4 + + +It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in Ann +Veronica's thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, at last, +strides to something more and more like predominance. She began by being +interested in his demonstrations and his biological theory, then she was +attracted by his character, and then, in a manner, she fell in love with +his mind. + +One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion sprang up +about the question of women's suffrage. The movement was then in its +earlier militant phases, and one of the women only, Miss Garvice, +opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm. But a man's +opposition always inclined her to the suffrage side; she had a curious +feeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive women through. Capes +was irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in +which case one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but +tepidly sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous +attack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost something +infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussion +wandered, and was punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclined +to support Miss Klegg until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting him +against himself, and citing a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in +which, following Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack +on Lester Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant +importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom. + +Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher; she had +a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice's advantage. Afterwards +she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed to her quite +delightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffected +writing, coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to follow +his written thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with a +perfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to read +more of him, and the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and +hunted first among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then +through various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The +ordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, is apt +to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was delighted to find +the same easy and confident luminosity that distinguished his work for +the general reader. She returned to these latter, and at the back of +her mind, as she looked them over again, was a very distinct resolve +to quote them after the manner of Miss Garvice at the very first +opportunity. + +When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with +something like surprise upon her half-day's employment, and decided +that it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really very +interesting person indeed. + +And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was so +distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some +time that this might be because she was falling in love with him. + + + +Part 5 + + +Yet Ann Veronica was thinking a very great deal about love. A dozen +shynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked or broken +down in her mind. All the influences about her worked with her own +predisposition and against all the traditions of her home and upbringing +to deal with the facts of life in an unabashed manner. Ramage, by a +hundred skilful hints had led her to realize that the problem of her own +life was inseparably associated with, and indeed only one special case +of, the problems of any woman's life, and that the problem of a woman's +life is love. + +"A young man comes into life asking how best he may place himself," +Ramage had said; "a woman comes into life thinking instinctively how +best she may give herself." + +She noted that as a good saying, and it germinated and spread tentacles +of explanation through her brain. The biological laboratory, perpetually +viewing life as pairing and breeding and selection, and again pairing +and breeding, seemed only a translated generalization of that assertion. +And all the talk of the Miniver people and the Widgett people seemed +always to be like a ship in adverse weather on the lee shore of love. +"For seven years," said Ann Veronica, "I have been trying to keep myself +from thinking about love.... + +"I have been training myself to look askance at beautiful things." + +She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She made +herself a private declaration of liberty. "This is mere nonsense, mere +tongue-tied fear!" she said. "This is the slavery of the veiled life. +I might as well be at Morningside Park. This business of love is the +supreme affair in life, it is the woman's one event and crisis that +makes up for all her other restrictions, and I cower--as we all +cower--with a blushing and paralyzed mind until it overtakes me!... + +"I'll be hanged if I do." + +But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all that +manumission. + +Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing for +openings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. But something +instinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be +"silly" and prudish she found that whenever he became at all bold +in this matter she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost +entomological indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he made +it and pinned it out for examination. In the biological laboratory that +was their invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her own +mental austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her friend, +who evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic and was +willing to give her the benefit of his experiences! Why should not she +be at her ease with him? Why should not she know things? It is hard +enough anyhow for a human being to learn, she decided, but it is a dozen +times more difficult than it need be because of all this locking of the +lips and thoughts. + +She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in one +direction, and talked one night of love and the facts of love with Miss +Miniver. + +But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of Mrs. +Goopes's: "Advanced people," she said, with an air of great elucidation, +"tend to GENERALIZE love. 'He prayeth best who loveth best--all things +both great and small.' For my own part I go about loving." + +"Yes, but men;" said Ann Veronica, plunging; "don't you want the love of +men?" + +For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this question. + +Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost balefully. +"NO!" she said, at last, with something in her voice that reminded Ann +Veronica of a sprung tennis-racket. + +"I've been through all that," she went on, after a pause. + +She spoke slowly. "I have never yet met a man whose intellect I could +respect." + +Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided to +persist on principle. + +"But if you had?" she said. + +"I can't imagine it," said Miss Miniver. "And think, think"--her voice +sank--"of the horrible coarseness!" + +"What coarseness?" said Ann Veronica. + +"My dear Vee!" Her voice became very low. "Don't you know?" + +"Oh! I know--" + +"Well--" Her face was an unaccustomed pink. + +Ann Veronica ignored her friend's confusion. + +"Don't we all rather humbug about the coarseness? All we women, I mean," +said she. She decided to go on, after a momentary halt. "We pretend +bodies are ugly. Really they are the most beautiful things in the world. +We pretend we never think of everything that makes us what we are." + +"No," cried Miss Miniver, almost vehemently. "You are wrong! I did not +think you thought such things. Bodies! Bodies! Horrible things! We are +souls. Love lives on a higher plane. We are not animals. If ever I +did meet a man I could love, I should love him"--her voice dropped +again--"platonically." + +She made her glasses glint. "Absolutely platonically," she said. + +"Soul to soul." + +She turned her face to the fire, gripped her hands upon her elbows, and +drew her thin shoulders together in a shrug. "Ugh!" she said. + +Ann Veronica watched her and wondered about her. + +"We do not want the men," said Miss Miniver; "we do not want them, with +their sneers and loud laughter. Empty, silly, coarse brutes. Brutes! +They are the brute still with us! Science some day may teach us a way +to do without them. It is only the women matter. It is not every sort of +creature needs--these males. Some have no males." + +"There's green-fly," admitted Ann Veronica. "And even then--" + +The conversation hung for a thoughtful moment. + +Ann Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand. "I wonder which of us is +right," she said. "I haven't a scrap--of this sort of aversion." + +"Tolstoy is so good about this," said Miss Miniver, regardless of her +friend's attitude. "He sees through it all. The Higher Life and the +Lower. He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts, coarse ways of living +cruelties. Simply because they are hardened by--by bestiality, +and poisoned by the juices of meat slain in anger and fermented +drinks--fancy! drinks that have been swarmed in by thousands and +thousands of horrible little bacteria!" + +"It's yeast," said Ann Veronica--"a vegetable." + +"It's all the same," said Miss Miniver. "And then they are swollen up +and inflamed and drunken with matter. They are blinded to all fine +and subtle things--they look at life with bloodshot eyes and dilated +nostrils. They are arbitrary and unjust and dogmatic and brutish and +lustful." + +"But do you really think men's minds are altered by the food they eat?" + +"I know it," said Miss Miniver. "Experte credo. When I am leading a true +life, a pure and simple life free of all stimulants and excitements, I +think--I think--oh! with pellucid clearness; but if I so much as take a +mouthful of meat--or anything--the mirror is all blurred." + + + +Part 6 + + +Then, arising she knew not how, like a new-born appetite, came a craving +in Ann Veronica for the sight and sound of beauty. + +It was as if her aesthetic sense had become inflamed. Her mind turned +and accused itself of having been cold and hard. She began to look for +beauty and discover it in unexpected aspects and places. Hitherto she +had seen it chiefly in pictures and other works of art, incidentally, +and as a thing taken out of life. Now the sense of beauty was spreading +to a multitude of hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her. + +The thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with her +biological work. She found herself asking more and more curiously, "Why, +on the principle of the survival of the fittest, have I any sense of +beauty at all?" That enabled her to go on thinking about beauty when it +seemed to her right that she should be thinking about biology. + +She was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values--the two +series of explanations that her comparative anatomy on the one hand and +her sense of beauty on the other, set going in her thoughts. She could +not make up her mind which was the finer, more elemental thing, which +gave its values to the other. Was it that the struggle of things +to survive produced as a sort of necessary by-product these intense +preferences and appreciations, or was it that some mystical outer thing, +some great force, drove life beautyward, even in spite of expediency, +regardless of survival value and all the manifest discretions of life? +She went to Capes with that riddle and put it to him very carefully and +clearly, and he talked well--he always talked at some length when she +took a difficulty to him--and sent her to a various literature upon the +markings of butterflies, the incomprehensible elaboration and splendor +of birds of Paradise and humming-birds' plumes, the patterning of +tigers, and a leopard's spots. He was interesting and inconclusive, and +the original papers to which he referred her discursive were at best +only suggestive. Afterward, one afternoon, he hovered about her, and +came and sat beside her and talked of beauty and the riddle of beauty +for some time. He displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism in +the matter. He contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were, +so to speak, sceptically dogmatic. Their talk drifted to the beauty of +music, and they took that up again at tea-time. + +But as the students sat about Miss Garvice's tea-pot and drank tea or +smoked cigarettes, the talk got away from Capes. The Scotchman informed +Ann Veronica that your view of beauty necessarily depended on your +metaphysical premises, and the young man with the Russell-like hair +became anxious to distinguish himself by telling the Japanese student +that Western art was symmetrical and Eastern art asymmetrical, and that +among the higher organisms the tendency was toward an external symmetry +veiling an internal want of balance. Ann Veronica decided she would have +to go on with Capes another day, and, looking up, discovered him sitting +on a stool with his hands in his pockets and his head a little on one +side, regarding her with a thoughtful expression. She met his eye for a +moment in curious surprise. + +He turned his eyes and stared at Miss Garvice like one who wakes from +a reverie, and then got up and strolled down the laboratory toward his +refuge, the preparation-room. + + + +Part 7 + + +Then one day a little thing happened that clothed itself in +significance. + +She had been working upon a ribbon of microtome sections of the +developing salamander, and he came to see what she had made of them. She +stood up and he sat down at the microscope, and for a time he was busy +scrutinizing one section after another. She looked down at him and saw +that the sunlight was gleaming from his cheeks, and that all over +his cheeks was a fine golden down of delicate hairs. And at the sight +something leaped within her. + +Something changed for her. + +She became aware of his presence as she had never been aware of any +human being in her life before. She became aware of the modelling of his +ear, of the muscles of his neck and the textures of the hair that came +off his brow, the soft minute curve of eyelid that she could just see +beyond his brow; she perceived all these familiar objects as though +they were acutely beautiful things. They WERE, she realized, acutely +beautiful things. Her sense followed the shoulders under his coat, down +to where his flexible, sensitive-looking hand rested lightly upon the +table. She felt him as something solid and strong and trustworthy beyond +measure. The perception of him flooded her being. + +He got up. "Here's something rather good," he said, and with a start and +an effort she took his place at the microscope, while he stood beside +her and almost leaning over her. + +She found she was trembling at his nearness and full of a thrilling +dread that he might touch her. She pulled herself together and put her +eye to the eye-piece. + +"You see the pointer?" he asked. + +"I see the pointer," she said. + +"It's like this," he said, and dragged a stool beside her and sat down +with his elbow four inches from hers and made a sketch. Then he got up +and left her. + +She had a feeling at his departure as of an immense cavity, of something +enormously gone; she could not tell whether it was infinite regret or +infinite relief.... + +But now Ann Veronica knew what was the matter with her. + + + +Part 8 + + +And as she sat on her bed that night, musing and half-undressed, she +began to run one hand down her arm and scrutinize the soft flow of +muscle under her skin. She thought of the marvellous beauty of skin, +and all the delightfulness of living texture. Oh the back of her arm she +found the faintest down of hair in the world. "Etherialized monkey," she +said. She held out her arm straight before her, and turned her hand this +way and that. + +"Why should one pretend?" she whispered. "Why should one pretend? + +"Think of all the beauty in the world that is covered up and overlaid." + +She glanced shyly at the mirror above her dressing-table, and then about +her at the furniture, as though it might penetrate to the thoughts that +peeped in her mind. + +"I wonder," said Ann Veronica at last, "if I am beautiful? I wonder if I +shall ever shine like a light, like a translucent goddess?-- + +"I wonder-- + +"I suppose girls and women have prayed for this, have come to this--In +Babylon, in Nineveh. + +"Why shouldn't one face the facts of one's self?" + +She stood up. She posed herself before her mirror and surveyed herself +with gravely thoughtful, gravely critical, and yet admiring eyes. "And, +after all, I am just one common person!" + +She watched the throb of the arteries in the stem of her neck, and +put her hand at last gently and almost timidly to where her heart beat +beneath her breast. + + + +Part 9 + + +The realization that she was in love flooded Ann Veronica's mind, and +altered the quality of all its topics. + +She began to think persistently of Capes, and it seemed to her now that +for some weeks at least she must have been thinking persistently of +him unawares. She was surprised to find how stored her mind was with +impressions and memories of him, how vividly she remembered his gestures +and little things that he had said. It occurred to her that it was +absurd and wrong to be so continuously thinking of one engrossing topic, +and she made a strenuous effort to force her mind to other questions. + +But it was extraordinary what seemingly irrelevant things could restore +her to the thought of Capes again. And when she went to sleep, then +always Capes became the novel and wonderful guest of her dreams. + +For a time it really seemed all-sufficient to her that she should love. +That Capes should love her seemed beyond the compass of her imagination. +Indeed, she did not want to think of him as loving her. She wanted to +think of him as her beloved person, to be near him and watch him, +to have him going about, doing this and that, saying this and that, +unconscious of her, while she too remained unconscious of herself. To +think of him as loving her would make all that different. Then he would +turn his face to her, and she would have to think of herself in his +eyes. She would become defensive--what she did would be the thing that +mattered. He would require things of her, and she would be passionately +concerned to meet his requirements. Loving was better than that. Loving +was self-forgetfulness, pure delighting in another human being. She felt +that with Capes near to her she would be content always to go on loving. + +She went next day to the schools, and her world seemed all made of +happiness just worked up roughly into shapes and occasions and duties. +She found she could do her microscope work all the better for being in +love. She winced when first she heard the preparation-room door open and +Capes came down the laboratory; but when at last he reached her she was +self-possessed. She put a stool for him at a little distance from her +own, and after he had seen the day's work he hesitated, and then plunged +into a resumption of their discussion about beauty. + +"I think," he said, "I was a little too mystical about beauty the other +day." + +"I like the mystical way," she said. + +"Our business here is the right way. I've been thinking, you know--I'm +not sure that primarily the perception of beauty isn't just intensity +of feeling free from pain; intensity of perception without any tissue +destruction." + +"I like the mystical way better," said Ann Veronica, and thought. + +"A number of beautiful things are not intense." + +"But delicacy, for example, may be intensely perceived." + +"But why is one face beautiful and another not?" objected Ann Veronica; +"on your theory any two faces side by side in the sunlight ought to be +equally beautiful. One must get them with exactly the same intensity." + +He did not agree with that. "I don't mean simply intensity of sensation. +I said intensity of perception. You may perceive harmony, proportion, +rhythm, intensely. They are things faint and slight in themselves, as +physical facts, but they are like the detonator of a bomb: they +let loose the explosive. There's the internal factor as well as the +external.... I don't know if I express myself clearly. I mean that +the point is that vividness of perception is the essential factor of +beauty; but, of course, vividness may be created by a whisper." + +"That brings us back," said Ann Veronica, "to the mystery. Why should +some things and not others open the deeps?" + +"Well, that might, after all, be an outcome of selection--like the +preference for blue flowers, which are not nearly so bright as yellow, +of some insects." + +"That doesn't explain sunsets." + +"Not quite so easily as it explains an insect alighting on colored +paper. But perhaps if people didn't like clear, bright, healthy +eyes--which is biologically understandable--they couldn't like precious +stones. One thing may be a necessary collateral of the others. And, +after all, a fine clear sky of bright colors is the signal to come out +of hiding and rejoice and go on with life." + +"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and shook her head. + +Capes smiled cheerfully with his eyes meeting hers. "I throw it out +in passing," he said. "What I am after is that beauty isn't a special +inserted sort of thing; that's my idea. It's just life, pure life, life +nascent, running clear and strong." + +He stood up to go on to the next student. + +"There's morbid beauty," said Ann Veronica. + +"I wonder if there is!" said Capes, and paused, and then bent down over +the boy who wore his hair like Russell. + +Ann Veronica surveyed his sloping back for a moment, and then drew her +microscope toward her. Then for a time she sat very still. She felt that +she had passed a difficult corner, and that now she could go on talking +with him again, just as she had been used to do before she understood +what was the matter with her.... + +She had one idea, she found, very clear in her mind--that she would get +a Research Scholarship, and so contrive another year in the laboratory. + +"Now I see what everything means," said Ann Veronica to herself; and it +really felt for some days as though the secret of the universe, that had +been wrapped and hidden from her so obstinately, was at last altogether +displayed. + + + +CHAPTER THE NINTH + +DISCORDS + +Part 1 + +One afternoon, soon after Ann Veronica's great discovery, a telegram +came into the laboratory for her. It ran: + + --------------------------------------------------- + | Bored | and | nothing | to | do | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | will | you | dine | with | me | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | to-night | somewhere | and | talk | I | + |----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| + | shall | be | grateful | Ramage | | + --------------------------------------------------- + +Ann Veronica was rather pleased by this. She had not seen Ramage for ten +or eleven days, and she was quite ready for a gossip with him. And now +her mind was so full of the thought that she was in love--in love!--that +marvellous state! that I really believe she had some dim idea of talking +to him about it. At any rate, it would be good to hear him saying the +sort of things he did--perhaps now she would grasp them better--with +this world-shaking secret brandishing itself about inside her head +within a yard of him. + +She was sorry to find Ramage a little disposed to be melancholy. + +"I have made over seven hundred pounds in the last week," he said. + +"That's exhilarating," said Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit of it," he said; "it's only a score in a game." + +"It's a score you can buy all sorts of things with." + +"Nothing that one wants." + +He turned to the waiter, who held a wine-card. "Nothing can cheer me," +he said, "except champagne." He meditated. "This," he said, and then: +"No! Is this sweeter? Very well." + +"Everything goes well with me," he said, folding his arms under him and +regarding Ann Veronica with the slightly projecting eyes wide open. "And +I'm not happy. I believe I'm in love." + +He leaned back for his soup. + +Presently he resumed: "I believe I must be in love." + +"You can't be that," said Ann Veronica, wisely. + +"How do you know?" + +"Well, it isn't exactly a depressing state, is it?" + +"YOU don't know." + +"One has theories," said Ann Veronica, radiantly. + +"Oh, theories! Being in love is a fact." + +"It ought to make one happy." + +"It's an unrest--a longing--What's that?" The waiter had intervened. +"Parmesan--take it away!" + +He glanced at Ann Veronica's face, and it seemed to him that she really +was exceptionally radiant. He wondered why she thought love made people +happy, and began to talk of the smilax and pinks that adorned the table. +He filled her glass with champagne. "You MUST," he said, "because of my +depression." + +They were eating quails when they returned to the topic of love. "What +made you think" he said, abruptly, with the gleam of avidity in his +face, "that love makes people happy?" + +"I know it must." + +"But how?" + +He was, she thought, a little too insistent. "Women know these things by +instinct," she answered. + +"I wonder," he said, "if women do know things by instinct? I have +my doubts about feminine instinct. It's one of our conventional +superstitions. A woman is supposed to know when a man is in love with +her. Do you think she does?" + +Ann Veronica picked among her salad with a judicial expression of face. +"I think she would," she decided. + +"Ah!" said Ramage, impressively. + +Ann Veronica looked up at him and found him regarding her with eyes that +were almost woebegone, and into which, indeed, he was trying to throw +much more expression than they could carry. There was a little pause +between them, full for Ann Veronica of rapid elusive suspicions and +intimations. + +"Perhaps one talks nonsense about a woman's instinct," she said. "It's +a way of avoiding explanations. And girls and women, perhaps, are +different. I don't know. I don't suppose a girl can tell if a man is in +love with her or not in love with her." Her mind went off to Capes. Her +thoughts took words for themselves. "She can't. I suppose it depends on +her own state of mind. If one wants a thing very much, perhaps one is +inclined to think one can't have it. I suppose if one were to love some +one, one would feel doubtful. And if one were to love some one very +much, it's just so that one would be blindest, just when one wanted most +to see." + +She stopped abruptly, afraid that Ramage might be able to infer Capes +from the things she had said, and indeed his face was very eager. + +"Yes?" he said. + +Ann Veronica blushed. "That's all," she said "I'm afraid I'm a little +confused about these things." + +Ramage looked at her, and then fell into deep reflection as the waiter +came to paragraph their talk again. + +"Have you ever been to the opera, Ann Veronica?" said Ramage. + +"Once or twice." + +"Shall we go now?" + +"I think I would like to listen to music. What is there?" + +"Tristan." + +"I've never heard Tristan and Isolde." + +"That settles it. We'll go. There's sure to be a place somewhere." + +"It's rather jolly of you," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's jolly of you to come," said Ramage. + +So presently they got into a hansom together, and Ann Veronica sat back +feeling very luxurious and pleasant, and looked at the light and stir +and misty glitter of the street traffic from under slightly drooping +eyelids, while Ramage sat closer to her than he need have done, and +glanced ever and again at her face, and made to speak and said nothing. +And when they got to Covent Garden Ramage secured one of the little +upper boxes, and they came into it as the overture began. + +Ann Veronica took off her jacket and sat down in the corner chair, and +leaned forward to look into the great hazy warm brown cavity of the +house, and Ramage placed his chair to sit beside her and near her, +facing the stage. The music took hold of her slowly as her eyes wandered +from the indistinct still ranks of the audience to the little busy +orchestra with its quivering violins, its methodical movements of brown +and silver instruments, its brightly lit scores and shaded lights. She +had never been to the opera before except as one of a congested mass of +people in the cheaper seats, and with backs and heads and women's hats +for the frame of the spectacle; there was by contrast a fine large sense +of space and ease in her present position. The curtain rose out of the +concluding bars of the overture and revealed Isolde on the prow of the +barbaric ship. The voice of the young seaman came floating down from the +masthead, and the story of the immortal lovers had begun. She knew +the story only imperfectly, and followed it now with a passionate and +deepening interest. The splendid voices sang on from phase to phase of +love's unfolding, the ship drove across the sea to the beating rhythm of +the rowers. The lovers broke into passionate knowledge of themselves and +each other, and then, a jarring intervention, came King Mark amidst the +shouts of the sailormen, and stood beside them. + +The curtain came festooning slowly down, the music ceased, the lights +in the auditorium glowed out, and Ann Veronica woke out of her confused +dream of involuntary and commanding love in a glory of sound and colors +to discover that Ramage was sitting close beside her with one hand +resting lightly on her waist. She made a quick movement, and the hand +fell away. + +"By God! Ann Veronica," he said, sighing deeply. "This stirs one." + +She sat quite still looking at him. + +"I wish you and I had drunk that love potion," he said. + +She found no ready reply to that, and he went on: "This music is the +food of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure. Life! Life and +love! It makes me want to be always young, always strong, always +devoting my life--and dying splendidly." + +"It is very beautiful," said Ann Veronica in a low tone. + +They said no more for a moment, and each was now acutely aware of the +other. Ann Veronica was excited and puzzled, with a sense of a strange +and disconcerting new light breaking over her relations with Ramage. +She had never thought of him at all in that way before. It did not shock +her; it amazed her, interested her beyond measure. But also this must +not go on. She felt he was going to say something more--something +still more personal and intimate. She was curious, and at the same time +clearly resolved she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talking +upon some impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. +"What is the exact force of a motif?" she asked at random. "Before I +heard much Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic descriptions of it from +a mistress I didn't like at school. She gave me an impression of a sort +of patched quilt; little bits of patterned stuff coming up again and +again." + +She stopped with an air of interrogation. + +Ramage looked at her for a long and discriminating interval without +speaking. He seemed to be hesitating between two courses of action. "I +don't know much about the technique of music," he said at last, with his +eyes upon her. "It's a matter of feeling with me." + +He contradicted himself by plunging into an exposition of motifs. + +By a tacit agreement they ignored the significant thing between them, +ignored the slipping away of the ground on which they had stood together +hitherto.... + +All through the love music of the second act, until the hunting horns of +Mark break in upon the dream, Ann Veronica's consciousness was flooded +with the perception of a man close beside her, preparing some new thing +to say to her, preparing, perhaps, to touch her, stretching hungry +invisible tentacles about her. She tried to think what she should do in +this eventuality or that. Her mind had been and was full of the thought +of Capes, a huge generalized Capes-lover. And in some incomprehensible +way, Ramage was confused with Capes; she had a grotesque disposition to +persuade herself that this was really Capes who surrounded her, as it +were, with wings of desire. The fact that it was her trusted friend +making illicit love to her remained, in spite of all her effort, an +insignificant thing in her mind. The music confused and distracted her, +and made her struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam. +That was the inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The music +throbbed into the warnings that preceded the king's irruption. + +Abruptly he gripped her wrist. "I love you, Ann Veronica. I love +you--with all my heart and soul." + +She put her face closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of his. +"DON'T!" she said, and wrenched her wrist from his retaining hand. + +"My God! Ann Veronica," he said, struggling to keep his hold upon her; +"my God! Tell me--tell me now--tell me you love me!" + +His expression was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered in +whispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next box peeping +beyond the partition within a yard of him. + +"My hand! This isn't the place." + +He released her hand and talked in eager undertones against an auditory +background of urgency and distress. + +"Ann Veronica," he said, "I tell you this is love. I love the soles of +your feet. I love your very breath. I have tried not to tell you--tried +to be simply your friend. It is no good. I want you. I worship you. I +would do anything--I would give anything to make you mine.... Do you +hear me? Do you hear what I am saying?... Love!" + +He held her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive movement. +For a long time neither spoke again. + +She sat drawn together in her chair in the corner of the box, at a loss +what to say or do--afraid, curious, perplexed. It seemed to her that +it was her duty to get up and clamor to go home to her room, to protest +against his advances as an insult. But she did not in the least want +to do that. These sweeping dignities were not within the compass of her +will; she remembered she liked Ramage, and owed things to him, and she +was interested--she was profoundly interested. He was in love with +her! She tried to grasp all the welter of values in the situation +simultaneously, and draw some conclusion from their disorder. + +He began to talk again in quick undertones that she could not clearly +hear. + +"I have loved you," he was saying, "ever since you sat on that gate and +talked. I have always loved you. I don't care what divides us. I don't +care what else there is in the world. I want you beyond measure or +reckoning...." + +His voice rose and fell amidst the music and the singing of Tristan and +King Mark, like a voice heard in a badly connected telephone. She stared +at his pleading face. + +She turned to the stage, and Tristan was wounded in Kurvenal's arms, +with Isolde at his feet, and King Mark, the incarnation of masculine +force and obligation, the masculine creditor of love and beauty, stood +over him, and the second climax was ending in wreaths and reek of +melodies; and then the curtain was coming down in a series of short +rushes, the music had ended, and the people were stirring and breaking +out into applause, and the lights of the auditorium were resuming. The +lighting-up pierced the obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped his +urgent flow of words abruptly and sat back. This helped to restore Ann +Veronica's self-command. + +She turned her eyes to him again, and saw her late friend and pleasant +and trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to change into a lover, +babbling interesting inacceptable things. He looked eager and flushed +and troubled. His eyes caught at hers with passionate inquiries. "Tell +me," he said; "speak to me." She realized it was possible to be sorry +for him--acutely sorry for the situation. Of course this thing was +absolutely impossible. But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed. +She remembered abruptly that she was really living upon his money. She +leaned forward and addressed him. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, "please don't talk like this." + +He made to speak and did not. + +"I don't want you to do it, to go on talking to me. I don't want to hear +you. If I had known that you had meant to talk like this I wouldn't have +come here." + +"But how can I help it? How can I keep silence?" + +"Please!" she insisted. "Please not now." + +"I MUST talk with you. I must say what I have to say!" + +"But not now--not here." + +"It came," he said. "I never planned it--And now I have begun--" + +She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and as acutely +that explanations were impossible that night. She wanted to think. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, "I can't--Not now. Will you please--Not now, or +I must go." + +He stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of her thoughts. + +"You don't want to go?" + +"No. But I must--I ought--" + +"I MUST talk about this. Indeed I must." + +"Not now." + +"But I love you. I love you--unendurably." + +"Then don't talk to me now. I don't want you to talk to me now. There is +a place--This isn't the place. You have misunderstood. I can't explain--" + +They regarded one another, each blinded to the other. "Forgive me," he +decided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver of emotion, +and he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. "I am the most foolish of +men. I was stupid--stupid and impulsive beyond measure to burst upon +you in this way. I--I am a love-sick idiot, and not accountable for my +actions. Will you forgive me--if I say no more?" + +She looked at him with perplexed, earnest eyes. + +"Pretend," he said, "that all I have said hasn't been said. And let us +go on with our evening. Why not? Imagine I've had a fit of hysteria--and +that I've come round." + +"Yes," she said, and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt this +was the sensible way out of this oddly sinister situation. + +He still watched her and questioned her. + +"And let us have a talk about this--some other time. Somewhere, where we +can talk without interruption. Will you?" + +She thought, and it seemed to him she had never looked so +self-disciplined and deliberate and beautiful. "Yes," she said, "that +is what we ought to do." But now she doubted again of the quality of the +armistice they had just made. + +He had a wild impulse to shout. "Agreed," he said with queer exaltation, +and his grip tightened on her hand. "And to-night we are friends?" + +"We are friends," said Ann Veronica, and drew her hand quickly away from +him. + +"To-night we are as we have always been. Except that this music we have +been swimming in is divine. While I have been pestering you, have you +heard it? At least, you heard the first act. And all the third act is +love-sick music. Tristan dying and Isolde coming to crown his death. +Wagner had just been in love when he wrote it all. It begins with that +queer piccolo solo. Now I shall never hear it but what this evening will +come pouring back over me." + +The lights sank, the prelude to the third act was beginning, the +music rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers separated--lovers +separated with scars and memories between them, and the curtain went +reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch and the +shepherd crouching with his pipe. + + + +Part 2 + + +They had their explanations the next evening, but they were explanations +in quite other terms than Ann Veronica had anticipated, quite other and +much more startling and illuminating terms. Ramage came for her at her +lodgings, and she met him graciously and kindly as a queen who knows she +must needs give sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually soft +and gentle in her manner to him. He was wearing a new silk hat, with a +slightly more generous brim than its predecessor, and it suited his type +of face, robbed his dark eyes a little of their aggressiveness and gave +him a solid and dignified and benevolent air. A faint anticipation of +triumph showed in his manner and a subdued excitement. + +"We'll go to a place where we can have a private room," he said. +"Then--then we can talk things out." + +So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and up-stairs +to a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with whiskers like a +French admiral and discretion beyond all limits in his manner. He seemed +to have expected them. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into a +minute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa, +and a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers. + +"Odd little room," said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusive +sofa. + +"One can talk without undertones, so to speak," said Ramage. +"It's--private." He stood looking at the preparations before them with +an unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to take her +jacket, a little awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter who hung it in the +corner of the room. It appeared he had already ordered dinner and +wine, and the whiskered waiter waved in his subordinate with the soup +forthwith. + +"I'm going to talk of indifferent themes," said Ramage, a little +fussily, "until these interruptions of the service are over. Then--then +we shall be together.... How did you like Tristan?" + +Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply came. + +"I thought much of it amazingly beautiful." + +"Isn't it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest little +love-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of it?" + +"Never." + +"It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get +this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately in +love with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, a +tapestry of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who love +in spite of all that is wise and respectable and right." + +Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink from +conversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through her +mind. "I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so careless of other +considerations?" + +"The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief thing in +life." He stopped and said earnestly: "It is the chief thing in +life, and everything else goes down before it. Everything, my dear, +everything!... But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes until +we have done with this blond young gentleman from Bavaria...." + +The dinner came to an end at last, and the whiskered waiter presented +his bill and evacuated the apartment and closed the door behind him with +an almost ostentatious discretion. Ramage stood up, and suddenly turned +the key in the door in an off-hand manner. "Now," he said, "no one can +blunder in upon us. We are alone and we can say and do what we please. +We two." He stood still, looking at her. + +Ann Veronica tried to seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of the +key startled her, but she did not see how she could make an objection. +She felt she had stepped into a world of unknown usages. + +"I have waited for this," he said, and stood quite still, looking at her +until the silence became oppressive. + +"Won't you sit down," she said, "and tell me what you want to say?" Her +voice was flat and faint. Suddenly she had become afraid. She struggled +not to be afraid. After all, what could happen? + +He was looking at her very hard and earnestly. "Ann Veronica," he said. + +Then before she could say a word to arrest him he was at her side. +"Don't!" she said, weakly, as he had bent down and put one arm about her +and seized her hands with his disengaged hand and kissed her--kissed her +almost upon her lips. He seemed to do ten things before she could think +to do one, to leap upon her and take possession. + +Ann Veronica's universe, which had never been altogether so respectful +to her as she could have wished, gave a shout and whirled head over +heels. Everything in the world had changed for her. If hate could kill, +Ramage would have been killed by a flash of hate. "Mr. Ramage!" she +cried, and struggled to her feet. + +"My darling!" he said, clasping her resolutely in his arms, "my +dearest!" + +"Mr. Ramage!" she began, and his mouth sealed hers and his breath was +mixed with her breath. Her eye met his four inches away, and his was +glaring, immense, and full of resolution, a stupendous monster of an +eye. + +She shut her lips hard, her jaw hardened, and she set herself to +struggle with him. She wrenched her head away from his grip and got her +arm between his chest and hers. They began to wrestle fiercely. Each +became frightfully aware of the other as a plastic energetic body, +of the strong muscles of neck against cheek, of hands gripping +shoulder-blade and waist. "How dare you!" she panted, with her world +screaming and grimacing insult at her. "How dare you!" + +They were both astonished at the other's strength. Perhaps Ramage was +the more astonished. Ann Veronica had been an ardent hockey player and +had had a course of jiu-jitsu in the High School. Her defence ceased +rapidly to be in any sense ladylike, and became vigorous and effective; +a strand of black hair that had escaped its hairpins came athwart +Ramage's eyes, and then the knuckles of a small but very hardly clinched +fist had thrust itself with extreme effectiveness and painfulness under +his jawbone and ear. + +"Let go!" said Ann Veronica, through her teeth, strenuously inflicting +agony, and he cried out sharply and let go and receded a pace. + +"NOW!" said Ann Veronica. "Why did you dare to do that?" + + + +Part 3 + + +Each of them stared at the other, set in a universe that had changed its +system of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. She was flushed, and +her eyes were bright and angry; her breath came sobbing, and her hair +was all abroad in wandering strands of black. He too was flushed and +ruffled; one side of his collar had slipped from its stud and he held a +hand to the corner of his jaw. + +"You vixen!" said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought of his +heart. + +"You had no right--" panted Ann Veronica. + +"Why on earth," he asked, "did you hurt me like that?" + +Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately attempted to +cause him pain. She ignored his question. + +"I never dreamt!" she said. + +"What on earth did you expect me to do, then?" he asked. + + + +Part 4 + + +Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; she +understood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She +understood. She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of furtive base +realizations. She wanted to cry out upon herself for the uttermost fool +in existence. + +"I thought you wanted to have a talk to me," she said. + +"I wanted to make love to you. + +"You knew it," he added, in her momentary silence. + +"You said you were in love with me," said Ann Veronica; "I wanted to +explain--" + +"I said I loved and wanted you." The brutality of his first astonishment +was evaporating. "I am in love with you. You know I am in love with you. +And then you go--and half throttle me.... I believe you've crushed a +gland or something. It feels like it." + +"I am sorry," said Ann Veronica. "What else was I to do?" + +For some seconds she stood watching him and both were thinking very +quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether discreditable to +her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed to faint and scream at +all these happenings; she ought to have maintained a front of outraged +dignity to veil the sinking of her heart. I would like to have to tell +it so. But indeed that is not at all a good description of her attitude. +She was an indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted +within limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some +low adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at least if +base, going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent meeting-places +of her mind declaring that the whole affair was after all--they are the +only words that express it--a very great lark indeed. At the bottom +of her heart she was not a bit afraid of Ramage. She had unaccountable +gleams of sympathy with and liking for him. And the grotesquest fact +was that she did not so much loathe, as experience with a quite critical +condemnation this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before had +any human being kissed her lips.... + +It was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements evaporated +and vanished and loathing came, and she really began to be thoroughly +sick and ashamed of the whole disgraceful quarrel and scuffle. + +He, for his part, was trying to grasp the series of unexpected reactions +that had so wrecked their tete-a-tete. He had meant to be master of his +fate that evening and it had escaped him altogether. It had, as it were, +blown up at the concussion of his first step. It dawned upon him that he +had been abominably used by Ann Veronica. + +"Look here," he said, "I brought you here to make love to you." + +"I didn't understand--your idea of making love. You had better let me go +again." + +"Not yet," he said. "I do love you. I love you all the more for the +streak of sheer devil in you.... You are the most beautiful, the most +desirable thing I have ever met in this world. It was good to kiss you, +even at the price. But, by Jove! you are fierce! You are like those +Roman women who carry stilettos in their hair." + +"I came here to talk reasonably, Mr. Ramage. It is abominable--" + +"What is the use of keeping up this note of indignation, Ann Veronica? +Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean to have you! Don't +frown me off now. Don't go back into Victorian respectability and +pretend you don't know and you can't think and all the rest of it. One +comes at last to the step from dreams to reality. This is your moment. +No one will ever love you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of +your body and you night after night. I have been imaging--" + +"Mr. Ramage, I came here--I didn't suppose for one moment you would +dare--" + +"Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You want to +do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses. You are afraid +of the warmth in your blood. It's just because all that side of your +life hasn't fairly begun." + +He made a step toward her. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, sharply, "I have to make it plain to you. I +don't think you understand. I don't love you. I don't. I can't love you. +I love some one else. It is repulsive. It disgusts me that you should +touch me." + +He stared in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. "You love +some one else?" he repeated. + +"I love some one else. I could not dream of loving you." + +And then he flashed his whole conception of the relations of men and +women upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went with an almost +instinctive inquiry to his jawbone again. "Then why the devil," he +demanded, "do you let me stand you dinners and the opera--and why do you +come to a cabinet particuliar with me?" + +He became radiant with anger. "You mean to tell me" he said, "that you +have a lover? While I have been keeping you! Yes--keeping you!" + +This view of life he hurled at her as if it were an offensive missile. +It stunned her. She felt she must fly before it and could no longer do +so. She did not think for one moment what interpretation he might put +upon the word "lover." + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, clinging to her one point, "I want to get out of +this horrible little room. It has all been a mistake. I have been stupid +and foolish. Will you unlock that door?" + +"Never!" he said. "Confound your lover! Look here! Do you really think +I am going to run you while he makes love to you? No fear! I never heard +of anything so cool. If he wants you, let him get you. You're mine. I've +paid for you and helped you, and I'm going to conquer you somehow--if +I have to break you to do it. Hitherto you've seen only my easy, kindly +side. But now confound it! how can you prevent it? I will kiss you." + +"You won't!" said Ann Veronica; with the clearest note of determination. + +He seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped back quickly, and +her hand knocked a wine-glass from the table to smash noisily on the +floor. She caught at the idea. "If you come a step nearer to me," she +said, "I will smash every glass on this table." + +"Then, by God!" he said, "you'll be locked up!" + +Ann Veronica was disconcerted for a moment. She had a vision of +policemen, reproving magistrates, a crowded court, public disgrace. She +saw her aunt in tears, her father white-faced and hard hit. "Don't come +nearer!" she said. + +There was a discreet knocking at the door, and Ramage's face changed. + +"No," she said, under her breath, "you can't face it." And she knew that +she was safe. + +He went to the door. "It's all right," he said, reassuringly to the +inquirer without. + +Ann Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and dishevelled +disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of her hair, while +Ramage parleyed with inaudible interrogations. "A glass slipped from the +table," he explained.... "Non. Fas du tout. Non.... Niente.... Bitte!... +Oui, dans la note.... Presently. Presently." That conversation ended and +he turned to her again. + +"I am going," she said grimly, with three hairpins in her mouth. + +She took her hat from the peg in the corner and began to put it on. He +regarded that perennial miracle of pinning with wrathful eyes. + +"Look here, Ann Veronica," he began. "I want a plain word with you about +all this. Do you mean to tell me you didn't understand why I wanted you +to come here?" + +"Not a bit of it," said Ann Veronica stoutly. + +"You didn't expect that I should kiss you?" + +"How was I to know that a man would--would think it was possible--when +there was nothing--no love?" + +"How did I know there wasn't love?" + +That silenced her for a moment. "And what on earth," he said, "do you +think the world is made of? Why do you think I have been doing things +for you? The abstract pleasure of goodness? Are you one of the members +of that great white sisterhood that takes and does not give? The good +accepting woman! Do you really suppose a girl is entitled to live at +free quarters on any man she meets without giving any return?" + +"I thought," said Ann Veronica, "you were my friend." + +"Friend! What have a man and a girl in common to make them friends? Ask +that lover of yours! And even with friends, would you have it all Give +on one side and all Take on the other?... Does HE know I keep you?... +You won't have a man's lips near you, but you'll eat out of his hand +fast enough." + +Ann Veronica was stung to helpless anger. + +"Mr. Ramage," she cried, "you are outrageous! You understand nothing. +You are--horrible. Will you let me go out of this room?" + +"No," cried Ramage; "hear me out! I'll have that satisfaction, anyhow. +You women, with your tricks of evasion, you're a sex of swindlers. +You have all the instinctive dexterity of parasites. You make yourself +charming for help. You climb by disappointing men. This lover of +yours--" + +"He doesn't know!" cried Ann Veronica. + +"Well, you know." + +Ann Veronica could have wept with vexation. Indeed, a note of weeping +broke her voice for a moment as she burst out, "You know as well as I do +that money was a loan!" + +"Loan!" + +"You yourself called it a loan!" + +"Euphuism. We both understood that." + +"You shall have every penny of it back." + +"I'll frame it--when I get it." + +"I'll pay you if I have to work at shirt-making at threepence an hour." + +"You'll never pay me. You think you will. It's your way of glossing over +the ethical position. It's the sort of way a woman always does gloss +over her ethical positions. You're all dependents--all of you. By +instinct. Only you good ones--shirk. You shirk a straightforward and +decent return for what you get from us--taking refuge in purity and +delicacy and such-like when it comes to payment." + +"Mr. Ramage," said Ann Veronica, "I want to go--NOW!" + + + +Part 5 + + +But she did not get away just then. + +Ramage's bitterness passed as abruptly as his aggression. "Oh, +Ann Veronica!" he cried, "I cannot let you go like this! You don't +understand. You can't possibly understand!" + +He began a confused explanation, a perplexing contradictory apology for +his urgency and wrath. He loved Ann Veronica, he said; he was so mad +to have her that he defeated himself, and did crude and alarming and +senseless things. His vicious abusiveness vanished. He suddenly became +eloquent and plausible. He did make her perceive something of the acute, +tormenting desire for her that had arisen in him and possessed him. +She stood, as it were, directed doorward, with her eyes watching every +movement, listening to him, repelled by him and yet dimly understanding. + +At any rate he made it very clear that night that there was an +ineradicable discord in life, a jarring something that must shatter all +her dreams of a way of living for women that would enable them to be +free and spacious and friendly with men, and that was the passionate +predisposition of men to believe that the love of women can be earned +and won and controlled and compelled. + +He flung aside all his talk of help and disinterested friendship as +though it had never been even a disguise between them, as though +from the first it was no more than a fancy dress they had put quite +understandingly upon their relationship. He had set out to win her, and +she had let him start. And at the thought of that other lover--he was +convinced that that beloved person was a lover, and she found herself +unable to say a word to explain to him that this other person, the +person she loved, did not even know of her love--Ramage grew angry +and savage once more, and returned suddenly to gibe and insult. Men do +services for the love of women, and the woman who takes must pay. Such +was the simple code that displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left +that arid rule clear of the least mist of refinement or delicacy. + +That he should pay forty pounds to help this girl who preferred another +man was no less in his eyes than a fraud and mockery that made her +denial a maddening and outrageous disgrace to him. And this though he +was evidently passionately in love with her. + +For a while he threatened her. "You have put all your life in my hands," +he declared. "Think of that check you endorsed. There it is--against +you. I defy you to explain it away. What do you think people will make +of that? What will this lover of yours make of that?" + +At intervals Ann Veronica demanded to go, declaring her undying resolve +to repay him at any cost, and made short movements doorward. + +But at last this ordeal was over, and Ramage opened the door. She +emerged with a white face and wide-open eyes upon a little, red-lit +landing. She went past three keenly observant and ostentatiously +preoccupied waiters down the thick-carpeted staircase and out of the +Hotel Rococo, that remarkable laboratory of relationships, past a tall +porter in blue and crimson, into a cool, clear night. + + + +Part 6 + + +When Ann Veronica reached her little bed-sitting-room again, every nerve +in her body was quivering with shame and self-disgust. + +She threw hat and coat on the bed and sat down before the fire. + +"And now," she said, splintering the surviving piece of coal into +indignant flame-spurting fragments with one dexterous blow, "what am I +to do? + +"I'm in a hole!--mess is a better word, expresses it better. I'm in a +mess--a nasty mess! a filthy mess! Oh, no end of a mess! + +"Do you hear, Ann Veronica?--you're in a nasty, filthy, unforgivable +mess! + +"Haven't I just made a silly mess of things? + +"Forty pounds! I haven't got twenty!" + +She got up, stamped with her foot, and then, suddenly remembering the +lodger below, sat down and wrenched off her boots. + +"This is what comes of being a young woman up to date. By Jove! I'm +beginning to have my doubts about freedom! + +"You silly young woman, Ann Veronica! You silly young woman! The +smeariness of the thing! + +"The smeariness of this sort of thing!... Mauled about!" + +She fell to rubbing her insulted lips savagely with the back of her +hand. "Ugh!" she said. + +"The young women of Jane Austen's time didn't get into this sort of +scrape! At least--one thinks so.... I wonder if some of them did--and +it didn't get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet moments. Most of +them didn't, anyhow. They were properly brought up, and sat still and +straight, and took the luck fate brought them as gentlewomen should. +And they had an idea of what men were like behind all their nicety. They +knew they were all Bogey in disguise. I didn't! I didn't! After all--" + +For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its defensive restraints +as though it was the one desirable thing. That world of fine printed +cambrics and escorted maidens, of delicate secondary meanings and +refined allusiveness, presented itself to her imagination with the +brightness of a lost paradise, as indeed for many women it is a lost +paradise. + +"I wonder if there is anything wrong with my manners," she said. "I +wonder if I've been properly brought up. If I had been quite quiet and +white and dignified, wouldn't it have been different? Would he have +dared?..." + +For some creditable moments in her life Ann Veronica was utterly +disgusted with herself; she was wrung with a passionate and belated +desire to move gently, to speak softly and ambiguously--to be, in +effect, prim. + +Horrible details recurred to her. + +"Why, among other things, did I put my knuckles in his +neck--deliberately to hurt him?" + +She tried to sound the humorous note. + +"Are you aware, Ann Veronica, you nearly throttled that gentleman?" + +Then she reviled her own foolish way of putting it. + +"You ass and imbecile, Ann Veronica! You female cad! Cad! Cad!... Why +aren't you folded up clean in lavender--as every young woman ought to +be? What have you been doing with yourself?..." + +She raked into the fire with the poker. + +"All of which doesn't help me in the slightest degree to pay back that +money." + +That night was the most intolerable one that Ann Veronica had ever +spent. She washed her face with unwonted elaboration before she went +to bed. This time, there was no doubt, she did not sleep. The more +she disentangled the lines of her situation the deeper grew her +self-disgust. Occasionally the mere fact of lying in bed became +unendurable, and she rolled out and marched about her room and whispered +abuse of herself--usually until she hit against some article of +furniture. + +Then she would have quiet times, in which she would say to herself, "Now +look here! Let me think it all out!" + +For the first time, it seemed to her, she faced the facts of a woman's +position in the world--the meagre realities of such freedom as it +permitted her, the almost unavoidable obligation to some individual man +under which she must labor for even a foothold in the world. She had +flung away from her father's support with the finest assumption of +personal independence. And here she was--in a mess because it had +been impossible for her to avoid leaning upon another man. She had +thought--What had she thought? That this dependence of women was but +an illusion which needed only to be denied to vanish. She had denied it +with vigor, and here she was! + +She did not so much exhaust this general question as pass from it to her +insoluble individual problem again: "What am I to do?" + +She wanted first of all to fling the forty pounds back into Ramage's +face. But she had spent nearly half of it, and had no conception of how +such a sum could be made good again. She thought of all sorts of odd and +desperate expedients, and with passionate petulance rejected them all. + +She took refuge in beating her pillow and inventing insulting epithets +for herself. She got up, drew up her blind, and stared out of window at +a dawn-cold vision of chimneys for a time, and then went and sat on the +edge of her bed. What was the alternative to going home? No alternative +appeared in that darkness. + +It seemed intolerable that she should go home and admit herself beaten. +She did most urgently desire to save her face in Morningside Park, and +for long hours she could think of no way of putting it that would not be +in the nature of unconditional admission of defeat. + +"I'd rather go as a chorus-girl," she said. + +She was not very clear about the position and duties of a chorus-girl, +but it certainly had the air of being a last desperate resort. +There sprang from that a vague hope that perhaps she might extort a +capitulation from her father by a threat to seek that position, and then +with overwhelming clearness it came to her that whatever happened she +would never be able to tell her father about her debt. The completest +capitulation would not wipe out that trouble. And she felt that if she +went home it was imperative to pay. She would always be going to and fro +up the Avenue, getting glimpses of Ramage, seeing him in trains.... + +For a time she promenaded the room. + +"Why did I ever take that loan? An idiot girl in an asylum would have +known better than that! + +"Vulgarity of soul and innocence of mind--the worst of all conceivable +combinations. I wish some one would kill Ramage by accident!... + +"But then they would find that check endorsed in his bureau.... + +"I wonder what he will do?" She tried to imagine situations that might +arise out of Ramage's antagonism, for he had been so bitter and savage +that she could not believe that he would leave things as they were. + +The next morning she went out with her post-office savings bank-book, +and telegraphed for a warrant to draw out all the money she had in the +world. It amounted to two-and-twenty pounds. She addressed an envelope +to Ramage, and scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, "The rest shall +follow." The money would be available in the afternoon, and she would +send him four five-pound notes. The rest she meant to keep for +her immediate necessities. A little relieved by this step toward +reinstatement, she went on to the Imperial College to forget her muddle +of problems for a time, if she could, in the presence of Capes. + + + +Part 7 + + +For a time the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue. Her +sleepless night had left her languid but not stupefied, and for an hour +or so the work distracted her altogether from her troubles. + +Then, after Capes had been through her work and had gone on, it came to +her that the fabric of this life of hers was doomed to almost immediate +collapse; that in a little while these studies would cease, and perhaps +she would never set eyes on him again. After that consolations fled. + +The overnight nervous strain began to tell; she became inattentive +to the work before her, and it did not get on. She felt sleepy and +unusually irritable. She lunched at a creamery in Great Portland Street, +and as the day was full of wintry sunshine, spent the rest of the +lunch-hour in a drowsy gloom, which she imagined to be thought upon the +problems of her position, on a seat in Regent's Park. A girl of fifteen +or sixteen gave her a handbill that she regarded as a tract until she +saw "Votes for Women" at the top. That turned her mind to the more +generalized aspects of her perplexities again. She had never been so +disposed to agree that the position of women in the modern world is +intolerable. + +Capes joined the students at tea, and displayed himself in an impish +mood that sometimes possessed him. He did not notice that Ann Veronica +was preoccupied and heavy-eyed. Miss Klegg raised the question of +women's suffrage, and he set himself to provoke a duel between her and +Miss Garvice. The youth with the hair brushed back and the spectacled +Scotchman joined in the fray for and against the women's vote. + +Ever and again Capes appealed to Ann Veronica. He liked to draw her in, +and she did her best to talk. But she did not talk readily, and in +order to say something she plunged a little, and felt she plunged. +Capes scored back with an uncompromising vigor that was his way of +complimenting her intelligence. But this afternoon it discovered an +unusual vein of irritability in her. He had been reading Belfort Bax, +and declared himself a convert. He contrasted the lot of women in +general with the lot of men, presented men as patient, self-immolating +martyrs, and women as the pampered favorites of Nature. A vein of +conviction mingled with his burlesque. + +For a time he and Miss Klegg contradicted one another. + +The question ceased to be a tea-table talk, and became suddenly +tragically real for Ann Veronica. There he sat, cheerfully friendly +in his sex's freedom--the man she loved, the one man she cared +should unlock the way to the wide world for her imprisoned feminine +possibilities, and he seemed regardless that she stifled under his eyes; +he made a jest of all this passionate insurgence of the souls of women +against the fate of their conditions. + +Miss Garvice repeated again, and almost in the same words she used at +every discussion, her contribution to the great question. + +She thought that women were not made for the struggle and turmoil of +life--their place was the little world, the home; that their power lay +not in votes but in influence over men and in making the minds of their +children fine and splendid. + +"Women should understand men's affairs, perhaps," said Miss Garvice, +"but to mingle in them is just to sacrifice that power of influencing +they can exercise now." + +"There IS something sound in that position," said Capes, intervening as +if to defend Miss Garvice against a possible attack from Ann Veronica. +"It may not be just and so forth, but, after all, it is how things are. +Women are not in the world in the same sense that men are--fighting +individuals in a scramble. I don't see how they can be. Every home is a +little recess, a niche, out of the world of business and competition, in +which women and the future shelter." + +"A little pit!" said Ann Veronica; "a little prison!" + +"It's just as often a little refuge. Anyhow, that is how things are." + +"And the man stands as the master at the mouth of the den." + +"As sentinel. You forget all the mass of training and tradition and +instinct that go to make him a tolerable master. Nature is a mother; her +sympathies have always been feminist, and she has tempered the man to +the shorn woman." + +"I wish," said Ann Veronica, with sudden anger, "that you could know +what it is to live in a pit!" + +She stood up as she spoke, and put down her cup beside Miss Garvice's. +She addressed Capes as though she spoke to him alone. + +"I can't endure it," she said. + +Every one turned to her in astonishment. + +She felt she had to go on. "No man can realize," she said, "what that +pit can be. The way--the way we are led on! We are taught to believe we +are free in the world, to think we are queens.... Then we find out. +We find out no man will treat a woman fairly as man to man--no man. He +wants you--or he doesn't; and then he helps some other woman against +you.... What you say is probably all true and necessary.... But +think of the disillusionment! Except for our sex we have minds like men, +desires like men. We come out into the world, some of us--" + +She paused. Her words, as she said them, seemed to her to mean nothing, +and there was so much that struggled for expression. "Women are mocked," +she said. "Whenever they try to take hold of life a man intervenes." + +She felt, with a sudden horror, that she might weep. She wished she had +not stood up. She wondered wildly why she had stood up. No one spoke, +and she was impelled to flounder on. "Think of the mockery!" she said. +"Think how dumb we find ourselves and stifled! I know we seem to have +a sort of freedom.... Have you ever tried to run and jump in +petticoats, Mr. Capes? Well, think what it must be to live in them--soul +and mind and body! It's fun for a man to jest at our position." + +"I wasn't jesting," said Capes, abruptly. + +She stood face to face with him, and his voice cut across her speech +and made her stop abruptly. She was sore and overstrung, and it was +intolerable to her that he should stand within three yards of her +unsuspectingly, with an incalculably vast power over her happiness. She +was sore with the perplexities of her preposterous position. She was +sick of herself, of her life, of everything but him; and for him all her +masked and hidden being was crying out. + +She stopped abruptly at the sound of his voice, and lost the thread +of what she was saying. In the pause she realized the attention of the +others converged upon her, and that the tears were brimming over her +eyes. She felt a storm of emotion surging up within her. She became +aware of the Scotch student regarding her with stupendous amazement, +a tea-cup poised in one hairy hand and his faceted glasses showing a +various enlargement of segments of his eye. + +The door into the passage offered itself with an irresistible +invitation--the one alternative to a public, inexplicable passion of +weeping. + +Capes flashed to an understanding of her intention, sprang to his feet, +and opened the door for her retreat. + + + +Part 8 + + +"Why should I ever come back?" she said to herself, as she went down the +staircase. + +She went to the post-office and drew out and sent off her money +to Ramage. And then she came out into the street, sure only of one +thing--that she could not return directly to her lodgings. She wanted +air--and the distraction of having moving and changing things about her. +The evenings were beginning to draw out, and it would not be dark for +an hour. She resolved to walk across the Park to the Zoological gardens, +and so on by way of Primrose Hill to Hampstead Heath. There she would +wander about in the kindly darkness. And think things out.... + +Presently she became aware of footsteps hurrying after her, and glanced +back to find Miss Klegg, a little out of breath, in pursuit. + +Ann Veronica halted a pace, and Miss Klegg came alongside. + +"Do YOU go across the Park?" + +"Not usually. But I'm going to-day. I want a walk." + +"I'm not surprised at it. I thought Mr. Capes most trying." + +"Oh, it wasn't that. I've had a headache all day." + +"I thought Mr. Capes most unfair," Miss Klegg went on in a small, even +voice; "MOST unfair! I'm glad you spoke out as you did." + +"I didn't mind that little argument." + +"You gave it him well. What you said wanted saying. After you went he +got up and took refuge in the preparation-room. Or else _I_ would have +finished him." + +Ann Veronica said nothing, and Miss Klegg went on: "He very often +IS--most unfair. He has a way of sitting on people. He wouldn't like it +if people did it to him. He jumps the words out of your mouth; he takes +hold of what you have to say before you have had time to express it +properly." + +Pause. + +"I suppose he's frightfully clever," said Miss Klegg. + +"He's a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he can't be much over thirty," +said Miss Klegg. + +"He writes very well," said Ann Veronica. + +"He can't be more than thirty. He must have married when he was quite a +young man." + +"Married?" said Ann Veronica. + +"Didn't you know he was married?" asked Miss Klegg, and was struck by a +thought that made her glance quickly at her companion. + +Ann Veronica had no answer for a moment. She turned her head away +sharply. Some automaton within her produced in a quite unfamiliar voice +the remark, "They're playing football." + +"It's too far for the ball to reach us," said Miss Klegg. + +"I didn't know Mr. Capes was married," said Ann Veronica, resuming the +conversation with an entire disappearance of her former lassitude. + +"Oh yes," said Miss Klegg; "I thought every one knew." + +"No," said Ann Veronica, offhandedly. "Never heard anything of it." + +"I thought every one knew. I thought every one had heard about it." + +"But why?" + +"He's married--and, I believe, living separated from his wife. There was +a case, or something, some years ago." + +"What case?" + +"A divorce--or something--I don't know. But I have heard that he almost +had to leave the schools. If it hadn't been for Professor Russell +standing up for him, they say he would have had to leave." + +"Was he divorced, do you mean?" + +"No, but he got himself mixed up in a divorce case. I forget the +particulars, but I know it was something very disagreeable. It was among +artistic people." + +Ann Veronica was silent for a while. + +"I thought every one had heard," said Miss Klegg. "Or I wouldn't have +said anything about it." + +"I suppose all men," said Ann Veronica, in a tone of detached criticism, +"get some such entanglement. And, anyhow, it doesn't matter to us." She +turned abruptly at right angles to the path they followed. "This is my +way back to my side of the Park," she said. + +"I thought you were coming right across the Park." + +"Oh no," said Ann Veronica; "I have some work to do. I just wanted a +breath of air. And they'll shut the gates presently. It's not far from +twilight." + + + + +Part 9 + + +She was sitting brooding over her fire about ten o'clock that night when +a sealed and registered envelope was brought up to her. + +She opened it and drew out a letter, and folded within it were the notes +she had sent off to Ramage that day. The letter began: + + +"MY DEAREST GIRL,--I cannot let you do this foolish thing--" + + +She crumpled notes and letter together in her hand, and then with a +passionate gesture flung them into the fire. Instantly she seized the +poker and made a desperate effort to get them out again. But she was +only able to save a corner of the letter. The twenty pounds burned with +avidity. + +She remained for some seconds crouching at the fender, poker in hand. + +"By Jove!" she said, standing up at last, "that about finishes it, Ann +Veronica!" + + + +CHAPTER THE TENTH + +THE SUFFRAGETTES + + +Part 1 + + +"There is only one way out of all this," said Ann Veronica, sitting up +in her little bed in the darkness and biting at her nails. + +"I thought I was just up against Morningside Park and father, but it's +the whole order of things--the whole blessed order of things...." + +She shivered. She frowned and gripped her hands about her knees very +tightly. Her mind developed into savage wrath at the present conditions +of a woman's life. + +"I suppose all life is an affair of chances. But a woman's life is all +chance. It's artificially chance. Find your man, that's the rule. All +the rest is humbug and delicacy. He's the handle of life for you. He +will let you live if it pleases him.... + +"Can't it be altered? + +"I suppose an actress is free?..." + +She tried to think of some altered state of affairs in which these +monstrous limitations would be alleviated, in which women would stand on +their own feet in equal citizenship with men. For a time she brooded on +the ideals and suggestions of the Socialists, on the vague intimations +of an Endowment of Motherhood, of a complete relaxation of that intense +individual dependence for women which is woven into the existing social +order. At the back of her mind there seemed always one irrelevant +qualifying spectator whose presence she sought to disregard. She would +not look at him, would not think of him; when her mind wavered, then +she muttered to herself in the darkness so as to keep hold of her +generalizations. + +"It is true. It is no good waiving the thing; it is true. Unless women +are never to be free, never to be even respected, there must be a +generation of martyrs.... Why shouldn't we be martyrs? There's +nothing else for most of us, anyhow. It's a sort of blacklegging to want +to have a life of one's own...." + +She repeated, as if she answered an objector: "A sort of blacklegging. + +"A sex of blacklegging clients." + +Her mind diverged to other aspects, and another type of womanhood. + +"Poor little Miniver! What can she be but what she is?... Because +she states her case in a tangle, drags it through swamps of nonsense, it +doesn't alter the fact that she is right." + +That phrase about dragging the truth through swamps of nonsense she +remembered from Capes. At the recollection that it was his, she seemed +to fall through a thin surface, as one might fall through the crust of +a lava into glowing depths. She wallowed for a time in the thought of +Capes, unable to escape from his image and the idea of his presence in +her life. + +She let her mind run into dreams of that cloud paradise of an altered +world in which the Goopes and Minivers, the Fabians and reforming people +believed. Across that world was written in letters of light, "Endowment +of Motherhood." Suppose in some complex yet conceivable way women were +endowed, were no longer economically and socially dependent on men. "If +one was free," she said, "one could go to him.... This vile hovering +to catch a man's eye!... One could go to him and tell him one loved +him. I want to love him. A little love from him would be enough. It +would hurt no one. It would not burden him with any obligation." + +She groaned aloud and bowed her forehead to her knees. She floundered +deep. She wanted to kiss his feet. His feet would have the firm texture +of his hands. + +Then suddenly her spirit rose in revolt. "I will not have this slavery," +she said. "I will not have this slavery." + +She shook her fist ceilingward. "Do you hear!" she said "whatever you +are, wherever you are! I will not be slave to the thought of any man, +slave to the customs of any time. Confound this slavery of sex! I am a +man! I will get this under if I am killed in doing it!" + +She scowled into the cold blacknesses about her. + +"Manning," she said, and contemplated a figure of inaggressive +persistence. "No!" Her thoughts had turned in a new direction. + +"It doesn't matter," she said, after a long interval, "if they are +absurd. They mean something. They mean everything that women can +mean--except submission. The vote is only the beginning, the necessary +beginning. If we do not begin--" + +She had come to a resolution. Abruptly she got out of bed, smoothed +her sheet and straightened her pillow and lay down, and fell almost +instantly asleep. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next morning was as dark and foggy as if it was mid-November instead +of early March. Ann Veronica woke rather later than usual, and lay awake +for some minutes before she remembered a certain resolution she +had taken in the small hours. Then instantly she got out of bed and +proceeded to dress. + +She did not start for the Imperial College. She spent the morning up +to ten in writing a series of unsuccessful letters to Ramage, which she +tore up unfinished; and finally she desisted and put on her jacket and +went out into the lamp-lit obscurity and slimy streets. She turned a +resolute face southward. + +She followed Oxford Street into Holborn, and then she inquired for +Chancery Lane. There she sought and at last found 107A, one of those +heterogeneous piles of offices which occupy the eastern side of the +lane. She studied the painted names of firms and persons and enterprises +on the wall, and discovered that the Women's Bond of Freedom occupied +several contiguous suites on the first floor. She went up-stairs and +hesitated between four doors with ground-glass panes, each of which +professed "The Women's Bond of Freedom" in neat black letters. She +opened one and found herself in a large untidy room set with chairs that +were a little disarranged as if by an overnight meeting. On the walls +were notice-boards bearing clusters of newspaper slips, three or four +big posters of monster meetings, one of which Ann Veronica had attended +with Miss Miniver, and a series of announcements in purple copying-ink, +and in one corner was a pile of banners. There was no one at all in this +room, but through the half-open door of one of the small apartments +that gave upon it she had a glimpse of two very young girls sitting at a +littered table and writing briskly. + +She walked across to this apartment and, opening the door a little +wider, discovered a press section of the movement at work. + +"I want to inquire," said Ann Veronica. + +"Next door," said a spectacled young person of seventeen or eighteen, +with an impatient indication of the direction. + +In the adjacent apartment Ann Veronica found a middle-aged woman with +a tired face under the tired hat she wore, sitting at a desk opening +letters while a dusky, untidy girl of eight-or nine-and-twenty hammered +industriously at a typewriter. The tired woman looked up in inquiring +silence at Ann Veronica's diffident entry. + +"I want to know more about this movement," said Ann Veronica. + +"Are you with us?" said the tired woman. + +"I don't know," said Ann Veronica; "I think I am. I want very much to do +something for women. But I want to know what you are doing." + +The tired woman sat still for a moment. "You haven't come here to make a +lot of difficulties?" she asked. + +"No," said Ann Veronica, "but I want to know." + +The tired woman shut her eyes tightly for a moment, and then looked with +them at Ann Veronica. "What can you do?" she asked. + +"Do?" + +"Are you prepared to do things for us? Distribute bills? Write letters? +Interrupt meetings? Canvass at elections? Face dangers?" + +"If I am satisfied--" + +"If we satisfy you?" + +"Then, if possible, I would like to go to prison." + +"It isn't nice going to prison." + +"It would suit me." + +"It isn't nice getting there." + +"That's a question of detail," said Ann Veronica. + +The tired woman looked quietly at her. "What are your objections?" she +said. + +"It isn't objections exactly. I want to know what you are doing; how you +think this work of yours really does serve women." + +"We are working for the equal citizenship of men and women," said the +tired woman. "Women have been and are treated as the inferiors of men, +we want to make them their equals." + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "I agree to that. But--" + +The tired woman raised her eyebrows in mild protest. + +"Isn't the question more complicated than that?" said Ann Veronica. + +"You could have a talk to Miss Kitty Brett this afternoon, if you liked. +Shall I make an appointment for you?" + +Miss Kitty Brett was one of the most conspicuous leaders of the +movement. Ann Veronica snatched at the opportunity, and spent most +of the intervening time in the Assyrian Court of the British Museum, +reading and thinking over a little book upon the feminist movement the +tired woman had made her buy. She got a bun and some cocoa in the little +refreshment-room, and then wandered through the galleries up-stairs, +crowded with Polynesian idols and Polynesian dancing-garments, and all +the simple immodest accessories to life in Polynesia, to a seat among +the mummies. She was trying to bring her problems to a head, and her +mind insisted upon being even more discursive and atmospheric than +usual. It generalized everything she put to it. + +"Why should women be dependent on men?" she asked; and the question was +at once converted into a system of variations upon the theme of "Why +are things as they are?"--"Why are human beings viviparous?"--"Why are +people hungry thrice a day?"--"Why does one faint at danger?" + +She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human face of +that desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings of social life. +It looked very patient, she thought, and a little self-satisfied. It +looked as if it had taken its world for granted and prospered on that +assumption--a world in which children were trained to obey their +elders and the wills of women over-ruled as a matter of course. It was +wonderful to think this thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps +once it had desired some other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one +had kissed the brow that was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken cheek +with loving fingers, held that stringy neck with passionately living +hands. But all of that was forgotten. "In the end," it seemed to be +thinking, "they embalmed me with the utmost respect--sound spices chosen +to endure--the best! I took my world as I found it. THINGS ARE SO!" + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica's first impression of Kitty Brett was that she was +aggressive and disagreeable; her next that she was a person of amazing +persuasive power. She was perhaps three-and-twenty, and very pink and +healthy-looking, showing a great deal of white and rounded neck above +her business-like but altogether feminine blouse, and a good deal of +plump, gesticulating forearm out of her short sleeve. She had animated +dark blue-gray eyes under her fine eyebrows, and dark brown hair that +rolled back simply and effectively from her broad low forehead. And she +was about as capable of intelligent argument as a runaway steam-roller. +She was a trained being--trained by an implacable mother to one end. + +She spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She did not so much deal with Ann +Veronica's interpolations as dispose of them with quick and use-hardened +repartee, and then she went on with a fine directness to sketch the case +for her agitation, for that remarkable rebellion of the women that was +then agitating the whole world of politics and discussion. She assumed +with a kind of mesmeric force all the propositions that Ann Veronica +wanted her to define. + +"What do we want? What is the goal?" asked Ann Veronica. + +"Freedom! Citizenship! And the way to that--the way to everything--is +the Vote." + +Ann Veronica said something about a general change of ideas. + +"How can you change people's ideas if you have no power?" said Kitty +Brett. + +Ann Veronica was not ready enough to deal with that counter-stroke. + +"One doesn't want to turn the whole thing into a mere sex antagonism." + +"When women get justice," said Kitty Brett, "there will be no sex +antagonism. None at all. Until then we mean to keep on hammering away." + +"It seems to me that much of a woman's difficulties are economic." + +"That will follow," said Kitty Brett--"that will follow." + +She interrupted as Ann Veronica was about to speak again, with a bright +contagious hopefulness. "Everything will follow," she said. + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, trying to think where they were, trying to +get things plain again that had seemed plain enough in the quiet of the +night. + +"Nothing was ever done," Miss Brett asserted, "without a certain element +of Faith. After we have got the Vote and are recognized as citizens, +then we can come to all these other things." + +Even in the glamour of Miss Brett's assurance it seemed to Ann Veronica +that this was, after all, no more than the gospel of Miss Miniver with +a new set of resonances. And like that gospel it meant something, +something different from its phrases, something elusive, and yet +something that in spite of the superficial incoherence of its phrasing, +was largely essentially true. There was something holding women down, +holding women back, and if it wasn't exactly man-made law, man-made +law was an aspect of it. There was something indeed holding the whole +species back from the imaginable largeness of life.... + +"The Vote is the symbol of everything," said Miss Brett. + +She made an abrupt personal appeal. + +"Oh! please don't lose yourself in a wilderness of secondary +considerations," she said. "Don't ask me to tell you all that women can +do, all that women can be. There is a new life, different from the old +life of dependence, possible. If only we are not divided. If only we +work together. This is the one movement that brings women of different +classes together for a common purpose. If you could see how it gives +them souls, women who have taken things for granted, who have given +themselves up altogether to pettiness and vanity...." + +"Give me something to do," said Ann Veronica, interrupting her +persuasions at last. "It has been very kind of you to see me, but I +don't want to sit and talk and use your time any longer. I want to do +something. I want to hammer myself against all this that pens women in. +I feel that I shall stifle unless I can do something--and do something +soon." + + + +Part 4 + + +It was not Ann Veronica's fault that the night's work should have taken +upon itself the forms of wild burlesque. She was in deadly earnest in +everything she did. It seemed to her the last desperate attack upon the +universe that would not let her live as she desired to live, that penned +her in and controlled her and directed her and disapproved of her, the +same invincible wrappering, the same leaden tyranny of a universe that +she had vowed to overcome after that memorable conflict with her father +at Morningside Park. + +She was listed for the raid--she was informed it was to be a raid upon +the House of Commons, though no particulars were given her--and told to +go alone to 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, and not to ask any policeman +to direct her. 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, she found was not a house +but a yard in an obscure street, with big gates and the name of Podgers +& Carlo, Carriers and Furniture Removers, thereon. She was perplexed by +this, and stood for some seconds in the empty street hesitating, until +the appearance of another circumspect woman under the street lamp at the +corner reassured her. In one of the big gates was a little door, and she +rapped at this. It was immediately opened by a man with light eyelashes +and a manner suggestive of restrained passion. "Come right in," he +hissed under his breath, with the true conspirator's note, closed the +door very softly and pointed, "Through there!" + +By the meagre light of a gas lamp she perceived a cobbled yard with four +large furniture vans standing with horses and lamps alight. A slender +young man, wearing glasses, appeared from the shadow of the nearest van. +"Are you A, B, C, or D?" he asked. + +"They told me D," said Ann Veronica. + +"Through there," he said, and pointed with the pamphlet he was carrying. + +Ann Veronica found herself in a little stirring crowd of excited women, +whispering and tittering and speaking in undertones. + +The light was poor, so that she saw their gleaming faces dimly and +indistinctly. No one spoke to her. She stood among them, watching +them and feeling curiously alien to them. The oblique ruddy lighting +distorted them oddly, made queer bars and patches of shadow upon their +clothes. "It's Kitty's idea," said one, "we are to go in the vans." + +"Kitty is wonderful," said another. + +"Wonderful!" + +"I have always longed for prison service," said a voice, "always. +From the beginning. But it's only now I'm able to do it." + +A little blond creature close at hand suddenly gave way to a fit of +hysterical laughter, and caught up the end of it with a sob. + +"Before I took up the Suffrage," a firm, flat voice remarked, "I could +scarcely walk up-stairs without palpitations." + +Some one hidden from Ann Veronica appeared to be marshalling the +assembly. "We have to get in, I think," said a nice little old lady in +a bonnet to Ann Veronica, speaking with a voice that quavered a little. +"My dear, can you see in this light? I think I would like to get in. +Which is C?" + +Ann Veronica, with a curious sinking of the heart, regarded the black +cavities of the vans. Their doors stood open, and placards with big +letters indicated the section assigned to each. She directed the little +old woman and then made her way to van D. A young woman with a white +badge on her arm stood and counted the sections as they entered their +vans. + +"When they tap the roof," she said, in a voice of authority, "you are to +come out. You will be opposite the big entrance in Old Palace Yard. It's +the public entrance. You are to make for that and get into the lobby if +you can, and so try and reach the floor of the House, crying 'Votes for +Women!' as you go." + +She spoke like a mistress addressing school-children. + +"Don't bunch too much as you come out," she added. + +"All right?" asked the man with the light eyelashes, suddenly appearing +in the doorway. He waited for an instant, wasting an encouraging smile +in the imperfect light, and then shut the doors of the van, leaving the +women in darkness.... + +The van started with a jerk and rumbled on its way. + +"It's like Troy!" said a voice of rapture. "It's exactly like Troy!" + + + +Part 5 + + +So Ann Veronica, enterprising and a little dubious as ever, mingled with +the stream of history and wrote her Christian name upon the police-court +records of the land. + +But out of a belated regard for her father she wrote the surname of some +one else. + +Some day, when the rewards of literature permit the arduous research +required, the Campaign of the Women will find its Carlyle, and the +particulars of that marvellous series of exploits by which Miss Brett +and her colleagues nagged the whole Western world into the discussion of +women's position become the material for the most delightful and amazing +descriptions. At present the world waits for that writer, and the +confused record of the newspapers remains the only resource of the +curious. When he comes he will do that raid of the pantechnicons the +justice it deserves; he will picture the orderly evening scene about the +Imperial Legislature in convincing detail, the coming and going of cabs +and motor-cabs and broughams through the chill, damp evening into New +Palace Yard, the reinforced but untroubled and unsuspecting police about +the entries of those great buildings whose square and panelled Victorian +Gothic streams up from the glare of the lamps into the murkiness of +the night; Big Ben shining overhead, an unassailable beacon, and the +incidental traffic of Westminster, cabs, carts, and glowing omnibuses +going to and from the bridge. About the Abbey and Abingdon Street stood +the outer pickets and detachments of the police, their attention all +directed westward to where the women in Caxton Hall, Westminster, hummed +like an angry hive. Squads reached to the very portal of that centre of +disturbance. And through all these defences and into Old Palace +Yard, into the very vitals of the defenders' position, lumbered the +unsuspected vans. + +They travelled past the few idle sightseers who had braved the +uninviting evening to see what the Suffragettes might be doing; they +pulled up unchallenged within thirty yards of those coveted portals. + +And then they disgorged. + +Were I a painter of subject pictures, I would exhaust all my skill +in proportion and perspective and atmosphere upon the august seat +of empire, I would present it gray and dignified and immense and +respectable beyond any mere verbal description, and then, in vivid +black and very small, I would put in those valiantly impertinent +vans, squatting at the base of its altitudes and pouring out a swift, +straggling rush of ominous little black objects, minute figures of +determined women at war with the universe. + +Ann Veronica was in their very forefront. + +In an instant the expectant calm of Westminster was ended, and the very +Speaker in the chair blenched at the sound of the policemen's whistles. +The bolder members in the House left their places to go lobbyward, +grinning. Others pulled hats over their noses, cowered in their seats, +and feigned that all was right with the world. In Old Palace Yard +everybody ran. They either ran to see or ran for shelter. Even two +Cabinet Ministers took to their heels, grinning insincerely. At the +opening of the van doors and the emergence into the fresh air Ann +Veronica's doubt and depression gave place to the wildest exhilaration. +That same adventurousness that had already buoyed her through crises +that would have overwhelmed any normally feminine girl with shame and +horror now became uppermost again. Before her was a great Gothic portal. +Through that she had to go. + +Past her shot the little old lady in the bonnet, running incredibly +fast, but otherwise still alertly respectable, and she was making a +strange threatening sound as she ran, such as one would use in driving +ducks out of a garden--"B-r-r-r-r-r--!" and pawing with black-gloved +hands. The policemen were closing in from the sides to intervene. The +little old lady struck like a projectile upon the resounding chest +of the foremost of these, and then Ann Veronica had got past and was +ascending the steps. + +Then most horribly she was clasped about the waist from behind and +lifted from the ground. + +At that a new element poured into her excitement, an element of wild +disgust and terror. She had never experienced anything so disagreeable +in her life as the sense of being held helplessly off her feet. She +screamed involuntarily--she had never in her life screamed before--and +then she began to wriggle and fight like a frightened animal against the +men who were holding her. + +The affair passed at one leap from a spree to a nightmare of violence +and disgust. Her hair got loose, her hat came over one eye, and she had +no arm free to replace it. She felt she must suffocate if these men did +not put her down, and for a time they would not put her down. Then with +an indescribable relief her feet were on the pavement, and she was +being urged along by two policemen, who were gripping her wrists in an +irresistible expert manner. She was writhing to get her hands loose +and found herself gasping with passionate violence, "It's +damnable!--damnable!" to the manifest disgust of the fatherly policeman +on her right. + +Then they had released her arms and were trying to push her away. + +"You be off, missie," said the fatherly policeman. "This ain't no place +for you." + +He pushed her a dozen yards along the greasy pavement with flat, +well-trained hands that there seemed to be no opposing. Before her +stretched blank spaces, dotted with running people coming toward her, +and below them railings and a statue. She almost submitted to this +ending of her adventure. But at the word "home" she turned again. + +"I won't go home," she said; "I won't!" and she evaded the clutch of the +fatherly policeman and tried to thrust herself past him in the direction +of that big portal. "Steady on!" he cried. + +A diversion was created by the violent struggles of the little old +lady. She seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. A knot of +three policemen in conflict with her staggered toward Ann Veronica's +attendants and distracted their attention. "I WILL be arrested! I WON'T +go home!" the little old lady was screaming over and over again. They +put her down, and she leaped at them; she smote a helmet to the ground. + +"You'll have to take her!" shouted an inspector on horseback, and she +echoed his cry: "You'll have to take me!" They seized upon her and +lifted her, and she screamed. Ann Veronica became violently excited at +the sight. "You cowards!" said Ann Veronica, "put her down!" and tore +herself from a detaining hand and battered with her fists upon the big +red ear and blue shoulder of the policeman who held the little old lady. + +So Ann Veronica also was arrested. + +And then came the vile experience of being forced and borne along the +street to the police-station. Whatever anticipation Ann Veronica had +formed of this vanished in the reality. Presently she was going through +a swaying, noisy crowd, whose faces grinned and stared pitilessly in the +light of the electric standards. "Go it, miss!" cried one. "Kick aht at +'em!" though, indeed, she went now with Christian meekness, resenting +only the thrusting policemen's hands. Several people in the crowd seemed +to be fighting. Insulting cries became frequent and various, but for the +most part she could not understand what was said. "Who'll mind the baby +nar?" was one of the night's inspirations, and very frequent. A lean +young man in spectacles pursued her for some time, crying "Courage! +Courage!" Somebody threw a dab of mud at her, and some of it got down +her neck. Immeasurable disgust possessed her. She felt draggled and +insulted beyond redemption. + +She could not hide her face. She attempted by a sheer act of will to +end the scene, to will herself out of it anywhere. She had a horrible +glimpse of the once nice little old lady being also borne stationward, +still faintly battling and very muddy--one lock of grayish hair +straggling over her neck, her face scared, white, but triumphant. Her +bonnet dropped off and was trampled into the gutter. A little Cockney +recovered it, and made ridiculous attempts to get to her and replace it. + +"You must arrest me!" she gasped, breathlessly, insisting insanely on a +point already carried; "you shall!" + +The police-station at the end seemed to Ann Veronica like a refuge from +unnamable disgraces. She hesitated about her name, and, being prompted, +gave it at last as Ann Veronica Smith, 107A, Chancery Lane.... + +Indignation carried her through that night, that men and the world +could so entreat her. The arrested women were herded in a passage of +the Panton Street Police-station that opened upon a cell too unclean for +occupation, and most of them spent the night standing. Hot coffee +and cakes were sent in to them in the morning by some intelligent +sympathizer, or she would have starved all day. Submission to the +inevitable carried her through the circumstances of her appearance +before the magistrate. + +He was no doubt doing his best to express the attitude of society toward +these wearily heroic defendants, but he seemed to be merely rude and +unfair to Ann Veronica. He was not, it seemed, the proper stipendiary at +all, and there had been some demur to his jurisdiction that had ruffled +him. He resented being regarded as irregular. He felt he was human +wisdom prudentially interpolated.... "You silly wimmin," he said over +and over again throughout the hearing, plucking at his blotting-pad +with busy hands. "You silly creatures! Ugh! Fie upon you!" The court was +crowded with people, for the most part supporters and admirers of the +defendants, and the man with the light eyelashes was conspicuously +active and omnipresent. + +Ann Veronica's appearance was brief and undistinguished. She had nothing +to say for herself. She was guided into the dock and prompted by a +helpful police inspector. She was aware of the body of the court, +of clerks seated at a black table littered with papers, of policemen +standing about stiffly with expressions of conscious integrity, and +a murmuring background of the heads and shoulders of spectators close +behind her. On a high chair behind a raised counter the stipendiary's +substitute regarded her malevolently over his glasses. A disagreeable +young man, with red hair and a loose mouth, seated at the reporter's +table, was only too manifestly sketching her. + +She was interested by the swearing of the witnesses. The kissing of the +book struck her as particularly odd, and then the policemen gave their +evidence in staccato jerks and stereotyped phrases. + +"Have you anything to ask the witness?" asked the helpful inspector. + +The ribald demons that infested the back of Ann Veronica's mind urged +various facetious interrogations upon her, as, for example, where +the witness had acquired his prose style. She controlled herself, and +answered meekly, "No." + +"Well, Ann Veronica Smith," the magistrate remarked when the case was +all before him, "you're a good-looking, strong, respectable gell, and +it's a pity you silly young wimmin can't find something better to do +with your exuberance. Two-and-twenty! I can't imagine what your parents +can be thinking about to let you get into these scrapes." + +Ann Veronica's mind was filled with confused unutterable replies. + +"You are persuaded to come and take part in these outrageous +proceedings--many of you, I am convinced, have no idea whatever of +their nature. I don't suppose you could tell me even the derivation of +suffrage if I asked you. No! not even the derivation! But the fashion's +been set and in it you must be." + +The men at the reporter's table lifted their eyebrows, smiled faintly, +and leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One with the +appearance of a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. They had got all +this down already--they heard the substance of it now for the fourteenth +time. The stipendiary would have done it all very differently. + +She found presently she was out of the dock and confronted with the +alternative of being bound over in one surety for the sum of forty +pounds--whatever that might mean or a month's imprisonment. + +"Second class," said some one, but first and second were all alike to +her. She elected to go to prison. + +At last, after a long rumbling journey in a stuffy windowless van, she +reached Canongate Prison--for Holloway had its quota already. It was bad +luck to go to Canongate. + +Prison was beastly. Prison was bleak without spaciousness, and pervaded +by a faint, oppressive smell; and she had to wait two hours in the +sullenly defiant company of two unclean women thieves before a cell +could be assigned to her. Its dreariness, like the filthiness of the +police cell, was a discovery for her. She had imagined that prisons +were white-tiled places, reeking of lime-wash and immaculately +sanitary. Instead, they appeared to be at the hygienic level of tramps' +lodging-houses. She was bathed in turbid water that had already been +used. She was not allowed to bathe herself: another prisoner, with a +privileged manner, washed her. Conscientious objectors to that process +are not permitted, she found, in Canongate. Her hair was washed for her +also. Then they dressed her in a dirty dress of coarse serge and a cap, +and took away her own clothes. The dress came to her only too manifestly +unwashed from its former wearer; even the under-linen they gave her +seemed unclean. Horrible memories of things seen beneath the microscope +of the baser forms of life crawled across her mind and set her +shuddering with imagined irritations. She sat on the edge of the +bed--the wardress was too busy with the flood of arrivals that day +to discover that she had it down--and her skin was shivering from the +contact of these garments. She surveyed accommodation that seemed at +first merely austere, and became more and more manifestly inadequate as +the moments fled by. She meditated profoundly through several enormous +cold hours on all that had happened and all that she had done since the +swirl of the suffrage movement had submerged her personal affairs.... + +Very slowly emerging out of a phase of stupefaction, these personal +affairs and her personal problem resumed possession of her mind. She had +imagined she had drowned them altogether. + + + +CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH + +THOUGHTS IN PRISON + + +Part 1 + + +The first night in prison she found it impossible to sleep. The bed +was hard beyond any experience of hers, the bed-clothes coarse and +insufficient, the cell at once cold and stuffy. The little grating +in the door, the sense of constant inspection, worried her. She kept +opening her eyes and looking at it. She was fatigued physically and +mentally, and neither mind nor body could rest. She became aware that +at regular intervals a light flashed upon her face and a bodiless eye +regarded her, and this, as the night wore on, became a torment.... + +Capes came back into her mind. He haunted a state between hectic +dreaming and mild delirium, and she found herself talking aloud to +him. All through the night an entirely impossible and monumental +Capes confronted her, and she argued with him about men and women. She +visualized him as in a policeman's uniform and quite impassive. On some +insane score she fancied she had to state her case in verse. "We are the +music and you are the instrument," she said; "we are verse and you are +prose. + + "For men have reason, women rhyme + A man scores always, all the time." + +This couplet sprang into her mind from nowhere, and immediately begot an +endless series of similar couplets that she began to compose and address +to Capes. They came teeming distressfully through her aching brain: + + "A man can kick, his skirts don't tear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "His dress for no man lays a snare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + For hats that fail and hats that flare; + Toppers their universal wear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "Men's waists are neither here nor there; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "A man can manage without hair; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "There are no males at men to stare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "And children must we women bear-- + +"Oh, damn!" she cried, as the hundred-and-first couplet or so presented +itself in her unwilling brain. + +For a time she worried about that compulsory bath and cutaneous +diseases. + +Then she fell into a fever of remorse for the habit of bad language she +had acquired. + + "A man can smoke, a man can swear; + A man scores always, everywhere." + +She rolled over on her face, and stuffed her fingers in her ears to shut +out the rhythm from her mind. She lay still for a long time, and her +mind resumed at a more tolerable pace. She found herself talking to +Capes in an undertone of rational admission. + +"There is something to be said for the lady-like theory after all," she +admitted. "Women ought to be gentle and submissive persons, strong only +in virtue and in resistance to evil compulsion. My dear--I can call you +that here, anyhow--I know that. The Victorians over-did it a little, I +admit. Their idea of maidenly innocence was just a blank white--the sort +of flat white that doesn't shine. But that doesn't alter the fact +that there IS innocence. And I've read, and thought, and guessed, and +looked--until MY innocence--it's smirched. + +"Smirched!... + +"You see, dear, one IS passionately anxious for something--what is it? +One wants to be CLEAN. You want me to be clean. You would want me to be +clean, if you gave me a thought, that is.... + +"I wonder if you give me a thought.... + +"I'm not a good woman. I don't mean I'm not a good woman--I mean that +I'm not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I hardly know +what I am saying. I mean I'm not a good specimen of a woman. I've got a +streak of male. Things happen to women--proper women--and all they have +to do is to take them well. They've just got to keep white. But I'm +always trying to make things happen. And I get myself dirty... + +"It's all dirt that washes off, dear, but it's dirt. + +"The white unaggressive woman who corrects and nurses and serves, and is +worshipped and betrayed--the martyr-queen of men, the white mother.... +You can't do that sort of thing unless you do it over religion, and +there's no religion in me--of that sort--worth a rap. + +"I'm not gentle. Certainly not a gentlewoman. + +"I'm not coarse--no! But I've got no purity of mind--no real purity of +mind. A good woman's mind has angels with flaming swords at the portals +to keep out fallen thoughts.... + +"I wonder if there are any good women really. + +"I wish I didn't swear. I do swear. It began as a joke.... It +developed into a sort of secret and private bad manners. It's got to be +at last like tobacco-ash over all my sayings and doings.... + +"'Go it, missie,' they said; "kick aht!' + +"I swore at that policeman--and disgusted him. Disgusted him! + + "For men policemen never blush; + A man in all things scores so much... + +"Damn! Things are getting plainer. It must be the dawn creeping in. + + "Now here hath been dawning another blue day; + I'm just a poor woman, please take it away. + +"Oh, sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" + + + +Part 2 + + +"Now," said Ann Veronica, after the half-hour of exercise, and sitting +on the uncomfortable wooden seat without a back that was her perch by +day, "it's no good staying here in a sort of maze. I've got nothing to +do for a month but think. I may as well think. I ought to be able to +think things out. + +"How shall I put the question? What am I? What have I got to do with +myself?... + +"I wonder if many people HAVE thought things out? + +"Are we all just seizing hold of phrases and obeying moods? + +"It wasn't so with old-fashioned people, they knew right from wrong; +they had a clear-cut, religious faith that seemed to explain everything +and give a rule for everything. We haven't. I haven't, anyhow. And it's +no good pretending there is one when there isn't.... I suppose I +believe in God.... Never really thought about Him--people don't.. +.. I suppose my creed is, 'I believe rather indistinctly in God the +Father Almighty, substratum of the evolutionary process, and, in a vein +of vague sentimentality that doesn't give a datum for anything at all, +in Jesus Christ, His Son.'... + +"It's no sort of good, Ann Veronica, pretending one does believe when +one doesn't.... + +"And as for praying for faith--this sort of monologue is about as near +as any one of my sort ever gets to prayer. Aren't I asking--asking +plainly now?... + +"We've all been mixing our ideas, and we've got intellectual hot +coppers--every blessed one of us.... + +"A confusion of motives--that's what I am!... + +"There is this absurd craving for Mr. Capes--the 'Capes crave,' they +would call it in America. Why do I want him so badly? Why do I want him, +and think about him, and fail to get away from him? + +"It isn't all of me. + +"The first person you love, Ann Veronica, is yourself--get hold of that! +The soul you have to save is Ann Veronica's soul...." + +She knelt upon the floor of her cell and clasped her hands, and remained +for a long time in silence. + +"Oh, God!" she said at last, "how I wish I had been taught to pray!" + + + +Part 3 + + +She had some idea of putting these subtle and difficult issues to the +chaplain when she was warned of his advent. But she had not reckoned +with the etiquette of Canongate. She got up, as she had been told to +do, at his appearance, and he amazed her by sitting down, according to +custom, on her stool. He still wore his hat, to show that the days +of miracles and Christ being civil to sinners are over forever. She +perceived that his countenance was only composed by a great effort, his +features severely compressed. He was ruffled, and his ears were red, +no doubt from some adjacent controversy. He classified her as he seated +himself. + +"Another young woman, I suppose," he said, "who knows better than her +Maker about her place in the world. Have you anything to ask me?" + +Ann Veronica readjusted her mind hastily. Her back stiffened. She +produced from the depths of her pride the ugly investigatory note of +the modern district visitor. "Are you a special sort of clergyman," she +said, after a pause, and looking down her nose at him, "or do you go to +the Universities?" + +"Oh!" he said, profoundly. + +He panted for a moment with unuttered replies, and then, with a scornful +gesture, got up and left the cell. + +So that Ann Veronica was not able to get the expert advice she certainly +needed upon her spiritual state. + + + +Part 4 + + +After a day or so she thought more steadily. She found herself in a +phase of violent reaction against the suffrage movement, a phase +greatly promoted by one of those unreasonable objections people of Ann +Veronica's temperament take at times--to the girl in the next cell to +her own. She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still +more foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. +She was noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always +abominably done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that +silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard slouched +round with carelessly dispersed feet. Ann Veronica decided that +"hoydenish ragger" was the only phrase to express her. She was always +breaking rules, whispering asides, intimating signals. She became at +times an embodiment for Ann Veronica of all that made the suffrage +movement defective and unsatisfying. + +She was always initiating petty breaches of discipline. Her greatest +exploit was the howling before the mid-day meal. This was an imitation +of the noises made by the carnivora at the Zoological Gardens at +feeding-time; the idea was taken up by prisoner after prisoner until +the whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican +chatterings, and feline yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of +hysterical laughter. To many in that crowded solitude it came as an +extraordinary relief. It was better even than the hymn-singing. But it +annoyed Ann Veronica. + +"Idiots!" she said, when she heard this pandemonium, and with particular +reference to this young lady with the throaty contralto next door. +"Intolerable idiots!..." + +It took some days for this phase to pass, and it left some scars and +something like a decision. "Violence won't do it," said Ann Veronica. +"Begin violence, and the woman goes under.... + +"But all the rest of our case is right.... Yes." + +As the long, solitary days wore on, Ann Veronica found a number of +definite attitudes and conclusions in her mind. + +One of these was a classification of women into women who are and women +who are not hostile to men. "The real reason why I am out of place +here," she said, "is because I like men. I can talk with them. I've +never found them hostile. I've got no feminine class feeling. I don't +want any laws or freedoms to protect me from a man like Mr. Capes. I +know that in my heart I would take whatever he gave.... + +"A woman wants a proper alliance with a man, a man who is better stuff +than herself. She wants that and needs it more than anything else in +the world. It may not be just, it may not be fair, but things are so. It +isn't law, nor custom, nor masculine violence settled that. It is just +how things happen to be. She wants to be free--she wants to be legally +and economically free, so as not to be subject to the wrong man; but +only God, who made the world, can alter things to prevent her being +slave to the right one. + +"And if she can't have the right one? + +"We've developed such a quality of preference!" + +She rubbed her knuckles into her forehead. "Oh, but life is difficult!" +she groaned. "When you loosen the tangle in one place you tie a knot in +another.... Before there is any change, any real change, I shall be +dead--dead--dead and finished--two hundred years!..." + + + +Part 5 + + +One afternoon, while everything was still, the wardress heard her cry +out suddenly and alarmingly, and with great and unmistakable passion, +"Why in the name of goodness did I burn that twenty pounds?" + + + +Part 6 + + +She sat regarding her dinner. The meat was coarse and disagreeably +served. + +"I suppose some one makes a bit on the food," she said.... + +"One has such ridiculous ideas of the wicked common people and the +beautiful machinery of order that ropes them in. And here are these +places, full of contagion! + +"Of course, this is the real texture of life, this is what we refined +secure people forget. We think the whole thing is straight and noble at +bottom, and it isn't. We think if we just defy the friends we have and +go out into the world everything will become easy and splendid. +One doesn't realize that even the sort of civilization one has at +Morningside Park is held together with difficulty. By policemen one +mustn't shock. + +"This isn't a world for an innocent girl to walk about in. It's a world +of dirt and skin diseases and parasites. It's a world in which the +law can be a stupid pig and the police-stations dirty dens. One wants +helpers and protectors--and clean water. + +"Am I becoming reasonable or am I being tamed? + +"I'm simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and +puzzling. I thought one had only to take it by the throat. + +"It hasn't GOT a throat!" + + + +Part 7 + + +One day the idea of self-sacrifice came into her head, and she made, she +thought, some important moral discoveries. + +It came with an extreme effect of re-discovery, a remarkable novelty. +"What have I been all this time?" she asked herself, and answered, "Just +stark egotism, crude assertion of Ann Veronica, without a modest rag of +religion or discipline or respect for authority to cover me!" + +It seemed to her as though she had at last found the touchstone of +conduct. She perceived she had never really thought of any one but +herself in all her acts and plans. Even Capes had been for her merely an +excitant to passionate love--a mere idol at whose feet one could enjoy +imaginative wallowings. She had set out to get a beautiful life, a free, +untrammelled life, self-development, without counting the cost either +for herself or others. + +"I have hurt my father," she said; "I have hurt my aunt. I have hurt and +snubbed poor Teddy. I've made no one happy. I deserve pretty much what +I've got.... + +"If only because of the way one hurts others if one kicks loose and +free, one has to submit.... + +"Broken-in people! I suppose the world is just all egotistical children +and broken-in people. + +"Your little flag of pride must flutter down with the rest of them, Ann +Veronica.... + +"Compromise--and kindness. + +"Compromise and kindness. + +"Who are YOU that the world should lie down at your feet? + +"You've got to be a decent citizen, Ann Veronica. Take your half loaf +with the others. You mustn't go clawing after a man that doesn't belong +to you--that isn't even interested in you. That's one thing clear. + +"You've got to take the decent reasonable way. You've got to adjust +yourself to the people God has set about you. Every one else does." + +She thought more and more along that line. There was no reason why +she shouldn't be Capes' friend. He did like her, anyhow; he was always +pleased to be with her. There was no reason why she shouldn't be his +restrained and dignified friend. After all, that was life. Nothing was +given away, and no one came so rich to the stall as to command all that +it had to offer. Every one has to make a deal with the world. + +It would be very good to be Capes' friend. + +She might be able to go on with biology, possibly even work upon the +same questions that he dealt with.... + +Perhaps her granddaughter might marry his grandson.... + +It grew clear to her that throughout all her wild raid for independence +she had done nothing for anybody, and many people had done things for +her. She thought of her aunt and that purse that was dropped on the +table, and of many troublesome and ill-requited kindnesses; she thought +of the help of the Widgetts, of Teddy's admiration; she thought, with +a new-born charity, of her father, of Manning's conscientious +unselfishness, of Miss Miniver's devotion. + +"And for me it has been Pride and Pride and Pride! + +"I am the prodigal daughter. I will arise and go to my father, and will +say unto him-- + +"I suppose pride and self-assertion are sin? Sinned against heaven--Yes, +I have sinned against heaven and before thee.... + +"Poor old daddy! I wonder if he'll spend much on the fatted calf?... + +"The wrappered life-discipline! One comes to that at last. I begin to +understand Jane Austen and chintz covers and decency and refinement and +all the rest of it. One puts gloves on one's greedy fingers. One learns +to sit up... + +"And somehow or other," she added, after a long interval, "I must pay +Mr. Ramage back his forty pounds." + + + +CHAPTER THE TWELFTH + +ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica made a strenuous attempt to carry out her good resolutions. +She meditated long and carefully upon her letter to her father before +she wrote it, and gravely and deliberately again before she despatched +it. + + +"MY DEAR FATHER," she wrote,--"I have been thinking hard about +everything since I was sent to this prison. All these experiences have +taught me a great deal about life and realities. I see that compromise +is more necessary to life than I ignorantly supposed it to be, and I +have been trying to get Lord Morley's book on that subject, but it does +not appear to be available in the prison library, and the chaplain seems +to regard him as an undesirable writer." + +At this point she had perceived that she was drifting from her subject. + +"I must read him when I come out. But I see very clearly that as things +are a daughter is necessarily dependent on her father and bound while +she is in that position to live harmoniously with his ideals." + +"Bit starchy," said Ann Veronica, and altered the key abruptly. Her +concluding paragraph was, on the whole, perhaps, hardly starchy enough. + +"Really, daddy, I am sorry for all I have done to put you out. May I +come home and try to be a better daughter to you? + +"ANN VERONICA." + + + +Part 2 + + +Her aunt came to meet her outside Canongate, and, being a little +confused between what was official and what was merely a rebellious +slight upon our national justice, found herself involved in a triumphal +procession to the Vindicator Vegetarian Restaurant, and was specifically +and personally cheered by a small, shabby crowd outside that rendezvous. +They decided quite audibly, "She's an Old Dear, anyhow. Voting wouldn't +do no 'arm to 'er." She was on the very verge of a vegetarian meal +before she recovered her head again. Obeying some fine instinct, she had +come to the prison in a dark veil, but she had pushed this up to kiss +Ann Veronica and never drawn it down again. Eggs were procured for her, +and she sat out the subsequent emotions and eloquence with the dignity +becoming an injured lady of good family. The quiet encounter and +home-coming Ann Veronica and she had contemplated was entirely +disorganized by this misadventure; there were no adequate explanations, +and after they had settled things at Ann Veronica's lodgings, they +reached home in the early afternoon estranged and depressed, with +headaches and the trumpet voice of the indomitable Kitty Brett still +ringing in their ears. + +"Dreadful women, my dear!" said Miss Stanley. "And some of them quite +pretty and well dressed. No need to do such things. We must never +let your father know we went. Why ever did you let me get into that +wagonette?" + +"I thought we had to," said Ann Veronica, who had also been a little +under the compulsion of the marshals of the occasion. "It was very +tiring." + +"We will have some tea in the drawing-room as soon as ever we can--and I +will take my things off. I don't think I shall ever care for this bonnet +again. We'll have some buttered toast. Your poor cheeks are quite sunken +and hollow...." + + + +Part 3 + + +When Ann Veronica found herself in her father's study that evening it +seemed to her for a moment as though all the events of the past six +months had been a dream. The big gray spaces of London, the shop-lit, +greasy, shining streets, had become very remote; the biological +laboratory with its work and emotions, the meetings and discussions, +the rides in hansoms with Ramage, were like things in a book read and +closed. The study seemed absolutely unaltered, there was still the same +lamp with a little chip out of the shade, still the same gas fire, still +the same bundle of blue and white papers, it seemed, with the same pink +tape about them, at the elbow of the arm-chair, still the same father. +He sat in much the same attitude, and she stood just as she had stood +when he told her she could not go to the Fadden Dance. Both had dropped +the rather elaborate politeness of the dining-room, and in their faces +an impartial observer would have discovered little lines of obstinate +wilfulness in common; a certain hardness--sharp, indeed, in the father +and softly rounded in the daughter--but hardness nevertheless, that made +every compromise a bargain and every charity a discount. + +"And so you have been thinking?" her father began, quoting her letter +and looking over his slanting glasses at her. "Well, my girl, I wish you +had thought about all these things before these bothers began." + +Ann Veronica perceived that she must not forget to remain eminently +reasonable. + +"One has to live and learn," she remarked, with a passable imitation of +her father's manner. + +"So long as you learn," said Mr. Stanley. + +Their conversation hung. + +"I suppose, daddy, you've no objection to my going on with my work at +the Imperial College?" she asked. + +"If it will keep you busy," he said, with a faintly ironical smile. + +"The fees are paid to the end of the session." + +He nodded twice, with his eyes on the fire, as though that was a formal +statement. + +"You may go on with that work," he said, "so long as you keep in harmony +with things at home. I'm convinced that much of Russell's investigations +are on wrong lines, unsound lines. Still--you must learn for yourself. +You're of age--you're of age." + +"The work's almost essential for the B.Sc. exam." + +"It's scandalous, but I suppose it is." + +Their agreement so far seemed remarkable, and yet as a home-coming the +thing was a little lacking in warmth. But Ann Veronica had still to get +to her chief topic. They were silent for a time. "It's a period of crude +views and crude work," said Mr. Stanley. "Still, these Mendelian fellows +seem likely to give Mr. Russell trouble, a good lot of trouble. Some of +their specimens--wonderfully selected, wonderfully got up." + +"Daddy," said Ann Veronica, "these affairs--being away from home +has--cost money." + +"I thought you would find that out." + +"As a matter of fact, I happen to have got a little into debt." + +"NEVER!" + +Her heart sank at the change in his expression. + +"Well, lodgings and things! And I paid my fees at the College." + +"Yes. But how could you get--Who gave you credit? + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, "my landlady kept on my room while I +was in Holloway, and the fees for the College mounted up pretty +considerably." She spoke rather quickly, because she found her father's +question the most awkward she had ever had to answer in her life. + +"Molly and you settled about the rooms. She said you HAD some money." + +"I borrowed it," said Ann Veronica in a casual tone, with white despair +in her heart. + +"But who could have lent you money?" + +"I pawned my pearl necklace. I got three pounds, and there's three on my +watch." + +"Six pounds. H'm. Got the tickets? Yes, but then--you said you +borrowed?" + +"I did, too," said Ann Veronica. + +"Who from?" + +She met his eye for a second and her heart failed her. The truth +was impossible, indecent. If she mentioned Ramage he might have a +fit--anything might happen. She lied. "The Widgetts," she said. + +"Tut, tut!" he said. "Really, Vee, you seem to have advertised our +relations pretty generally!" + +"They--they knew, of course. Because of the Dance." + +"How much do you owe them?" + +She knew forty pounds was a quite impossible sum for their neighbors. +She knew, too, she must not hesitate. "Eight pounds," she plunged, and +added foolishly, "fifteen pounds will see me clear of everything." She +muttered some unlady-like comment upon herself under her breath and +engaged in secret additions. + +Mr. Stanley determined to improve the occasion. He seemed to deliberate. +"Well," he said at last slowly, "I'll pay it. I'll pay it. But I do +hope, Vee, I do hope--this is the end of these adventures. I hope you +have learned your lesson now and come to see--come to realize--how +things are. People, nobody, can do as they like in this world. +Everywhere there are limitations." + +"I know," said Ann Veronica (fifteen pounds!). "I have learned that. I +mean--I mean to do what I can." (Fifteen pounds. Fifteen from forty is +twenty-five.) + +He hesitated. She could think of nothing more to say. + +"Well," she achieved at last. "Here goes for the new life!" + +"Here goes for the new life," he echoed and stood up. Father and +daughter regarded each other warily, each more than a little insecure +with the other. He made a movement toward her, and then recalled the +circumstances of their last conversation in that study. She saw his +purpose and his doubt hesitated also, and then went to him, took his +coat lapels, and kissed him on the cheek. + +"Ah, Vee," he said, "that's better! and kissed her back rather clumsily. + +"We're going to be sensible." + +She disengaged herself from him and went out of the room with a grave, +preoccupied expression. (Fifteen pounds! And she wanted forty!) + + + +Part 4 + + +It was, perhaps, the natural consequence of a long and tiring and +exciting day that Ann Veronica should pass a broken and distressful +night, a night in which the noble and self-subduing resolutions of +Canongate displayed themselves for the first time in an atmosphere of +almost lurid dismay. Her father's peculiar stiffness of soul presented +itself now as something altogether left out of the calculations upon +which her plans were based, and, in particular, she had not anticipated +the difficulty she would find in borrowing the forty pounds she needed +for Ramage. That had taken her by surprise, and her tired wits had +failed her. She was to have fifteen pounds, and no more. She knew that +to expect more now was like anticipating a gold-mine in the garden. The +chance had gone. It became suddenly glaringly apparent to her that it +was impossible to return fifteen pounds or any sum less than twenty +pounds to Ramage--absolutely impossible. She realized that with a pang +of disgust and horror. + +Already she had sent him twenty pounds, and never written to explain to +him why it was she had not sent it back sharply directly he returned +it. She ought to have written at once and told him exactly what had +happened. Now if she sent fifteen pounds the suggestion that she had +spent a five-pound note in the meanwhile would be irresistible. No! That +was impossible. She would have just to keep the fifteen pounds until she +could make it twenty. That might happen on her birthday--in August. + +She turned about, and was persecuted by visions, half memories, +half dreams, of Ramage. He became ugly and monstrous, dunning her, +threatening her, assailing her. + +"Confound sex from first to last!" said Ann Veronica. "Why can't we +propagate by sexless spores, as the ferns do? We restrict each other, we +badger each other, friendship is poisoned and buried under it!... I +MUST pay off that forty pounds. I MUST." + +For a time there seemed no comfort for her even in Capes. She was to see +Capes to-morrow, but now, in this state of misery she had achieved, she +felt assured he would turn his back upon her, take no notice of her at +all. And if he didn't, what was the good of seeing him? + +"I wish he was a woman," she said, "then I could make him my friend. I +want him as my friend. I want to talk to him and go about with him. Just +go about with him." + +She was silent for a time, with her nose on the pillow, and that brought +her to: "What's the good of pretending? + +"I love him," she said aloud to the dim forms of her room, and repeated +it, and went on to imagine herself doing acts of tragically dog-like +devotion to the biologist, who, for the purposes of the drama, remained +entirely unconscious of and indifferent to her proceedings. + +At last some anodyne formed itself from these exercises, +and, with eyelashes wet with such feeble tears as only +three-o'clock-in-the-morning pathos can distil, she fell asleep. + + + +Part 5 + + +Pursuant to some altogether private calculations she did not go up to +the Imperial College until after mid-day, and she found the laboratory +deserted, even as she desired. She went to the table under the end +window at which she had been accustomed to work, and found it swept and +garnished with full bottles of re-agents. Everything was very neat; it +had evidently been straightened up and kept for her. She put down the +sketch-books and apparatus she had brought with her, pulled out her +stool, and sat down. As she did so the preparation-room door opened +behind her. She heard it open, but as she felt unable to look round in +a careless manner she pretended not to hear it. Then Capes' footsteps +approached. She turned with an effort. + +"I expected you this morning," he said. "I saw--they knocked off your +fetters yesterday." + +"I think it is very good of me to come this afternoon." + +"I began to be afraid you might not come at all." + +"Afraid!" + +"Yes. I'm glad you're back for all sorts of reasons." He spoke a little +nervously. "Among other things, you know, I didn't understand quite--I +didn't understand that you were so keenly interested in this suffrage +question. I have it on my conscience that I offended you--" + +"Offended me when?" + +"I've been haunted by the memory of you. I was rude and stupid. We were +talking about the suffrage--and I rather scoffed." + +"You weren't rude," she said. + +"I didn't know you were so keen on this suffrage business." + +"Nor I. You haven't had it on your mind all this time?" + +"I have rather. I felt somehow I'd hurt you." + +"You didn't. I--I hurt myself." + +"I mean--" + +"I behaved like an idiot, that's all. My nerves were in rags. I was +worried. We're the hysterical animal, Mr. Capes. I got myself locked up +to cool off. By a sort of instinct. As a dog eats grass. I'm right again +now." + +"Because your nerves were exposed, that was no excuse for my touching +them. I ought to have seen--" + +"It doesn't matter a rap--if you're not disposed to resent the--the way +I behaved." + +"_I_ resent!" + +"I was only sorry I'd been so stupid." + +"Well, I take it we're straight again," said Capes with a note of +relief, and assumed an easier position on the edge of her table. "But +if you weren't keen on the suffrage business, why on earth did you go to +prison?" + +Ann Veronica reflected. "It was a phase," she said. + +He smiled. "It's a new phase in the life history," he remarked. +"Everybody seems to have it now. Everybody who's going to develop into a +woman." + +"There's Miss Garvice." + +"She's coming on," said Capes. "And, you know, you're altering us all. +I'M shaken. The campaign's a success." He met her questioning eye, and +repeated, "Oh! it IS a success. A man is so apt to--to take women a +little too lightly. Unless they remind him now and then not to.... +YOU did." + +"Then I didn't waste my time in prison altogether?" + +"It wasn't the prison impressed me. But I liked the things you said +here. I felt suddenly I understood you--as an intelligent person. If +you'll forgive my saying that, and implying what goes with it. There's +something--puppyish in a man's usual attitude to women. That is what +I've had on my conscience.... I don't think we're altogether to blame +if we don't take some of your lot seriously. Some of your sex, I mean. +But we smirk a little, I'm afraid, habitually when we talk to you. We +smirk, and we're a bit--furtive." + +He paused, with his eyes studying her gravely. "You, anyhow, don't +deserve it," he said. + +Their colloquy was ended abruptly by the apparition of Miss Klegg at +the further door. When she saw Ann Veronica she stood for a moment as if +entranced, and then advanced with outstretched hands. "Veronique!" she +cried with a rising intonation, though never before had she called Ann +Veronica anything but Miss Stanley, and seized her and squeezed her and +kissed her with profound emotion. "To think that you were going to do +it--and never said a word! You are a little thin, but except for that +you look--you look better than ever. Was it VERY horrible? I tried to +get into the police-court, but the crowd was ever so much too big, push +as I would.... + +"I mean to go to prison directly the session is over," said Miss Klegg. +"Wild horses--not if they have all the mounted police in London--shan't +keep me out." + + + +Part 6 + + +Capes lit things wonderfully for Ann Veronica all that afternoon, he was +so friendly, so palpably interested in her, and glad to have her back +with him. Tea in the laboratory was a sort of suffragette reception. +Miss Garvice assumed a quality of neutrality, professed herself almost +won over by Ann Veronica's example, and the Scotchman decided that if +women had a distinctive sphere it was, at any rate, an enlarging sphere, +and no one who believed in the doctrine of evolution could logically +deny the vote to women "ultimately," however much they might be disposed +to doubt the advisability of its immediate concession. It was a refusal +of expediency, he said, and not an absolute refusal. The youth with his +hair like Russell cleared his throat and said rather irrelevantly that +he knew a man who knew Thomas Bayard Simmons, who had rioted in the +Strangers' Gallery, and then Capes, finding them all distinctly pro-Ann +Veronica, if not pro-feminist, ventured to be perverse, and started a +vein of speculation upon the Scotchman's idea--that there were still +hopes of women evolving into something higher. + +He was unusually absurd and ready, and all the time it seemed to Ann +Veronica as a delightful possibility, as a thing not indeed to be +entertained seriously, but to be half furtively felt, that he was being +so agreeable because she had come back again. She returned home through +a world that was as roseate as it had been gray overnight. + +But as she got out of the train at Morningside Park Station she had a +shock. She saw, twenty yards down the platform, the shiny hat and broad +back and inimitable swagger of Ramage. She dived at once behind the +cover of the lamp-room and affected serious trouble with her shoe-lace +until he was out of the station, and then she followed slowly and with +extreme discretion until the bifurcation of the Avenue from the field +way insured her escape. Ramage went up the Avenue, and she hurried +along the path with a beating heart and a disagreeable sense of unsolved +problems in her mind. + +"That thing's going on," she told herself. "Everything goes on, confound +it! One doesn't change anything one has set going by making good +resolutions." + +And then ahead of her she saw the radiant and welcoming figure of +Manning. He came as an agreeable diversion from an insoluble perplexity. +She smiled at the sight of him, and thereat his radiation increased. + +"I missed the hour of your release," he said, "but I was at the +Vindicator Restaurant. You did not see me, I know. I was among the +common herd in the place below, but I took good care to see you." + +"Of course you're converted?" she said. + +"To the view that all those Splendid Women in the movement ought to have +votes. Rather! Who could help it?" + +He towered up over her and smiled down at her in his fatherly way. + +"To the view that all women ought to have votes whether they like it or +not." + +He shook his head, and his eyes and the mouth under the black mustache +wrinkled with his smile. And as he walked by her side they began a +wrangle that was none the less pleasant to Ann Veronica because it +served to banish a disagreeable preoccupation. It seemed to her in her +restored geniality that she liked Manning extremely. The brightness +Capes had diffused over the world glorified even his rival. + + + +Part 7 + + +The steps by which Ann Veronica determined to engage herself to marry +Manning were never very clear to her. A medley of motives warred in her, +and it was certainly not one of the least of these that she knew herself +to be passionately in love with Capes; at moments she had a giddy +intimation that he was beginning to feel keenly interested in her. +She realized more and more the quality of the brink upon which she +stood--the dreadful readiness with which in certain moods she +might plunge, the unmitigated wrongness and recklessness of such a +self-abandonment. "He must never know," she would whisper to herself, +"he must never know. Or else--Else it will be impossible that I can be +his friend." + +That simple statement of the case was by no means all that went on in +Ann Veronica's mind. But it was the form of her ruling determination; it +was the only form that she ever allowed to see daylight. What else was +there lurked in shadows and deep places; if in some mood of reverie it +came out into the light, it was presently overwhelmed and hustled back +again into hiding. She would never look squarely at these dream forms +that mocked the social order in which she lived, never admit she +listened to the soft whisperings in her ear. But Manning seemed more and +more clearly indicated as a refuge, as security. Certain simple purposes +emerged from the disingenuous muddle of her feelings and desires. Seeing +Capes from day to day made a bright eventfulness that hampered her in +the course she had resolved to follow. She vanished from the laboratory +for a week, a week of oddly interesting days.... + +When she renewed her attendance at the Imperial College the third finger +of her left hand was adorned with a very fine old ring with dark blue +sapphires that had once belonged to a great-aunt of Manning's. + +That ring manifestly occupied her thoughts a great deal. She kept +pausing in her work and regarding it, and when Capes came round to her, +she first put her hand in her lap and then rather awkwardly in front of +him. But men are often blind to rings. He seemed to be. + +In the afternoon she had considered certain doubts very carefully, +and decided on a more emphatic course of action. "Are these ordinary +sapphires?" she said. He bent to her hand, and she slipped off the ring +and gave it to him to examine. + +"Very good," he said. "Rather darker than most of them. But I'm +generously ignorant of gems. Is it an old ring?" he asked, returning it. + +"I believe it is. It's an engagement ring...." She slipped it on her +finger, and added, in a voice she tried to make matter-of-fact: "It was +given to me last week." + +"Oh!" he said, in a colorless tone, and with his eyes on her face. + +"Yes. Last week." + +She glanced at him, and it was suddenly apparent for one instant of +illumination that this ring upon her finger was the crowning blunder +of her life. It was apparent, and then it faded into the quality of an +inevitable necessity. + +"Odd!" he remarked, rather surprisingly, after a little interval. + +There was a brief pause, a crowded pause, between them. + +She sat very still, and his eyes rested on that ornament for a moment, +and then travelled slowly to her wrist and the soft lines of her +forearm. + +"I suppose I ought to congratulate you," he said. Their eyes met, and +his expressed perplexity and curiosity. "The fact is--I don't know +why--this takes me by surprise. Somehow I haven't connected the idea +with you. You seemed complete--without that." + +"Did I?" she said. + +"I don't know why. But this is like--like walking round a house that +looks square and complete and finding an unexpected long wing running +out behind." + +She looked up at him, and found he was watching her closely. For some +seconds of voluminous thinking they looked at the ring between them, +and neither spoke. Then Capes shifted his eyes to her microscope and +the little trays of unmounted sections beside it. "How is that carmine +working?" he asked, with a forced interest. + +"Better," said Ann Veronica, with an unreal alacrity. "But it still +misses the nucleolus." + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH + +THE SAPPHIRE RING + + +Part 1 + + +For a time that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all, the +satisfactory solution of Ann Veronica's difficulties. It was like +pouring a strong acid over dulled metal. A tarnish of constraint that +had recently spread over her intercourse with Capes vanished again. They +embarked upon an open and declared friendship. They even talked about +friendship. They went to the Zoological Gardens together one Saturday to +see for themselves a point of morphological interest about the toucan's +bill--that friendly and entertaining bird--and they spent the rest of +the afternoon walking about and elaborating in general terms this theme +and the superiority of intellectual fellowship to all merely passionate +relationships. Upon this topic Capes was heavy and conscientious, but +that seemed to her to be just exactly what he ought to be. He was also, +had she known it, more than a little insincere. "We are only in the dawn +of the Age of Friendship," he said, "when interest, I suppose, will +take the place of passions. Either you have had to love people or hate +them--which is a sort of love, too, in its way--to get anything out of +them. Now, more and more, we're going to be interested in them, to be +curious about them and--quite mildly-experimental with them." He seemed +to be elaborating ideas as he talked. They watched the chimpanzees in +the new apes' house, and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes--"so +much more human than human beings"--and they watched the Agile Gibbon in +the next apartment doing wonderful leaps and aerial somersaults. + +"I wonder which of us enjoys that most," said Capes--"does he, or do +we?" + +"He seems to get a zest--" + +"He does it and forgets it. We remember it. These joyful bounds just +lace into the stuff of my memories and stay there forever. Living's just +material." + +"It's very good to be alive." + +"It's better to know life than be life." + +"One may do both," said Ann Veronica. + +She was in a very uncritical state that afternoon. When he said, "Let's +go and see the wart-hog," she thought no one ever had had so quick a +flow of good ideas as he; and when he explained that sugar and not buns +was the talisman of popularity among the animals, she marvelled at his +practical omniscience. + +Finally, at the exit into Regent's Park, they ran against Miss Klegg. +It was the expression of Miss Klegg's face that put the idea into Ann +Veronica's head of showing Manning at the College one day, an idea which +she didn't for some reason or other carry out for a fortnight. + + + +Part 2 + + +When at last she did so, the sapphire ring took on a new quality in the +imagination of Capes. It ceased to be the symbol of liberty and a remote +and quite abstracted person, and became suddenly and very disagreeably +the token of a large and portentous body visible and tangible. + +Manning appeared just at the end of the afternoon's work, and the +biologist was going through some perplexities the Scotchman had created +by a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of Hyrax and a young African +elephant. He was clearing up these difficulties by tracing a partially +obliterated suture the Scotchman had overlooked when the door from the +passage opened, and Manning came into his universe. + +Seen down the length of the laboratory, Manning looked a very handsome +and shapely gentleman indeed, and, at the sight of his eager advance to +his fiancee, Miss Klegg replaced one long-cherished romance about Ann +Veronica by one more normal and simple. He carried a cane and a silk +hat with a mourning-band in one gray-gloved hand; his frock-coat and +trousers were admirable; his handsome face, his black mustache, his +prominent brow conveyed an eager solicitude. + +"I want," he said, with a white hand outstretched, "to take you out to +tea." + +"I've been clearing up," said Ann Veronica, brightly. + +"All your dreadful scientific things?" he said, with a smile that Miss +Klegg thought extraordinarily kindly. + +"All my dreadful scientific things," said Ann Veronica. + +He stood back, smiling with an air of proprietorship, and looking about +him at the business-like equipment of the room. The low ceiling made him +seem abnormally tall. Ann Veronica wiped a scalpel, put a card over a +watch-glass containing thin shreds of embryonic guinea-pig swimming in +mauve stain, and dismantled her microscope. + +"I wish I understood more of biology," said Manning. + +"I'm ready," said Ann Veronica, closing her microscope-box with a click, +and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. "We have no airs +and graces here, and my hat hangs from a peg in the passage." + +She led the way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and round her +and opened the door for her. When Capes glanced up at them for a moment, +Manning seemed to be holding his arms all about her, and there was +nothing but quiet acquiescence in her bearing. + +After Capes had finished the Scotchman's troubles he went back into the +preparation-room. He sat down on the sill of the open window, folded his +arms, and stared straight before him for a long time over the wilderness +of tiles and chimney-pots into a sky that was blue and empty. He was not +addicted to monologue, and the only audible comment he permitted himself +at first upon a universe that was evidently anything but satisfactory to +him that afternoon, was one compact and entirely unassigned "Damn!" + +The word must have had some gratifying quality, because he repeated +it. Then he stood up and repeated it again. "The fool I have been!" he +cried; and now speech was coming to him. He tried this sentence with +expletives. "Ass!" he went on, still warming. "Muck-headed moral ass! I +ought to have done anything. + +"I ought to have done anything! + +"What's a man for? + +"Friendship!" + +He doubled up his fist, and seemed to contemplate thrusting it through +the window. He turned his back on that temptation. Then suddenly he +seized a new preparation bottle that stood upon his table and contained +the better part of a week's work--a displayed dissection of a snail, +beautifully done--and hurled it across the room, to smash resoundingly +upon the cemented floor under the bookcase; then, without either haste +or pause, he swept his arm along a shelf of re-agents and sent them to +mingle with the debris on the floor. They fell in a diapason of smashes. +"H'm!" he said, regarding the wreckage with a calmer visage. "Silly!" he +remarked after a pause. "One hardly knows--all the time." + +He put his hands in his pockets, his mouth puckered to a whistle, and he +went to the door of the outer preparation-room and stood there, looking, +save for the faintest intensification of his natural ruddiness, the +embodiment of blond serenity. + +"Gellett," he called, "just come and clear up a mess, will you? I've +smashed some things." + + + +Part 3 + + +There was one serious flaw in Ann Veronica's arrangements for +self-rehabilitation, and that was Ramage. He hung over her--he and his +loan to her and his connection with her and that terrible evening--a +vague, disconcerting possibility of annoyance and exposure. She could +not see any relief from this anxiety except repayment, and repayment +seemed impossible. The raising of twenty-five pounds was a task +altogether beyond her powers. Her birthday was four months away, and +that, at its extremist point, might give her another five pounds. + +The thing rankled in her mind night and day. She would wake in the night +to repeat her bitter cry: "Oh, why did I burn those notes?" + +It added greatly to the annoyance of the situation that she had twice +seen Ramage in the Avenue since her return to the shelter of her +father's roof. He had saluted her with elaborate civility, his eyes +distended with indecipherable meanings. + +She felt she was bound in honor to tell the whole affair to Manning +sooner or later. Indeed, it seemed inevitable that she must clear it up +with his assistance, or not at all. And when Manning was not about +the thing seemed simple enough. She would compose extremely lucid and +honorable explanations. But when it came to broaching them, it proved to +be much more difficult than she had supposed. + +They went down the great staircase of the building, and, while she +sought in her mind for a beginning, he broke into appreciation of her +simple dress and self-congratulations upon their engagement. + +"It makes me feel," he said, "that nothing is impossible--to have you +here beside me. I said, that day at Surbiton, 'There's many good things +in life, but there's only one best, and that's the wild-haired girl +who's pulling away at that oar. I will make her my Grail, and some day, +perhaps, if God wills, she shall become my wife!'" + +He looked very hard before him as he said this, and his voice was full +of deep feeling. + +"Grail!" said Ann Veronica, and then: "Oh, yes--of course! Anything but +a holy one, I'm afraid." + +"Altogether holy, Ann Veronica. Ah! but you can't imagine what you are +to me and what you mean to me! I suppose there is something mystical and +wonderful about all women." + +"There is something mystical and wonderful about all human beings. I +don't see that men need bank it with the women." + +"A man does," said Manning--"a true man, anyhow. And for me there is +only one treasure-house. By Jove! When I think of it I want to leap and +shout!" + +"It would astonish that man with the barrow." + +"It astonishes me that I don't," said Manning, in a tone of intense +self-enjoyment. + +"I think," began Ann Veronica, "that you don't realize--" + +He disregarded her entirely. He waved an arm and spoke with a peculiar +resonance. "I feel like a giant! I believe now I shall do great things. +Gods! what it must be to pour out strong, splendid verse--mighty +lines! mighty lines! If I do, Ann Veronica, it will be you. It will be +altogether you. I will dedicate my books to you. I will lay them all at +your feet." + +He beamed upon her. + +"I don't think you realize," Ann Veronica began again, "that I am rather +a defective human being." + +"I don't want to," said Manning. "They say there are spots on the sun. +Not for me. It warms me, and lights me, and fills my world with flowers. +Why should I peep at it through smoked glass to see things that don't +affect me?" He smiled his delight at his companion. + +"I've got bad faults." + +He shook his head slowly, smiling mysteriously. + +"But perhaps I want to confess them." + +"I grant you absolution." + +"I don't want absolution. I want to make myself visible to you." + +"I wish I could make you visible to yourself. I don't believe in the +faults. They're just a joyous softening of the outline--more beautiful +than perfection. Like the flaws of an old marble. If you talk of your +faults, I shall talk of your splendors." + +"I do want to tell you things, nevertheless." + +"We'll have, thank God! ten myriad days to tell each other things. When +I think of it--" + +"But these are things I want to tell you now!" + +"I made a little song of it. Let me say it to you. I've no name for it +yet. Epithalamy might do. + + "Like him who stood on Darien + I view uncharted sea + Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights + Before my Queen and me. + +"And that only brings me up to about sixty-five! + + "A glittering wilderness of time + That to the sunset reaches + No keel as yet its waves has ploughed + Or gritted on its beaches. + + "And we will sail that splendor wide, + From day to day together, + From isle to isle of happiness + Through year's of God's own weather." + +"Yes," said his prospective fellow-sailor, "that's very pretty." She +stopped short, full of things un-said. Pretty! Ten thousand days, ten +thousand nights! + +"You shall tell me your faults," said Manning. "If they matter to you, +they matter." + +"It isn't precisely faults," said Ann Veronica. "It's something that +bothers me." Ten thousand! Put that way it seemed so different. + +"Then assuredly!" said Manning. + +She found a little difficulty in beginning. She was glad when he went +on: "I want to be your city of refuge from every sort of bother. I want +to stand between you and all the force and vileness of the world. I want +to make you feel that here is a place where the crowd does not clamor +nor ill-winds blow." + +"That is all very well," said Ann Veronica, unheeded. + +"That is my dream of you," said Manning, warming. "I want my life to be +beaten gold just in order to make it a fitting setting for yours. There +you will be, in an inner temple. I want to enrich it with hangings and +gladden it with verses. I want to fill it with fine and precious things. +And by degrees, perhaps, that maiden distrust of yours that makes you +shrink from my kisses, will vanish.... Forgive me if a certain +warmth creeps into my words! The Park is green and gray to-day, but I am +glowing pink and gold.... It is difficult to express these things." + + + +Part 4 + + +They sat with tea and strawberries and cream before them at a little +table in front of the pavilion in Regent's Park. Her confession was +still unmade. Manning leaned forward on the table, talking discursively +on the probable brilliance of their married life. Ann Veronica sat back +in an attitude of inattention, her eyes on a distant game of cricket, +her mind perplexed and busy. She was recalling the circumstances under +which she had engaged herself to Manning, and trying to understand a +curious development of the quality of this relationship. + +The particulars of her engagement were very clear in her memory. She had +taken care he should have this momentous talk with her on a garden-seat +commanded by the windows of the house. They had been playing tennis, +with his manifest intention looming over her. + +"Let us sit down for a moment," he had said. He made his speech a little +elaborately. She plucked at the knots of her racket and heard him to the +end, then spoke in a restrained undertone. + +"You ask me to be engaged to you, Mr. Manning," she began. + +"I want to lay all my life at your feet." + +"Mr. Manning, I do not think I love you.... I want to be very plain +with you. I have nothing, nothing that can possibly be passion for you. +I am sure. Nothing at all." + +He was silent for some moments. + +"Perhaps that is only sleeping," he said. "How can you know?" + +"I think--perhaps I am rather a cold-blooded person." + +She stopped. He remained listening attentively. + +"You have been very kind to me," she said. + +"I would give my life for you." + +Her heart had warmed toward him. It had seemed to her that life might +be very good indeed with his kindliness and sacrifice about her. She +thought of him as always courteous and helpful, as realizing, indeed, +his ideal of protection and service, as chivalrously leaving her free to +live her own life, rejoicing with an infinite generosity in every detail +of her irresponsive being. She twanged the catgut under her fingers. + +"It seems so unfair," she said, "to take all you offer me and give so +little in return." + +"It is all the world to me. And we are not traders looking at +equivalents." + +"You know, Mr. Manning, I do not really want to marry." + +"No." + +"It seems so--so unworthy"--she picked among her phrases "of the noble +love you give--" + +She stopped, through the difficulty she found in expressing herself. + +"But I am judge of that," said Manning. + +"Would you wait for me?" + +Manning was silent for a space. "As my lady wills." + +"Would you let me go on studying for a time?" + +"If you order patience." + +"I think, Mr. Manning... I do not know. It is so difficult. When I +think of the love you give me--One ought to give you back love." + +"You like me?" + +"Yes. And I am grateful to you...." + +Manning tapped with his racket on the turf through some moments of +silence. "You are the most perfect, the most glorious of created +things--tender, frank intellectual, brave, beautiful. I am your +servitor. I am ready to wait for you, to wait your pleasure, to give all +my life to winning it. Let me only wear your livery. Give me but leave +to try. You want to think for a time, to be free for a time. That is so +like you, Diana--Pallas Athene! (Pallas Athene is better.) You are all +the slender goddesses. I understand. Let me engage myself. That is all I +ask." + +She looked at him; his face, downcast and in profile, was handsome and +strong. Her gratitude swelled within her. + +"You are too good for me," she said in a low voice. + +"Then you--you will?" + +A long pause. + +"It isn't fair...." + +"But will you?" + +"YES." + +For some seconds he had remained quite still. + +"If I sit here," he said, standing up before her abruptly, "I shall +have to shout. Let us walk about. Tum, tum, tirray, tum, tum, tum, +te-tum--that thing of Mendelssohn's! If making one human being +absolutely happy is any satisfaction to you--" + +He held out his hands, and she also stood up. + +He drew her close up to him with a strong, steady pull. Then suddenly, +in front of all those windows, he folded her in his arms and pressed her +to him, and kissed her unresisting face. + +"Don't!" cried Ann Veronica, struggling faintly, and he released her. + +"Forgive me," he said. "But I am at singing-pitch." + +She had a moment of sheer panic at the thing she had done. "Mr. +Manning," she said, "for a time--Will you tell no one? Will you keep +this--our secret? I'm doubtful--Will you please not even tell my aunt?" + +"As you will," he said. "But if my manner tells! I cannot help it if +that shows. You only mean a secret for a little time?" + +"Just for a little time," she said; "yes...." + +But the ring, and her aunt's triumphant eye, and a note of approval in +her father's manner, and a novel disposition in him to praise Manning +in a just, impartial voice had soon placed very definite qualifications +upon that covenanted secrecy. + + + +Part 5 + + +At first the quality of her relationship to Manning seemed moving and +beautiful to Ann Veronica. She admired and rather pitied him, and she +was unfeignedly grateful to him. She even thought that perhaps she might +come to love him, in spite of that faint indefinable flavor of absurdity +that pervaded his courtly bearing. She would never love him as she +loved Capes, of course, but there are grades and qualities of love. +For Manning it would be a more temperate love altogether. Much more +temperate; the discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, +condescending wife. She had been quite convinced that an engagement with +him and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromise which +distinguishes the ways of the wise. It would be the wrappered world +almost at its best. She saw herself building up a life upon that--a +life restrained, kindly, beautiful, a little pathetic and altogether +dignified; a life of great disciplines and suppressions and extensive +reserves... + +But the Ramage affair needed clearing up, of course; it was a flaw upon +that project. She had to explain about and pay off that forty pounds.... + +Then, quite insensibly, her queenliness had declined. She was never able +to trace the changes her attitude had undergone, from the time when she +believed herself to be the pampered Queen of Fortune, the crown of a +good man's love (and secretly, but nobly, worshipping some one else), +to the time when she realized she was in fact just a mannequin for her +lover's imagination, and that he cared no more for the realities of her +being, for the things she felt and desired, for the passions and dreams +that might move her, than a child cares for the sawdust in its doll. She +was the actress his whim had chosen to play a passive part.... + +It was one of the most educational disillusionments in Ann Veronica's +career. + +But did many women get anything better? + +This afternoon, when she was urgent to explain her hampering and +tainting complication with Ramage, the realization of this alien quality +in her relationship with Manning became acute. Hitherto it had been +qualified by her conception of all life as a compromise, by her new +effort to be unexacting of life. But she perceived that to tell Manning +of her Ramage adventures as they had happened would be like tarring +figures upon a water-color. They were in different key, they had a +different timbre. How could she tell him what indeed already began to +puzzle herself, why she had borrowed that money at all? The plain fact +was that she had grabbed a bait. She had grabbed! She became less and +less attentive to his meditative, self-complacent fragments of talk as +she told herself this. Her secret thoughts made some hasty, half-hearted +excursions into the possibility of telling the thing in romantic +tones--Ramage was as a black villain, she as a white, fantastically +white, maiden.... She doubted if Manning would even listen to that. +He would refuse to listen and absolve her unshriven. + +Then it came to her with a shock, as an extraordinary oversight, that +she could never tell Manning about Ramage--never. + +She dismissed the idea of doing so. But that still left the forty +pounds!... + +Her mind went on generalizing. So it would always be between herself and +Manning. She saw her life before her robbed of all generous illusions, +the wrappered life unwrappered forever, vistas of dull responses, crises +of make-believe, years of exacting mutual disregard in a misty garden of +fine sentiments. + +But did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps every woman +conceals herself from a man perforce!... + +She thought of Capes. She could not help thinking of Capes. Surely +Capes was different. Capes looked at one and not over one, spoke to one, +treated one as a visible concrete fact. Capes saw her, felt for her, +cared for her greatly, even if he did not love her. Anyhow, he did not +sentimentalize her. And she had been doubting since that walk in the +Zoological Gardens whether, indeed, he did simply care for her. Little +things, almost impalpable, had happened to justify that doubt; something +in his manner had belied his words. Did he not look for her in the +morning when she entered--come very quickly to her? She thought of him +as she had last seen him looking down the length of the laboratory to +see her go. Why had he glanced up--quite in that way?... + +The thought of Capes flooded her being like long-veiled sunlight +breaking again through clouds. It came to her like a dear thing +rediscovered, that she loved Capes. It came to her that to marry any +one but Capes was impossible. If she could not marry him, she would not +marry any one. She would end this sham with Manning. It ought never +to have begun. It was cheating, pitiful cheating. And then if some day +Capes wanted her--saw fit to alter his views upon friendship.... + +Dim possibilities that she would not seem to look at even to herself +gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind. + +She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution, and in one moment had +made it into a new self. She flung aside every plan she had in life, +every discretion. Of course, why not? She would be honest, anyhow! + +She turned her eyes to Manning. + +He was sitting back from the table now, with one arm over the back +of his green chair and the other resting on the little table. He was +smiling under his heavy mustache, and his head was a little on one side +as he looked at her. + +"And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?" he was saying. +His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene disbelief in any confessible +thing. Ann Veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and the vestiges of her +strawberries and cream, and put her elbows before her on the table. "Mr. +Manning," she said, "I HAVE a confession to make." + +"I wish you would use my Christian name," he said. + +She attended to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant. + +Something in her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted gravity +to him. For the first time he seemed to wonder what it might be that she +had to confess. His smile faded. + +"I don't think our engagement can go on," she plunged, and felt exactly +that loss of breath that comes with a dive into icy water. + +"But, how," he said, sitting up astonished beyond measure, "not go on?" + +"I have been thinking while you have been talking. You see--I didn't +understand." + +She stared hard at her finger-nails. "It is hard to express one's self, +but I do want to be honest with you. When I promised to marry you I +thought I could; I thought it was a possible arrangement. I did think it +could be done. I admired your chivalry. I was grateful." + +She paused. + +"Go on," he said. + +She moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a still lower tone. "I +told you I did not love you." + +"I know," said Manning, nodding gravely. "It was fine and brave of you." + +"But there is something more." + +She paused again. + +"I--I am sorry--I didn't explain. These things are difficult. It wasn't +clear to me that I had to explain.... I love some one else." + +They remained looking at each other for three or four seconds. Then +Manning flopped back in his chair and dropped his chin like a man shot. +There was a long silence between them. + +"My God!" he said at last, with tremendous feeling, and then again, "My +God!" + +Now that this thing was said her mind was clear and calm. She heard this +standard expression of a strong soul wrung with a critical coldness that +astonished herself. She realized dimly that there was no personal thing +behind his cry, that countless myriads of Mannings had "My God!"-ed with +an equal gusto at situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated +her remorse enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and conveyed +magnificent tragedy by his pose. + +"But why," he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, and +looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, "why did you not tell me +this before?" + +"I didn't know--I thought I might be able to control myself." + +"And you can't?" + +"I don't think I ought to control myself." + +"And I have been dreaming and thinking--" + +"I am frightfully sorry...." + +"But--This bolt from the blue! My God! Ann Veronica, you don't +understand. This--this shatters a world!" + +She tried to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism was strong +and clear. + +He went on with intense urgency. + +"Why did you ever let me love you? Why did you ever let me peep through +the gates of Paradise? Oh! my God! I don't begin to feel and realize +this yet. It seems to me just talk; it seems to me like the fancy of a +dream. Tell me I haven't heard. This is a joke of yours." He made his +voice very low and full, and looked closely into her face. + +She twisted her fingers tightly. "It isn't a joke," she said. "I feel +shabby and disgraced.... I ought never to have thought of it. Of you, +I mean...." + +He fell back in his chair with an expression of tremendous desolation. +"My God!" he said again.... + +They became aware of the waitress standing over them with book and +pencil ready for their bill. "Never mind the bill," said Manning +tragically, standing up and thrusting a four-shilling piece into her +hand, and turning a broad back on her astonishment. "Let us walk across +the Park at least," he said to Ann Veronica. "Just at present my mind +simply won't take hold of this at all.... I tell you--never mind the +bill. Keep it! Keep it!" + + + +Part 6 + + +They walked a long way that afternoon. They crossed the Park to the +westward, and then turned back and walked round the circle about the +Royal Botanical Gardens and then southwardly toward Waterloo. They +trudged and talked, and Manning struggled, as he said, to "get the hang +of it all." + +It was a long, meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and unavoidable. Ann +Veronica was apologetic to the bottom of her soul. At the same time she +was wildly exultant at the resolution she had taken, the end she had +made to her blunder. She had only to get through this, to solace Manning +as much as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as +were possible, and then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fate +to the test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action in +accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them or care +for them. Then she realized that it was her business to let Manning talk +and impose his own interpretations upon the situation so far as he was +concerned. She did her best to do this. But about his unknown rival he +was acutely curious. + +He made her tell him the core of the difficulty. + +"I cannot say who he is," said Ann Veronica, "but he is a married +man.... No! I do not even know that he cares for me. It is no good going +into that. Only I just want him. I just want him, and no one else will +do. It is no good arguing about a thing like that." + +"But you thought you could forget him." + +"I suppose I must have thought so. I didn't understand. Now I do." + +"By God!" said Manning, making the most of the word, "I suppose it's +fate. Fate! You are so frank so splendid! + +"I'm taking this calmly now," he said, almost as if he apologized, +"because I'm a little stunned." + +Then he asked, "Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love to +you?" + +Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. "I wish he had," she said. + +"But--" + +The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on her +nerves. "When one wants a thing more than anything else in the world," +she said with outrageous frankness, "one naturally wishes one had it." + +She shocked him by that. She shattered the edifice he was building up +of himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win her from a +hopeless and consuming passion. + +"Mr. Manning," she said, "I warned you not to idealize me. Men ought not +to idealize any woman. We aren't worth it. We've done nothing to deserve +it. And it hampers us. You don't know the thoughts we have; the things +we can do and say. You are a sisterless man; you have never heard the +ordinary talk that goes on at a girls' boarding-school." + +"Oh! but you ARE splendid and open and fearless! As if I couldn't allow! +What are all these little things? Nothing! Nothing! You can't sully +yourself. You can't! I tell you frankly you may break off your +engagement to me--I shall hold myself still engaged to you, yours just +the same. As for this infatuation--it's like some obsession, some +magic thing laid upon you. It's not you--not a bit. It's a thing that's +happened to you. It is like some accident. I don't care. In a sense I +don't care. It makes no difference.... All the same, I wish I had +that fellow by the throat! Just the virile, unregenerate man in me +wishes that.... + +"I suppose I should let go if I had. + +"You know," he went on, "this doesn't seem to me to end anything. + +"I'm rather a persistent person. I'm the sort of dog, if you turn it out +of the room it lies down on the mat at the door. I'm not a lovesick +boy. I'm a man, and I know what I mean. It's a tremendous blow, of +course--but it doesn't kill me. And the situation it makes!--the +situation!" + +Thus Manning, egotistical, inconsecutive, unreal. And Ann Veronica +walked beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to him by the +thought of how she had ill-used him, and all the time, as her feet and +mind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the cost +of this one interminable walk she escaped the prospect of--what was +it?--"Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights" in his company. Whatever +happened she need never return to that possibility. + +"For me," Manning went on, "this isn't final. In a sense it alters +nothing. I shall still wear your favor--even if it is a stolen and +forbidden favor--in my casque.... I shall still believe in you. Trust +you." + +He repeated several times that he would trust her, though it remained +obscure just exactly where the trust came in. + +"Look here," he cried out of a silence, with a sudden flash of +understanding, "did you mean to throw me over when you came out with me +this afternoon?" + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and with a startled mind realized the truth. +"No," she answered, reluctantly. + +"Very well," said Manning. "Then I don't take this as final. That's all. +I've bored you or something.... You think you love this other man! No +doubt you do love him. Before you have lived--" + +He became darkly prophetic. He thrust out a rhetorical hand. + +"I will MAKE you love me! Until he has faded--faded into a memory..." + +He saw her into the train at Waterloo, and stood, a tall, grave figure, +with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward slowly and hid him. +Ann Veronica sat back with a sigh of relief. Manning might go on now +idealizing her as much as he liked. She was no longer a confederate in +that. He might go on as the devoted lover until he tired. She had done +forever with the Age of Chivalry, and her own base adaptations of its +traditions to the compromising life. She was honest again. + +But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived the +tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic +importunity. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH + +THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + + +Part 1 + + +Spring had held back that year until the dawn of May, and then spring +and summer came with a rush together. Two days after this conversation +between Manning and Ann Veronica, Capes came into the laboratory at +lunch-time and found her alone there standing by the open window, and +not even pretending to be doing anything. + +He came in with his hands in his trousers pockets and a general air +of depression in his bearing. He was engaged in detesting Manning and +himself in almost equal measure. His face brightened at the sight of +her, and he came toward her. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. + +"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, and stared over her shoulder out of the +window. + +"So am I.... Lassitude?" + +"I suppose so." + +"_I_ can't work." + +"Nor I," said Ann Veronica. + +Pause. + +"It's the spring," he said. "It's the warming up of the year, the coming +of the light mornings, the way in which everything begins to run about +and begin new things. Work becomes distasteful; one thinks of holidays. +This year--I've got it badly. I want to get away. I've never wanted to +get away so much." + +"Where do you go?" + +"Oh!--Alps." + +"Climbing?" + +"Yes." + +"That's rather a fine sort of holiday!" + +He made no answer for three or four seconds. + +"Yes," he said, "I want to get away. I feel at moments as though I could +bolt for it.... Silly, isn't it? Undisciplined." + +He went to the window and fidgeted with the blind, looking out to where +the tree-tops of Regent's Park showed distantly over the houses. He +turned round toward her and found her looking at him and standing very +still. + +"It's the stir of spring," he said. + +"I believe it is." + +She glanced out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth of +hard spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild resolution, +and, lest she should waver from it, she set about at once to realize it. +"I've broken off my engagement," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and +found her heart thumping in her neck. He moved slightly, and she +went on, with a slight catching of her breath: "It's a bother and +disturbance, but you see--" She had to go through with it now, because +she could think of nothing but her preconceived words. Her voice was +weak and flat. + +"I've fallen in love." + +He never helped her by a sound. + +"I--I didn't love the man I was engaged to," she said. She met his eyes +for a moment, and could not interpret their expression. They struck her +as cold and indifferent. + +Her heart failed her and her resolution became water. She remained +standing stiffly, unable even to move. She could not look at him through +an interval that seemed to her a vast gulf of time. But she felt his lax +figure become rigid. + +At last his voice came to release her tension. + +"I thought you weren't keeping up to the mark. You--It's jolly of you to +confide in me. Still--" Then, with incredible and obviously deliberate +stupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, he asked, "Who is the man?" + +Her spirit raged within her at the dumbness, the paralysis that had +fallen upon her. Grace, confidence, the power of movement even, seemed +gone from her. A fever of shame ran through her being. Horrible doubts +assailed her. She sat down awkwardly and helplessly on one of the little +stools by her table and covered her face with her hands. + +"Can't you SEE how things are?" she said. + + + +Part 2 + + +Before Capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of the +laboratory opened noisily and Miss Klegg appeared. She went to her own +table and sat down. At the sound of the door Ann Veronica uncovered +a tearless face, and with one swift movement assumed a conversational +attitude. Things hung for a moment in an awkward silence. + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, staring before her at the window-sash, +"that's the form my question takes at the present time." + +Capes had not quite the same power of recovery. He stood with his +hands in his pockets looking at Miss Klegg's back. His face was white. +"It's--it's a difficult question." He appeared to be paralyzed by +abstruse acoustic calculations. Then, very awkwardly, he took a stool +and placed it at the end of Ann Veronica's table, and sat down. He +glanced at Miss Klegg again, and spoke quickly and furtively, with eager +eyes on Ann Veronica's face. + +"I had a faint idea once that things were as you say they are, but the +affair of the ring--of the unexpected ring--puzzled me. Wish SHE"--he +indicated Miss Klegg's back with a nod--"was at the bottom of the +sea.... I would like to talk to you about this--soon. If you don't think +it would be a social outrage, perhaps I might walk with you to your +railway station." + +"I will wait," said Ann Veronica, still not looking at him, "and we will +go into Regent's Park. No--you shall come with me to Waterloo." + +"Right!" he said, and hesitated, and then got up and went into the +preparation-room. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that lead +southward from the College. Capes bore a face of infinite perplexity. + +"The thing I feel most disposed to say, Miss Stanley," he began at last, +"is that this is very sudden." + +"It's been coming on since first I came into the laboratory." + +"What do you want?" he asked, bluntly. + +"You!" said Ann Veronica. + +The sense of publicity, of people coming and going about them, kept +them both unemotional. And neither had any of that theatricality which +demands gestures and facial expression. + +"I suppose you know I like you tremendously?" he pursued. + +"You told me that in the Zoological Gardens." + +She found her muscles a-tremble. But there was nothing in her bearing +that a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the excitement that +possessed her. + +"I"--he seemed to have a difficulty with the word--"I love you. I've +told you that practically already. But I can give it its name now. You +needn't be in any doubt about it. I tell you that because it puts us on +a footing...." + +They went on for a time without another word. + +"But don't you know about me?" he said at last. + +"Something. Not much." + +"I'm a married man. And my wife won't live with me for reasons that I +think most women would consider sound.... Or I should have made love +to you long ago." + +There came a silence again. + +"I don't care," said Ann Veronica. + +"But if you knew anything of that--" + +"I did. It doesn't matter." + +"Why did you tell me? I thought--I thought we were going to be friends." + +He was suddenly resentful. He seemed to charge her with the ruin of +their situation. "Why on earth did you TELL me?" he cried. + +"I couldn't help it. It was an impulse. I HAD to." + +"But it changes things. I thought you understood." + +"I had to," she repeated. "I was sick of the make-believe. I don't care! +I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did." + +"Look here!" said Capes, "what on earth do you want? What do you think +we can do? Don't you know what men are, and what life is?--to come to me +and talk to me like this!" + +"I know--something, anyhow. But I don't care; I haven't a spark of +shame. I don't see any good in life if it hasn't got you in it. I wanted +you to know. And now you know. And the fences are down for good. You +can't look me in the eyes and say you don't care for me." + +"I've told you," he said. + +"Very well," said Ann Veronica, with an air of concluding the +discussion. + +They walked side by side for a time. + +"In that laboratory one gets to disregard these passions," began Capes. +"Men are curious animals, with a trick of falling in love readily +with girls about your age. One has to train one's self not to. I've +accustomed myself to think of you--as if you were like every other +girl who works at the schools--as something quite outside these +possibilities. If only out of loyalty to co-education one has to do +that. Apart from everything else, this meeting of ours is a breach of a +good rule." + +"Rules are for every day," said Ann Veronica. "This is not every day. +This is something above all rules." + +"For you." + +"Not for you?" + +"No. No; I'm going to stick to the rules.... It's odd, but nothing +but cliche seems to meet this case. You've placed me in a very +exceptional position, Miss Stanley." The note of his own voice +exasperated him. "Oh, damn!" he said. + +She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems with +himself. + +"No!" he said aloud at last. + +"The plain common-sense of the case," he said, "is that we can't +possibly be lovers in the ordinary sense. That, I think, is manifest. +You know, I've done no work at all this afternoon. I've been smoking +cigarettes in the preparation-room and thinking this out. We can't be +lovers in the ordinary sense, but we can be great and intimate friends." + +"We are," said Ann Veronica. + +"You've interested me enormously...." + +He paused with a sense of ineptitude. "I want to be your friend," he +said. "I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let us be friends--as near +and close as friends can be." + +Ann Veronica gave him a pallid profile. + +"What is the good of pretending?" she said. + +"We don't pretend." + +"We do. Love is one thing and friendship quite another. Because I'm +younger than you.... I've got imagination.... I know what I am +talking about. Mr. Capes, do you think... do you think I don't know +the meaning of love?" + + + +Part 4 + + +Capes made no answer for a time. + +"My mind is full of confused stuff," he said at length. "I've been +thinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of thought and +feeling there are bottled up too.... I feel a mixture of beast and +uncle. I feel like a fraudulent trustee. Every rule is against me--Why +did I let you begin this? I might have told--" + +"I don't see that you could help--" + +"I might have helped--" + +"You couldn't." + +"I ought to have--all the same. + +"I wonder," he said, and went off at a tangent. "You know about my +scandalous past?" + +"Very little. It doesn't seem to matter. Does it?" + +"I think it does. Profoundly." + +"How?" + +"It prevents our marrying. It forbids--all sorts of things." + +"It can't prevent our loving." + +"I'm afraid it can't. But, by Jove! it's going to make our loving a +fiercely abstract thing." + +"You are separated from your wife?" + +"Yes, but do you know how?" + +"Not exactly." + +"Why on earth--? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I'm separated from +my wife. But she doesn't and won't divorce me. You don't understand +the fix I am in. And you don't know what led to our separation. And, in +fact, all round the problem you don't know and I don't see how I could +possibly have told you before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I +trusted to that ring of yours." + +"Poor old ring!" said Ann Veronica. + +"I ought never have gone to the Zoo, I suppose. I asked you to go. But +a man is a mixed creature.... I wanted the time with you. I wanted it +badly." + +"Tell me about yourself," said Ann Veronica. + +"To begin with, I was--I was in the divorce court. I was--I was a +co-respondent. You understand that term?" + +Ann Veronica smiled faintly. "A modern girl does understand these terms. +She reads novels--and history--and all sorts of things. Did you really +doubt if I knew?" + +"No. But I don't suppose you can understand." + +"I don't see why I shouldn't." + +"To know things by name is one thing; to know them by seeing them and +feeling them and being them quite another. That is where life takes +advantage of youth. You don't understand." + +"Perhaps I don't." + +"You don't. That's the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I expect, +since you are in love with me, you'd explain the whole business as being +very fine and honorable for me--the Higher Morality, or something of +that sort.... It wasn't." + +"I don't deal very much," said Ann Veronica, "in the Higher Morality, or +the Higher Truth, or any of those things." + +"Perhaps you don't. But a human being who is young and clean, as you +are, is apt to ennoble--or explain away." + +"I've had a biological training. I'm a hard young woman." + +"Nice clean hardness, anyhow. I think you are hard. There's +something--something ADULT about you. I'm talking to you now as though +you had all the wisdom and charity in the world. I'm going to tell you +things plainly. Plainly. It's best. And then you can go home and think +things over before we talk again. I want you to be clear what you're +really and truly up to, anyhow." + +"I don't mind knowing," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's precious unromantic." + +"Well, tell me." + +"I married pretty young," said Capes. "I've got--I have to tell you this +to make myself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my composition. I +married--I married a woman whom I still think one of the most beautiful +persons in the world. She is a year or so older than I am, and she is, +well, of a very serene and proud and dignified temperament. If you met +her you would, I am certain, think her as fine as I do. She has never +done a really ignoble thing that I know of--never. I met her when we +were both very young, as young as you are. I loved her and made love to +her, and I don't think she quite loved me back in the same way." + +He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing. + +"These are the sort of things that aren't supposed to happen. They leave +them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young people ignore them +until they find themselves up against them. My wife doesn't understand, +doesn't understand now. She despises me, I suppose.... We married, +and for a time we were happy. She was fine and tender. I worshipped her +and subdued myself." + +He left off abruptly. "Do you understand what I am talking about? It's +no good if you don't." + +"I think so," said Ann Veronica, and colored. "In fact, yes, I do." + +"Do you think of these things--these matters--as belonging to our Higher +Nature or our Lower?" + +"I don't deal in Higher Things, I tell you," said Ann Veronica, "or +Lower, for the matter of that. I don't classify." She hesitated. "Flesh +and flowers are all alike to me." + +"That's the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a fever in +my blood. Don't think it was anything better than fever--or a bit +beautiful. It wasn't. Quite soon, after we were married--it was just +within a year--I formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a woman +eight years older than myself.... It wasn't anything splendid, you +know. It was just a shabby, stupid, furtive business that began between +us. Like stealing. We dressed it in a little music.... I want you to +understand clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I +was mean to him.... It was the gratification of an immense necessity. +We were two people with a craving. We felt like thieves. We WERE +thieves.... We LIKED each other well enough. Well, my friend found +us out, and would give no quarter. He divorced her. How do you like the +story?" + +"Go on," said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, "tell me all of it." + +"My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. She thought me--filthy. +All her pride raged at me. One particularly humiliating thing came +out--humiliating for me. There was a second co-respondent. I hadn't +heard of him before the trial. I don't know why that should be so +acutely humiliating. There's no logic in these things. It was." + +"Poor you!" said Ann Veronica. + +"My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me. She +could hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a separation. +She had money of her own--much more than I have--and there was no need +to squabble about that. She has given herself up to social work." + +"Well--" + +"That's all. Practically all. And yet--Wait a little, you'd better have +every bit of it. One doesn't go about with these passions allayed simply +because they have made wreckage and a scandal. There one is! The same +stuff still! One has a craving in one's blood, a craving roused, cut off +from its redeeming and guiding emotional side. A man has more freedom to +do evil than a woman. Irregularly, in a quite inglorious and unromantic +way, you know, I am a vicious man. That's--that's my private life. Until +the last few months. It isn't what I have been but what I am. I haven't +taken much account of it until now. My honor has been in my scientific +work and public discussion and the things I write. Lots of us are like +that. But, you see, I'm smirched. For the sort of love-making you think +about. I've muddled all this business. I've had my time and lost my +chances. I'm damaged goods. And you're as clean as fire. You come with +those clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel...." + +He stopped abruptly. + +"Well?" she said. + +"That's all." + +"It's so strange to think of you--troubled by such things. I didn't +think--I don't know what I thought. Suddenly all this makes you human. +Makes you real." + +"But don't you see how I must stand to you? Don't you see how it bars us +from being lovers--You can't--at first. You must think it over. It's all +outside the world of your experience." + +"I don't think it makes a rap of difference, except for one thing. I +love you more. I've wanted you--always. I didn't dream, not even in my +wildest dreaming, that--you might have any need of me." + +He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried out +within him, and for a time they were both too full for speech. + +They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station. + +"You go home and think of all this," he said, "and talk about it +to-morrow. Don't, don't say anything now, not anything. As for loving +you, I do. I do--with all my heart. It's no good hiding it any more. +I could never have talked to you like this, forgetting everything that +parts us, forgetting even your age, if I did not love you utterly. If +I were a clean, free man--We'll have to talk of all these things. Thank +goodness there's plenty of opportunity! And we two can talk. Anyhow, now +you've begun it, there's nothing to keep us in all this from being the +best friends in the world. And talking of every conceivable thing. Is +there?" + +"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, with a radiant face. + +"Before this there was a sort of restraint--a make-believe. It's gone." + +"It's gone." + +"Friendship and love being separate things. And that confounded +engagement!" + +"Gone!" + +They came upon a platform, and stood before her compartment. + +He took her hand and looked into her eyes and spoke, divided against +himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere. + +"I shall be very glad to have you for a friend," he said, "loving +friend. I had never dreamed of such a friend as you." + +She smiled, sure of herself beyond any pretending, into his troubled +eyes. Hadn't they settled that already? + +"I want you as a friend," he persisted, almost as if he disputed +something. + + + +Part 5 + + +The next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour in the +reasonable certainty that he would come to her. + +"Well, you have thought it over?" he said, sitting down beside her. + +"I've been thinking of you all night," she answered. + +"Well?" + +"I don't care a rap for all these things." + +He said nothing for a space. + +"I don't see there's any getting away from the fact that you and I love +each other," he said, slowly. "So far you've got me and I you.... +You've got me. I'm like a creature just wakened up. My eyes are open to +you. I keep on thinking of you. I keep on thinking of little details and +aspects of your voice, your eyes, the way you walk, the way your hair +goes back from the side of your forehead. I believe I have always been +in love with you. Always. Before ever I knew you." + +She sat motionless, with her hand tightening over the edge of the table, +and he, too, said no more. She began to tremble violently. + +He stood up abruptly and went to the window. + +"We have," he said, "to be the utmost friends." + +She stood up and held her arms toward him. "I want you to kiss me," she +said. + +He gripped the window-sill behind him. + +"If I do," he said.... "No! I want to do without that. I want to +do without that for a time. I want to give you time to think. I am a +man--of a sort of experience. You are a girl with very little. Just sit +down on that stool again and let's talk of this in cold blood. People of +your sort--I don't want the instincts to--to rush our situation. Are you +sure what it is you want of me?" + +"I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself to you. +I want to be whatever I can to you." She paused for a moment. "Is that +plain?" she asked. + +"If I didn't love you better than myself," said Capes, "I wouldn't fence +like this with you. + +"I am convinced you haven't thought this out," he went on. "You do not +know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our heads swim with +the thought of being together. But what can we do? Here am I, fixed to +respectability and this laboratory; you're living at home. It means... +just furtive meetings." + +"I don't care how we meet," she said. + +"It will spoil your life." + +"It will make it. I want you. I am clear I want you. You are different +from all the world for me. You can think all round me. You are the one +person I can understand and feel--feel right with. I don't idealize you. +Don't imagine that. It isn't because you're good, but because I may be +rotten bad; and there's something--something living and understanding +in you. Something that is born anew each time we meet, and pines when +we are separated. You see, I'm selfish. I'm rather scornful. I think +too much about myself. You're the only person I've really given good, +straight, unselfish thought to. I'm making a mess of my life--unless +you come in and take it. I am. In you--if you can love me--there +is salvation. Salvation. I know what I am doing better than you do. +Think--think of that engagement!" + +Their talk had come to eloquent silences that contradicted all he had to +say. + +She stood up before him, smiling faintly. + +"I think we've exhausted this discussion," she said. + +"I think we have," he answered, gravely, and took her in his arms, and +smoothed her hair from her forehead, and very tenderly kissed her lips. + + + +Part 6 + + +They spent the next Sunday in Richmond Park, and mingled the happy +sensation of being together uninterruptedly through the long sunshine +of a summer's day with the ample discussion of their position. "This has +all the clean freshness of spring and youth," said Capes; "it is love +with the down on; it is like the glitter of dew in the sunlight to be +lovers such as we are, with no more than one warm kiss between us. I +love everything to-day, and all of you, but I love this, this--this +innocence upon us most of all. + +"You can't imagine," he said, "what a beastly thing a furtive love +affair can be. + +"This isn't furtive," said Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit of it. And we won't make it so.... We mustn't make it so." + +They loitered under trees, they sat on mossy banks they gossiped on +friendly benches, they came back to lunch at the "Star and Garter," +and talked their afternoon away in the garden that looks out upon the +crescent of the river. They had a universe to talk about--two universes. + +"What are we going to do?" said Capes, with his eyes on the broad +distances beyond the ribbon of the river. + +"I will do whatever you want," said Ann Veronica. + +"My first love was all blundering," said Capes. + +He thought for a moment, and went on: "Love is something that has to be +taken care of. One has to be so careful.... It's a beautiful plant, +but a tender one.... I didn't know. I've a dread of love dropping its +petals, becoming mean and ugly. How can I tell you all I feel? I love +you beyond measure. And I'm afraid.... I'm anxious, joyfully anxious, +like a man when he has found a treasure." + +"YOU know," said Ann Veronica. "I just came to you and put myself in +your hands." + +"That's why, in a way, I'm prudish. I've--dreads. I don't want to tear +at you with hot, rough hands." + +"As you will, dear lover. But for me it doesn't matter. Nothing is wrong +that you do. Nothing. I am quite clear about this. I know exactly what I +am doing. I give myself to you." + +"God send you may never repent it!" cried Capes. + +She put her hand in his to be squeezed. + +"You see," he said, "it is doubtful if we can ever marry. Very doubtful. +I have been thinking--I will go to my wife again. I will do my utmost. +But for a long time, anyhow, we lovers have to be as if we were no more +than friends." + +He paused. She answered slowly. "That is as you will," she said. + +"Why should it matter?" he said. + +And then, as she answered nothing, "Seeing that we are lovers." + + + +Part 7 + + +It was rather less than a week after that walk that Capes came and sat +down beside Ann Veronica for their customary talk in the lunch hour. He +took a handful of almonds and raisins that she held out to him--for +both these young people had given up the practice of going out for +luncheon--and kept her hand for a moment to kiss her finger-tips. He did +not speak for a moment. + +"Well?" she said. + +"I say!" he said, without any movement. "Let's go." + +"Go!" She did not understand him at first, and then her heart began to +beat very rapidly. + +"Stop this--this humbugging," he explained. "It's like the Picture and +the Bust. I can't stand it. Let's go. Go off and live together--until we +can marry. Dare you?" + +"Do you mean NOW?" + +"At the end of the session. It's the only clean way for us. Are you +prepared to do it?" + +Her hands clenched. "Yes," she said, very faintly. And then: "Of course! +Always. It is what I have wanted, what I have meant all along." + +She stared before her, trying to keep back a rush of tears. + +Capes kept obstinately stiff, and spoke between his teeth. + +"There's endless reasons, no doubt, why we shouldn't," he said. +"Endless. It's wrong in the eyes of most people. For many of them it +will smirch us forever.... You DO understand?" + +"Who cares for most people?" she said, not looking at him. + +"I do. It means social isolation--struggle." + +"If you dare--I dare," said Ann Veronica. "I was never so clear in all +my life as I have been in this business." She lifted steadfast eyes to +him. "Dare!" she said. The tears were welling over now, but her voice +was steady. "You're not a man for me--not one of a sex, I mean. You're +just a particular being with nothing else in the world to class with +you. You are just necessary to life for me. I've never met any one +like you. To have you is all important. Nothing else weighs against it. +Morals only begin when that is settled. I sha'n't care a rap if we can +never marry. I'm not a bit afraid of anything--scandal, difficulty, +struggle.... I rather want them. I do want them." + +"You'll get them," he said. "This means a plunge." + +"Are you afraid?" + +"Only for you! Most of my income will vanish. Even unbelieving +biological demonstrators must respect decorum; and besides, you see--you +were a student. We shall have--hardly any money." + +"I don't care." + +"Hardship and danger." + +"With you!" + +"And as for your people?" + +"They don't count. That is the dreadful truth. This--all this swamps +them. They don't count, and I don't care." + +Capes suddenly abandoned his attitude of meditative restraint. "By +Jove!" he broke out, "one tries to take a serious, sober view. I don't +quite know why. But this is a great lark, Ann Veronica! This turns life +into a glorious adventure!" + +"Ah!" she cried in triumph. + +"I shall have to give up biology, anyhow. I've always had a sneaking +desire for the writing-trade. That is what I must do. I can." + +"Of course you can." + +"And biology was beginning to bore me a bit. One research is very like +another.... Latterly I've been doing things.... Creative work +appeals to me wonderfully. Things seem to come rather easily.... But +that, and that sort of thing, is just a day-dream. For a time I must do +journalism and work hard.... What isn't a day-dream is this: that you +and I are going to put an end to flummery--and go!" + +"Go!" said Ann Veronica, clenching her hands. + +"For better or worse." + +"For richer or poorer." + +She could not go on, for she was laughing and crying at the same time. +"We were bound to do this when you kissed me," she sobbed through +her tears. "We have been all this time--Only your queer code of +honor--Honor! Once you begin with love you have to see it through." + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH + +THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + + +Part 1 + + +They decided to go to Switzerland at the session's end. "We'll clean up +everything tidy," said Capes.... + +For her pride's sake, and to save herself from long day-dreams and an +unappeasable longing for her lover, Ann Veronica worked hard at her +biology during those closing weeks. She was, as Capes had said, a +hard young woman. She was keenly resolved to do well in the school +examination, and not to be drowned in the seas of emotion that +threatened to submerge her intellectual being. + +Nevertheless, she could not prevent a rising excitement as the dawn of +the new life drew near to her--a thrilling of the nerves, a secret +and delicious exaltation above the common circumstances of +existence. Sometimes her straying mind would become astonishingly +active--embroidering bright and decorative things that she could say to +Capes; sometimes it passed into a state of passive acquiescence, into +a radiant, formless, golden joy. She was aware of people--her aunt, +her father, her fellow-students, friends, and neighbors--moving about +outside this glowing secret, very much as an actor is aware of the dim +audience beyond the barrier of the footlights. They might applaud, or +object, or interfere, but the drama was her very own. She was going +through with that, anyhow. + +The feeling of last days grew stronger with her as their number +diminished. She went about the familiar home with a clearer and clearer +sense of inevitable conclusions. She became exceptionally considerate +and affectionate with her father and aunt, and more and more concerned +about the coming catastrophe that she was about to precipitate upon +them. Her aunt had a once exasperating habit of interrupting her work +with demands for small household services, but now Ann Veronica rendered +them with a queer readiness of anticipatory propitiation. She was +greatly exercised by the problem of confiding in the Widgetts; they were +dears, and she talked away two evenings with Constance without broaching +the topic; she made some vague intimations in letters to Miss Miniver +that Miss Miniver failed to mark. But she did not bother her head very +much about her relations with these sympathizers. + +And at length her penultimate day in Morningside Park dawned for her. +She got up early, and walked about the garden in the dewy June sunshine +and revived her childhood. She was saying good-bye to childhood and +home, and her making; she was going out into the great, multitudinous +world; this time there would be no returning. She was at the end of +girlhood and on the eve of a woman's crowning experience. She visited +the corner that had been her own little garden--her forget-me-nots and +candytuft had long since been elbowed into insignificance by weeds; she +visited the raspberry-canes that had sheltered that first love affair +with the little boy in velvet, and the greenhouse where she had been +wont to read her secret letters. Here was the place behind the shed +where she had used to hide from Roddy's persecutions, and here the +border of herbaceous perennials under whose stems was fairyland. The +back of the house had been the Alps for climbing, and the shrubs +in front of it a Terai. The knots and broken pale that made the +garden-fence scalable, and gave access to the fields behind, were still +to be traced. And here against a wall were the plum-trees. In spite of +God and wasps and her father, she had stolen plums; and once because of +discovered misdeeds, and once because she had realized that her mother +was dead, she had lain on her face in the unmown grass, beneath the +elm-trees that came beyond the vegetables, and poured out her soul in +weeping. + +Remote little Ann Veronica! She would never know the heart of that child +again! That child had loved fairy princes with velvet suits and golden +locks, and she was in love with a real man named Capes, with little +gleams of gold on his cheek and a pleasant voice and firm and shapely +hands. She was going to him soon and certainly, going to his strong, +embracing arms. She was going through a new world with him side by side. +She had been so busy with life that, for a vast gulf of time, as it +seemed, she had given no thought to those ancient, imagined things of +her childhood. Now, abruptly, they were real again, though very distant, +and she had come to say farewell to them across one sundering year. + +She was unusually helpful at breakfast, and unselfish about the eggs: +and then she went off to catch the train before her father's. She did +this to please him. He hated travelling second-class with her--indeed, +he never did--but he also disliked travelling in the same train when his +daughter was in an inferior class, because of the look of the thing. +So he liked to go by a different train. And in the Avenue she had an +encounter with Ramage. + +It was an odd little encounter, that left vague and dubitable +impressions in her mind. She was aware of him--a silk-hatted, +shiny-black figure on the opposite side of the Avenue; and then, +abruptly and startlingly, he crossed the road and saluted and spoke to +her. + +"I MUST speak to you," he said. "I can't keep away from you." + +She made some inane response. She was struck by a change in his +appearance. His eyes looked a little bloodshot to her; his face had lost +something of its ruddy freshness. + +He began a jerky, broken conversation that lasted until they reached the +station, and left her puzzled at its drift and meaning. She quickened +her pace, and so did he, talking at her slightly averted ear. She made +lumpish and inadequate interruptions rather than replies. At times he +seemed to be claiming pity from her; at times he was threatening her +with her check and exposure; at times he was boasting of his inflexible +will, and how, in the end, he always got what he wanted. He said that +his life was boring and stupid without her. Something or other--she +did not catch what--he was damned if he could stand. He was evidently +nervous, and very anxious to be impressive; his projecting eyes sought +to dominate. The crowning aspect of the incident, for her mind, was the +discovery that he and her indiscretion with him no longer mattered very +much. Its importance had vanished with her abandonment of compromise. +Even her debt to him was a triviality now. + +And of course! She had a brilliant idea. It surprised her she hadn't +thought of it before! She tried to explain that she was going to pay +him forty pounds without fail next week. She said as much to him. She +repeated this breathlessly. + +"I was glad you did not send it back again," he said. + +He touched a long-standing sore, and Ann Veronica found herself vainly +trying to explain--the inexplicable. "It's because I mean to send it +back altogether," she said. + +He ignored her protests in order to pursue some impressive line of his +own. + +"Here we are, living in the same suburb," he began. "We have to +be--modern." + +Her heart leaped within her as she caught that phrase. That knot also +would be cut. Modern, indeed! She was going to be as primordial as +chipped flint. + + + +Part 2 + + +In the late afternoon, as Ann Veronica was gathering flowers for the +dinner-table, her father came strolling across the lawn toward her with +an affectation of great deliberation. + +"I want to speak to you about a little thing, Vee," said Mr. Stanley. + +Ann Veronica's tense nerves started, and she stood still with her eyes +upon him, wondering what it might be that impended. + +"You were talking to that fellow Ramage to-day--in the Avenue. Walking +to the station with him." + +So that was it! + +"He came and talked to me." + +"Ye--e--es." Mr. Stanley considered. "Well, I don't want you to talk to +him," he said, very firmly. + +Ann Veronica paused before she answered. "Don't you think I ought to?" +she asked, very submissively. + +"No." Mr. Stanley coughed and faced toward the house. "He is not--I +don't like him. I think it inadvisable--I don't want an intimacy to +spring up between you and a man of that type." + +Ann Veronica reflected. "I HAVE--had one or two talks with him, daddy." + +"Don't let there be any more. I--In fact, I dislike him extremely." + +"Suppose he comes and talks to me?" + +"A girl can always keep a man at a distance if she cares to do it. +She--She can snub him." + +Ann Veronica picked a cornflower. + +"I wouldn't make this objection," Mr. Stanley went on, "but there are +things--there are stories about Ramage. He's--He lives in a world of +possibilities outside your imagination. His treatment of his wife +is most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. A bad man, in fact. A +dissipated, loose-living man." + +"I'll try not to see him again," said Ann Veronica. "I didn't know you +objected to him, daddy." + +"Strongly," said Mr. Stanley, "very strongly." + +The conversation hung. Ann Veronica wondered what her father would do if +she were to tell him the full story of her relations with Ramage. + +"A man like that taints a girl by looking at her, by his mere +conversation." He adjusted his glasses on his nose. There was another +little thing he had to say. "One has to be so careful of one's friends +and acquaintances," he remarked, by way of transition. "They mould one +insensibly." His voice assumed an easy detached tone. "I suppose, Vee, +you don't see much of those Widgetts now?" + +"I go in and talk to Constance sometimes." + +"Do you?" + +"We were great friends at school." + +"No doubt.... Still--I don't know whether I quite like--Something +ramshackle about those people, Vee. While I am talking about your +friends, I feel--I think you ought to know how I look at it." His voice +conveyed studied moderation. "I don't mind, of course, your seeing +her sometimes, still there are differences--differences in social +atmospheres. One gets drawn into things. Before you know where you +are you find yourself in a complication. I don't want to influence you +unduly--But--They're artistic people, Vee. That's the fact about them. +We're different." + +"I suppose we are," said Vee, rearranging the flowers in her hand. + +"Friendships that are all very well between school-girls don't always go +on into later life. It's--it's a social difference." + +"I like Constance very much." + +"No doubt. Still, one has to be reasonable. As you admitted to me--one +has to square one's self with the world. You don't know. With people +of that sort all sorts of things may happen. We don't want things to +happen." + +Ann Veronica made no answer. + +A vague desire to justify himself ruffled her father. "I may seem +unduly--anxious. I can't forget about your sister. It's that has always +made me--SHE, you know, was drawn into a set--didn't discriminate +Private theatricals." + +Ann Veronica remained anxious to hear more of her sister's story from +her father's point of view, but he did not go on. Even so much allusion +as this to that family shadow, she felt, was an immense recognition of +her ripening years. She glanced at him. He stood a little anxious and +fussy, bothered by the responsibility of her, entirely careless of what +her life was or was likely to be, ignoring her thoughts and feelings, +ignorant of every fact of importance in her life, explaining everything +he could not understand in her as nonsense and perversity, concerned +only with a terror of bothers and undesirable situations. "We don't want +things to happen!" Never had he shown his daughter so clearly that the +womenkind he was persuaded he had to protect and control could please +him in one way, and in one way only, and that was by doing nothing +except the punctual domestic duties and being nothing except restful +appearances. He had quite enough to see to and worry about in the City +without their doing things. He had no use for Ann Veronica; he had +never had a use for her since she had been too old to sit upon his knee. +Nothing but the constraint of social usage now linked him to her. And +the less "anything" happened the better. The less she lived, in fact, +the better. These realizations rushed into Ann Veronica's mind and +hardened her heart against him. She spoke slowly. "I may not see the +Widgetts for some little time, father," she said. "I don't think I +shall." + +"Some little tiff?" + +"No; but I don't think I shall see them." + +Suppose she were to add, "I am going away!" + +"I'm glad to hear you say it," said Mr. Stanley, and was so evidently +pleased that Ann Veronica's heart smote her. + +"I am very glad to hear you say it," he repeated, and refrained from +further inquiry. "I think we are growing sensible," he said. "I think +you are getting to understand me better." + +He hesitated, and walked away from her toward the house. Her eyes +followed him. The curve of his shoulders, the very angle of his feet, +expressed relief at her apparent obedience. "Thank goodness!" said +that retreating aspect, "that's said and over. Vee's all right. There's +nothing happened at all!" She didn't mean, he concluded, to give him any +more trouble ever, and he was free to begin a fresh chromatic novel--he +had just finished the Blue Lagoon, which he thought very beautiful and +tender and absolutely irrelevant to Morningside Park--or work in peace +at his microtome without bothering about her in the least. + +The immense disillusionment that awaited him! The devastating +disillusionment! She had a vague desire to run after him, to state her +case to him, to wring some understanding from him of what life was to +her. She felt a cheat and a sneak to his unsuspecting retreating back. + +"But what can one do?" asked Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dressed carefully for dinner in a black dress that her father +liked, and that made her look serious and responsible. Dinner was quite +uneventful. Her father read a draft prospectus warily, and her aunt +dropped fragments of her projects for managing while the cook had a +holiday. After dinner Ann Veronica went into the drawing-room with Miss +Stanley, and her father went up to his den for his pipe and pensive +petrography. Later in the evening she heard him whistling, poor man! + +She felt very restless and excited. She refused coffee, though she knew +that anyhow she was doomed to a sleepless night. She took up one of her +father's novels and put it down again, fretted up to her own room for +some work, sat on her bed and meditated upon the room that she was now +really abandoning forever, and returned at length with a stocking to +darn. Her aunt was making herself cuffs out of little slips of insertion +under the newly lit lamp. + +Ann Veronica sat down in the other arm-chair and darned badly for a +minute or so. Then she looked at her aunt, and traced with a curious eye +the careful arrangement of her hair, her sharp nose, the little drooping +lines of mouth and chin and cheek. + +Her thought spoke aloud. "Were you ever in love, aunt?" she asked. + +Her aunt glanced up startled, and then sat very still, with hands that +had ceased to work. "What makes you ask such a question, Vee?" she said. + +"I wondered." + +Her aunt answered in a low voice: "I was engaged to him, dear, for seven +years, and then he died." + +Ann Veronica made a sympathetic little murmur. + +"He was in holy orders, and we were to have been married when he got a +living. He was a Wiltshire Edmondshaw, a very old family." + +She sat very still. + +Ann Veronica hesitated with a question that had leaped up in her mind, +and that she felt was cruel. "Are you sorry you waited, aunt?" she said. + +Her aunt was a long time before she answered. "His stipend forbade it," +she said, and seemed to fall into a train of thought. "It would have +been rash and unwise," she said at the end of a meditation. "What he had +was altogether insufficient." + +Ann Veronica looked at the mildly pensive gray eyes and the comfortable, +rather refined face with a penetrating curiosity. Presently her aunt +sighed deeply and looked at the clock. "Time for my Patience," she said. +She got up, put the neat cuffs she had made into her work-basket, +and went to the bureau for the little cards in the morocco case. Ann +Veronica jumped up to get her the card-table. "I haven't seen the new +Patience, dear," she said. "May I sit beside you?" + +"It's a very difficult one," said her aunt. "Perhaps you will help me +shuffle?" + +Ann Veronica did, and also assisted nimbly with the arrangements of the +rows of eight with which the struggle began. Then she sat watching the +play, sometimes offering a helpful suggestion, sometimes letting her +attention wander to the smoothly shining arms she had folded across her +knees just below the edge of the table. She was feeling extraordinarily +well that night, so that the sense of her body was a deep delight, a +realization of a gentle warmth and strength and elastic firmness. Then +she glanced at the cards again, over which her aunt's many-ringed hand +played, and then at the rather weak, rather plump face that surveyed its +operations. + +It came to Ann Veronica that life was wonderful beyond measure. It +seemed incredible that she and her aunt were, indeed, creatures of the +same blood, only by a birth or so different beings, and part of that +same broad interlacing stream of human life that has invented the fauns +and nymphs, Astarte, Aphrodite, Freya, and all the twining beauty of +the gods. The love-songs of all the ages were singing in her blood, the +scent of night stock from the garden filled the air, and the moths that +beat upon the closed frames of the window next the lamp set her mind +dreaming of kisses in the dusk. Yet her aunt, with a ringed hand +flitting to her lips and a puzzled, worried look in her eyes, deaf +to all this riot of warmth and flitting desire, was playing +Patience--playing Patience, as if Dionysius and her curate had died +together. A faint buzz above the ceiling witnessed that petrography, +too, was active. Gray and tranquil world! Amazing, passionless world! A +world in which days without meaning, days in which "we don't want things +to happen" followed days without meaning--until the last thing happened, +the ultimate, unavoidable, coarse, "disagreeable." It was her last +evening in that wrappered life against which she had rebelled. Warm +reality was now so near her she could hear it beating in her ears. Away +in London even now Capes was packing and preparing; Capes, the magic man +whose touch turned one to trembling fire. What was he doing? What was he +thinking? It was less than a day now, less than twenty hours. Seventeen +hours, sixteen hours. She glanced at the soft-ticking clock with the +exposed brass pendulum upon the white marble mantel, and made a rapid +calculation. To be exact, it was just sixteen hours and twenty minutes. +The slow stars circled on to the moment of their meeting. The softly +glittering summer stars! She saw them shining over mountains of snow, +over valleys of haze and warm darkness.... There would be no moon. + +"I believe after all it's coming out!" said Miss Stanley. "The aces made +it easy." + +Ann Veronica started from her reverie, sat up in her chair, became +attentive. "Look, dear," she said presently, "you can put the ten on the +Jack." + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH + +IN THE MOUNTAINS + + +Part 1 + + +Next day Ann Veronica and Capes felt like newborn things. It seemed +to them they could never have been really alive before, but only +dimly anticipating existence. They sat face to face beneath an +experienced-looking rucksack and a brand new portmanteau and a leather +handbag, in the afternoon-boat train that goes from Charing Cross to +Folkestone for Boulogne. They tried to read illustrated papers in an +unconcerned manner and with forced attention, lest they should catch +the leaping exultation in each other's eyes. And they admired Kent +sedulously from the windows. + +They crossed the Channel in sunshine and a breeze that just ruffled the +sea to glittering scales of silver. Some of the people who watched them +standing side by side thought they must be newly wedded because of their +happy faces, and others that they were an old-established couple because +of their easy confidence in each other. + +At Boulogne they took train to Basle; next morning they breakfasted +together in the buffet of that station, and thence they caught the +Interlaken express, and so went by way of Spies to Frutigen. There was +no railway beyond Frutigen in those days; they sent their baggage by +post to Kandersteg, and walked along the mule path to the left of the +stream to that queer hollow among the precipices, Blau See, where the +petrifying branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of an icy lake, and +pine-trees clamber among gigantic boulders. A little inn flying a +Swiss flag nestles under a great rock, and there they put aside their +knapsacks and lunched and rested in the mid-day shadow of the gorge +and the scent of resin. And later they paddled in a boat above the +mysterious deeps of the See, and peered down into the green-blues and +the blue-greens together. By that time it seemed to them they had lived +together twenty years. + +Except for one memorable school excursion to Paris, Ann Veronica had +never yet been outside England. So that it seemed to her the whole world +had changed--the very light of it had changed. Instead of English villas +and cottages there were chalets and Italian-built houses shining white; +there were lakes of emerald and sapphire and clustering castles, and +such sweeps of hill and mountain, such shining uplands of snow, as she +had never seen before. Everything was fresh and bright, from the kindly +manners of the Frutigen cobbler, who hammered mountain nails into her +boots, to the unfamiliar wild flowers that spangled the wayside. And +Capes had changed into the easiest and jolliest companion in the world. +The mere fact that he was there in the train alongside her, helping her, +sitting opposite to her in the dining-car, presently sleeping on a seat +within a yard of her, made her heart sing until she was afraid their +fellow passengers would hear it. It was too good to be true. She would +not sleep for fear of losing a moment of that sense of his proximity. To +walk beside him, dressed akin to him, rucksacked and companionable, was +bliss in itself; each step she took was like stepping once more across +the threshold of heaven. + +One trouble, however, shot its slanting bolts athwart the shining warmth +of that opening day and marred its perfection, and that was the thought +of her father. + +She had treated him badly; she had hurt him and her aunt; she had done +wrong by their standards, and she would never persuade them that she +had done right. She thought of her father in the garden, and of her aunt +with her Patience, as she had seen them--how many ages was it ago? Just +one day intervened. She felt as if she had struck them unawares. The +thought of them distressed her without subtracting at all from the +oceans of happiness in which she swam. But she wished she could put the +thing she had done in some way to them so that it would not hurt them +so much as the truth would certainly do. The thought of their faces, +and particularly of her aunt's, as it would meet the fact--disconcerted, +unfriendly, condemning, pained--occurred to her again and again. + +"Oh! I wish," she said, "that people thought alike about these things." + +Capes watched the limpid water dripping from his oar. "I wish they did," +he said, "but they don't." + +"I feel--All this is the rightest of all conceivable things. I want to +tell every one. I want to boast myself." + +"I know." + +"I told them a lie. I told them lies. I wrote three letters yesterday +and tore them up. It was so hopeless to put it to them. At last--I told +a story." + +"You didn't tell them our position?" + +"I implied we had married." + +"They'll find out. They'll know." + +"Not yet." + +"Sooner or later." + +"Possibly--bit by bit.... But it was hopelessly hard to put. I said +I knew he disliked and distrusted you and your work--that you shared +all Russell's opinions: he hates Russell beyond measure--and that we +couldn't possibly face a conventional marriage. What else could one say? +I left him to suppose--a registry perhaps...." + +Capes let his oar smack on the water. + +"Do you mind very much?" + +He shook his head. + +"But it makes me feel inhuman," he added. + +"And me...." + +"It's the perpetual trouble," he said, "of parent and child. They +can't help seeing things in the way they do. Nor can we. WE don't +think they're right, but they don't think we are. A deadlock. In a very +definite sense we are in the wrong--hopelessly in the wrong. But--It's +just this: who was to be hurt?" + +"I wish no one had to be hurt," said Ann Veronica. "When one is happy--I +don't like to think of them. Last time I left home I felt as hard as +nails. But this is all different. It is different." + +"There's a sort of instinct of rebellion," said Capes. "It isn't +anything to do with our times particularly. People think it is, but they +are wrong. It's to do with adolescence. Long before religion and Society +heard of Doubt, girls were all for midnight coaches and Gretna Green. +It's a sort of home-leaving instinct." + +He followed up a line of thought. + +"There's another instinct, too," he went on, "in a state of suppression, +unless I'm very much mistaken; a child-expelling instinct.... I +wonder.... There's no family uniting instinct, anyhow; it's habit +and sentiment and material convenience hold families together after +adolescence. There's always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. +Always! I don't believe there is any strong natural affection at all +between parents and growing-up children. There wasn't, I know, between +myself and my father. I didn't allow myself to see things as they were +in those days; now I do. I bored him. I hated him. I suppose that +shocks one's ideas.... It's true.... There are sentimental and +traditional deferences and reverences, I know, between father and +son; but that's just exactly what prevents the development of an easy +friendship. Father-worshipping sons are abnormal--and they're no good. +No good at all. One's got to be a better man than one's father, or what +is the good of successive generations? Life is rebellion, or nothing." + +He rowed a stroke and watched the swirl of water from his oar broaden +and die away. At last he took up his thoughts again: "I wonder if, some +day, one won't need to rebel against customs and laws? If this discord +will have gone? Some day, perhaps--who knows?--the old won't coddle and +hamper the young, and the young won't need to fly in the faces of the +old. They'll face facts as facts, and understand. Oh, to face facts! +Gods! what a world it might be if people faced facts! Understanding! +Understanding! There is no other salvation. Some day older people, +perhaps, will trouble to understand younger people, and there won't +be these fierce disruptions; there won't be barriers one must defy or +perish.... That's really our choice now, defy--or futility.... The +world, perhaps, will be educated out of its idea of fixed standards.... +I wonder, Ann Veronica, if, when our time comes, we shall be any +wiser?" + +Ann Veronica watched a water-beetle fussing across the green depths. +"One can't tell. I'm a female thing at bottom. I like high tone for a +flourish and stars and ideas; but I want my things." + + + +Part 2 + + +Capes thought. + +"It's odd--I have no doubt in my mind that what we are doing is wrong," +he said. "And yet I do it without compunction." + +"I never felt so absolutely right," said Ann Veronica. + +"You ARE a female thing at bottom," he admitted. "I'm not nearly so sure +as you. As for me, I look twice at it.... Life is two things, +that's how I see it; two things mixed and muddled up together. Life is +morality--life is adventure. Squire and master. Adventure rules, and +morality--looks up the trains in the Bradshaw. Morality tells you what +is right, and adventure moves you. If morality means anything it means +keeping bounds, respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If +individuality means anything it means breaking bounds--adventure. + +"Will you be moral and your species, or immoral and yourself? We've +decided to be immoral. We needn't try and give ourselves airs. We've +deserted the posts in which we found ourselves, cut our duties, exposed +ourselves to risks that may destroy any sort of social usefulness in +us.... I don't know. One keeps rules in order to be one's self. One +studies Nature in order not to be blindly ruled by her. There's no sense +in morality, I suppose, unless you are fundamentally immoral." + +She watched his face as he traced his way through these speculative +thickets. + +"Look at our affair," he went on, looking up at her. "No power on earth +will persuade me we're not two rather disreputable persons. You desert +your home; I throw up useful teaching, risk every hope in your career. +Here we are absconding, pretending to be what we are not; shady, to say +the least of it. It's not a bit of good pretending there's any Higher +Truth or wonderful principle in this business. There isn't. We never +started out in any high-browed manner to scandalize and Shelleyfy. +When first you left your home you had no idea that _I_ was the hidden +impulse. I wasn't. You came out like an ant for your nuptial flight. It +was just a chance that we in particular hit against each other--nothing +predestined about it. We just hit against each other, and here we are +flying off at a tangent, a little surprised at what we are doing, all +our principles abandoned, and tremendously and quite unreasonably proud +of ourselves. Out of all this we have struck a sort of harmony.... +And it's gorgeous!" + +"Glorious!" said Ann Veronica. + +"Would YOU like us--if some one told you the bare outline of our +story?--and what we are doing?" + +"I shouldn't mind," said Ann Veronica. + +"But if some one else asked your advice? If some one else said, 'Here is +my teacher, a jaded married man on the verge of middle age, and he and I +have a violent passion for one another. We propose to disregard all our +ties, all our obligations, all the established prohibitions of society, +and begin life together afresh.' What would you tell her?" + +"If she asked advice, I should say she wasn't fit to do anything of the +sort. I should say that having a doubt was enough to condemn it." + +"But waive that point." + +"It would be different all the same. It wouldn't be you." + +"It wouldn't be you either. I suppose that's the gist of the whole +thing." He stared at a little eddy. "The rule's all right, so long as +there isn't a case. Rules are for established things, like the pieces +and positions of a game. Men and women are not established things; +they're experiments, all of them. Every human being is a new thing, +exists to do new things. Find the thing you want to do most intensely, +make sure that's it, and do it with all your might. If you live, well +and good; if you die, well and good. Your purpose is done.... Well, +this is OUR thing." + +He woke the glassy water to swirling activity again, and made the +deep-blue shapes below writhe and shiver. + +"This is MY thing," said Ann Veronica, softly, with thoughtful eyes upon +him. + +Then she looked up the sweep of pine-trees to the towering sunlit cliffs +and the high heaven above and then back to his face. She drew in a deep +breath of the sweet mountain air. Her eyes were soft and grave, and +there was the faintest of smiles upon her resolute lips. + + + +Part 3 + + +Later they loitered along a winding path above the inn, and made love +to one another. Their journey had made them indolent, the afternoon was +warm, and it seemed impossible to breathe a sweeter air. The flowers and +turf, a wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, and suchlike little intimate +things had become more interesting than mountains. Their flitting hands +were always touching. Deep silences came between them.... + +"I had thought to go on to Kandersteg," said Capes, "but this is a +pleasant place. There is not a soul in the inn but ourselves. Let +us stay the night here. Then we can loiter and gossip to our heart's +content." + +"Agreed," said Ann Veronica. + +"After all, it's our honeymoon." + +"All we shall get," said Ann Veronica. + +"This place is very beautiful." + +"Any place would be beautiful," said Ann Veronica, in a low voice. + +For a time they walked in silence. + +"I wonder," she began, presently, "why I love you--and love you so +much?... I know now what it is to be an abandoned female. I AM an +abandoned female. I'm not ashamed--of the things I'm doing. I want to +put myself into your hands. You know--I wish I could roll my little body +up small and squeeze it into your hand and grip your fingers upon it. +Tight. I want you to hold me and have me SO.... Everything. Everything. +It's a pure joy of giving--giving to YOU. I have never spoken of these +things to any human being. Just dreamed--and ran away even from my +dreams. It is as if my lips had been sealed about them. And now I break +the seals--for you. Only I wish--I wish to-day I was a thousand times, +ten thousand times more beautiful." + +Capes lifted her hand and kissed it. + +"You are a thousand times more beautiful," he said, "than anything else +could be.... You are you. You are all the beauty in the world. Beauty +doesn't mean, never has meant, anything--anything at all but you. It +heralded you, promised you...." + + + +Part 4 + + +They lay side by side in a shallow nest of turf and mosses among +bowlders and stunted bushes on a high rock, and watched the day sky +deepen to evening between the vast precipices overhead and looked over +the tree-tops down the widening gorge. A distant suggestion of chalets +and a glimpse of the road set them talking for a time of the world they +had left behind. + +Capes spoke casually of their plans for work. "It's a flabby, +loose-willed world we have to face. It won't even know whether to be +scandalized at us or forgiving. It will hold aloof, a little undecided +whether to pelt or not--" + +"That depends whether we carry ourselves as though we expected pelting," +said Ann Veronica. + +"We won't." + +"No fear!" + +"Then, as we succeed, it will begin to sidle back to us. It will do its +best to overlook things--" + +"If we let it, poor dear." + +"That's if we succeed. If we fail," said Capes, "then--" + +"We aren't going to fail," said Ann Veronica. + +Life seemed a very brave and glorious enterprise to Ann Veronica that +day. She was quivering with the sense of Capes at her side and glowing +with heroic love; it seemed to her that if they put their hands jointly +against the Alps and pushed they would be able to push them aside. She +lay and nibbled at a sprig of dwarf rhododendron. + +"FAIL!" she said. + + + +Part 5 + + +Presently it occurred to Ann Veronica to ask about the journey he had +planned. He had his sections of the Siegfried map folded in his pocket, +and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an Indian idol while +she lay prone beside him and followed every movement of his indicatory +finger. + +"Here," he said, "is this Blau See, and here we rest until to-morrow. I +think we rest here until to-morrow?" + +There was a brief silence. + +"It is a very pleasant place," said Ann Veronica, biting a rhododendron +stalk through, and with that faint shadow of a smile returning to her +lips.... + +"And then?" said Ann Veronica. + +"Then we go on to this place, the Oeschinensee. It's a lake among +precipices, and there is a little inn where we can stay, and sit and eat +our dinner at a pleasant table that looks upon the lake. For some days +we shall be very idle there among the trees and rocks. There are boats +on the lake and shady depths and wildernesses of pine-wood. After a day +or so, perhaps, we will go on one or two little excursions and see how +good your head is--a mild scramble or so; and then up to a hut on a pass +just here, and out upon the Blumlis-alp glacier that spreads out so and +so." + +She roused herself from some dream at the word. "Glaciers?" she said. + +"Under the Wilde Frau--which was named after you." + +He bent and kissed her hair and paused, and then forced his attention +back to the map. "One day," he resumed, "we will start off early and +come down into Kandersteg and up these zigzags and here and here, and so +past this Daubensee to a tiny inn--it won't be busy yet, though; we +may get it all to ourselves--on the brim of the steepest zigzag you can +imagine, thousands of feet of zigzag; and you will sit and eat lunch +with me and look out across the Rhone Valley and over blue distances +beyond blue distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa and a long +regiment of sunny, snowy mountains. And when we see them we shall at +once want to go to them--that's the way with beautiful things--and +down we shall go, like flies down a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to Leuk +Station, here, and then by train up the Rhone Valley and this little +side valley to Stalden; and there, in the cool of the afternoon, we +shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs below us and above us, +to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next day to Saas Fee, Saas of +the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People. And there, about Saas, are ice +and snows again, and sometimes we will loiter among the rocks and trees +about Saas or peep into Samuel Butler's chapels, and sometimes we will +climb up out of the way of the other people on to the glaciers and snow. +And, for one expedition at least, we will go up this desolate valley +here to Mattmark, and so on to Monte Moro. There indeed you see Monte +Rosa. Almost the best of all." + +"Is it very beautiful?" + +"When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. It was the +crowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining white. It towered up +high above the level of the pass, thousands of feet, still, shining, and +white, and below, thousands of feet below, was a floor of little woolly +clouds. And then presently these clouds began to wear thin and expose +steep, deep slopes, going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, down +and down, and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs, +shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of white +silk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day--it will have to be, +when first you set eyes on Italy.... That's as far as we go." + +"Can't we go down into Italy?" + +"No," he said; "it won't run to that now. We must wave our hands at the +blue hills far away there and go back to London and work." + +"But Italy--" + +"Italy's for a good girl," he said, and laid his hand for a moment on +her shoulder. "She must look forward to Italy." + +"I say," she reflected, "you ARE rather the master, you know." + +The idea struck him as novel. "Of course I'm manager for this +expedition," he said, after an interval of self-examination. + +She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. "Nice sleeve," she +said, and came to his hand and kissed it. + +"I say!" he cried. "Look here! Aren't you going a little too far? +This--this is degradation--making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn't do +things like that." + +"Why not?" + +"Free woman--and equal." + +"I do it--of my own free will," said Ann Veronica, kissing his hand +again. "It's nothing to what I WILL do." + +"Oh, well!" he said, a little doubtfully, "it's just a phase," and bent +down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, with his heart +beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay very still, with her +hands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face, he came still +closer and softly kissed the nape of her neck.... + + + +Part 6 + + +Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they climbed more +than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved rather a good climber, +steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to be +cautious at his command. + +One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity for +blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things. + +He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he had been +there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the straggling +pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and munch sandwiches +and talk together and do things together that were just a little +difficult and dangerous. And they could talk, they found; and never +once, it seemed, did their meaning and intention hitch. They were +enormously pleased with one another; they found each other beyond +measure better than they had expected, if only because of the want of +substance in mere expectation. Their conversation degenerated again +and again into a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked an +eavesdropper. + +"You're--I don't know," said Ann Veronica. "You're splendid." + +"It isn't that you're splendid or I," said Capes. "But we satisfy one +another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest fitness! +What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of mind? Complexion and +voice. I don't think I've got illusions, nor you.... If I had never +met anything of you at all but a scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann +Veronica, I know I would have kept that somewhere near to me.... All +your faults are just jolly modelling to make you real and solid." + +"The faults are the best part of it," said Ann Veronica; "why, even our +little vicious strains run the same way. Even our coarseness." + +"Coarse?" said Capes, "We're not coarse." + +"But if we were?" said Ann Veronica. + +"I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort," said +Capes; "that's the essence of it. It's made up of things as small as the +diameter of hairs and big as life and death.... One always dreamed +of this and never believed it. It's the rarest luck, the wildest, most +impossible accident. Most people, every one I know else, seem to have +mated with foreigners and to talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be +afraid of the knowledge the other one has, of the other one's perpetual +misjudgment and misunderstandings. + +"Why don't they wait?" he added. + +Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight. + +"One doesn't wait," said Ann Veronica. + +She expanded that. "_I_ shouldn't have waited," she said. "I might have +muddled for a time. But it's as you say. I've had the rarest luck and +fallen on my feet." + +"We've both fallen on our feet! We're the rarest of mortals! The real +thing! There's not a compromise nor a sham nor a concession between +us. We aren't afraid; we don't bother. We don't consider each other; +we needn't. That wrappered life, as you call it--we've burned the +confounded rags! Danced out of it! We're stark!" + +"Stark!" echoed Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 7 + + +As they came back from that day's climb--it was up the Mittaghorn--they +had to cross a shining space of wet, steep rocks between two grass +slopes that needed a little care. There were a few loose, broken +fragments of rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one place where +hands did as much work as toes. They used the rope--not that a rope was +at all necessary, but because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind made +the fact of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a +joint death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes went +first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges came +like long, awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica's feet. About half-way +across this interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes had a +shock. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. "My God!" +and ceased to move. + +Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. "All right?" he asked. + +"I'll have to pay it." + +"Eh?" + +"I've forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!" + +"Eh?" + +"He said I would." + +"What?" + +"That's the devil of it!" + +"Devil of what?... You DO use vile language!" + +"Forget about it like this." + +"Forget WHAT?" + +"And I said I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd make shirts." + +"Shirts?" + +"Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! Ann +Veronica, you're a bilker!" + +Pause. + +"Will you tell me what all this is about?" said Capes. + +"It's about forty pounds." + +Capes waited patiently. + +"G. I'm sorry.... But you've got to lend me forty pounds." + +"It's some sort of delirium," said Capes. "The rarefied air? I thought +you had a better head." + +"No! I'll explain lower. It's all right. Let's go on climbing now. It's +a thing I've unaccountably overlooked. All right really. It can wait +a bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness +you'll understand. That's why I chucked Manning.... All right, I'm +coming. But all this business has driven it clean out of my head.... +That's why he was so annoyed, you know." + +"Who was annoyed?" + +"Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds." She took a step. "My dear," she +added, by way of afterthought, "you DO obliterate things!" + + + +Part 8 + + +They found themselves next day talking love to one another high up on +some rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice on the +eastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time Capes' hair had bleached +nearly white, and his skin had become a skin of red copper shot with +gold. They were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness. +And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of +Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt +and loose knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine, +long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could +do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had +only deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She had +pushed aside her azure veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling +under her hand at the shining glories--the lit cornices, the blue +shadows, the softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places +full of quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was +cloudless, effulgent blue. + +Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising the day +and fortune and their love for each other. + +"Here we are," he said, "shining through each other like light through a +stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this sunlight soaking +us.... Life is so good. Can it ever be so good again?" + +Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. "It's very good," +she said. "It's glorious good!" + +"Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue deep +beyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a thousand feet +or more below? Yes? Well, think--we've got to go but ten steps and lie +down and put our arms about each other. See? Down we should rush in a +foam--in a cloud of snow--to flight and a dream. All the rest of +our lives would be together then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And no +ill-chances." + +"If you tempt me too much," she said, after a silence, "I shall do +it. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I'm a desperate +young woman. And then as we went down you'd try to explain. And that +would spoil it.... You know you don't mean it." + +"No, I don't. But I liked to say it." + +"Rather! But I wonder why you don't mean it?" + +"Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other reason could +there be? It's more complex, but it's better. THIS, this glissade, would +be damned scoundrelism. You know that, and I know that, though we might +be put to it to find a reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the +pay of life and then not living. And besides--We're going to live, Ann +Veronica! Oh, the things we'll do, the life we'll lead! There'll be +trouble in it at times--you and I aren't going to run without friction. +But we've got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads to +talk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on any misunderstanding. Not us. +And we're going to fight that old world down there. That old world that +had shoved up that silly old hotel, and all the rest of it.... If we +don't live it will think we are afraid of it.... Die, indeed! We're +going to do work; we're going to unfold about each other; we're going to +have children." + +"Girls!" cried Ann Veronica. + +"Boys!" said Capes. + +"Both!" said Ann Veronica. "Lots of 'em!" + +Capes chuckled. "You delicate female!" + +"Who cares," said Ann Veronica, "seeing it's you? Warm, soft little +wonders! Of course I want them." + + + +Part 9 + + +"All sorts of things we're going to do," said Capes; "all sorts of times +we're going to have. Sooner or later we'll certainly do something to +clean those prisons you told me about--limewash the underside of life. +You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we can love over a pail of +whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! Moonlight and music--pleasing, you +know, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish.... Do you +remember your first day with me?... Do you indeed remember? The smell +of decay and cheap methylated spirit!... My dear! we've had so many +moments! I used to go over the times we'd had together, the things we'd +said--like a rosary of beads. But now it's beads by the cask--like the +hold of a West African trader. It feels like too much gold-dust clutched +in one's hand. One doesn't want to lose a grain. And one must--some of +it must slip through one's fingers." + +"I don't care if it does," said Ann Veronica. "I don't care a rap for +remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn't be better until the +next moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why should WE hoard? We +aren't going out presently, like Japanese lanterns in a gale. It's the +poor dears who do, who know they will, know they can't keep it up, who +need to clutch at way-side flowers. And put 'em in little books for +remembrance. Flattened flowers aren't for the likes of us. Moments, +indeed! We like each other fresh and fresh. It isn't illusions--for us. +We two just love each other--the real, identical other--all the time." + +"The real, identical other," said Capes, and took and bit the tip of her +little finger. + +"There's no delusions, so far as I know," said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't believe there is one. If there is, it's a mere +wrapping--there's better underneath. It's only as if I'd begun to know +you the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep on coming truer, +after you have seemed to come altogether true. You... brick!" + + + +Part 10 + + +"To think," he cried, "you are ten years younger than I!... There are +times when you make me feel a little thing at your feet--a young, silly, +protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about your +birth certificate; a forgery--and fooling at that. You are one of the +Immortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in the +world who have known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You have +converted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a slip of +a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on your breast, when +your heart has been beating close to my ears, when I have known you for +the goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when I have wished +that you could kill me for the joy of being killed by you. You are the +High Priestess of Life...." + +"Your priestess," whispered Ann Veronica, softly. "A silly little +priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you." + + + +Part 11 + + +They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous shining +globe of mutual satisfaction. + +"Well," said Capes, at length, "we've to go down, Ann Veronica. Life +waits for us." + +He stood up and waited for her to move. + +"Gods!" cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. "And to think that +it's not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel school-girl, +distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding that this great +force of love was bursting its way through me! All those nameless +discontents--they were no more than love's birth-pangs. I felt--I +felt living in a masked world. I felt as though I had bandaged eyes. I +felt--wrapped in thick cobwebs. They blinded me. They got in my mouth. +And now--Dear! Dear! The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love. +I am loved. I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be +alive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you are a +man! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for life and you. I +thank God for His sunlight on your face. I thank God for the beauty +you love and the faults you love. I thank God for the very skin that is +peeling from your nose, for all things great and small that make us what +we are. This is grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping +of life are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born +dragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad as I!" + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH + +IN PERSPECTIVE + + +Part 1 + + +About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four years and +four months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon an old Persian +carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the dining-room of their flat +and surveyed a shining dinner-table set for four people, lit by +skilfully-shaded electric lights, brightened by frequent gleams of +silver, and carefully and simply adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes +had altered scarcely at all during the interval, except for a new +quality of smartness in the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was +nearly half an inch taller; her face was at once stronger and softer, +her neck firmer and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly +than it had been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to +the tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in the +old garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a simple +evening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old embroidery +that enhanced the gentle gravity of her style, and her black hair flowed +off her open forehead to pass under the control of a simple ribbon of +silver. A silver necklace enhanced the dusky beauty of her neck. Both +husband and wife affected an unnatural ease of manner for the benefit of +the efficient parlor-maid, who was putting the finishing touches to the +sideboard arrangements. + +"It looks all right," said Capes. + +"I think everything's right," said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye of +a capable but not devoted house-mistress. + +"I wonder if they will seem altered," she remarked for the third time. + +"There I can't help," said Capes. + +He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue +curtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. Ann +Veronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him, +rustling, came to his side by the high brass fender, and touched two or +three ornaments on the mantel above the cheerful fireplace. + +"It's still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven," she said, +turning. + +"My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he's very human." + +"Did you tell him of the registry office?" + +"No--o--certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play." + +"It was an inspiration--your speaking to him?" + +"I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been near +the Royal Society since--since you disgraced me. What's that?" + +They both stood listening. It was not the arrival of the guests, but +merely the maid moving about in the hall. + +"Wonderful man!" said Ann Veronica, reassured, and stroking his cheek +with her finger. + +Capes made a quick movement as if to bite that aggressive digit, but it +withdrew to Ann Veronica's side. + +"I was really interested in his stuff. I WAS talking to him before I saw +his name on the card beside the row of microscopes. Then, naturally, I +went on talking. He--he has rather a poor opinion of his contemporaries. +Of course, he had no idea who I was." + +"But how did you tell him? You've never told me. Wasn't it--a little bit +of a scene?" + +"Oh! let me see. I said I hadn't been at the Royal Society soiree for +four years, and got him to tell me about some of the fresh Mendelian +work. He loves the Mendelians because he hates all the big names of +the eighties and nineties. Then I think I remarked that science was +disgracefully under-endowed, and confessed I'd had to take to +more profitable courses. 'The fact of it is,' I said, 'I'm the new +playwright, Thomas More. Perhaps you've heard--?' Well, you know, he +had." + +"Fame!" + +"Isn't it? 'I've not seen your play, Mr. More,' he said, 'but I'm told +it's the most amusing thing in London at the present time. A friend +of mine, Ogilvy'--I suppose that's Ogilvy & Ogilvy, who do so many +divorces, Vee?--'was speaking very highly of it--very highly!'" He +smiled into her eyes. + +"You are developing far too retentive a memory for praises," said Ann +Veronica. + +"I'm still new to them. But after that it was easy. I told him instantly +and shamelessly that the play was going to be worth ten thousand pounds. +He agreed it was disgraceful. Then I assumed a rather portentous manner +to prepare him." + +"How? Show me." + +"I can't be portentous, dear, when you're about. It's my other side of +the moon. But I was portentous, I can assure you. 'My name's NOT More, +Mr. Stanley,' I said. 'That's my pet name.'" + +"Yes?" + +"I think--yes, I went on in a pleasing blend of the casual and sotto +voce, 'The fact of it is, sir, I happen to be your son-in-law, Capes. I +do wish you could come and dine with us some evening. It would make my +wife very happy.'" + +"What did he say?" + +"What does any one say to an invitation to dinner point-blank? One tries +to collect one's wits. 'She is constantly thinking of you,' I said." + +"And he accepted meekly?" + +"Practically. What else could he do? You can't kick up a scene on the +spur of the moment in the face of such conflicting values as he +had before him. With me behaving as if everything was infinitely +matter-of-fact, what could he do? And just then Heaven sent old +Manningtree--I didn't tell you before of the fortunate intervention of +Manningtree, did I? He was looking quite infernally distinguished, with +a wide crimson ribbon across him--what IS a wide crimson ribbon? Some +sort of knight, I suppose. He is a knight. 'Well, young man,' he said, +'we haven't seen you lately,' and something about 'Bateson & Co.'--he's +frightfully anti-Mendelian--having it all their own way. So I introduced +him to my father-in-law like a shot. I think that WAS decision. Yes, it +was Manningtree really secured your father. He--" + +"Here they are!" said Ann Veronica as the bell sounded. + + + +Part 2 + + +They received the guests in their pretty little hall with genuine +effusion. Miss Stanley threw aside a black cloak to reveal a discreet +and dignified arrangement of brown silk, and then embraced Ann Veronica +with warmth. "So very clear and cold," she said. "I feared we might +have a fog." The housemaid's presence acted as a useful restraint. Ann +Veronica passed from her aunt to her father, and put her arms about him +and kissed his cheek. "Dear old daddy!" she said, and was amazed to +find herself shedding tears. She veiled her emotion by taking off his +overcoat. "And this is Mr. Capes?" she heard her aunt saying. + +All four people moved a little nervously into the drawing-room, +maintaining a sort of fluttered amiability of sound and movement. + +Mr. Stanley professed a great solicitude to warm his hands. "Quite +unusually cold for the time of year," he said. "Everything very nice, +I am sure," Miss Stanley murmured to Capes as he steered her to a place +upon the little sofa before the fire. Also she made little pussy-like +sounds of a reassuring nature. + +"And let's have a look at you, Vee!" said Mr. Stanley, standing up with +a sudden geniality and rubbing his hands together. + +Ann Veronica, who knew her dress became her, dropped a curtsy to her +father's regard. + +Happily they had no one else to wait for, and it heartened her mightily +to think that she had ordered the promptest possible service of the +dinner. Capes stood beside Miss Stanley, who was beaming unnaturally, +and Mr. Stanley, in his effort to seem at ease, took entire possession +of the hearthrug. + +"You found the flat easily?" said Capes in the pause. "The numbers are a +little difficult to see in the archway. They ought to put a lamp." + +Her father declared there had been no difficulty. + +"Dinner is served, m'm," said the efficient parlor-maid in the archway, +and the worst was over. + +"Come, daddy," said Ann Veronica, following her husband and Miss +Stanley; and in the fulness of her heart she gave a friendly squeeze to +the parental arm. + +"Excellent fellow!" he answered a little irrelevantly. "I didn't +understand, Vee." + +"Quite charming apartments," Miss Stanley admired; "charming! Everything +is so pretty and convenient." + +The dinner was admirable as a dinner; nothing went wrong, from the +golden and excellent clear soup to the delightful iced marrons +and cream; and Miss Stanley's praises died away to an appreciative +acquiescence. A brisk talk sprang up between Capes and Mr. Stanley, to +which the two ladies subordinated themselves intelligently. The +burning topic of the Mendelian controversy was approached on one or two +occasions, but avoided dexterously; and they talked chiefly of letters +and art and the censorship of the English stage. Mr. Stanley was +inclined to think the censorship should be extended to the supply of +what he styled latter-day fiction; good wholesome stories were being +ousted, he said, by "vicious, corrupting stuff" that "left a bad taste +in the mouth." He declared that no book could be satisfactory that left +a bad taste in the mouth, however much it seized and interested the +reader at the time. He did not like it, he said, with a significant +look, to be reminded of either his books or his dinners after he had +done with them. Capes agreed with the utmost cordiality. + +"Life is upsetting enough, without the novels taking a share," said Mr. +Stanley. + +For a time Ann Veronica's attention was diverted by her aunt's interest +in the salted almonds. + +"Quite particularly nice," said her aunt. "Exceptionally so." + +When Ann Veronica could attend again she found the men were discussing +the ethics of the depreciation of house property through the increasing +tumult of traffic in the West End, and agreeing with each other to a +devastating extent. It came into her head with real emotional force that +this must be some particularly fantastic sort of dream. It seemed to her +that her father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she +had supposed, and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had +demanded a struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his +first failure. Why was she noting things like this? Capes seemed +self-possessed and elaborately genial and commonplace, but she knew him +to be nervous by a little occasional clumsiness, by the faintest shadow +of vulgarity in the urgency of his hospitality. She wished he could +smoke and dull his nerves a little. A gust of irrational impatience blew +through her being. Well, they'd got to the pheasants, and in a little +while he would smoke. What was it she had expected? Surely her moods +were getting a little out of hand. + +She wished her father and aunt would not enjoy their dinner with such +quiet determination. Her father and her husband, who had both been a +little pale at their first encounter, were growing now just faintly +flushed. It was a pity people had to eat food. + +"I suppose," said her father, "I have read at least half the novels that +have been at all successful during the last twenty years. Three a week +is my allowance, and, if I get short ones, four. I change them in the +morning at Cannon Street, and take my book as I come down." + +It occurred to her that she had never seen her father dining out +before, never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he was almost +deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in the old time, +never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever anticipated. It was +as if she had grown right past her father into something older and +of infinitely wider outlook, as if he had always been unsuspectedly a +flattened figure, and now she had discovered him from the other side. + +It was a great relief to arrive at last at that pause when she could say +to her aunt, "Now, dear?" and rise and hold back the curtain through the +archway. Capes and her father stood up, and her father made a belated +movement toward the curtain. She realized that he was the sort of man +one does not think much about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that +his wife was a supremely beautiful woman. He reached a silver cigar and +cigarette box from the sideboard and put it before his father-in-law, +and for a time the preliminaries of smoking occupied them both. Then +Capes flittered to the hearthrug and poked the fire, stood up, and +turned about. "Ann Veronica is looking very well, don't you think?" he +said, a little awkwardly. + +"Very," said Mr. Stanley. "Very," and cracked a walnut appreciatively. + +"Life--things--I don't think her prospects now--Hopeful outlook." + +"You were in a difficult position," Mr. Stanley pronounced, and seemed +to hesitate whether he had not gone too far. He looked at his port wine +as though that tawny ruby contained the solution of the matter. "All's +well that ends well," he said; "and the less one says about things the +better." + +"Of course," said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the fire +through sheer nervousness. "Have some more port wine, sir?" + +"It's a very sound wine," said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity. + +"Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think," said Capes, +clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the suppressed topic. + + + +Part 3 + + +At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone down to +see Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had waved an amiable +farewell from the pavement steps. + +"Great dears!" said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight. + +"Yes, aren't they?" said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. And +then, "They seem changed." + +"Come in out of the cold," said Capes, and took her arm. + +"They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller," she said. + +"You've grown out of them.... Your aunt liked the pheasant." + +"She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, talking +cookery?" + +They went up by the lift in silence. + +"It's odd," said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat. + +"What's odd?" + +"Oh, everything!" + +She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down in the +arm-chair beside her. + +"Life's so queer," she said, kneeling and looking into the flames. "I +wonder--I wonder if we shall ever get like that." + +She turned a firelit face to her husband. "Did you tell him?" + +Capes smiled faintly. "Yes." + +"How?" + +"Well--a little clumsily." + +"But how?" + +"I poured him out some port wine, and I said--let me see--oh, 'You are +going to be a grandfather!'" + +"Yes. Was he pleased?" + +"Calmly! He said--you won't mind my telling you?" + +"Not a bit." + +"He said, 'Poor Alice has got no end!'" + +"Alice's are different," said Ann Veronica, after an interval. "Quite +different. She didn't choose her man.... Well, I told aunt.... +Husband of mine, I think we have rather overrated the emotional capacity +of those--those dears." + +"What did your aunt say?" + +"She didn't even kiss me. She said"--Ann Veronica shivered again--"'I +hope it won't make you uncomfortable, my dear'--like that--'and +whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!' I think--I judge from +her manner--that she thought it was just a little indelicate of +us--considering everything; but she tried to be practical and +sympathetic and live down to our standards." + +Capes looked at his wife's unsmiling face. + +"Your father," he said, "remarked that all's well that ends well, and +that he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then spoke with a +certain fatherly kindliness of the past...." + +"And my heart has ached for him!" + +"Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him." + +"We might even have--given it up for them!" + +"I wonder if we could." + +"I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night--I don't know." + +"I suppose so. I'm glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. But if we +had gone under--!" + +They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of her +penetrating flashes. + +"We are not the sort that goes under," said Ann Veronica, holding her +hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. "We settled +long ago--we're hard stuff. We're hard stuff!" + +Then she went on: "To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood +over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from +everything we have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom. +And they come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good; +and they are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we +can dare to have children." + +She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. "Oh, +my dear!" she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, into her +husband's arms. + +"Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one +another? How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember the light +on things and the glory of things? I'm greedy, I'm greedy! I want +children like the mountains and life like the sky. Oh! and love--love! +We've had so splendid a time, and fought our fight and won. And it's +like the petals falling from a flower. Oh, I've loved love, dear! I've +loved love and you, and the glory of you; and the great time is over, +and I have to go carefully and bear children, and--take care of my +hair--and when I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals +have fallen--the red petals we loved so. We're hedged about with +discretions--and all this furniture--and successes! We are successful +at last! Successful! But the mountains, dear! We won't forget the +mountains, dear, ever. That shining slope of snow, and how we talked of +death! We might have died! Even when we are old, when we are rich as we +may be, we won't forget the tune when we cared nothing for anything but +the joy of one another, when we risked everything for one another, when +all the wrappings and coverings seemed to have fallen from life and left +it light and fire. Stark and stark! Do you remember it all?... Say +you will never forget! That these common things and secondary things +sha'n't overwhelm us. These petals! I've been wanting to cry all the +evening, cry here on your shoulder for my petals. Petals!... Silly +woman!... I've never had these crying fits before...." + +"Blood of my heart!" whispered Capes, holding her close to him. "I know. +I understand." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANN VERONICA *** + +***** This file should be named 524.txt or 524.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/524/ + +Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. Binary files differdiff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eefc6db --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #524 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/524) diff --git a/old/anver10.txt b/old/anver10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbf30c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/anver10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13267 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells** +#5 in our series by Herberg George Wells + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Ann Veronica + +by H. G. Wells + +May, 1996 [Etext #524] + + +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells** +*****This file should be named anver10.txt or anver10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, anver11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, anver10a.txt. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month: or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800. +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach 80 billion Etexts. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller +with OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + + + +ANN VERONICA +A MODERN LOVE STORY +BY H. G. WELLS + + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. + I. ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + II. ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + III. THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + IV. THE CRISIS + V. THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + VI. EXPOSTULATIONS + VII. IDEALS AND A REALITY + VIII. BIOLOGY + IX. DISCORDS + X. THE SUFFRAGETTES + XI. THOUGHTS IN PRISON + XII. ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + XIII. THE SAPPHIRE RING + XIV. THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + XV. THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + XVI. IN THE MOUNTAINS + XVII. IN PERSPECTIVE + + +"The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every +well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even +ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge." + + + + + +ANN VERONICA + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +ANN VERONICA TALKS TO HER FATHER + + +Part 1 + + +One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley +came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite +resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. +She had trembled on the verge of such a resolution before, but +this time quite definitely she made it. A crisis had been +reached, and she was almost glad it had been reached. She made +up her mind in the train home that it should be a decisive +crisis. It is for that reason that this novel begins with her +there, and neither earlier nor later, for it is the history of +this crisis and its consequences that this novel has to tell. + +She had a compartment to herself in the train from London to +Morningside Park, and she sat with both her feet on the seat in +an attitude that would certainly have distressed her mother to +see, and horrified her grandmother beyond measure; she sat with +her knees up to her chin and her hands clasped before them, and +she was so lost in thought that she discovered with a start, from +a lettered lamp, that she was at Morningside Park, and thought +she was moving out of the station, whereas she was only moving +in. "Lord!" she said. She jumped up at once, caught up a +leather clutch containing notebooks, a fat text-book, and a +chocolate-and-yellow-covered pamphlet, and leaped neatly from the +carriage, only to discover that the train was slowing down and +that she had to traverse the full length of the platform past it +again as the result of her precipitation. "Sold again," she +remarked. "Idiot!" She raged inwardly while she walked along +with that air of self-contained serenity that is proper to a +young lady of nearly two-and-twenty under the eye of the world. + +She walked down the station approach, past the neat, obtrusive +offices of the coal merchant and the house agent, and so to the +wicket-gate by the butcher's shop that led to the field path to +her home. Outside the post-office stood a no-hatted, blond young +man in gray flannels, who was elaborately affixing a stamp to a +letter. At the sight of her he became rigid and a singularly +bright shade of pink. She made herself serenely unaware of his +existence, though it may be it was his presence that sent her by +the field detour instead of by the direct path up the Avenue. + +"Umph!" he said, and regarded his letter doubtfully before +consigning it to the pillar-box. "Here goes," he said. Then he +hovered undecidedly for some seconds with his hands in his +pockets and his mouth puckered to a whistle before he turned to +go home by the Avenue. + +Ann Veronica forgot him as soon as she was through the gate, and +her face resumed its expression of stern preoccupation. "It's +either now or never," she said to herself. . . . + +Morningside Park was a suburb that had not altogether, as people +say, come off. It consisted, like pre-Roman Gaul, of three +parts. There was first the Avenue, which ran in a consciously +elegant curve from the railway station into an undeveloped +wilderness of agriculture, with big, yellow brick villas on +either side, and then there was the pavement, the little clump of +shops about the post-office, and under the railway arch was a +congestion of workmen's dwellings. The road from Surbiton and +Epsom ran under the arch, and, like a bright fungoid growth in +the ditch, there was now appearing a sort of fourth estate of +little red-and-white rough-cast villas, with meretricious gables +and very brassy window-blinds. Behind the Avenue was a little +hill, and an iron-fenced path went over the crest of this to a +stile under an elm-tree, and forked there, with one branch going +back into the Avenue again. + +"It's either now or never," said Ann Veronica, again ascending +this stile. "Much as I hate rows, I've either got to make a +stand or give in altogether." + +She seated herself in a loose and easy attitude and surveyed the +backs of the Avenue houses; then her eyes wandered to where the +new red-and-white villas peeped among the trees. She seemed to +be making some sort of inventory. "Ye Gods!" she said at last. +"WHAT a place! + +"Stuffy isn't the word for it. + +"I wonder what he takes me for?" + +When presently she got down from the stile a certain note of +internal conflict, a touch of doubt, had gone from her +warm-tinted face. She had now the clear and tranquil expression +of one whose mind is made up. Her back had stiffened, and her +hazel eyes looked steadfastly ahead. + +As she approached the corner of the Avenue the blond, no-hatted +man in gray flannels appeared. There was a certain air of forced +fortuity in his manner. He saluted awkwardly. "Hello, Vee!" he +said. + +"Hello, Teddy!" she answered. + +He hung vaguely for a moment as she passed. + +But it was clear she was in no mood for Teddys. He realized that +he was committed to the path across the fields, an uninteresting +walk at the best of times. + +"Oh, dammit!" he remarked, "dammit!" with great bitterness as he +faced it. + + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica Stanley was twenty-one and a half years old. She +had black hair, fine eyebrows, and a clear complexion; and the +forces that had modelled her features had loved and lingered at +their work and made them subtle and fine. She was slender, and +sometimes she seemed tall, and walked and carried herself lightly +and joyfully as one who commonly and habitually feels well, and +sometimes she stooped a little and was preoccupied. Her lips +came together with an expression between contentment and the +faintest shadow of a smile, her manner was one of quiet reserve, +and behind this mask she was wildly discontented and eager for +freedom and life. + +She wanted to live. She was vehemently impatient--she did not +clearly know for what--to do, to be, to experience. And +experience was slow in coming. All the world about her seemed to +be--how can one put it? --in wrappers, like a house when people +leave it in the summer. The blinds were all drawn, the sunlight +kept out, one could not tell what colors these gray swathings +hid. She wanted to know. And there was no intimation whatever +that the blinds would ever go up or the windows or doors be +opened, or the chandeliers, that seemed to promise such a blaze +of fire, unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted about +her, not only speaking but it would seem even thinking in +undertones. . . . + +During her school days, especially her earlier school days, the +world had been very explicit with her, telling her what to do, +what not to do, giving her lessons to learn and games to play and +interests of the most suitable and various kinds. Presently she +woke up to the fact that there was a considerable group of +interests called being in love and getting married, with certain +attractive and amusing subsidiary developments, such as +flirtation and "being interested" in people of the opposite sex. +She approached this field with her usual liveliness of +apprehension. But here she met with a check. These interests +her world promptly, through the agency of schoolmistresses, older +school-mates, her aunt, and a number of other responsible and +authoritative people, assured her she must on no account think +about. Miss Moffatt, the history and moral instruction mistress, +was particularly explicit upon this score, and they all agreed in +indicating contempt and pity for girls whose minds ran on such +matters, and who betrayed it in their conversation or dress or +bearing. It was, in fact, a group of interests quite unlike any +other group, peculiar and special, and one to be thoroughly +ashamed of. Nevertheless, Ann Veronica found it a difficult +matter not to think of these things. However having a +considerable amount of pride, she decided she would disavow these +undesirable topics and keep her mind away from them just as far +as she could, but it left her at the end of her school days with +that wrapped feeling I have described, and rather at loose ends. + +The world, she discovered, with these matters barred had no +particular place for her at all, nothing for her to do, except a +functionless existence varied by calls, tennis, selected novels, +walks, and dusting in her father's house. She thought study +would be better. She was a clever girl, the best of her year in +the High School, and she made a valiant fight for Somerville or +Newnham but her father had met and argued with a Somerville girl +at a friend's dinner-table and he thought that sort of thing +unsexed a woman. He said simply that he wanted her to live at +home. There was a certain amount of disputation, and meanwhile +she went on at school. They compromised at length on the science +course at the Tredgold Women's College--she had already +matriculated into London University from school--she came of age, +and she bickered with her aunt for latch-key privileges on the +strength of that and her season ticket. Shamefaced curiosities +began to come back into her mind, thinly disguised as literature +and art. She read voraciously, and presently, because of her +aunt's censorship, she took to smuggling any books she thought +might be prohibited instead of bringing them home openly, and she +went to the theatre whenever she could produce an acceptable +friend to accompany her. She passed her general science +examination with double honors and specialized in science. She +happened to have an acute sense of form and unusual mental +lucidity, and she found in biology, and particularly in +comparative anatomy, a very considerable interest, albeit the +illumination it cast upon her personal life was not altogether +direct. She dissected well, and in a year she found herself +chafing at the limitations of the lady B. Sc. who retailed a +store of faded learning in the Tredgold laboratory. She had +already realized that this instructress was hopelessly wrong and +foggy--it is the test of the good comparative anatomist--upon the +skull. She discovered a desire to enter as a student in the +Imperial College at Westminster, where Russell taught, and go on +with her work at the fountain-head. + +She had asked about that already, and her father had replied, +evasively: "We'll have to see about that, little Vee; we'll have +to see about that." In that posture of being seen about the +matter hung until she seemed committed to another session at the +Tredgold College, and in the mean time a small conflict arose and +brought the latch-key question, and in fact the question of Ann +Veronica's position generally, to an acute issue. + +In addition to the various business men, solicitors, civil +servants, and widow ladies who lived in the Morningside Park +Avenue, there was a certain family of alien sympathies and +artistic quality, the Widgetts, with which Ann Veronica had +become very friendly. Mr. Widgett was a journalist and art +critic, addicted to a greenish-gray tweed suit and "art" brown +ties; he smoked corncob pipes in the Avenue on Sunday morning, +travelled third class to London by unusual trains, and openly +despised golf. He occupied one of the smaller houses near the +station. He had one son, who had been co-educated, and three +daughters with peculiarly jolly red hair that Ann Veronica found +adorable. Two of these had been her particular intimates at the +High School, and had done much to send her mind exploring beyond +the limits of the available literature at home. It was a +cheerful, irresponsible, shamelessly hard-up family in the key of +faded green and flattened purple, and the girls went on from the +High School to the Fadden Art School and a bright, eventful life +of art student dances, Socialist meetings, theatre galleries, +talking about work, and even, at intervals, work; and ever and +again they drew Ann Veronica from her sound persistent industry +into the circle of these experiences. They had asked her to come +to the first of the two great annual Fadden Dances, the October +one, and Ann Veronica had accepted with enthusiasm. And now her +father said she must not go. + +He had "put his foot down," and said she must not go. + +Going involved two things that all Ann Veronica's tact had been +ineffectual to conceal from her aunt and father. Her usual +dignified reserve had availed her nothing. One point was that +she was to wear fancy dress in the likeness of a Corsair's bride, +and the other was that she was to spend whatever vestiges of the +night remained after the dance was over in London with the +Widgett girls and a select party in "quite a decent little hotel" +near Fitzroy Square. + +"But, my dear!" said Ann Veronica's aunt. + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, with the air of one who shares a +difficulty, "I've promised to go. I didn't realize-- I don't see +how I can get out of it now." + +Then it was her father issued his ultimatum. He had conveyed it +to her, not verbally, but by means of a letter, which seemed to +her a singularly ignoble method of prohibition. "He couldn't +look me in the face and say it," said Ann Veronica. + +"But of course it's aunt's doing really." + +And thus it was that as Ann Veronica neared the gates of home, +she said to herself: "I'll have it out with him somehow. I'll +have it out with him. And if he won't--" + +But she did not give even unspoken words to the alternative at +that time. + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica's father was a solicitor with a good deal of company +business: a lean, trustworthy, worried-looking, neuralgic, +clean-shaven man of fifty-three, with a hard mouth, a sharp nose, +iron-gray hair, gray eyes, gold-framed glasses, and a small, +circular baldness at the crown of his head. His name was Peter. +He had had five children at irregular intervals, of whom Ann +Veronica was the youngest, so that as a parent he came to her +perhaps a little practised and jaded and inattentive; and he +called her his "little Vee," and patted her unexpectedly and +disconcertingly, and treated her promiscuously as of any age +between eleven and eight-and-twenty. The City worried him a good +deal, and what energy he had left over he spent partly in golf, a +game he treated very seriously, and partly in the practices of +microscopic petrography. + +He "went in" for microscopy in the unphilosophical Victorian +manner as his "hobby." A birthday present of a microscope had +turned his mind to technical microscopy when he was eighteen, and +a chance friendship with a Holborn microscope dealer had +confirmed that bent. He had remarkably skilful fingers and a +love of detailed processes, and he had become one of the most +dexterous amateur makers of rock sections in the world. He spent +a good deal more money and time than he could afford upon the +little room at the top of the house, in producing new lapidary +apparatus and new microscopic accessories and in rubbing down +slices of rock to a transparent thinness and mounting them in a +beautiful and dignified manner. He did it, he said, "to distract +his mind." His chief successes he exhibited to the Lowndean +Microscopical Society, where their high technical merit never +failed to excite admiration. Their scientific value was less +considerable, since he chose rocks entirely with a view to their +difficulty of handling or their attractiveness at conversaziones +when done. He had a great contempt for the sections the +"theorizers" produced. They proved all sorts of things perhaps, +but they were thick, unequal, pitiful pieces of work. Yet an +indiscriminating, wrong-headed world gave such fellows all sorts +of distinctions.... + +He read but little, and that chiefly healthy light fiction with +chromatic titles, The Red Sword, The Black Helmet, The Purple +Robe, also in order "to distract his mind." He read it in winter +in the evening after dinner, and Ann Veronica associated it with +a tendency to monopolize the lamp, and to spread a very worn pair +of dappled fawn-skin slippers across the fender. She wondered +occasionally why his mind needed so much distraction. His +favorite newspaper was the Times, which he began at breakfast in +the morning often with manifest irritation, and carried off to +finish in the train, leaving no other paper at home. + +It occurred to Ann Veronica once that she had known him when he +was younger, but day had followed day, and each had largely +obliterated the impression of its predecessor. But she certainly +remembered that when she was a little girl he sometimes wore +tennis flannels, and also rode a bicycle very dexterously in +through the gates to the front door. And in those days, too, he +used to help her mother with her gardening, and hover about her +while she stood on the ladder and hammered creepers to the +scullery wall. + +It had been Ann Veronica's lot as the youngest child to live in a +home that became less animated and various as she grew up. Her +mother had died when she was thirteen, her two much older sisters +had married off--one submissively, one insubordinately; her two +brothers had gone out into the world well ahead of her, and so +she had made what she could of her father. But he was not a +father one could make much of. + +His ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and modest +quality; they were creatures, he thought, either too bad for a +modern vocabulary, and then frequently most undesirably +desirable, or too pure and good for life. He made this simple +classification of a large and various sex to the exclusion of all +intermediate kinds; he held that the two classes had to be kept +apart even in thought and remote from one another. Women are +made like the potter's vessels--either for worship or contumely, +and are withal fragile vessels. He had never wanted daughters. +Each time a daughter had been born to him he had concealed his +chagrin with great tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had +sworn unwontedly and with passionate sincerity in the bathroom. +He was a manly man, free from any strong maternal strain, and he +had loved his dark-eyed, dainty bright-colored, and active little +wife with a real vein of passion in his sentiment. But he had +always felt (he had never allowed himself to think of it) that +the promptitude of their family was a little indelicate of her, +and in a sense an intrusion. He had, however, planned brilliant +careers for his two sons, and, with a certain human amount of +warping and delay, they were pursuing these. One was in the +Indian Civil Service and one in the rapidly developing motor +business. The daughters, he had hoped, would be their mother's +care. + +He had no ideas about daughters. They happen to a man. + +Of course a little daughter is a delightful thing enough. It runs +about gayly, it romps, it is bright and pretty, it has enormous +quantities of soft hair and more power of expressing affection +than its brothers. It is a lovely little appendage to the mother +who smiles over it, and it does things quaintly like her, +gestures with her very gestures. It makes wonderful sentences +that you can repeat in the City and are good enough for Punch. +You call it a lot of nicknames--"Babs" and "Bibs" and "Viddles" +and "Vee"; you whack at it playfully, and it whacks you back. It +loves to sit on your knee. All that is jolly and as it should +be. + +But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter quite another. +There one comes to a relationship that Mr. Stanley had never +thought out. When he found himself thinking about it, it upset +him so that he at once resorted to distraction. The chromatic +fiction with which he relieved his mind glanced but slightly at +this aspect of life, and never with any quality of guidance. Its +heroes never had daughters, they borrowed other people's. The +one fault, indeed, of this school of fiction for him was that it +had rather a light way with parental rights. His instinct was in +the direction of considering his daughters his absolute property, +bound to obey him, his to give away or his to keep to be a +comfort in his declining years just as he thought fit. About +this conception of ownership he perceived and desired a certain +sentimental glamour, he liked everything properly dressed, but it +remained ownership. Ownership seemed only a reasonable return +for the cares and expenses of a daughter's upbringing. Daughters +were not like sons. He perceived, however, that both the novels +he read and the world he lived in discountenanced these +assumptions. Nothing else was put in their place, and they +remained sotto voce, as it were, in his mind. The new and the +old cancelled out; his daughters became quasi-independent +dependents--which is absurd. One married as he wished and one +against his wishes, and now here was Ann Veronica, his little +Vee, discontented with her beautiful, safe, and sheltering home, +going about with hatless friends to Socialist meetings and +art-class dances, and displaying a disposition to carry her +scientific ambitions to unwomanly lengths. She seemed to think +he was merely the paymaster, handing over the means of her +freedom. And now she insisted that she MUST leave the chastened +security of the Tredgold Women's College for Russell's unbridled +classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dances in pirate costume +and spend the residue of the night with Widgett's ramshackle +girls in some indescribable hotel in Soho! + +He had done his best not to think about her at all, but the +situation and his sister had become altogether too urgent. He +had finally put aside The Lilac Sunbonnet, gone into his study, +lit the gas fire, and written the letter that had brought these +unsatisfactory relations to a head. + + +Part 4 + +MY DEAR VEE, he wrote. + +These daughters! He gnawed his pen and reflected, tore the sheet +up, and began again. + +"MY DEAR VERONICA,--Your aunt tells me you have involved yourself +in some arrangement with the Widgett girls about a Fancy Dress +Ball in London. I gather you wish to go up in some fantastic +get-up, wrapped about in your opera cloak, and that after the +festivities you propose to stay with these friends of yours, and +without any older people in your party, at an hotel. Now I am +sorry to cross you in anything you have set your heart upon, but +I regret to say--" + +"H'm," he reflected, and crossed out the last four words. + +"--but this cannot be." + +"No," he said, and tried again: "but I must tell you quite +definitely that I feel it to be my duty to forbid any such +exploit." + +"Damn!" he remarked at the defaced letter; and, taking a fresh +sheet, he recopied what he had written. A certain irritation +crept into his manner as he did so. + +"I regret that you should ever have proposed it," he went on. + +He meditated, and began a new paragraph. + +"The fact of it is, and this absurd project of yours only brings +it to a head, you have begun to get hold of some very queer ideas +about what a young lady in your position may or may not venture +to do. I do not think you quite understand my ideals or what is +becoming as between father and daughter. Your attitude to me--" + +He fell into a brown study. It was so difficult to put +precisely. + +"--and your aunt--" + +For a time he searched for the mot juste. Then he went on: + +"--and, indeed, to most of the established things in life is, +frankly, unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical +with all the crude unthinking criticism of youth. You have no +grasp upon the essential facts of life (I pray God you never +may), and in your rash ignorance you are prepared to dash into +positions that may end in lifelong regret. The life of a young +girl is set about with prowling pitfalls." + +He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture of Veronica +reading this last sentence. But he was now too deeply moved to +trace a certain unsatisfactoriness to its source in a mixture of +metaphors. "Well," he said, argumentatively, "it IS. That's all +about it. It's time she knew." + +"The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls, +from which she must be shielded at all costs." + +His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution. + +"So long as I am your father, so long as your life is entrusted +to my care, I feel bound by every obligation to use my authority +to check this odd disposition of yours toward extravagant +enterprises. A day will come when you will thank me. It is not, +my dear Veronica, that I think there is any harm in you; there is +not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil but by the proximity +of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do her as serious an +injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please believe +that in this matter I am acting for the best." + +He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door +and called "Mollie!" and returned to assume an attitude of +authority on the hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange +glow of the gas fire. + +His sister appeared. + +She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all +lace and work and confused patternings of black and purple and +cream about the body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine +version of the same theme as himself. She had the same sharp +nose--which, indeed, only Ann Veronica, of all the family, had +escaped. She carried herself well, whereas her brother slouched, +and there was a certain aristocratic dignity about her that she +had acquired through her long engagement to a curate of family, a +scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died before they +married, and when her brother became a widower she had come to +his assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest +daughter. But from the first her rather old-fashioned conception +of life had jarred with the suburban atmosphere, the High School +spirit and the memories of the light and little Mrs. Stanley, +whose family had been by any reckoning inconsiderable--to use the +kindliest term. Miss Stanley had determined from the outset to +have the warmest affection for her youngest niece and to be a +second mother in her life--a second and a better one; but she had +found much to battle with, and there was much in herself that Ann +Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an air of +reserved solicitude. + +Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from +his jacket pocket. "What do you think of that?" he asked. + +She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. +He filled his pipe slowly. + +"Yes," she said at last, "it is firm and affectionate." + +"I could have said more." + +"You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me +exactly what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair." + +She paused, and he waited for her to speak. + +"I don't think she quite sees the harm of those people or the +sort of life to which they would draw her," she said. "They +would spoil every chance." + +"She has chances?" he said, helping her out. + +"She is an extremely attractive girl," she said; and added, "to +some people. Of course, one doesn't like to talk about things +until there are things to talk about." + +"All the more reason why she shouldn't get herself talked about." + +"That is exactly what I feel." + +Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand +thoughtfully for a time. "I'd give anything," he remarked, "to +see our little Vee happily and comfortably married." + +He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an +inadvertent, casual manner just as he was leaving the house to +catch his London train. When Ann Veronica got it she had at +first a wild, fantastic idea that it contained a tip. + + +Part 5 + + +Ann Veronica's resolve to have things out with her father was not +accomplished without difficulty. + +He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and +played Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The +atmosphere at dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly +amiable above a certain tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a +caller about the alarming spread of marigolds that summer at the +end of the garden, a sort of Yellow Peril to all the smaller +hardy annuals, while her father brought some papers to table and +presented himself as preoccupied with them. "It really seems as +if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next year," +Aunt Molly repeated three times, "and do away with marguerites. +They seed beyond all reason." Elizabeth, the parlormaid, kept +coming in to hand vegetables whenever there seemed a chance of +Ann Veronica asking for an interview. Directly dinner was over +Mr. Stanley, having pretended to linger to smoke, fled suddenly +up-stairs to petrography, and when Veronica tapped he answered +through the locked door, "Go away, Vee! I'm busy," and made a +lapidary's wheel buzz loudly. + +Breakfast, too, was an impossible occasion. He read the Times +with an unusually passionate intentness, and then declared +suddenly for the earlier of the two trains he used. + +"I'll come to the station," said Ann Veronica. "I may as well +come up by this train." + +"I may have to run," said her father, with an appeal to his +watch. + +"I'll run, too," she volunteered. + +Instead of which they walked sharply. . . . + +"I say, daddy," she began, and was suddenly short of breath. + +"If it's about that dance project," he said, "it's no good, +Veronica. I've made up my mind." + +"You'll make me look a fool before all my friends." + +"You shouldn't have made an engagement until you'd consulted your +aunt." + +"I thought I was old enough," she gasped, between laughter and +crying. + +Her father's step quickened to a trot. "I won't have you +quarrelling and crying in the Avenue," he said. "Stop it! . . . +If you've got anything to say, you must say it to your aunt--" + +"But look here, daddy!" + +He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture. + +"It's settled. You're not to go. You're NOT to go." + +"But it's about other things." + +"I don't care. This isn't the place." + +"Then may I come to the study to-night--after dinner?" + +"I'm--BUSY!" + +"It's important. If I can't talk anywhere else--I DO want an +understanding." + +Ahead of them walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at +their present pace very speedily overtake. It was Ramage, the +occupant of the big house at the end of the Avenue. He had +recently made Mr. Stanley's acquaintance in the train and shown +him one or two trifling civilities. He was an outside broker and +the proprietor of a financial newspaper; he had come up very +rapidly in the last few years, and Mr. Stanley admired and +detested him in almost equal measure. It was intolerable to +think that he might overhear words and phrases. Mr. Stanley's +pace slackened. + +"You've no right to badger me like this, Veronica," he said. "I +can't see what possible benefit can come of discussing things +that are settled. If you want advice, your aunt is the person. +However, if you must air your opinions--" + +"To-night, then, daddy!" + +He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and then +Ramage glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited +for them to come up. He was a square-faced man of nearly fifty, +with iron-gray hair a mobile, clean-shaven mouth and rather +protuberant black eyes that now scrutinized Ann Veronica. He +dressed rather after the fashion of the West End than the City, +and affected a cultured urbanity that somehow disconcerted and +always annoyed Ann Veronica's father extremely. He did not play +golf, but took his exercise on horseback, which was also +unsympathetic. + +"Stuffy these trees make the Avenue," said Mr. Stanley as they +drew alongside, to account for his own ruffled and heated +expression. "They ought to have been lopped in the spring." + +"There's plenty of time," said Ramage. "Is Miss Stanley coming +up with us?" + +"I go second," she said, "and change at Wimbledon." + +"We'll all go second," said Ramage, "if we may?" + +Mr. Stanley wanted to object strongly, but as he could not +immediately think how to put it, he contented himself with a +grunt, and the motion was carried. "How's Mrs. Ramage?" he asked. + +"Very much as usual," said Ramage. "She finds lying up so much +very irksome. But, you see, she HAS to lie up." + +The topic of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at once to +Ann Veronica. "And where are YOU going?" he said. "Are you +going on again this winter with that scientific work of yours? +It's an instance of heredity, I suppose." For a moment Mr. +Stanley almost liked Ramage. "You're a biologist, aren't you?" + +He began to talk of his own impressions of biology as a +commonplace magazine reader who had to get what he could from the +monthly reviews, and was glad to meet with any information from +nearer the fountainhead. In a little while he and she were +talking quite easily and agreeably. They went on talking in the +train--it seemed to her father a slight want of deference to +him--and he listened and pretended to read the Times. He was +struck disagreeably by Ramage's air of gallant consideration and +Ann Veronica's self-possessed answers. These things did not +harmonize with his conception of the forthcoming (if unavoidable) +interview. After all, it came to him suddenly as a harsh +discovery that she might be in a sense regarded as grownup. He +was a man who in all things classified without nuance, and for +him there were in the matter of age just two feminine classes and +no more--girls and women. The distinction lay chiefly in the +right to pat their heads. But here was a girl--she must be a +girl, since she was his daughter and pat-able--imitating the +woman quite remarkably and cleverly. He resumed his listening. +She was discussing one of those modern advanced plays with a +remarkable, with an extraordinary, confidence. + +"His love-making," she remarked, "struck me as unconvincing. He +seemed too noisy." + +The full significance of her words did not instantly appear to +him. Then it dawned. Good heavens! She was discussing +love-making. For a time he heard no more, and stared with stony +eyes at a Book-War proclamation in leaded type that filled half a +column of the Times that day. Could she understand what she was +talking about? Luckily it was a second-class carriage and the +ordinary fellow-travellers were not there. Everybody, he felt, +must be listening behind their papers. + +Of course, girls repeat phrases and opinions of which they cannot +possibly understand the meaning. But a middle-aged man like +Ramage ought to know better than to draw out a girl, the daughter +of a friend and neighbor. . . . + +Well, after all, he seemed to be turning the subject. "Broddick +is a heavy man," he was saying, "and the main interest of the +play was the embezzlement." Thank Heaven! Mr. Stanley allowed +his paper to drop a little, and scrutinized the hats and brows of +their three fellow-travellers . + +They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss +Stanley to the platform as though she had been a duchess, and she +descended as though such attentions from middle-aged, but still +gallant, merchants were a matter of course. Then, as Ramage +readjusted himself in a corner, he remarked: "These young people +shoot up, Stanley. It seems only yesterday that she was running +down the Avenue, all hair and legs." + +Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something +approaching animosity. + +"Now she's all hat and ideas," he said, with an air of humor. + +"She seems an unusually clever girl," said Ramage. + +Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor's clean-shaven face almost +warily. "I'm not sure whether we don't rather overdo all this +higher education," he said, with an effect of conveying profound +meanings. + + +Part 6 + + +He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as +the day wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his +thoughts all through the morning, and still more so in the +afternoon. He saw her young and graceful back as she descended +from the carriage, severely ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse +he had of her face, bright and serene, as his train ran out of +Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating perplexity her clear, +matter-of-fact tone as she talked about love-making being +unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and +extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious +self-reliance that seemed to intimate her sense of absolute +independence of him, her absolute security without him. After +all, she only LOOKED a woman. She was rash and ignorant, +absolutely inexperienced. Absolutely. He began to think of +speeches, very firm, explicit speeches, he would make. + +He lunched in the Legal Club in Chancery Lane, and met Ogilvy. +Daughters were in the air that day. Ogilvy was full of a client's +trouble in that matter, a grave and even tragic trouble. He told +some of the particulars. + +"Curious case," said Ogilvy, buttering his bread and cutting it +up in a way he had. "Curious case--and sets one thinking." + +He resumed, after a mouthful: "Here is a girl of sixteen or +seventeen, seventeen and a half to be exact, running about, as +one might say, in London. Schoolgirl. Her family are solid West +End people, Kensington people. Father--dead. She goes out and +comes home. Afterward goes on to Oxford. Twenty-one, twenty-two. +Why doesn't she marry? Plenty of money under her father's will. +Charming girl." + +He consumed Irish stew for some moments. + +"Married already," he said, with his mouth full. "Shopman." + +"Good God!" said Mr. Stanley. + +"Good-looking rascal she met at Worthing. Very romantic and all +that. He fixed it." + +"But--" + +"He left her alone. Pure romantic nonsense on her part. Sheer +calculation on his. Went up to Somerset House to examine the +will before he did it. Yes. Nice position." + +"She doesn't care for him now?" + +"Not a bit. What a girl of sixteen cares for is hair and a high +color and moonlight and a tenor voice. I suppose most of our +daughters would marry organ-grinders if they had a chance--at +that age. My son wanted to marry a woman of thirty in a +tobacconist's shop. Only a son's another story. We fixed that. +Well, that's the situation. My people don't know what to do. +Can't face a scandal. Can't ask the gent to go abroad and +condone a bigamy. He misstated her age and address; but you +can't get home on him for a thing like that. . . . There you +are! Girl spoilt for life. Makes one want to go back to the +Oriental system!" + +Mr. Stanley poured wine. "Damned Rascal!" he said. "Isn't there +a brother to kick him?" + +"Mere satisfaction," reflected Ogilvy. "Mere sensuality. I +rather think they have kicked him, from the tone of some of the +letters. Nice, of course. But it doesn't alter the situation." + +"It's these Rascals," said Mr. Stanley, and paused. + +"Always has been," said Ogilvy. "Our interest lies in heading +them off." + +"There was a time when girls didn't get these extravagant ideas." + +"Lydia Languish, for example. Anyhow, they didn't run about so +much." + +"Yes. That's about the beginning. It's these damned novels. All +this torrent of misleading, spurious stuff that pours from the +press. These sham ideals and advanced notions. Women who Dids, +and all that kind of thing. . . ." + +Ogilvy reflected. "This girl--she's really a very charming, +frank person--had had her imagination fired, so she told me, by a +school performance of Romeo and Juliet." + +Mr. Stanley decided to treat that as irrelevant. "There ought to +be a Censorship of Books. We want it badly at the present time. +Even WITH the Censorship of Plays there's hardly a decent thing +to which a man can take his wife and daughters, a creeping taint +of suggestion everywhere. What would it be without that +safeguard?" + +Ogilvy pursued his own topic. "I'm inclined to think, Stanley, +myself that as a matter of fact it was the expurgated Romeo and +Juliet did the mischief. If our young person hadn't had the +nurse part cut out, eh? She might have known more and done less. +I was curious about that. All they left it was the moon and +stars. And the balcony and 'My Romeo!' " + +"Shakespeare is altogether different from the modern stuff. +Altogether different. I'm not discussing Shakespeare. I don't +want to Bowdlerize Shakespeare. I'm not that sort I quite agree. + +But this modern miasma--" + +Mr. Stanley took mustard savagely. + +"Well, we won't go into Shakespeare," said Ogilvy "What interests +me is that our young women nowadays are running about as free as +air practically, with registry offices and all sorts of +accommodation round the corner. Nothing to check their +proceedings but a declining habit of telling the truth and the +limitations of their imaginations. And in that respect they stir +up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think we ought +to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other. +They're too free for their innocence or too innocent for their +freedom. That's my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, +Stanley? The apple-tart's been very good lately--very good!" + + + +Part 7 + + +At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!" + +Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave +deliberation; "If there is anything you want to say to me," he +said, "you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a +little here, and then I shall go to the study. I don't see what +you can have to say. I should have thought my note cleared up +everything. There are some papers I have to look through +to-night--important papers." + +"I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box +on the table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee +shouldn't discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without +bothering me." + +It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for +all three of them were shy by habit. + +He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for +her aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of +the room with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness +of her own room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It +distressed and confused her that the girl should not come to her. + +It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and +unmerited disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt. + +When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of +a carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both +arm-chairs had been moved a little so as to face each other on +either side of the fender, and in the circular glow of the +green-shaded lamp there lay, conspicuously waiting, a thick +bundle of blue and white papers tied with pink tape. Her father +held some printed document in his hand, and appeared not to +observe her entry. "Sit down," he said, and perused--"perused" +is the word for it--for some moments. Then he put the paper by. +"And what is it all about, Veronica?" he asked, with a deliberate +note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his +glasses. + +Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she +disregarded her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on +the mat instead, and looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she +said, in a tone of great reasonableness, "I MUST go to that +dance, you know." + +Her father's irony deepened. "Why?" he asked, suavely. + +Her answer was not quite ready. "Well, because I don't see any +reason why I shouldn't." + +"You see I do." + +"Why shouldn't I go?" + +"It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering." + +"But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?" + +"And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't +correct; it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in +London--the idea is preposterous. I can't imagine what possessed +you, Veronica." + +He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his +mouth, and looked at her over his glasses. + +"But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled +with a pipe on the mantel. + +"Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal. + +"You see, daddy, I don't think it IS preposterous. That's really +what I want to discuss. It comes to this--am I to be trusted to +take care of myself, or am I not?" + +"To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not." + +"I think I am." + +"As long as you remain under my roof--" he began, and paused. + +"You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't +think that's fair." + +"Your ideas of fairness--" he remarked, and discontinued that +sentence. "My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient +reasonableness, "you are a mere child. You know nothing of life, +nothing of its dangers, nothing of its possibilities. You think +everything is harmless and simple, and so forth. It isn't. It +isn't. That's where you go wrong. In some things, in many +things, you must trust to your elders, to those who know more of +life than you do. Your aunt and I have discussed all this +matter. There it is. You can't go." + +The conversation hung for a moment. Ann Veronica tried to keep +hold of a complicated situation and not lose her head. She had +turned round sideways, so as to look down into the fire. + +"You see, father," she said, "it isn't only this affair of the +dance. I want to go to that because it's a new experience, +because I think it will be interesting and give me a view of +things. You say I know nothing. That's probably true. But how +am I to know of things?" + +"Some things I hope you may never know," he said. + +"I'm not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can." + +"Tut!" he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the +pink tape. + +"Well, I do. It's just that I want to say. I want to be a human +being; I want to learn about things and know about things, and +not to be protected as something too precious for life, cooped up +in one narrow little corner." + +"Cooped up!" he cried. "Did I stand in the way of your going to +college? Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable +hour? You've got a bicycle!" + +"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and then went on "I want to be taken +seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with +my University work under proper conditions, now that I've done +the Intermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well. I've +never muffed an exam. yet. Roddy muffed two. . . ." + +Her father interrupted. "Now look here, Veronica, let us be +plain with each other. You are not going to that infidel +Russell's classes. You are not going anywhere but to the +Tredgold College. I've thought that out, and you must make up +your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come in. While you +live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong even +about that man's scientific position and his standard of work. +There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at +him. And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as +being--well, next door to shameful. There's stories, too, about +his demonstrator, Capes Something or other. The kind of man +who isn't content with his science, and writes articles in the +monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE." + +The girl received this intimation in silence. but the face that +looked down upon the gas fire took an expression of obstinacy +that brought out a hitherto latent resemblance between parent and +child. When she spoke, her lips twitched. + +"Then I suppose when I have graduated I am to come home?" + +"It seems the natural course " + +"And do nothing?" + +"There are plenty of things a girl can find to do at home." + +"Until some one takes pity on me and marries me?" + +He raised his eyebrows in mild appeal. His foot tapped +impatiently, and he took up the papers. + +"Look here, father," she said, with a change in her voice, +"suppose I won't stand it?" + +He regarded her as though this was a new idea. + +"Suppose, for example, I go to this dance?" + +"You won't." + +"Well"--her breath failed her for a moment. "How would you +prevent it?" she asked. + +"But I have forbidden it!" he said, raising his voice. + +"Yes, I know. But suppose I go?" + +"Now, Veronica! No, no. This won't do. Understand me! I +forbid it. I do not want to hear from you even the threat of +disobedience." He spoke loudly. "The thing is forbidden!" + +"I am ready to give up anything that you show to be wrong." + +"You will give up anything I wish you to give up." + +They stared at each other through a pause, and both faces were +flushed and obstinate. + +She was trying by some wonderful, secret, and motionless +gymnastics to restrain her tears. But when she spoke her lips +quivered, and they came. "I mean to go to that dance!" she +blubbered. "I mean to go to that dance! I meant to reason with +you, but you won't reason. You're dogmatic." + +At the sight of her tears his expression changed to a mingling of +triumph and concern. He stood up, apparently intending to put an +arm about her, but she stepped back from him quickly. She +produced a handkerchief, and with one sweep of this and a +simultaneous gulp had abolished her fit of weeping. His voice +now had lost its ironies. + +"Now, Veronica," he pleaded, "Veronica, this is most +unreasonable. All we do is for your good. Neither your aunt nor +I have any other thought but what is best for you." + +"Only you won't let me live. Only you won't let me exist!" + +Mr. Stanley lost patience. He bullied frankly. + +"What nonsense is this? What raving! My dear child, you DO +live, you DO exist! You have this home. You have friends, +acquaintances, social standing, brothers and sisters, every +advantage! Instead of which, you want to go to some mixed +classes or other and cut up rabbits and dance about at nights in +wild costumes with casual art student friends and God knows who. +That--that isn't living! You are beside yourself. You don't +know what you ask nor what you say. You have neither reason nor +logic. I am sorry to seem to hurt you, but all I say is for your +good. You MUST not, you SHALL not go. On this I am resolved. I +put my foot down like--like adamant. And a time will come, +Veronica, mark my words, a time will come when you will bless me +for my firmness to-night. It goes to my heart to disappoint you, +but this thing must not be." + +He sidled toward her, but she recoiled from him, leaving him in +possession of the hearth-rug. + +"Well," she said, "good-night, father." + +"What!" he asked; "not a kiss?" + +She affected not to hear. + +The door closed softly upon her. For a long time he remained +standing before the fire, staring at the situation. Then he sat +down and filled his pipe slowly and thoughtfully. . . . + +"I don't see what else I could have said," he remarked. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +ANN VERONICA GATHERS POINTS OF VIEW + +Part 1 + + +"Are you coming to the Fadden Dance, Ann Veronica?" asked +Constance Widgett. + +Ann Veronica considered her answer. "I mean to," she replied. + +"You are making your dress?" + +"Such as it is." + +They were in the elder Widgett girl's bedroom; Hetty was laid up, +she said, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was +gossiping away her tedium. It was a large, littered, +self-forgetful apartment, decorated with unframed charcoal +sketches by various incipient masters; and an open bookcase, +surmounted by plaster casts and the half of a human skull, +displayed an odd miscellany of books--Shaw and Swinburne, Tom +Jones, Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. Constance +Widgett's abundant copper-red hair was bent down over some dimly +remunerative work--stencilling in colors upon rough, white +material--at a kitchen table she had dragged up-stairs for the +purpose, while on her bed there was seated a slender lady of +thirty or so in a dingy green dress, whom Constance had +introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss Miniver. Miss Miniver +looked out on the world through large emotional blue eyes that +were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and her nose was +pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her +glasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face. +She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for her +opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words +"Votes for Women." Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the +sufferer's bed, while Teddy Widgett, being something of an +athlete, occupied the only bed-room chair--a decadent piece, +essentially a tripod and largely a formality--and smoked +cigarettes, and tried to conceal the fact that he was looking all +the time at Ann Veronica's eyebrows. Teddy was the hatless young +man who had turned Ann Veronica aside from the Avenue two days +before. He was the junior of both his sisters, co-educated and +much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses, just +brought by Ann Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, and +Ann Veronica was particularly trim in preparation for a call she +was to make with her aunt later in the afternoon. + +Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. "I've been," she said, +"forbidden to come." + +"Hul-LO!" said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy +remarked with profound emotion, "My God!" + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "and that complicates the situation." + +"Auntie?" asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica's +affairs. + +"No! My father. It's--it's a serious prohibition." + +"Why?" asked Hetty. + +"That's the point. I asked him why, and he hadn't a reason." + +"YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!" said Miss Miniver, with +great intensity. + +"Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn't have it +out. "Ann Veronica reflected for an instant "That's why I think +I ought to come." + +"You asked your father for a reason!" Miss Miniver repeated. + +"We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!" said +Hetty. "He's got almost to like it." + +"Men," said Miss Miniver, "NEVER have a reason. Never! And they +don't know it! They have no idea of it. It's one of their worst +traits, one of their very worst." + +"But I say, Vee," said Constance, "if you come and you are +forbidden to come there'll be the deuce of a row." + +Ann Veronica was deciding for further confidences. Her situation +was perplexing her very much, and the Widgett atmosphere was lax +and sympathetic, and provocative of discussion. "It isn't only +the dance," she said. + +"There's the classes," said Constance, the well-informed. + +"There's the whole situation. Apparently I'm not to exist yet. +I'm not to study, I'm not to grow. I've got to stay at home and +remain in a state of suspended animation." + +"DUSTING!" said Miss Miniver, in a sepulchral voice. + +"Until you marry, Vee," said Hetty. + +"Well, I don't feel like standing it." + +"Thousands of women have married merely for freedom," said Miss +Miniver. "Thousands! Ugh! And found it a worse slavery." + +"I suppose," said Constance, stencilling away at bright pink +petals, "it's our lot. But it's very beastly." + +"What's our lot?" asked her sister. + +"Slavery! Downtroddenness! When I think of it I feel all over +boot marks--men's boots. We hide it bravely, but so it is. +Damn! I've splashed." + +Miss Miniver's manner became impressive. She addressed Ann +Veronica with an air of conveying great open secrets to her. "As +things are at present," she said, "it is true. We live under +man-made institutions, and that is what they amount to. Every +girl in the world practically, except a few of us who teach or +type-write, and then we're underpaid and sweated--it's dreadful +to think how we are sweated!" She had lost her generalization, +whatever it was. She hung for a moment, and then went on, +conclusively, "Until we have the vote that is how things WILL +be." + +"I'm all for the vote," said Teddy. + +"I suppose a girl MUST be underpaid and sweated," said Ann +Veronica. "I suppose there's no way of getting a decent +income--independently." + +"Women have practically NO economic freedom," said Miss Miniver, +"because they have no political freedom. Men have seen to that. +The one profession, the one decent profession, I mean, for a +woman--except the stage--is teaching, and there we trample on one +another. Everywhere else--the law, medicine, the Stock +Exchange--prejudice bars us." + +"There's art," said Ann Veronica, "and writing." + +"Every one hasn't the Gift. Even there a woman never gets a fair +chance. Men are against her. Whatever she does is minimized. +All the best novels have been written by women, and yet see how +men sneer at the lady novelist still! There's only one way to +get on for a woman, and that is to please men. That is what they +think we are for!" + +"We're beasts," said Teddy. "Beasts!" + +But Miss Miniver took no notice of his admission. + +"Of course," said Miss Miniver--she went on in a regularly +undulating voice--"we DO please men. We have that gift. We can +see round them and behind them and through them, and most of us +use that knowledge, in the silent way we have, for our great +ends. Not all of us, but some of us. Too many. I wonder what +men would say if we threw the mask aside--if we really told them +what WE thought of them, really showed them what WE were." A +flush of excitement crept into her cheeks. + +"Maternity," she said, "has been our undoing." + +From that she opened out into a long, confused emphatic discourse +on the position of women, full of wonderful statements, while +Constance worked at her stencilling and Ann Veronica and Hetty +listened, and Teddy contributed sympathetic noises and consumed +cheap cigarettes. As she talked she made weak little gestures +with her hands, and she thrust her face forward from her bent +shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann Veronica and sometimes +at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near Fluelen, that hung upon +the wall. Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely sympathizing +with her, vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency and her +convulsive movements, and the fine eyebrows were knit with a +faint perplexity. Essentially the talk was a mixture of +fragments of sentences heard, of passages read, or arguments +indicated rather than stated, and all of it was served in a sauce +of strange enthusiasm, thin yet intense. Ann Veronica had had +some training at the Tredgold College in disentangling threads +from confused statements, and she had a curious persuasion that +in all this fluent muddle there was something--something real, +something that signified. But it was very hard to follow. She +did not understand the note of hostility to men that ran through +it all, the bitter vindictiveness that lit Miss Miniver's cheeks +and eyes, the sense of some at last insupportable wrong slowly +accumulated. She had no inkling of that insupportable wrong. + +"We are the species," said Miss Miniver, "men are only incidents. + +They give themselves airs, but so it is. In all the species of +animals the females are more important than the males; the males +have to please them. Look at the cock's feathers, look at the +competition there is everywhere, except among humans. The stags +and oxen and things all have to fight for us, everywhere. Only in +man is the male made the most important. And that happens +through our maternity; it's our very importance that degrades us. + +While we were minding the children they stole our rights and +liberties. The children made us slaves, and the men took +advantage of it. It's --Mrs. Shalford says--the accidental +conquering the essential. Originally in the first animals there +were no males, none at all. It has been proved. Then they +appear among the lower things"--she made meticulous gestures to +figure the scale of life; she seemed to be holding up specimens, +and peering through her glasses at them--"among crustaceans and +things, just as little creatures, ever so inferior to the +females. Mere hangers on. Things you would laugh at. And among +human beings, too, women to begin with were the rulers and +leaders; they owned all the property, they invented all the arts. + +The primitive government was the Matriarchate. The Matriarchate! +The Lords of Creation just ran about and did what they were +told." + +"But is that really so?" said Ann Veronica. + +"It has been proved," said Miss Miniver, and added, "by American +professors." + +"But how did they prove it?" + +"By science," said Miss Miniver, and hurried on, putting out a +rhetorical hand that showed a slash of finger through its glove. +"And now, look at us! See what we have become. Toys! Delicate +trifles! A sex of invalids. It is we who have become the +parasites and toys." + +It was, Ann Veronica felt, at once absurd and extraordinarily +right. Hetty, who had periods of lucid expression, put the thing +for her from her pillow. She charged boldly into the space of +Miss Miniver's rhetorical pause. + +"It isn't quite that we're toys. Nobody toys with me. Nobody +regards Constance or Vee as a delicate trifle." + +Teddy made some confused noise, a thoracic street row; some +remark was assassinated by a rival in his throat and buried +hastily under a cough. + +"They'd better not," said Hetty. "The point is we're not toys, +toys isn't the word; we're litter. We're handfuls. We're +regarded as inflammable litter that mustn't be left about. We +are the species, and maternity is our game; that's all right, but +nobody wants that admitted for fear we should all catch fire, and +set about fulfilling the purpose of our beings without waiting +for further explanations. As if we didn't know! The practical +trouble is our ages. They used to marry us off at seventeen, +rush us into things before we had time to protest. They don't +now. Heaven knows why! They don't marry most of us off now +until high up in the twenties. And the age gets higher. We have +to hang about in the interval. There's a great gulf opened, and +nobody's got any plans what to do with us. So the world is +choked with waste and waiting daughters. Hanging about! And they +start thinking and asking questions, and begin to be neither one +thing nor the other. We're partly human beings and partly +females in suspense." + +Miss Miniver followed with an expression of perplexity, her mouth +shaped to futile expositions. The Widgett method of thought +puzzled her weakly rhetorical mind. "There is no remedy, girls," +she began, breathlessly, "except the Vote. Give us that--" + +Ann Veronica came in with a certain disregard of Miss Miniver. +"That's it," she said. "They have no plans for us. They have no +ideas what to do with us." + +"Except," said Constance, surveying her work with her head on one +side, "to keep the matches from the litter." + +"And they won't let us make plans for ourselves." + +"We will," said Miss Miniver, refusing to be suppressed, "if some +of us have to be killed to get it." And she pressed her lips +together in white resolution and nodded, and she was manifestly +full of that same passion for conflict and self-sacrifice that +has given the world martyrs since the beginning of things. "I +wish I could make every woman, every girl, see this as clearly as +I see it--just what the Vote means to us. Just what it means. . +. ." + + + +Part 2 + + +As Ann Veronica went back along the Avenue to her aunt she became +aware of a light-footed pursuer running. Teddy overtook her, a +little out of breath, his innocent face flushed, his +straw-colored hair disordered. He was out of breath, and spoke in +broken sentences. + +"I say, Vee. Half a minute, Vee. It's like this: You want +freedom. Look here. You know--if you want freedom. Just an +idea of mine. You know how those Russian students do? In +Russia. Just a formal marriage. Mere formality. Liberates the +girl from parental control. See? You marry me. Simply. No +further responsibility whatever. Without hindrance--present +occupation. Why not? Quite willing. Get a license--just an +idea of mine. Doesn't matter a bit to me. Do anything to please +you, Vee. Anything. Not fit to be dust on your boots. +Still--there you are!" + +He paused. + +Ann Veronica's desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the +tremendous earnestness of his expression. "Awfully good of you, +Teddy." she said. + +He nodded silently, too full for words. + +"But I don't see," said Ann Veronica, "just how it fits the +present situation." + +"No! Well, I just suggested it. Threw it out. Of course, if at +any time--see reason--alter your opinion. Always at your service. + +No offence, I hope. All right! I'm off. Due to play hockey. +Jackson's. Horrid snorters! So long, Vee! Just suggested it. +See? Nothing really. Passing thought." + +"Teddy," said Ann Veronica, "you're a dear!" + +"Oh, quite!" said Teddy, convulsively, and lifted an imaginary +hat and left her. + + + +Part 3 + + +The call Ann Veronica paid with her aunt that afternoon had at +first much the same relation to the Widgett conversation that a +plaster statue of Mr. Gladstone would have to a carelessly +displayed interior on a dissecting-room table. The Widgetts +talked with a remarkable absence of external coverings; the +Palsworthys found all the meanings of life on its surfaces. They +seemed the most wrapped things in all Ann Veronica's wrappered +world. The Widgett mental furniture was perhaps worn and shabby, +but there it was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an +almost pitiless sunlight. Lady Palsworthy was the widow of a +knight who had won his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was +of good seventeenth-century attorney blood, a county family, and +distantly related to Aunt Mollie's deceased curate. She was the +social leader of Morningside Park, and in her superficial and +euphuistic way an extremely kind and pleasant woman. With her +lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of the Morningside Park doctor, +and a very active and useful member of the Committee of the +Impoverished Gentlewomen's Aid Society. Both ladies were on easy +and friendly terms with all that was best in Morningside Park +society; they had an afternoon once a month that was quite well +attended, they sometimes gave musical evenings, they dined out +and gave a finish to people's dinners, they had a full-sized +croquet lawn and tennis beyond, and understood the art of +bringing people together. And they never talked of anything at +all, never discussed, never even encouraged gossip. They were +just nice. + +Ann Veronica found herself walking back down the Avenue that had +just been the scene of her first proposal beside her aunt, and +speculating for the first time in her life about that lady's +mental attitudes. Her prevailing effect was one of quiet and +complete assurance, as though she knew all about everything, and +was only restrained by her instinctive delicacy from telling what +she knew. But the restraint exercised by her instinctive +delicacy was very great; over and above coarse or sexual matters +it covered religion and politics and any mention of money matters +or crime, and Ann Veronica found herself wondering whether these +exclusions represented, after all, anything more than +suppressions. Was there anything at all in those locked rooms of +her aunt's mind? Were they fully furnished and only a little +dusty and cobwebby and in need of an airing, or were they stark +vacancy except, perhaps, for a cockroach or so or the gnawing of +a rat? What was the mental equivalent of a rat's gnawing? The +image was going astray. But what would her aunt think of Teddy's +recent off-hand suggestion of marriage? What would she think of +the Widgett conversation? Suppose she was to tell her aunt +quietly but firmly about the parasitic males of degraded +crustacea. The girl suppressed a chuckle that would have been +inexplicable. + +There came a wild rush of anthropological lore into her brain, a +flare of indecorous humor. It was one of the secret troubles of +her mind, this grotesque twist her ideas would sometimes take, as +though they rebelled and rioted. After all, she found herself +reflecting, behind her aunt's complacent visage there was a past +as lurid as any one's--not, of course, her aunt's own personal +past, which was apparently just that curate and almost incredibly +jejune, but an ancestral past with all sorts of scandalous things +in it: fire and slaughterings, exogamy, marriage by capture, +corroborees, cannibalism! Ancestresses with perhaps dim +anticipatory likenesses to her aunt, their hair less neatly done, +no doubt, their manners and gestures as yet undisciplined, but +still ancestresses in the direct line, must have danced through a +brief and stirring life in the woady buff. Was there no echo +anywhere in Miss Stanley's pacified brain? Those empty rooms, if +they were empty, were the equivalents of astoundingly decorated +predecessors. Perhaps it was just as well there was no inherited +memory. + +Ann Veronica was by this time quite shocked at her own thoughts, +and yet they would go on with their freaks. Great vistas of +history opened, and she and her aunt were near reverting to the +primitive and passionate and entirely indecorous arboreal--were +swinging from branches by the arms, and really going on quite +dread-fully--when their arrival at the Palsworthys' happily +checked this play of fancy, and brought Ann Veronica back to the +exigencies of the wrappered life again. + +Lady Palsworthy liked Ann Veronica because she was never awkward, +had steady eyes, and an almost invariable neatness and dignity in +her clothes. She seemed just as stiff and shy as a girl ought to +be, Lady Palsworthy thought, neither garrulous nor unready, and +free from nearly all the heavy aggressiveness, the overgrown, +overblown quality, the egotism and want of consideration of the +typical modern girl. But then Lady Palsworthy had never seen Ann +Veronica running like the wind at hockey. She had never seen her +sitting on tables nor heard her discussing theology, and had +failed to observe that the graceful figure was a natural one and +not due to ably chosen stays. She took it for granted Ann +Veronica wore stays--mild stays, perhaps, but stays, and thought +no more of the matter. She had seen her really only at teas, +with the Stanley strain in her uppermost. There are so many +girls nowadays who are quite unpresentable at tea, with their +untrimmed laughs, their awful dispositions of their legs when +they sit down, their slangy disrespect; they no longer smoke, it +is true, like the girls of the eighties and nineties, +nevertheless to a fine intelligence they have the flavor of +tobacco. They have no amenities, they scratch the mellow surface +of things almost as if they did it on purpose; and Lady +Palsworthy and Mrs. Pramlay lived for amenities and the mellowed +surfaces of things. Ann Veronica was one of the few young +people--and one must have young people just as one must have +flowers--one could ask to a little gathering without the risk of +a painful discord. Then the distant relationship to Miss Stanley +gave them a slight but pleasant sense of proprietorship in the +girl. They had their little dreams about her. + +Mrs. Pramlay received them in the pretty chintz drawing-room, +which opened by French windows on the trim garden, with its +croquet lawn, its tennis-net in the middle distance, and its +remote rose alley lined with smart dahlias and flaming +sunflowers. Her eye met Miss Stanley's understandingly, and she +was if anything a trifle more affectionate in her greeting to Ann +Veronica. Then Ann Veronica passed on toward the tea in the +garden, which was dotted with the elite of Morningside Park +society, and there she was pounced upon by Lady Palsworthy and +given tea and led about. Across the lawn and hovering +indecisively, Ann Veronica saw and immediately affected not to +see Mr. Manning, Lady Palsworthy's nephew, a tall young man of +seven-and-thirty with a handsome, thoughtful, impassive face, a +full black mustache, and a certain heavy luxuriousness of +gesture. The party resolved itself for Ann Veronica into a game +in which she manoeuvred unostentatiously and finally +unsuccessfully to avoid talking alone with this gentleman. + +Mr. Manning had shown on previous occasions that he found Ann +Veronica interesting and that he wished to interest her. He was +a civil servant of some standing, and after a previous +conversation upon aesthetics of a sententious, nebulous, and +sympathetic character, he had sent her a small volume, which he +described as the fruits of his leisure and which was as a matter +of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with fine +aspects of Mr. Manning's feelings, and as Ann Veronica's mind was +still largely engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in +metrical forms, she had not as yet cut its pages. So that as she +saw him she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely, "Oh, +golly!" and set up a campaign of avoidance that Mr. Manning at +last broke down by coming directly at her as she talked with the +vicar's aunt about some of the details of the alleged smell of +the new church lamps. He did not so much cut into this +conversation as loom over it, for he was a tall, if rather +studiously stooping, man. + +The face that looked down upon Ann Veronica was full of amiable +intention. "Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley," he +said. "How well and jolly you must be feeling." + +He beamed over the effect of this and shook hands with effusion, +and Lady Palsworthy suddenly appeared as his confederate and +disentangled the vicar's aunt. + +"I love this warm end of summer more than words can tell," he +said. "I've tried to make words tell it. It's no good. Mild, +you know, and boon. You want music." + +Ann Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of her assent +cover a possible knowledge of a probable poem. + +"Splendid it must be to be a composer. Glorious! The Pastoral. +Beethoven; he's the best of them. Don't you think? Tum, tay, +tum, tay." + +Ann Veronica did. + +"What have you been doing since our last talk? Still cutting up +rabbits and probing into things? I've often thought of that talk +of ours--often." + +He did not appear to require any answer to his question. + +"Often," he repeated, a little heavily. + +"Beautiful these autumn flowers are," said Ann Veronica, in a +wide, uncomfortable pause. + +"Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the +garden," said Mr. Manning, "they're a dream." And Ann Veronica +found herself being carried off to an isolation even remoter and +more conspicuous than the corner of the lawn, with the whole of +the party aiding and abetting and glancing at them. "Damn!" said +Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself for a conflict. + +Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar +admission from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of +beauty. He said that for him beauty justified life, that he +could not imagine a good action that was not a beautiful one nor +any beautiful thing that could be altogether bad. Ann Veronica +hazarded an opinion that as a matter of history some very +beautiful people had, to a quite considerable extent, been bad, +but Mr. Manning questioned whether when they were bad they were +really beautiful or when they were beautiful bad. Ann Veronica +found her attention wandering a little as he told her that he was +not ashamed to feel almost slavish in the presence of really +beautiful people, and then they came to the Michaelmas daisies. +They were really very fine and abundant, with a blaze of +perennial sunflowers behind them. + +"They make me want to shout," said Mr. Manning, with a sweep of +the arm. + +"They're very good this year," said Ann Veronica, avoiding +controversial matter. + +"Either I want to shout," said Mr. Manning, "when I see beautiful +things, or else I want to weep." He paused and looked at her, +and said, with a sudden drop into a confidential undertone, "Or +else I want to pray." + +"When is Michaelmas Day?" said Ann Veronica, a little abruptly. + +"Heaven knows!" said Mr. Manning; and added, "the twenty-ninth." + +"I thought it was earlier," said Ann Veronica. "Wasn't +Parliament to reassemble?" + +He put out his hand and leaned against a tree and crossed his +legs. "You're not interested in politics?" he asked, almost with +a note of protest. + +"Well, rather," said Ann Veronica. "It seems-- It's +interesting." + +"Do you think so? I find my interest in that sort of thing +decline and decline." + +"I'm curious. Perhaps because I don't know. I suppose an +intelligent person OUGHT to be interested in political affairs. +They concern us all." + +"I wonder," said Mr. Manning, with a baffling smile. + +"I think they do. After all, they're history in the making." + +"A sort of history," said Mr. Manning; and repeated, "a sort of +history. But look at these glorious daisies!" + +"But don't you think political questions ARE important?" + +"I don't think they are this afternoon, and I don't think they +are to you." + +Ann Veronica turned her back on the Michaelmas daisies, and faced +toward the house with an air of a duty completed. + +"Just come to that seat now you are here, Miss Stanley, and look +down the other path; there's a vista of just the common sort. +Better even than these." + +Ann Veronica walked as he indicated. + +"You know I'm old-fashioned, Miss Stanley. I don't think women +need to trouble about political questions." + +"I want a vote," said Ann Veronica. + +"Really!" said Mr. Manning, in an earnest voice, and waved his +hand to the alley of mauve and purple. "I wish you didn't." + +"Why not?" She turned on him. + +"It jars. It jars with all my ideas. Women to me are something +so serene, so fine, so feminine, and politics are so dusty, so +sordid, so wearisome and quarrelsome. It seems to me a woman's +duty to be beautiful, to BE beautiful and to behave beautifully, +and politics are by their very nature ugly. You see, I--I am a +woman worshipper. I worshipped women long before I found any +woman I might ever hope to worship. Long ago. And--the idea of +committees, of hustings, of agenda-papers!" + +"I don't see why the responsibility of beauty should all be +shifted on to the women," said Ann Veronica, suddenly remembering +a part of Miss Miniver's discourse. + +"It rests with them by the nature of things. Why should you who +are queens come down from your thrones? If you can afford it, WE +can't. We can't afford to turn our women, our Madonnas, our +Saint Catherines, our Mona Lisas, our goddesses and angels and +fairy princesses, into a sort of man. Womanhood is sacred to me. + +My politics in that matter wouldn't be to give women votes. I'm a +Socialist, Miss Stanley." + +"WHAT?" said Ann Veronica, startled. + +"A Socialist of the order of John Ruskin. Indeed I am! I would +make this country a collective monarchy, and all the girls and +women in it should be the Queen. They should never come into +contact with politics or economics--or any of those things. And +we men would work for them and serve them in loyal fealty." + +"That's rather the theory now," said Ann Veronica. "Only so many +men neglect their duties." + +"Yes," said Mr. Manning, with an air of emerging from an +elaborate demonstration, "and so each of us must, under existing +conditions, being chivalrous indeed to all women, choose for +himself his own particular and worshipful queen." + +"So far as one can judge from the system in practice," said Ann +Veronica, speaking in a loud, common-sense, detached tone, and +beginning to walk slowly but resolutely toward the lawn, "it +doesn't work." + +"Every one must be experimental," said Mr. Manning, and glanced +round hastily for further horticultural points of interest in +secluded corners. None presented themselves to save him from +that return. + +"That's all very well when one isn't the material experimented +upon," Ann Veronica had remarked. + +"Women would--they DO have far more power than they think, as +influences, as inspirations." + +Ann Veronica said nothing in answer to that. + +"You say you want a vote," said Mr. Manning, abruptly. + +"I think I ought to have one." + +"Well, I have two," said Mr. Manning--"one in Oxford University +and one in Kensington." He caught up and went on with a sort of +clumsiness: "Let me present you with them and be your voter." + +There followed an instant's pause, and then Ann Veronica had +decided to misunderstand. + +"I want a vote for myself," she said. "I don't see why I should +take it second-hand. Though it's very kind of you. And rather +unscrupulous. Have you ever voted, Mr. Manning? I suppose +there's a sort of place like a ticket-office. And a +ballot-box--" Her face assumed an expression of intellectual +conflict. "What is a ballot-box like, exactly?" she asked, as +though it was very important to her. + +Mr. Manning regarded her thoughtfully for a moment and stroked +his mustache. "A ballot-box, you know," he said, "is very +largely just a box." He made quite a long pause, and went on, +with a sigh: "You have a voting paper given you--" + +They emerged into the publicity of the lawn. + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "yes," to his explanation, and saw +across the lawn Lady Palsworthy talking to her aunt, and both of +them staring frankly across at her and Mr. Manning as they +talked. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE MORNING OF THE CRISIS + +Part 1 + +Two days after came the day of the Crisis, the day of the Fadden +Dance. It would have been a crisis anyhow, but it was +complicated in Ann Veronica's mind by the fact that a letter lay +on the breakfast-table from Mr. Manning, and that her aunt +focussed a brightly tactful disregard upon this throughout the +meal. Ann Veronica had come down thinking of nothing in the +world but her inflexible resolution to go to the dance in the +teeth of all opposition. She did not know Mr. Manning's +handwriting, and opened his letter and read some lines before its +import appeared. Then for a time she forgot the Fadden affair +altogether. With a well-simulated unconcern and a heightened +color she finished her breakfast. + +She was not obliged to go to the Tredgold College, because as yet +the College had not settled down for the session. She was +supposed to be reading at home, and after breakfast she strolled +into the vegetable garden, and having taken up a position upon +the staging of a disused greenhouse that had the double advantage +of being hidden from the windows of the house and secure from the +sudden appearance of any one, she resumed the reading of Mr. +Manning's letter. + +Mr. Manning's handwriting had an air of being clear without being +easily legible; it was large and rather roundish, with a lack of +definition about the letters and a disposition to treat the large +ones as liberal-minded people nowadays treat opinions, as all +amounting to the same thing really--a years-smoothed boyish +rather than an adult hand. And it filled seven sheets of +notepaper, each written only on one side. + + +"MY DEAR MISS STANLEY," it began,--"I hope you will forgive my +bothering you with a letter, but I have been thinking very much +over our conversation at Lady Palsworthy's, and I feel there are +things I want to say to you so much that I cannot wait until we +meet again. It is the worst of talk under such social +circumstances that it is always getting cut off so soon as it is +beginning; and I went home that afternoon feeling I had said +nothing--literally nothing--of the things I had meant to say to +you and that were coursing through my head. They were things I +had meant very much to talk to you about, so that I went home +vexed and disappointed, and only relieved myself a little by +writing a few verses. I wonder if you will mind very much when I +tell you they were suggested by you. You must forgive the poet's +license I take. Here is one verse. The metrical irregularity is +intentional, because I want, as it were, to put you apart: to +change the lilt and the mood altogether when I speak of you. + + " 'A SONG OF LADIES AND MY LADY + + " 'Saintly white and a lily is Mary, + Margaret's violets, sweet and shy; + Green and dewy is Nellie-bud fairy, + Forget-me-nots live in Gwendolen's eye. + Annabel shines like a star in the darkness, + Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose; + But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather, + + She gleams and gladdens, she warms--and goes.' + +"Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret. All bad +verse--originally the epigram was Lang's, I believe--is written +in a state of emotion. + +"My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon +of work and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the +time resenting it beyond measure. There we were discussing +whether you should have a vote, and I remembered the last +occasion we met it was about your prospects of success in the +medical profession or as a Government official such as a number +of women now are, and all the time my heart was crying out within +me, 'Here is the Queen of your career.' I wanted, as I have +never wanted before, to take you up, to make you mine, to carry +you off and set you apart from all the strain and turmoil of +life. For nothing will ever convince me that it is not the man's +share in life to shield, to protect, to lead and toil and watch +and battle with the world at large. I want to be your knight, +your servant, your protector, your--I dare scarcely write the +word--your husband. So I come suppliant. I am five-and-thirty, +and I have knocked about in the world and tasted the quality of +life. I had a hard fight to begin with to win my way into the +Upper Division--I was third on a list of forty-seven--and since +then I have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening +sphere of social service. Before I met you I never met any one +whom I felt I could love, but you have discovered depths in my +own nature I had scarcely suspected. Except for a few early +ebullitions of passion, natural to a warm and romantic +disposition, and leaving no harmful after-effects--ebullitions +that by the standards of the higher truth I feel no one can +justly cast a stone at, and of which I for one am by no means +ashamed--I come to you a pure and unencumbered man. I love you. +In addition to my public salary I have a certain private property +and further expectations through my aunt, so that I can offer you +a life of wide and generous refinement, travel, books, +discussion, and easy relations with a circle of clever and +brilliant and thoughtful people with whom my literary work has +brought me into contact, and of which, seeing me only as you have +done alone in Morningside Park, you can have no idea. I have a +certain standing not only as a singer but as a critic, and I +belong to one of the most brilliant causerie dinner clubs of the +day, in which successful Bohemianism, politicians, men of +affairs, artists, sculptors, and cultivated noblemen generally, +mingle together in the easiest and most delightful intercourse. +That is my real milieu, and one that I am convinced you would not +only adorn but delight in. + +"I find it very hard to write this letter. There are so many +things I want to tell you, and they stand on such different +levels, that the effect is necessarily confusing and discordant, +and I find myself doubting if I am really giving you the thread +of emotion that should run through all this letter. For although +I must confess it reads very much like an application or a +testimonial or some such thing as that, I can assure you I am +writing this in fear and trembling with a sinking heart. My mind +is full of ideas and images that I have been cherishing and +accumulating--dreams of travelling side by side, of lunching +quietly together in some jolly restaurant, of moonlight and music +and all that side of life, of seeing you dressed like a queen and +shining in some brilliant throng--mine; of your looking at +flowers in some old-world garden, our garden--there are splendid +places to be got down in Surrey, and a little runabout motor is +quite within my means. You know they say, as, indeed, I have +just quoted already, that all bad poetry is written in a state of +emotion, but I have no doubt that this is true of bad offers of +marriage. I have often felt before that it is only when one has +nothing to say that one can write easy poetry. Witness Browning. +And how can I get into one brief letter the complex accumulated +desires of what is now, I find on reference to my diary, nearly +sixteen months of letting my mind run on you--ever since that +jolly party at Surbiton, where we raced and beat the other boat. +You steered and I rowed stroke. My very sentences stumble and +give way. But I do not even care if I am absurd. I am a +resolute man, and hitherto when I have wanted a thing I have got +it; but I have never yet wanted anything in my life as I have +wanted you. It isn't the same thing. I am afraid because I love +you, so that the mere thought of failure hurts. If I did not +love you so much I believe I could win you by sheer force of +character, for people tell me I am naturally of the dominating +type. Most of my successes in life have been made with a sort of +reckless vigor. + +"Well, I have said what I had to say, stumblingly and badly, and +baldly. But I am sick of tearing up letters and hopeless of +getting what I have to say better said. It would be easy enough +for me to write an eloquent letter about something else. Only I +do not care to write about anything else. Let me put the main +question to you now that I could not put the other afternoon. +Will you marry me, Ann Veronica? + Very sincerely yours, + "HUBERT MANNING." + + +Ann Veronica read this letter through with grave, attentive eyes. + +Her interest grew as she read, a certain distaste disappeared. +Twice she smiled, but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed +up the sheets in a search for particular passages. Finally she +fell into reflection. + +"Odd!" she said. "I suppose I shall have to write an answer. +It's so different from what one has been led to expect." + +She became aware of her aunt, through the panes of the +greenhouse, advancing with an air of serene unconsciousness from +among the raspberry canes. + +"No you don't!" said Ann Veronica, and walked out at a brisk and +business-like pace toward the house. + +"I'm going for a long tramp, auntie," she said. + +"Alone, dear?" + +"Yes, aunt. I've got a lot of things to think about." + +Miss Stanley reflected as Ann Veronica went toward the house. +She thought her niece very hard and very self-possessed and +self-confident. She ought to be softened and tender and +confidential at this phase of her life. She seemed to have no +idea whatever of the emotional states that were becoming to her +age and position. Miss Stanley walked round the garden thinking, +and presently house and garden reverberated to Ann Veronica's +slamming of the front door. + +"I wonder!" said Miss Stanley. + +For a long time she surveyed a row of towering holly-hocks, as +though they offered an explanation. Then she went in and +up-stairs, hesitated on the landing, and finally, a little +breathless and with an air of great dignity, opened the door and +walked into Ann Veronica's room. It was a neat, efficient-looking +room, with a writing-table placed with a business-like regard to +the window, and a bookcase surmounted by a pig's skull, a +dissected frog in a sealed bottle, and a pile of shiny, +black-covered note-books. In the corner of the room were two +hockey-sticks and a tennis-racket, and upon the walls Ann +Veronica, by means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities +in art. But Miss Stanley took no notice of these things. She +walked straight across to the wardrobe and opened it. There, +hanging among Ann Veronica's more normal clothing, was a skimpy +dress of red canvas, trimmed with cheap and tawdry braid, and +short--it could hardly reach below the knee. On the same peg and +evidently belonging to it was a black velvet Zouave jacket. And +then! a garment that was conceivably a secondary skirt. + +Miss Stanley hesitated, and took first one and then another of +the constituents of this costume off its peg and surveyed it. + +The third item she took with a trembling hand by its waistbelt. +As she raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy +crimson masses. + +"TROUSERS!" she whispered. + +Her eyes travelled about the room as if in appeal to the very +chairs. + +Tucked under the writing-table a pair of yellow and gold Turkish +slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She +walked over to them still carrying the trousers in her hands, and +stooped to examine them. They were ingenious disguises of gilt +paper destructively gummed, it would seem, to Ann Veronicas' best +dancing-slippers. + +Then she reverted to the trousers. + +"How CAN I tell him?" whispered Miss Stanley. + + +Part 2 + + +Ann Veronica carried a light but business-like walking-stick. +She walked with an easy quickness down the Avenue and through the +proletarian portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these +fields came into a pretty overhung lane that led toward +Caddington and the Downs. And then her pace slackened. She +tucked her stick under her arm and re-read Manning's letter. + +"Let me think," said Ann Veronica. "I wish this hadn't turned up +to-day of all days." + +She found it difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was +anything but clear what it was she had to think about. +Practically it was most of the chief interests in life that she +proposed to settle in this pedestrian meditation. Primarily it +was her own problem, and in particular the answer she had to give +to Mr. Manning's letter, but in order to get data for that she +found that she, having a logical and ordered mind, had to decide +upon the general relations of men to women, the objects and +conditions of marriage and its bearing upon the welfare of the +race, the purpose of the race, the purpose, if any, of +everything. . . . + +"Frightful lot of things aren't settled," said Ann Veronica. In +addition, the Fadden Dance business, all out of proportion, +occupied the whole foreground of her thoughts and threw a color +of rebellion over everything. She kept thinking she was thinking +about Mr. Manning's proposal of marriage and finding she was +thinking of the dance. + +For a time her efforts to achieve a comprehensive concentration +were dispersed by the passage of the village street of +Caddington, the passing of a goggled car-load of motorists, and +the struggles of a stable lad mounted on one recalcitrant horse +and leading another. When she got back to her questions again in +the monotonous high-road that led up the hill, she found the +image of Mr. Manning central in her mind. He stood there, large +and dark, enunciating, in his clear voice from beneath his large +mustache, clear flat sentences, deliberately kindly. He +proposed, he wanted to possess her! He loved her. + +Ann Veronica felt no repulsion at the prospect. That Mr. Manning +loved her presented itself to her bloodlessly, stilled from any +imaginative quiver or thrill of passion or disgust. The +relationship seemed to have almost as much to do with blood and +body as a mortgage. It was something that would create a mutual +claim, a relationship. It was in another world from that in +which men will die for a kiss, and touching hands lights fires +that burn up lives--the world of romance, the world of +passionately beautiful things. + +But that other world, in spite of her resolute exclusion of it, +was always looking round corners and peeping through chinks and +crannies, and rustling and raiding into the order in which she +chose to live, shining out of pictures at her, echoing in lyrics +and music; it invaded her dreams, it wrote up broken and +enigmatical sentences upon the passage walls of her mind. She +was aware of it now as if it were a voice shouting outside a +house, shouting passionate verities in a hot sunlight, a voice +that cries while people talk insincerely in a darkened room and +pretend not to hear. Its shouting now did in some occult manner +convey a protest that Mr. Manning would on no account do, though +he was tall and dark and handsome and kind, and thirty-five and +adequately prosperous, and all that a husband should be. But +there was, it insisted, no mobility in his face, no movement, +nothing about him that warmed. If Ann Veronica could have put +words to that song they would have been, "Hot-blooded marriage or +none!" but she was far too indistinct in this matter to frame any +words at all. + +"I don't love him," said Ann Veronica, getting a gleam. "I don't +see that his being a good sort matters. That really settles about +that. . . . But it means no end of a row." + +For a time she sat on a rail before leaving the road for the +downland turf. "But I wish," she said, "I had some idea what I +was really up to." + +Her thoughts went into solution for a time, while she listened to +a lark singing. + +"Marriage and mothering," said Ann Veronica, with her mind +crystallizing out again as the lark dropped to the nest in the +turf. "And all the rest of it perhaps is a song." + + + +Part 3 + + +Her mind got back to the Fadden Ball. + +She meant to go, she meant to go, she meant to go. Nothing would +stop her, and she was prepared to face the consequences. Suppose +her father turned her out of doors! She did not care, she meant +to go. She would just walk out of the house and go. . . . + +She thought of her costume in some detail and with considerable +satisfaction, and particularly of a very jolly property dagger +with large glass jewels in the handle, that reposed in a drawer +in her room. She was to be a Corsair's Bride. "Fancy stabbing a +man for jealousy!" she thought. "You'd have to think how to get +in between his bones." + +She thought of her father, and with an effort dismissed him from +her mind. + +She tried to imagine the collective effect of the Fadden Ball; +she had never seen a fancy-dress gathering in her life. Mr. +Manning came into her thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark, +self-contained presence at the Fadden. One might suppose him +turning up; he knew a lot of clever people, and some of them +might belong to the class. What would he come as? + +Presently she roused herself with a guilty start from the task of +dressing and re-dressing Mr. Manning in fancy costume, as though +he was a doll. She had tried him as a Crusader, in which guise +he seemed plausible but heavy--"There IS something heavy about +him; I wonder if it's his mustache?"--and as a Hussar, which made +him preposterous, and as a Black Brunswicker, which was better, +and as an Arab sheik. Also she had tried him as a dragoman and +as a gendarme, which seemed the most suitable of all to his +severely handsome, immobile profile. She felt he would tell +people the way, control traffic, and refuse admission to public +buildings with invincible correctness and the very finest +explicit feelings possible. For each costume she had devised a +suitable form of matrimonial refusal. "Oh, Lord!" she said, +discovering what she was up to, and dropped lightly from the +fence upon the turf and went on her way toward the crest. + +"I shall never marry," said Ann Veronica, resolutely; "I'm not +the sort. That's why it's so important I should take my own line +now." + + +Part 4 + + +Ann Veronica's ideas of marriage were limited and unsystematic. +Her teachers and mistresses had done their best to stamp her mind +with an ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously +important, and on no account to be thought about. Her first +intimations of marriage as a fact of extreme significance in a +woman's life had come with the marriage of Alice and the +elopement of her second sister, Gwen. + +These convulsions occurred when Ann Veronica was about twelve. +There was a gulf of eight years between her and the youngest of +her brace of sisters--an impassable gulf inhabited chaotically by +two noisy brothers. These sisters moved in a grown-up world +inaccessible to Ann Veronica's sympathies, and to a large extent +remote from her curiosity. She got into rows through meddling +with their shoes and tennis-rackets, and had moments of carefully +concealed admiration when she was privileged to see them just +before her bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in white or pink or +amber and prepared to go out with her mother. She thought Alice +a bit of a sneak, an opinion her brothers shared, and Gwen rather +a snatch at meals. She saw nothing of their love-making, and +came home from her boarding-school in a state of decently +suppressed curiosity for Alice's wedding. + +Her impressions of this cardinal ceremony were rich and confused, +complicated by a quite transitory passion that awakened no +reciprocal fire for a fat curly headed cousin in black velveteen +and a lace collar, who assisted as a page. She followed him +about persistently, and succeeded, after a brisk, unchivalrous +struggle (in which he pinched and asked her to "cheese it"), in +kissing him among the raspberries behind the greenhouse. +Afterward her brother Roddy, also strange in velveteen, feeling +rather than knowing of this relationship, punched this Adonis's +head. + +A marriage in the house proved to be exciting but extremely +disorganizing. Everything seemed designed to unhinge the mind +and make the cat wretched. All the furniture was moved, all the +meals were disarranged, and everybody, Ann Veronica included, +appeared in new, bright costumes. She had to wear cream and a +brown sash and a short frock and her hair down, and Gwen cream +and a brown sash and a long skirt and her hair up. And her +mother, looking unusually alert and hectic, wore cream and brown +also, made up in a more complicated manner. + +Ann Veronica was much impressed by a mighty trying on and +altering and fussing about Alice's "things"--Alice was being +re-costumed from garret to cellar, with a walking-dress and +walking-boots to measure, and a bride's costume of the most +ravishing description, and stockings and such like beyond the +dreams of avarice --and a constant and increasing dripping into +the house of irrelevant remarkable objects, such as-- + +Real lace bedspread; + +Gilt travelling clock; + +Ornamental pewter plaque; + +Salad bowl (silver mounted) and servers; + +Madgett's "English Poets" (twelve volumes), bound purple morocco; + +Etc., etc. + +Through all this flutter of novelty there came and went a +solicitous, preoccupied, almost depressed figure. It was Doctor +Ralph, formerly the partner of Doctor Stickell in the Avenue, and +now with a thriving practice of his own in Wamblesmith. He had +shaved his side-whiskers and come over in flannels, but he was +still indisputably the same person who had attended Ann Veronica +for the measles and when she swallowed the fish-bone. But his +role was altered, and he was now playing the bridegroom in this +remarkable drama. Alice was going to be Mrs. Ralph. He came in +apologetically; all the old "Well, and how ARE we?" note gone; +and once he asked Ann Veronica, almost furtively, + +"How's Alice getting on, Vee?" Finally, on the Day, he appeared +like his old professional self transfigured, in the most +beautiful light gray trousers Ann Veronica had ever seen and a +new shiny silk hat with a most becoming roll. . . . + +It was not simply that all the rooms were rearranged and +everybody dressed in unusual fashions, and all the routines of +life abolished and put away: people's tempers and emotions also +seemed strangely disturbed and shifted about. Her father was +distinctly irascible, and disposed more than ever to hide away +among the petrological things--the study was turned out. At +table he carved in a gloomy but resolute manner. On the Day he +had trumpet-like outbreaks of cordiality, varied by a watchful +preoccupation. Gwen and Alice were fantastically friendly, which +seemed to annoy him, and Mrs. Stanley was throughout enigmatical, +with an anxious eye on her husband and Alice. + +There was a confused impression of livery carriages and whips +with white favors, people fussily wanting other people to get in +before them, and then the church. People sat in unusual pews, and +a wide margin of hassocky emptiness intervened between the +ceremony and the walls. + +Ann Veronica had a number of fragmentary impressions of Alice +strangely transfigured in bridal raiment. It seemed to make her +sister downcast beyond any precedent. The bridesmaids and pages +got rather jumbled in the aisle, and she had an effect of Alice's +white back and sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward +the altar. In some incomprehensible way that back view made her +feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very vividly the smell +of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, mumbling +responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while the Rev. Edward Bribble +stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked kind +and large, and listened to Alice's responses as though he was +listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole she was +progressing favorably. + +And afterward her mother and Alice kissed long and clung to each +other. And Doctor Ralph stood by looking considerate. He and +her father shook hands manfully. + +Ann Veronica had got quite interested in Mr. Bribble's rendering +of the service--he had the sort of voice that brings out +things--and was still teeming with ideas about it when finally a +wild outburst from the organ made it clear that, whatever +snivelling there might be down in the chancel, that excellent +wind instrument was, in its Mendelssohnian way, as glad as ever +it could be. "Pump, pump, per-um-pump, Pum, Pump, Per-um. . . ." + +The wedding-breakfast was for Ann Veronica a spectacle of the +unreal consuming the real; she liked that part very well, until +she was carelessly served against her expressed wishes with +mayonnaise. She was caught by an uncle, whose opinion she +valued, making faces at Roddy because he had exulted at this. + +Of the vast mass of these impressions Ann Veronica could make +nothing at the time; there they were--Fact! She stored them away +in a mind naturally retentive, as a squirrel stores away nuts, +for further digestion. Only one thing emerged with any +reasonable clarity in her mind at once, and that was that unless +she was saved from drowning by an unmarried man, in which case +the ceremony is unavoidable, or totally destitute of under- +clothing, and so driven to get a trousseau, in which hardship a +trousseau would certainly be "ripping," marriage was an +experience to be strenuously evaded. + +When they were going home she asked her mother why she and Gwen +and Alice had cried. + +"Ssh!" said her mother, and then added, "A little natural +feeling, dear." + +"But didn't Alice want to marry Doctor Ralph?" + +"Oh, ssh, Vee!" said her mother, with an evasion as patent as an +advertisement board. "I am sure she will be very happy indeed +with Doctor Ralph." + +But Ann Veronica was by no means sure of that until she went over +to Wamblesmith and saw her sister, very remote and domestic and +authoritative, in a becoming tea-gown, in command of Doctor +Ralph's home. Doctor Ralph came in to tea and put his arm round +Alice and kissed her, and Alice called him "Squiggles," and stood +in the shelter of his arms for a moment with an expression of +satisfied proprietorship. She HAD cried, Ann Veronica knew. +There had been fusses and scenes dimly apprehended through +half-open doors. She had heard Alice talking and crying at the +same time, a painful noise. Perhaps marriage hurt. But now it +was all over, and Alice was getting on well. It reminded Ann +Veronica of having a tooth stopped. + +And after that Alice became remoter than ever, and, after a time, +ill. Then she had a baby and became as old as any really +grown-up person, or older, and very dull. Then she and her +husband went off to a Yorkshire practice, and had four more +babies, none of whom photographed well, and so she passed beyond +the sphere of Ann Veronica's sympathies altogether. + + + +Part 5 + + +The Gwen affair happened when she was away at school at +Marticombe-on-Sea, a term before she went to the High School, and +was never very clear to her. + +Her mother missed writing for a week, and then she wrote in an +unusual key. "My dear," the letter ran, "I have to tell you that +your sister Gwen has offended your father very much. I hope you +will always love her, but I want you to remember she has offended +your father and married without his consent. Your father is very +angry, and will not have her name mentioned in his hearing. She +has married some one he could not approve of, and gone right +away. . . ." + +When the next holidays came Ann Veronica's mother was ill, and +Gwen was in the sick-room when Ann Veronica returned home. She +was in one of her old walking-dresses, her hair was done in an +unfamiliar manner, she wore a wedding-ring, and she looked as if +she had been crying. + +"Hello, Gwen!" said Ann Veronica, trying to put every one at +their ease. "Been and married? . . . What's the name of the +happy man?" + +Gwen owned to "Fortescue." + +"Got a photograph of him or anything?" said Ann Veronica, after +kissing her mother. + +Gwen made an inquiry, and, directed by Mrs. Stanley, produced a +portrait from its hiding-place in the jewel-drawer under the +mirror. It presented a clean-shaven face with a large Corinthian +nose, hair tremendously waving off the forehead and more chin and +neck than is good for a man. + +"LOOKS all right," said Ann Veronica, regarding him with her head +first on one side and then on the other, and trying to be +agreeable. "What's the objection?" + +"I suppose she ought to know?" said Gwen to her mother, trying to +alter the key of the conversation. + +"You see, Vee," said Mrs. Stanley, "Mr. Fortescue is an actor, +and your father does not approve of the profession." + +"Oh!" said Ann Veronica. "I thought they made knights of +actors?" + +"They may of Hal some day," said Gwen. "But it's a long +business." + +"I suppose this makes you an actress?" said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't know whether I shall go on," said Gwen, a novel note of +languorous professionalism creeping into her voice. "The other +women don't much like it if husband and wife work together, and I +don't think Hal would like me to act away from him." + +Ann Veronica regarded her sister with a new respect, but the +traditions of family life are strong. "I don't suppose you'll be +able to do it much," said Ann Veronica. + +Later Gwen's trouble weighed so heavily on Mrs. Stanley in her +illness that her husband consented to receive Mr. Fortescue in +the drawing-room, and actually shake hands with him in an +entirely hopeless manner and hope everything would turn out for +the best. + +The forgiveness and reconciliation was a cold and formal affair, +and afterwards her father went off gloomily to his study, and Mr. +Fortescue rambled round the garden with soft, propitiatory steps, +the Corinthian nose upraised and his hands behind his back, +pausing to look long and hard at the fruit-trees against the +wall. + +Ann Veronica watched him from the dining-room window, and after +some moments of maidenly hesitation rambled out into the garden +in a reverse direction to Mr. Fortescue's steps, and encountered +him with an air of artless surprise. + +"Hello!" said Ann Veronica, with arms akimbo and a careless, +breathless manner. "You Mr. Fortescue?" + +"At your service. You Ann Veronica?" + +"Rather! I say--did you marry Gwen?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +Mr. Fortescue raised his eyebrows and assumed a light-comedy +expression. "I suppose I fell in love with her, Ann Veronica." + +"Rum," said Ann Veronica. "Have you got to keep her now?" + +"To the best of my ability," said Mr. Fortescue, with a bow. + +"Have you much ability?" asked Ann Veronica. + +Mr. Fortescue tried to act embarrassment in order to conceal its +reality, and Ann Veronica went on to ask a string of questions +about acting, and whether her sister would act, and was she +beautiful enough for it, and who would make her dresses, and so +on. + +As a matter of fact Mr. Fortescue had not much ability to keep +her sister, and a little while after her mother's death Ann +Veronica met Gwen suddenly on the staircase coming from her +father's study, shockingly dingy in dusty mourning and tearful +and resentful, and after that Gwen receded from the Morningside +Park world, and not even the begging letters and distressful +communications that her father and aunt received, but only a +vague intimation of dreadfulness, a leakage of incidental +comment, flashes of paternal anger at "that blackguard," came to +Ann Veronica's ears. + + + +Part 6 + + +These were Ann Veronica's leading cases in the question of +marriage. They were the only real marriages she had seen +clearly. For the rest, she derived her ideas of the married +state from the observed behavior of married women, which +impressed her in Morningside Park as being tied and dull and +inelastic in comparison with the life of the young, and from a +remarkably various reading among books. As a net result she had +come to think of all married people much as one thinks of insects +that have lost their wings, and of her sisters as new hatched +creatures who had scarcely for a moment had wings. She evolved a +dim image of herself cooped up in a house under the benevolent +shadow of Mr. Manning. Who knows?--on the analogy of "Squiggles" +she might come to call him "Mangles!" + +"I don't think I can ever marry any one," she said, and fell +suddenly into another set of considerations that perplexed her +for a time. Had romance to be banished from life? . . . + +It was hard to part with romance, but she had never thirsted so +keenly to go on with her University work in her life as she did +that day. She had never felt so acutely the desire for free +initiative, for a life unhampered by others. At any cost! Her +brothers had it practically--at least they had it far more than +it seemed likely she would unless she exerted herself with quite +exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair, far prospect of +freedom and self-development manoeuvred Mr. Manning, her aunt and +father, neighbors, customs, traditions, forces. They seemed to +her that morning to be all armed with nets and prepared to throw +them over her directly her movements became in any manner truly +free. + +She had a feeling as though something had dropped from her eyes, +as though she had just discovered herself for the first +time--discovered herself as a sleep-walker might do, abruptly +among dangers, hindrances, and perplexities, on the verge of a +cardinal crisis. + +The life of a girl presented itself to her as something happy and +heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and controlled by +others, and going on amidst unsuspected screens and concealments. + +And in its way it was very well. Then suddenly with a rush came +reality, came "growing up"; a hasty imperative appeal for +seriousness, for supreme seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings +and Fortescues came down upon the raw inexperience, upon the +blinking ignorance of the newcomer; and before her eyes were +fairly open, before she knew what had happened, a new set of +guides and controls, a new set of obligations and +responsibilities and limitations, had replaced the old. "I want +to be a Person," said Ann Veronica to the downs and the open sky; +"I will not have this happen to me, whatever else may happen in +its place." + +Ann Veronica had three things very definitely settled by the time +when, a little after mid-day, she found herself perched up on a +gate between a bridle-path and a field that commanded the whole +wide stretch of country between Chalking and Waldersham. +Firstly, she did not intend to marry at all, and particularly she +did not mean to marry Mr. Manning; secondly, by some measure or +other, she meant to go on with her studies, not at the Tredgold +Schools but at the Imperial College; and, thirdly, she was, as an +immediate and decisive act, a symbol of just exactly where she +stood, a declaration of free and adult initiative, going that +night to the Fadden Ball. + +But the possible attitude of her father she had still to face. +So far she had the utmost difficulty in getting on to that +vitally important matter. The whole of that relationship +persisted in remaining obscure. What would happen when next +morning she returned to Morningside Park? + +He couldn't turn her out of doors. But what he could do or might +do she could not imagine. She was not afraid of violence, but +she was afraid of something mean, some secondary kind of force. +Suppose he stopped all her allowance, made it imperative that she +should either stay ineffectually resentful at home or earn a +living for herself at once. . . . It appeared highly probable to +her that he would stop her allowance. + +What can a girl do? + +Somewhere at this point Ann Veronica's speculations were +interrupted and turned aside by the approach of a horse and +rider. Mr. Ramage, that iron-gray man of the world, appeared +dressed in a bowler hat and a suit of hard gray, astride of a +black horse. He pulled rein at the sight of her, saluted, and +regarded her with his rather too protuberant eyes. The girl's +gaze met his in interested inquiry. + +"You've got my view," he said, after a pensive second. "I always +get off here and lean over that rail for a bit. May I do so +to-day?" + +"It's your gate," she said, amiably; "you got it first. It's for +you to say if I may sit on it." + +He slipped off the horse. "Let me introduce you to Caesar," he +said; and she patted Caesar's neck, and remarked how soft his +nose was, and secretly deplored the ugliness of equine teeth. +Ramage tethered the horse to the farther gate-post, and Caesar +blew heavily and began to investigate the hedge. + +Ramage leaned over the gate at Ann Veronica's side, and for a +moment there was silence. + +He made some obvious comments on the wide view warming toward its +autumnal blaze that spread itself in hill and valley, wood and +village, below. + +"It's as broad as life," said Mr. Ramage, regarding it and +putting a well-booted foot up on the bottom rail. + + + +Part 7 + + +"And what are you doing here, young lady," he said, looking up at +her face, "wandering alone so far from home?" + +"I like long walks," said Ann Veronica, looking down on him. + +"Solitary walks?" + +"That's the point of them. I think over all sorts of things." + +"Problems?" + +"Sometimes quite difficult problems." + +"You're lucky to live in an age when you can do so. Your mother, +for instance, couldn't. She had to do her thinking at +home--under inspection." + +She looked down on him thoughtfully, and he let his admiration of +her free young poise show in his face. + +"I suppose things have changed?" she said. + +"Never was such an age of transition." + +She wondered what to. Mr. Ramage did not know. "Sufficient unto +me is the change thereof," he said, with all the effect of an +epigram. + +"I must confess," he said, "the New Woman and the New Girl +intrigue me profoundly. I am one of those people who are +interested in women, more interested than I am in anything else. +I don't conceal it. And the change, the change of attitude! The +way all the old clingingness has been thrown aside is amazing. +And all the old--the old trick of shrinking up like a snail at a +touch. If you had lived twenty years ago you would have been +called a Young Person, and it would have been your chief duty in +life not to know, never to have heard of, and never to +understand." + +"There's quite enough still," said Ann Veronica, smiling, "that +one doesn't understand." + +"Quite. But your role would have been to go about saying, 'I beg +your pardon' in a reproving tone to things you understood quite +well in your heart and saw no harm in. That terrible Young +Person! she's vanished. Lost, stolen, or strayed, the Young +Person! . . . I hope we may never find her again." + +He rejoiced over this emancipation. "While that lamb was about +every man of any spirit was regarded as a dangerous wolf. We +wore invisible chains and invisible blinkers. Now, you and I can +gossip at a gate, and {}Honi soit qui mal y pense. The change +has +given man one good thing he never had before," he said. "Girl +friends. And I am coming to believe the best as well as the most +beautiful friends a man can have are girl friends." + +He paused, and went on, after a keen look at her: + +"I had rather gossip to a really intelligent girl than to any man +alive." + +"I suppose we ARE more free than we were?" said Ann Veronica, +keeping the question general. + +"Oh, there's no doubt of it! Since the girls of the eighties +broke bounds and sailed away on bicycles--my young days go back +to the very beginnings of that--it's been one triumphant +relaxation." + +"Relaxation, perhaps. But are we any more free?" + +"Well?" + +"I mean we've long strings to tether us, but we are bound all the +same. A woman isn't much freer--in reality." + +Mr. Ramage demurred. + +"One runs about," said Ann Veronica. + +"Yes." + +"But it's on condition one doesn't do anything." + +"Do what?" + +"Oh!--anything." + +He looked interrogation with a faint smile. + +"It seems to me it comes to earning one's living in the long +run," said Ann Veronica, coloring faintly. "Until a girl can go +away as a son does and earn her independent income, she's still +on a string. It may be a long string, long enough if you like to +tangle up all sorts of people; but there it is! If the paymaster +pulls, home she must go. That's what I mean." + +Mr. Ramage admitted the force of that. He was a little impressed +by Ann Veronica's metaphor of the string, which, indeed, she owed +to Hetty Widgett. "YOU wouldn't like to be independent?" he +asked, abruptly. "I mean REALLY independent. On your own. It +isn't such fun as it seems." + +"Every one wants to be independent," said Ann Veronica. "Every +one. Man or woman." + +"And you?" + +"Rather!" + +"I wonder why?" + +"There's no why. It's just to feel--one owns one's self." + +"Nobody does that," said Ramage, and kept silence for a moment. + +"But a boy--a boy goes out into the world and presently stands on +his own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company, +makes his own way of living." + +"You'd like to do that?" + +"Exactly." + +"Would you like to be a boy?" + +"I wonder! It's out of the question, any way." + +Ramage reflected. "Why don't you?" + +"Well, it might mean rather a row." + +"I know--" said Ramage, with sympathy. + +"And besides," said Ann Veronica, sweeping that aspect aside, +"what could I do? A boy sails out into a trade or profession. +But--it's one of the things I've just been thinking over. +Suppose--suppose a girl did want to start in life, start in life +for herself--" She looked him frankly in the eyes. "What ought +she to do?" + +"Suppose you--" + +"Yes, suppose I--" + +He felt that his advice was being asked. He became a little more +personal and intimate. "I wonder what you could do?" he said. +"I should think YOU could do all sorts of things. . . . + +"What ought you to do?" He began to produce his knowledge of the +world for her benefit, jerkily and allusively, and with a strong, +rank flavor of "savoir faire." He took an optimist view of her +chances. Ann Veronica listened thoughtfully, with her eyes on +the turf, and now and then she asked a question or looked up to +discuss a point. In the meanwhile, as he talked, he scrutinized +her face, ran his eyes over her careless, gracious poise, +wondered hard about her. He described her privately to himself +as a splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away from +home, that she was impatient to get away from home. Why? While +the front of his mind was busy warning her not to fall into the +hopeless miseries of underpaid teaching, and explaining his idea +that for women of initiative, quite as much as for men, the world +of business had by far the best chances, the back chambers of his +brain were busy with the problem of that "Why?" + +His first idea as a man of the world was to explain her unrest by +a lover, some secret or forbidden or impossible lover. But he +dismissed that because then she would ask her lover and not him +all these things. Restlessness, then, was the trouble, simple +restlessness: home bored her. He could quite understand the +daughter of Mr. Stanley being bored and feeling limited. But was +that enough? Dim, formless suspicions of something more vital +wandered about his mind. Was the young lady impatient for +experience? Was she adventurous? As a man of the world he did +not think it becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more +than a mask. Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept. +If it was not an actual personal lover, it still might be the +lover not yet incarnate, not yet perhaps suspected. . . . + +He had diverged only a little from the truth when he said that +his chief interest in life was women. It wasn't so much women as +Woman that engaged his mind. His was the Latin turn of thinking; +he had fallen in love at thirteen, and he was still capable--he +prided himself--of falling in love. His invalid wife and her +money had been only the thin thread that held his life together; +beaded on that permanent relation had been an inter-weaving +series of other feminine experiences, disturbing, absorbing, +interesting, memorable affairs. Each one had been different from +the others, each had had a quality all its own, a distinctive +freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how men +could live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful +research into personality and the possibilities of pleasing, +these complex, fascinating expeditions that began in interest and +mounted to the supremest, most passionate intimacy. All the rest +of his existence was subordinate to this pursuit; he lived for +it, worked for it, kept himself in training for it. + +So while he talked to this girl of work and freedom, his slightly +protuberant eyes were noting the gracious balance of her limbs +and body across the gate, the fine lines of her chin and neck. +Her grave fine face, her warm clear complexion, had already +aroused his curiosity as he had gone to and fro in Morningside +Park, and here suddenly he was near to her and talking freely and +intimately. He had found her in a communicative mood, and he +used the accumulated skill of years in turning that to account. + +She was pleased and a little flattered by his interest and +sympathy. She became eager to explain herself, to show herself +in the right light. He was manifestly exerting his mind for her, +and she found herself fully disposed to justify his interest. + +She, perhaps, displayed herself rather consciously as a fine +person unduly limited. She even touched lightly on her father's +unreasonableness. + +"I wonder," said Ramage, "that more girls don't think as you do +and want to strike out in the world." + +And then he speculated. "I wonder if you will?" + +"Let me say one thing," he said. "If ever you do and I can help +you in any way, by advice or inquiry or recommendation-- You see, +I'm no believer in feminine incapacity, but I do perceive there +is such a thing as feminine inexperience. As a sex you're a +little under-trained--in affairs. I'd take it--forgive me if I +seem a little urgent--as a sort of proof of friendliness. I can +imagine nothing more pleasant in life than to help you, because I +know it would pay to help you. There's something about you, a +little flavor of Will, I suppose, that makes one feel--good luck +about you and success. . . ." + +And while he talked and watched her as he talked, she answered, +and behind her listening watched and thought about him. She +liked the animated eagerness of his manner. + +His mind seemed to be a remarkably full one; his knowledge of +detailed reality came in just where her own mind was most weakly +equipped. Through all he said ran one quality that pleased +her--the quality of a man who feels that things can be done, that +one need not wait for the world to push one before one moved. +Compared with her father and Mr. Manning and the men in "fixed" +positions generally that she knew, Ramage, presented by himself, +had a fine suggestion of freedom, of power, of deliberate and +sustained adventure. . . . + +She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It was +really very jolly to talk to a man in this way--who saw the woman +in her and did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to +think that perhaps for a girl the converse of his method was the +case; an older man, a man beyond the range of anything +"nonsensical," was, perhaps, the most interesting sort of friend +one could meet. But in that reservation it may be she went a +little beyond the converse of his view. . . . + +They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the +better part of an hour, and at last walked together to the +junction of highroad and the bridle-path. There, after +protestations of friendliness and helpfulness that were almost +ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and rode off at an amiable +pace, looking his best, making a leg with his riding gaiters, +smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned northward and so +came to Micklechesil. There, in a little tea and sweet-stuff +shop, she bought and consumed slowly and absent-mindedly the +insufficient nourishment that is natural to her sex on such +occasions. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE CRISIS + + +Part 1 + + +We left Miss Stanley with Ann Veronica's fancy dress in her hands +and her eyes directed to Ann Veronica's pseudo-Turkish slippers. + +When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six--an earlier train +by fifteen minutes than he affected--his sister met him in the +hall with a hushed expression. "I'm so glad you're here, Peter," +she said. "She means to go." + +"Go!" he said. "Where?" + +"To that ball." + +"What ball?" The question was rhetorical. He knew. + +"I believe she's dressing up-stairs--now." + +"Then tell her to undress, confound her!" The City had been +thoroughly annoying that day, and he was angry from the outset. + +Miss Stanley reflected on this proposal for a moment. + +"I don't think she will," she said. + +"She must," said Mr. Stanley, and went into his study. His +sister followed. "She can't go now. She'll have to wait for +dinner," he said, uncomfortably. + +"She's going to have some sort of meal with the Widgetts down the +Avenue, and go up with them. + +"She told you that?" + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +"At tea." + +"But why didn't you prohibit once for all the whole thing? How +dared she tell you that?" + +"Out of defiance. She just sat and told me that was her +arrangement. I've never seen her quite so sure of herself." + +"What did you say?" + +"I said, 'My dear Veronica! how can you think of such things?' " + +"And then?" + +"She had two more cups of tea and some cake, and told me of her +walk." + +"She'll meet somebody one of these days--walking about like +that." + +"She didn't say she'd met any one." + +"But didn't you say some more about that ball?" + +"I said everything I could say as soon as I realized she was +trying to avoid the topic. I said, 'It is no use your telling me +about this walk and pretend I've been told about the ball, +because you haven't. Your father has forbidden you to go!' " + +"Well?" + +"She said, 'I hate being horrid to you and father, but I feel it +my duty to go to that ball!' " + +"Felt it her duty!" + +" 'Very well,' I said, 'then I wash my hands of the whole +business. Your disobedience be upon your own head.' " + +"But that is flat rebellion!" said Mr. Stanley, standing on the +hearthrug with his back to the unlit gas-fire. "You ought at +once--you ought at once to have told her that. What duty does a +girl owe to any one before her father? Obedience to him, that is +surely the first law. What CAN she put before that?" His voice +began to rise. "One would think I had said nothing about the +matter. One would think I had agreed to her going. I suppose +this is what she learns in her infernal London colleges. I +suppose this is the sort of damned rubbish--" + +"Oh! Ssh, Peter!" cried Miss Stanley. + +He stopped abruptly. In the pause a door could be heard opening +and closing on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became +audible, descending the staircase with a certain deliberation and +a faint rustle of skirts. + +"Tell her," said Mr. Stanley, with an imperious gesture, "to come +in here." + + + +Part 2 + + +Miss Stanley emerged from the study and stood watching Ann +Veronica descend. + +The girl was flushed with excitement, bright-eyed, and braced for +a struggle; her aunt had never seen her looking so fine or so +pretty. Her fancy dress, save for the green-gray stockings, the +pseudo-Turkish slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to +a Corsair's bride, was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded +opera-cloak. Beneath the hood it was evident that her rebellious +hair was bound up with red silk, and fastened by some device in +her ears (unless she had them pierced, which was too dreadful a +thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings. + +"I'm just off, aunt," said Ann Veronica. + +"Your father is in the study and wishes to speak to you." + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and then stood in the open doorway and +regarded her father's stern presence. She spoke with an entirely +false note of cheerful off-handedness. "I'm just in time to say +good-bye before I go, father. I'm going up to London with the +Widgetts to that ball." + +"Now look here, Ann Veronica," said Mr. Stanley, "just a moment. +You are NOT going to that ball!" + +Ann Veronica tried a less genial, more dignified note. + +"I thought we had discussed that, father." + +"You are not going to that ball! You are not going out of this +house in that get-up!" + +Ann Veronica tried yet more earnestly to treat him, as she would +treat any man, with an insistence upon her due of masculine +respect. "You see," she said, very gently, "I AM going. I am +sorry to seem to disobey you, but I am. I wish"--she found she +had embarked on a bad sentence--"I wish we needn't have +quarrelled." + +She stopped abruptly, and turned about toward the front door. In +a moment he was beside her. "I don't think you can have heard +me, Vee," he said, with intensely controlled fury. "I said you +were"--he shouted--"NOT TO GO!" + +She made, and overdid, an immense effort to be a princess. She +tossed her head, and, having no further words, moved toward the +door. Her father intercepted her, and for a moment she and he +struggled with their hands upon the latch. A common rage flushed +their faces. "Let go!" she gasped at him, a blaze of anger. + +"Veronica!" cried Miss Stanley, warningly, and, "Peter!" + +For a moment they seemed on the verge of an altogether desperate +scuffle. Never for a moment had violence come between these two +since long ago he had, in spite of her mother's protest in the +background, carried her kicking and squalling to the nursery for +some forgotten crime. With something near to horror they found +themselves thus confronted. + +The door was fastened by a catch and a latch with an inside key, +to which at night a chain and two bolts were added. Carefully +abstaining from thrusting against each other, Ann Veronica and +her father began an absurdly desperate struggle, the one to open +the door, the other to keep it fastened. She seized the key, and +he grasped her hand and squeezed it roughly and painfully between +the handle and the ward as she tried to turn it. His grip +twisted her wrist. She cried out with the pain of it. + +A wild passion of shame and self-disgust swept over her. Her +spirit awoke in dismay to an affection in ruins, to the immense +undignified disaster that had come to them. + +Abruptly she desisted, recoiled, and turned and fled up-stairs. + +She made noises between weeping and laughter as she went. She +gained her room, and slammed her door and locked it as though she +feared violence and pursuit. + +"Oh God!" she cried, "Oh God!" and flung aside her opera-cloak, +and for a time walked about the room--a Corsair's bride at a +crisis of emotion. "Why can't he reason with me," she said, +again and again, "instead of doing this?" + + + +Part 3 + + +There presently came a phase in which she said: "I WON'T stand +it even now. I will go to-night." + +She went as far as her door, then turned to the window. She +opened this and scrambled out--a thing she had not done for five +long years of adolescence--upon the leaded space above the +built-out bath-room on the first floor. Once upon a time she and +Roddy had descended thence by the drain-pipe. + +But things that a girl of sixteen may do in short skirts are not +things to be done by a young lady of twenty-one in fancy dress +and an opera-cloak, and just as she was coming unaided to an +adequate realization of this, she discovered Mr. Pragmar, the +wholesale druggist, who lived three gardens away, and who had +been mowing his lawn to get an appetite for dinner, standing in a +fascinated attitude beside the forgotten lawn-mower and watching +her intently. + +She found it extremely difficult to infuse an air of quiet +correctitude into her return through the window, and when she was +safely inside she waved clinched fists and executed a noiseless +dance of rage. + +When she reflected that Mr. Pragmar probably knew Mr. Ramage, and +might describe the affair to him, she cried "Oh!" with renewed +vexation, and repeated some steps of her dance in a new and more +ecstatic measure. + + + +Part 4 + + +At eight that evening Miss Stanley tapped at Ann Veronica's +bedroom door. + +"I've brought you up some dinner, Vee," she said. + +Ann Veronica was lying on her bed in a darkling room staring at +the ceiling. She reflected before answering. She was frightfully +hungry. She had eaten little or no tea, and her mid-day meal had +been worse than nothing. + +She got up and unlocked the door. + +Her aunt did not object to capital punishment or war, or the +industrial system or casual wards, or flogging of criminals or +the Congo Free State, because none of these things really got +hold of her imagination; but she did object, she did not like, +she could not bear to think of people not having and enjoying +their meals. It was her distinctive test of an emotional state, +its interference with a kindly normal digestion. Any one very +badly moved choked down a few mouthfuls; the symptom of supreme +distress was not to be able to touch a bit. So that the thought +of Ann Veronica up-stairs had been extremely painful for her +through all the silent dinner-time that night. As soon as dinner +was over she went into the kitchen and devoted herself to +compiling a tray --not a tray merely of half-cooled dinner +things, but a specially prepared "nice" tray, suitable for +tempting any one. With this she now entered. + +Ann Veronica found herself in the presence of the most +disconcerting fact in human experience, the kindliness of people +you believe to be thoroughly wrong. She took the tray with both +hands, gulped, and gave way to tears. + +Her aunt leaped unhappily to the thought of penitence. + +"My dear," she began, with an affectionate hand on Ann Veronica's +shoulder, "I do SO wish you would realize how it grieves your +father." + +Ann Veronica flung away from her hand, and the pepper-pot on the +tray upset, sending a puff of pepper into the air and instantly +filling them both with an intense desire to sneeze. + +"I don't think you see," she replied, with tears on her cheeks, +and her brows knitting, "how it shames and, ah!--disgraces me--AH +TISHU!" + +She put down the tray with a concussion on her toilet-table. + +"But, dear, think! He is your father. SHOOH!" + +"That's no reason," said Ann Veronica, speaking through her +handkerchief and stopping abruptly. + +Niece and aunt regarded each other for a moment over their +pocket-handkerchiefs with watery but antagonistic eyes, each far +too profoundly moved to see the absurdity of the position. + +"I hope," said Miss Stanley, with dignity, and turned doorward +with features in civil warfare. "Better state of mind," she +gasped. . . . + +Ann Veronica stood in the twilight room staring at the door that +had slammed upon her aunt, her pocket-handkerchief rolled tightly +in her hand. Her soul was full of the sense of disaster. She +had made her first fight for dignity and freedom as a grown-up +and independent Person, and this was how the universe had treated +her. It had neither succumbed to her nor wrathfully overwhelmed +her. It had thrust her back with an undignified scuffle, with +vulgar comedy, with an unendurable, scornful grin. + +"By God!" said Ann Veronica for the first time in her life. "But +I will! I will!" + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE FLIGHT TO LONDON + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica had an impression that she did not sleep at all that +night, and at any rate she got through an immense amount of +feverish feeling and thinking. + +What was she going to do? + +One main idea possessed her: she must get away from home, she +must assert herself at once or perish. "Very well," she would +say, "then I must go." To remain, she felt, was to concede +everything. And she would have to go to-morrow. It was clear it +must be to-morrow. If she delayed a day she would delay two +days, if she delayed two days she would delay a week, and after a +week things would be adjusted to submission forever. "I'll go," +she vowed to the night, "or I'll die!" She made plans and +estimated means and resources. These and her general +preparations had perhaps a certain disproportion. She had a gold +watch, a very good gold watch that had been her mother's, a pearl +necklace that was also pretty good, some unpretending rings, some +silver bangles and a few other such inferior trinkets, three +pounds thirteen shillings unspent of her dress and book allowance +and a few good salable books. So equipped, she proposed to set +up a separate establishment in the world. + +And then she would find work. + +For most of a long and fluctuating night she was fairly confident +that she would find work; she knew herself to be strong, +intelligent, and capable by the standards of most of the girls +she knew. She was not quite clear how she should find it, but +she felt she would. Then she would write and tell her father +what she had done, and put their relationship on a new footing. + +That was how she projected it, and in general terms it seemed +plausible and possible. But in between these wider phases of +comparative confidence were gaps of disconcerting doubt, when the +universe was presented as making sinister and threatening faces +at her, defying her to defy, preparing a humiliating and shameful +overthrow. "I don't care," said Ann Veronica to the darkness; +"I'll fight it." + +She tried to plan her proceedings in detail. The only +difficulties that presented themselves clearly to her were the +difficulties of getting away from Morningside Park, and not the +difficulties at the other end of the journey. These were so +outside her experience that she found it possible to thrust them +almost out of sight by saying they would be "all right" in +confident tones to herself. But still she knew they were not +right, and at times they became a horrible obsession as of +something waiting for her round the corner. She tried to imagine +herself "getting something," to project herself as sitting down +at a desk and writing, or as returning after her work to some +pleasantly equipped and free and independent flat. For a time +she furnished the flat. But even with that furniture it remained +extremely vague, the possible good and the possible evil as well! + +The possible evil! "I'll go," said Ann Veronica for the +hundredth time. "I'll go. I don't care WHAT happens." + +She awoke out of a doze, as though she had never been sleeping. +It was time to get up. + +She sat on the edge of her bed and looked about her, at her room, +at the row of black-covered books and the pig's skull. "I must +take them," she said, to help herself over her own incredulity. +"How shall I get my luggage out of the house? . . ." + +The figure of her aunt, a little distant, a little propitiatory, +behind the coffee things, filled her with a sense of almost +catastrophic adventure. Perhaps she might never come back to +that breakfast-room again. Never! Perhaps some day, quite soon, +she might regret that breakfast-room. She helped herself to the +remainder of the slightly congealed bacon, and reverted to the +problem of getting her luggage out of the house. She decided to +call in the help of Teddy Widgett, or, failing him, of one of his +sisters. + + + +Part 2 + + +She found the younger generation of the Widgetts engaged in +languid reminiscences, and all, as they expressed it, a "bit +decayed." Every one became tremendously animated when they heard +that Ann Veronica had failed them because she had been, as she +expressed it, "locked in." + +"My God!" said Teddy, more impressively than ever. + +"But what are you going to do?" asked Hetty. + +"What can one do?" asked Ann Veronica. "Would you stand it? I'm +going to clear out." + +"Clear out?" cried Hetty. + +"Go to London," said Ann Veronica. + +She had expected sympathetic admiration, but instead the whole +Widgett family, except Teddy, expressed a common dismay. "But +how can you?" asked Constance. "Who will you stop with?" + +"I shall go on my own. Take a room!" + +"I say!" said Constance. "But who's going to pay for the room?" + +"I've got money," said Ann Veronica. "Anything is better than +this--this stifled life down here." And seeing that Hetty and +Constance were obviously developing objections, she plunged at +once into a demand for help. "I've got nothing in the world to +pack with except a toy size portmanteau. Can you lend me some +stuff?" + +"You ARE a chap!" said Constance, and warmed only slowly from the +idea of dissuasion to the idea of help. But they did what they +could for her. They agreed to lend her their hold-all and a +large, formless bag which they called the communal trunk. And +Teddy declared himself ready to go to the ends of the earth for +her, and carry her luggage all the way. + +Hetty, looking out of the window--she always smoked her +after-breakfast cigarette at the window for the benefit of the +less advanced section of Morningside Park society--and trying not +to raise objections, saw Miss Stanley going down toward the +shops. + +"If you must go on with it," said Hetty, "now's your time." And +Ann Veronica at once went back with the hold-all, trying not to +hurry indecently but to keep up her dignified air of being a +wronged person doing the right thing at a smart trot, to pack. +Teddy went round by the garden backs and dropped the bag over the +fence. All this was exciting and entertaining. Her aunt +returned before the packing was done, and Ann Veronica lunched +with an uneasy sense of bag and hold-all packed up-stairs and +inadequately hidden from chance intruders by the valance of the +bed. She went down, flushed and light-hearted, to the Widgetts' +after lunch to make some final arrangements and then, as soon as +her aunt had retired to lie down for her usual digestive hour, +took the risk of the servants having the enterprise to report her +proceedings and carried her bag and hold-all to the garden gate, +whence Teddy, in a state of ecstatic service, bore them to the +railway station. Then she went up-stairs again, dressed herself +carefully for town, put on her most businesslike-looking hat, and +with a wave of emotion she found it hard to control, walked down +to catch the 3.17 up-train. + +Teddy handed her into the second-class compartment her +season-ticket warranted, and declared she was "simply splendid." +"If you want anything," he said, "or get into any trouble, wire +me. I'd come back from the ends of the earth. I'd do anything, +Vee. It's horrible to think of you!" + +"You're an awful brick, Teddy!" she said. + +"Who wouldn't be for you?" + +The train began to move. "You're splendid!" said Teddy, with his +hair wild in the wind. "Good luck! Good luck!" + +She waved from the window until the bend hid him. + +She found herself alone in the train asking herself what she must +do next, and trying not to think of herself as cut off from home +or any refuge whatever from the world she had resolved to face. +She felt smaller and more adventurous even than she had expected +to feel. "Let me see," she said to herself, trying to control a +slight sinking of the heart, "I am going to take a room in a +lodging-house because that is cheaper. . . . But perhaps I had +better get a room in an hotel to-night and look round. . . . + +"It's bound to be all right," she said. + +But her heart kept on sinking. What hotel should she go to? If +she told a cabman to drive to an hotel, any hotel, what would he +do--or say? He might drive to something dreadfully expensive, +and not at all the quiet sort of thing she required. Finally she +decided that even for an hotel she must look round, and that +meanwhile she would "book" her luggage at Waterloo. She told the +porter to take it to the booking-office, and it was only after a +disconcerting moment or so that she found she ought to have +directed him to go to the cloak-room. But that was soon put +right, and she walked out into London with a peculiar exaltation +of mind, an exaltation that partook of panic and defiance, but +was chiefly a sense of vast unexampled release. + +She inhaled a deep breath of air--London air. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dismissed the first hotels she passed, she scarcely knew why, +mainly perhaps from the mere dread of entering them, and crossed +Waterloo Bridge at a leisurely pace. It was high afternoon, +there was no great throng of foot-passengers, and many an eye +from omnibus and pavement rested gratefully on her fresh, trim +presence as she passed young and erect, with the light of +determination shining through the quiet self-possession of her +face. She was dressed as English girls do dress for town, +without either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse +confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her +dark hair waved loosely and graciously over her ears. . . . + +It seemed at first the most beautiful afternoon of all time to +her, and perhaps the thrill of her excitement did add a +distinctive and culminating keenness to the day. The river, the +big buildings on the north bank, Westminster, and St. Paul's, +were rich and wonderful with the soft sunshine of London, the +softest, the finest grained, the most penetrating and least +emphatic sunshine in the world. The very carts and vans and cabs +that Wellington Street poured out incessantly upon the bridge +seemed ripe and good in her eyes. A traffic of copious barges +slumbered over the face of the river-barges either altogether +stagnant or dreaming along in the wake of fussy tugs; and above +circled, urbanely voracious, the London seagulls. She had never +been there before at that hour, in that light, and it seemed to +her as if she came to it all for the first time. And this great +mellow place, this London, now was hers, to struggle with, to go +where she pleased in, to overcome and live in. "I am glad," she +told herself, "I came." + +She marked an hotel that seemed neither opulent nor odd in a +little side street opening on the Embankment, made up her mind +with an effort, and, returning by Hungerford Bridge to Waterloo, +took a cab to this chosen refuge with her two pieces of luggage. +There was just a minute's hesitation before they gave her a room. + +The young lady in the bureau said she would inquire, and Ann +Veronica, while she affected to read the appeal on a hospital +collecting-box upon the bureau counter, had a disagreeable sense +of being surveyed from behind by a small, whiskered gentleman in +a frock-coat, who came out of the inner office and into the hall +among a number of equally observant green porters to look at her +and her bags. But the survey was satisfactory, and she found +herself presently in Room No. 47, straightening her hat and +waiting for her luggage to appear. + +"All right so far," she said to herself. . . . + + + +Part 4 + + +But presently, as she sat on the one antimacassared red silk +chair and surveyed her hold-all and bag in that tidy, rather +vacant, and dehumanized apartment, with its empty wardrobe and +desert toilet-table and pictureless walls and stereotyped +furnishings, a sudden blankness came upon her as though she +didn't matter, and had been thrust away into this impersonal +corner, she and her gear. . . . + +She decided to go out into the London afternoon again and get +something to eat in an Aerated Bread shop or some such place, and +perhaps find a cheap room for herself. Of course that was what +she had to do; she had to find a cheap room for herself and work! + +This Room No. 47 was no more than a sort of railway compartment +on the way to that. + +How does one get work? + +She walked along the Strand and across Trafalgar Square, and by +the Haymarket to Piccadilly, and so through dignified squares and +palatial alleys to Oxford Street; and her mind was divided +between a speculative treatment of employment on the one hand, +and breezes --zephyr breezes--of the keenest appreciation for +London, on the other. The jolly part of it was that for the +first time in her life so far as London was concerned, she was +not going anywhere in particular; for the first time in her life +it seemed to her she was taking London in. + +She tried to think how people get work. Ought she to walk into +some of these places and tell them what she could do? She +hesitated at the window of a shipping-office in Cockspur Street +and at the Army and Navy Stores, but decided that perhaps there +would be some special and customary hour, and that it would be +better for her to find this out before she made her attempt. And, +besides, she didn't just immediately want to make her attempt. + +She fell into a pleasant dream of positions and work. Behind +every one of these myriad fronts she passed there must be a +career or careers. Her ideas of women's employment and a modern +woman's pose in life were based largely on the figure of Vivie +Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profession. She had seen Mrs. Warren's +Profession furtively with Hetty Widgett from the gallery of a +Stage Society performance one Monday afternoon. Most of it had +been incomprehensible to her, or comprehensible in a way that +checked further curiosity, but the figure of Vivien, hard, +capable, successful, and bullying, and ordering about a veritable +Teddy in the person of Frank Gardner, appealed to her. She saw +herself in very much Vivie's position--managing something. + +Her thoughts were deflected from Vivie Warren by the peculiar +behavior of a middle-aged gentleman in Piccadilly. He appeared +suddenly from the infinite in the neighborhood of the Burlington +Arcade, crossing the pavement toward her and with his eyes upon +her. He seemed to her indistinguishably about her father's age. +He wore a silk hat a little tilted, and a morning coat buttoned +round a tight, contained figure; and a white slip gave a finish +to his costume and endorsed the quiet distinction of his tie. +His face was a little flushed perhaps, and his small, brown eyes +were bright. He stopped on the curb-stone, not facing her but as +if he was on his way to cross the road, and spoke to her suddenly +over his shoulder. + +"Whither away?" he said, very distinctly in a curiously wheedling +voice. Ann Veronica stared at his foolish, propitiatory smile, +his hungry gaze, through one moment of amazement, then stepped +aside and went on her way with a quickened step. But her mind +was ruffled, and its mirror-like surface of satisfaction was not +easily restored. + +Queer old gentleman! + +The art of ignoring is one of the accomplishments of every +well-bred girl, so carefully instilled that at last she can even +ignore her own thoughts and her own knowledge. Ann Veronica +could at the same time ask herself what this queer old gentleman +could have meant by speaking to her, and know--know in general +terms, at least--what that accosting signified. About her, as +she had gone day by day to and from the Tredgold College, she had +seen and not seen many an incidental aspect of those sides of +life about which girls are expected to know nothing, aspects that +were extraordinarily relevant to her own position and outlook on +the world, and yet by convention ineffably remote. For all that +she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never yet +considered these things with unaverted eyes. She had viewed them +askance, and without exchanging ideas with any one else in the +world about them. + +She went on her way now no longer dreaming and appreciative, but +disturbed and unwillingly observant behind her mask of serene +contentment. + +That delightful sense of free, unembarrassed movement was gone. + +As she neared the bottom of the dip in Piccadilly she saw a woman +approaching her from the opposite direction--a tall woman who at +the first glance seemed altogether beautiful and fine. She came +along with the fluttering assurance of some tall ship. Then as +she drew nearer paint showed upon her face, and a harsh purpose +behind the quiet expression of her open countenance, and a sort +of unreality in her splendor betrayed itself for which Ann +Veronica could not recall the right word --a word, half +understood, that lurked and hid in her mind, the word +"meretricious." Behind this woman and a little to the side of +her, walked a man smartly dressed, with desire and appraisal in +his eyes. Something insisted that those two were mysteriously +linked--that the woman knew the man was there. + +It was a second reminder that against her claim to go free and +untrammelled there was a case to be made, that after all it was +true that a girl does not go alone in the world unchallenged, nor +ever has gone freely alone in the world, that evil walks abroad +and dangers, and petty insults more irritating than dangers, +lurk. + +It was in the quiet streets and squares toward Oxford Street that +it first came into her head disagreeably that she herself was +being followed. She observed a man walking on the opposite side +of the way and looking toward her. + +"Bother it all!" she swore. "Bother!" and decided that this was +not so, and would not look to right or left again. + +Beyond the Circus Ann Veronica went into a British Tea-Table +Company shop to get some tea. And as she was yet waiting for her +tea to come she saw this man again. Either it was an unfortunate +recovery of a trail, or he had followed her from Mayfair. There +was no mistaking his intentions this time. He came down the shop +looking for her quite obviously, and took up a position on the +other side against a mirror in which he was able to regard her +steadfastly. + +Beneath the serene unconcern of Ann Veronica's face was a boiling +tumult. She was furiously angry. She gazed with a quiet +detachment toward the window and the Oxford Street traffic, and +in her heart she was busy kicking this man to death. He HAD +followed her! What had he followed her for? He must have +followed her all the way from beyond Grosvenor Square. + +He was a tall man and fair, with bluish eyes that were rather +protuberant, and long white hands of which he made a display. He +had removed his silk hat, and now sat looking at Ann Veronica +over an untouched cup of tea; he sat gloating upon her, trying to +catch her eye. Once, when he thought he had done so, he smiled an +ingratiating smile. He moved, after quiet intervals, with a +quick little movement, and ever and again stroked his small +mustache and coughed a self-conscious cough. + +"That he should be in the same world with me!" said Ann Veronica, +reduced to reading the list of good things the British Tea-Table +Company had priced for its patrons. + +Heaven knows what dim and tawdry conceptions of passion and +desire were in that blond cranium, what romance-begotten dreams +of intrigue and adventure! but they sufficed, when presently Ann +Veronica went out into the darkling street again, to inspire a +flitting, dogged pursuit, idiotic, exasperating, indecent. + +She had no idea what she should do. If she spoke to a policeman +she did not know what would ensue. Perhaps she would have to +charge this man and appear in a police-court next day. + +She became angry with herself. She would not be driven in by +this persistent, sneaking aggression. She would ignore him. +Surely she could ignore him. She stopped abruptly, and looked in +a flower-shop window. He passed, and came loitering back and +stood beside her, silently looking into her face. + +The afternoon had passed now into twilight. The shops were +lighting up into gigantic lanterns of color, the street lamps +were glowing into existence, and she had lost her way. She had +lost her sense of direction, and was among unfamiliar streets. +She went on from street to street, and all the glory of London +had departed. Against the sinister, the threatening, monstrous +inhumanity of the limitless city, there was nothing now but this +supreme, ugly fact of a pursuit--the pursuit of the undesired, +persistent male. + +For a second time Ann Veronica wanted to swear at the universe. + +There were moments when she thought of turning upon this man and +talking to him. But there was something in his face at once +stupid and invincible that told her he would go on forcing +himself upon her, that he would esteem speech with her a great +point gained. In the twilight he had ceased to be a person one +could tackle and shame; he had become something more general, a +something that crawled and sneaked toward her and would not let +her alone. . . . + +Then, when the tension was getting unendurable, and she was on +the verge of speaking to some casual passer-by and demanding +help, her follower vanished. For a time she could scarcely +believe he was gone. He had. The night had swallowed him up, +but his work on her was done. She had lost her nerve, and there +was no more freedom in London for her that night. She was glad to +join in the stream of hurrying homeward workers that was now +welling out of a thousand places of employment, and to imitate +their driven, preoccupied haste. She had followed a bobbing +white hat and gray jacket until she reached the Euston Road +corner of Tottenham Court Road, and there, by the name on a bus +and the cries of a conductor, she made a guess of her way. And +she did not merely affect to be driven--she felt driven. She was +afraid people would follow her, she was afraid of the dark, open +doorways she passed, and afraid of the blazes of light; she was +afraid to be alone, and she knew not what it was she feared. + +It was past seven when she got back to her hotel. She thought +then that she had shaken off the man of the bulging blue eyes +forever, but that night she found he followed her into her +dreams. He stalked her, he stared at her, he craved her, he +sidled slinking and propitiatory and yet relentlessly toward her, +until at last she awoke from the suffocating nightmare nearness +of his approach, and lay awake in fear and horror listening to +the unaccustomed sounds of the hotel. + +She came very near that night to resolving that she would return +to her home next morning. But the morning brought courage again, +and those first intimations of horror vanished completely from +her mind. + + + +Part 5 + + +She had sent her father a telegram from the East Strand +post-office worded thus: + +| All | is | well | with | me | +|---------|-----------|----------|----------|---------| +| and | quite | safe | Veronica | | + ----------------------------------------------------- + +and afterward she had dined a la carte upon a cutlet, and had +then set herself to write an answer to Mr. Manning's proposal of +marriage. But she had found it very difficult. + + +"DEAR MR. MANNING, she had begun. So far it had been plain +sailing, and it had seemed fairly evident to go on: "I find it +very difficult to answer your letter." + +But after that neither ideas nor phrases had come and she had +fallen thinking of the events of the day. She had decided that +she would spend the next morning answering advertisements in the +papers that abounded in the writing-room; and so, after half an +hour's perusal of back numbers of the Sketch in the drawing-room, +she had gone to bed. + +She found next morning, when she came to this advertisement +answering, that it was more difficult than she had supposed. In +the first place there were not so many suitable advertisements as +she had expected. She sat down by the paper-rack with a general +feeling of resemblance to Vivie Warren, and looked through the +Morning Post and Standard and Telegraph, and afterward the +half-penny sheets. The Morning Post was hungry for governesses +and nursery governesses, but held out no other hopes; the Daily +Telegraph that morning seemed eager only for skirt hands. She +went to a writing-desk and made some memoranda on a sheet of +note-paper, and then remembered that she had no address as yet to +which letters could be sent. + +She decided to leave this matter until the morrow and devote the +morning to settling up with Mr. Manning. At the cost of quite a +number of torn drafts she succeeded in evolving this: + +"DEAR MR. MANNING,--I find it very difficult to answer your +letter. I hope you won't mind if I say first that I think it +does me an extraordinary honor that you should think of any one +like myself so highly and seriously, and, secondly, that I wish +it had not been written." + +She surveyed this sentence for some time before going on. "I +wonder," she said, "why one writes him sentences like that? +It'll have to go," she decided, "I've written too many already." +She went on, with a desperate attempt to be easy and colloquial: + +"You see, we were rather good friends, I thought, and now perhaps +it will be difficult for us to get back to the old friendly +footing. But if that can possibly be done I want it to be done. +You see, the plain fact of the case is that I think I am too +young and ignorant for marriage. I have been thinking these +things over lately, and it seems to me that marriage for a girl +is just the supremest thing in life. It isn't just one among a +number of important things; for her it is the important thing, +and until she knows far more than I know of the facts of life, +how is she to undertake it? So please; if you will, forget that +you wrote that letter, and forgive this answer. I want you to +think of me just as if I was a man, and quite outside marriage +altogether. + +"I do hope you will be able to do this, because I value men +friends. I shall be very sorry if I cannot have you for a +friend. I think that there is no better friend for a girl than a +man rather older than herself. + +"Perhaps by this time you will have heard of the step I have +taken in leaving my home. Very likely you will disapprove highly +of what I have done--l wonder? You may, perhaps, think I have +done it just in a fit of childish petulance because my father +locked me in when I wanted to go to a ball of which he did not +approve. But really it is much more than that. At Morningside +Park I feel as though all my growing up was presently to stop, as +though I was being shut in from the light of life, and, as they +say in botany, etiolated. I was just like a sort of dummy that +does things as it is told--that is to say, as the strings are +pulled. I want to be a person by myself, and to pull my own +strings. I had rather have trouble and hardship like that than +be taken care of by others. I want to be myself. l wonder if a +man can quite understand that passionate feeling? It is quite a +passionate feeling. So I am already no longer the girl you knew +at Morningside Park. I am a young person seeking employment and +freedom and self-development, just as in quite our first talk of +all I said I wanted to be. + +"I do hope you will see how things are, and not be offended with +me or frightfully shocked and distressed by what I have done. + + "Very sincerely yours, + + "ANN VERONICA STANLEY." + + + +Part 6 + + +In the afternoon she resumed her search for apartments. The +intoxicating sense of novelty had given place to a more +business-like mood. She drifted northward from the Strand, and +came on some queer and dingy quarters. + +She had never imagined life was half so sinister as it looked to +her in the beginning of these investigations. She found herself +again in the presence of some element in life about which she had +been trained not to think, about which she was perhaps +instinctively indisposed to think; something which jarred, in +spite of all her mental resistance, with all her preconceptions +of a clean and courageous girl walking out from Morningside Park +as one walks out of a cell into a free and spacious world. One or +two landladies refused her with an air of conscious virtue that +she found hard to explain. "We don't let to ladies," they said. + +She drifted, via Theobald's Road, obliquely toward the region +about Titchfield Street. Such apartments as she saw were either +scandalously dirty or unaccountably dear, or both. And some were +adorned with engravings that struck her as being more vulgar and +undesirable than anything she had ever seen in her life. Ann +Veronica loved beautiful things, and the beauty of undraped +loveliness not least among them; but these were pictures that did +but insist coarsely upon the roundness of women's bodies. The +windows of these rooms were obscured with draperies, their floors +a carpet patchwork; the china ornaments on their mantels were of +a class apart. After the first onset several of the women who +had apartments to let said she would not do for them, and in +effect dismissed her. This also struck her as odd. + +About many of these houses hung a mysterious taint as of +something weakly and commonly and dustily evil; the women who +negotiated the rooms looked out through a friendly manner as +though it was a mask, with hard, defiant eyes. Then one old +crone, short-sighted and shaky-handed, called Ann Veronica +"dearie," and made some remark, obscure and slangy, of which the +spirit rather than the words penetrated to her understanding. + +For a time she looked at no more apartments, and walked through +gaunt and ill-cleaned streets, through the sordid under side of +life, perplexed and troubled, ashamed of her previous obtuseness. + +She had something of the feeling a Hindoo must experience who has +been into surroundings or touched something that offends his +caste. She passed people in the streets and regarded them with a +quickening apprehension, once or twice came girls dressed in +slatternly finery, going toward Regent Street from out these +places. It did not occur to her that they at least had found a +way of earning a living, and had that much economic superiority +to herself. It did not occur to her that save for some accidents +of education and character they had souls like her own. + +For a time Ann Veronica went on her way gauging the quality of +sordid streets. At last, a little way to the northward of Euston +Road, the moral cloud seemed to lift, the moral atmosphere to +change; clean blinds appeared in the windows, clean doorsteps +before the doors, a different appeal in the neatly placed cards +bearing the word + -------------------------- + | APARTMENTS | + -------------------------- + +in the clear bright windows. At last in a street near the +Hampstead Road she hit upon a room that had an exceptional +quality of space and order, and a tall woman with a kindly face +to show it. "You're a student, perhaps?" said the tall woman. +"At the Tredgold Women's College," said Ann Veronica. She felt +it would save explanations if she did not state she had left her +home and was looking for employment. The room was papered with +green, large-patterned paper that was at worst a trifle dingy, +and the arm-chair and the seats of the other chairs were covered +with the unusual brightness of a large-patterned chintz, which +also supplied the window-curtain. There was a round table +covered, not with the usual "tapestry" cover, but with a plain +green cloth that went passably with the wall-paper. In the +recess beside the fireplace were some open bookshelves. The +carpet was a quiet drugget and not excessively worn, and the bed +in the corner was covered by a white quilt. There were neither +texts nor rubbish on the walls, but only a stirring version of +Belshazzar's feast, a steel engraving in the early Victorian +manner that had some satisfactory blacks. And the woman who +showed this room was tall, with an understanding eye and the +quiet manner of the well-trained servant. + +Ann Veronica brought her luggage in a cab from the hotel; she +tipped the hotel porter sixpence and overpaid the cabman +eighteenpence, unpacked some of her books and possessions, and so +made the room a little homelike, and then sat down in a by no +means uncomfortable arm-chair before the fire. She had arranged +for a supper of tea, a boiled egg, and some tinned peaches. She +had discussed the general question of supplies with the helpful +landlady. "And now," said Ann Veronica surveying her apartment +with an unprecedented sense of proprietorship, "what is the next +step?" + +She spent the evening in writing--it was a little difficult--to +her father and--which was easier--to the Widgetts. She was +greatly heartened by doing this. The necessity of defending +herself and assuming a confident and secure tone did much to +dispell the sense of being exposed and indefensible in a huge +dingy world that abounded in sinister possibilities. She +addressed her letters, meditated on them for a time, and then +took them out and posted them. Afterward she wanted to get her +letter to her father back in order to read it over again, and, if +it tallied with her general impression of it, re-write it. + +He would know her address to-morrow. She reflected upon that +with a thrill of terror that was also, somehow, in some faint +remote way, gleeful. + +"Dear old Daddy," she said, "he'll make a fearful fuss. Well, it +had to happen somewhen. . . . Somehow. I wonder what he'll say?" + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +EXPOSTULATIONS + + +Part 1 + + +The next morning opened calmly, and Ann Veronica sat in her own +room, her very own room, and consumed an egg and marmalade, and +read the advertisements in the Daily Telegraph. Then began +expostulations, preluded by a telegram and headed by her aunt. +The telegram reminded Ann Veronica that she had no place for +interviews except her bed-sitting-room, and she sought her +landlady and negotiated hastily for the use of the ground floor +parlor, which very fortunately was vacant. She explained she was +expecting an important interview, and asked that her visitor +should be duly shown in. Her aunt arrived about half-past ten, +in black and with an unusually thick spotted veil. She raised +this with the air of a conspirator unmasking, and displayed a +tear-flushed face. For a moment she remained silent. + +"My dear," she said, when she could get her breath, "you must +come home at once." + +Ann Veronica closed the door quite softly and stood still. + +"This has almost killed your father. . . . After Gwen!" + +"I sent a telegram." + +"He cares so much for you. He did so care for you." + +"I sent a telegram to say I was all right." + +"All right! And I never dreamed anything of the sort was going +on. I had no idea!" She sat down abruptly and threw her wrists +limply upon the table. "Oh, Veronica!" she said, "to leave your +home!" + +She had been weeping. She was weeping now. Ann Veronica was +overcome by this amount of emotion. + +"Why did you do it?" her aunt urged. "Why could you not confide +in us?" + +"Do what?" said Ann Veronica. + +"What you have done." + +"But what have I done?" + +"Elope! Go off in this way. We had no idea. We had such a +pride in you, such hope in you. I had no idea you were not the +happiest girl. Everything I could do! Your father sat up all +night. Until at last I persuaded him to go to bed. He wanted to +put on his overcoat and come after you and look for you--in +London. We made sure it was just like Gwen. Only Gwen left a +letter on the pincushion. You didn't even do that Vee; not even +that." + +"I sent a telegram, aunt," said Ann Veronica. + +"Like a stab. You didn't even put the twelve words." + +"I said I was all right." + +"Gwen said she was happy. Before that came your father didn't +even know you were gone. He was just getting cross about your +being late for dinner--you know his way--when it came. He opened +it--just off-hand, and then when he saw what it was he hit at the +table and sent his soup spoon flying and splashing on to the +tablecloth. 'My God!' he said, 'I'll go after them and kill him. + +I'll go after them and kill him.' For the moment I thought it +was a telegram from Gwen." + +"But what did father imagine?" + +"Of course he imagined! Any one would! 'What has happened, +Peter?' I asked. He was standing up with the telegram crumpled +in his hand. He used a most awful word! Then he said, 'It's Ann +Veronica gone to join her sister!' 'Gone!' I said. 'Gone!' he +said. 'Read that,' and threw the telegram at me, so that it went +into the tureen. He swore when I tried to get it out with the +ladle, and told me what it said. Then he sat down again in a +chair and said that people who wrote novels ought to be strung +up. It was as much as I could do to prevent him flying out of +the house there and then and coming after you. Never since I was +a girl have I seen your father so moved. 'Oh! little Vee!' he +cried, 'little Vee!' and put his face between his hands and sat +still for a long time before he broke out again." + +Ann Veronica had remained standing while her aunt spoke. + +"Do you mean, aunt," she asked, "that my father thought I had +gone off--with some man?" + +"What else COULD he think? Would any one DREAM you would be so +mad as to go off alone?" + +"After--after what had happened the night before?" + +"Oh, why raise up old scores? If you could see him this morning, +his poor face as white as a sheet and all cut about with shaving! +He was for coming up by the very first train and looking for you, +but I said to him, 'Wait for the letters,' and there, sure +enough, was yours. He could hardly open the envelope, he trembled +so. Then he threw the letter at me. 'Go and fetch her home,' he +said; 'it isn't what we thought! It's just a practical joke of +hers.' And with that he went off to the City, stern and silent, +leaving his bacon on his plate--a great slice of bacon hardly +touched. No breakfast, he's had no dinner, hardly a mouthful of +soup--since yesterday at tea." + +She stopped. Aunt and niece regarded each other silently. + +"You must come home to him at once," said Miss Stanley. + +Ann Veronica looked down at her fingers on the claret-colored +table-cloth. Her aunt had summoned up an altogether too vivid +picture of her father as the masterful man, overbearing, +emphatic, sentimental, noisy, aimless. Why on earth couldn't he +leave her to grow in her own way? Her pride rose at the bare +thought of return + +"I don't think I CAN do that," she said. She looked up and said, +a little breathlessly, "I'm sorry, aunt, but I don't think I +can." + + +Part 2 + + +Then it was the expostulations really began. + +From first to last, on this occasion, her aunt expostulated for +about two hours. "But, my dear," she began, "it is Impossible! +It is quite out of the Question. You simply can't." And to that, +through vast rhetorical meanderings, she clung. It reached her +only slowly that Ann Veronica was standing to her resolution. +"How will you live?" she appealed. "Think of what people will +say!" That became a refrain. "Think of what Lady Palsworthy +will say! Think of what"--So-and-so--"will say! What are we to +tell people? + +"Besides, what am I to tell your father?" + +At first it had not been at all clear to Ann Veronica that she +would refuse to return home; she had had some dream of a +capitulation that should leave her an enlarged and defined +freedom, but as her aunt put this aspect and that of her flight +to her, as she wandered illogically and inconsistently from one +urgent consideration to another, as she mingled assurances and +aspects and emotions, it became clearer and clearer to the girl +that there could be little or no change in the position of things +if she returned. "And what will Mr. Manning think?" said her +aunt. + +"I don't care what any one thinks," said Ann Veronica. + +"I can't imagine what has come over you," said her aunt. "I +can't conceive what you want. You foolish girl!" + +Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim +and yet disconcerting, was the perception that she herself did +not know what she wanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to +call her a foolish girl. + +"Don't you care for Mr. Manning?" said her aunt. + +"I don't see what he has to do with my coming to London?" + +"He--he worships the ground you tread on. You don't deserve it, +but he does. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And +here you are!" + +Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a +rhetorical gesture. "It seems to me all madness--madness! Just +because your father--wouldn't let you disobey him!" + + + +Part 3 + + +In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. +Stanley in person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a +little harsh and forcible, and over the claret-colored +table-cloth and under the gas chandelier, with his hat and +umbrella between them like the mace in Parliament, he and his +daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She had intended +to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage from +the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than +flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and +that she was coming home submissively. In his desire to be +emphatic and to avenge himself for his over-night distresses, he +speedily became brutal, more brutal than she had ever known him +before. + +"A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young lady," he said, as +he entered the room. "I hope you're satisfied." + +She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in her +resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to +what she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She +said she hoped she had not distressed him by the course she had +felt obliged to take, and he told her not to be a fool. She +tried to keep her side up by declaring that he had put her into +an impossible position, and he replied by shouting, "Nonsense! +Nonsense! Any father in my place would have done what I did." + +Then he went on to say: "Well, you've had your little adventure, +and I hope now you've had enough of it. So go up-stairs and get +your things together while I look out for a hansom." + +To which the only possible reply seemed to be, "I'm not coming +home." + +"Not coming home!" + +"No!" And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica +began to weep with terror at herself. Apparently she was always +doomed to weep when she talked to her father. But he was always +forcing her to say and do such unexpectedly conclusive things. +She feared he might take her tears as a sign of weakness. So she +said: "I won't come home. I'd rather starve!" + +For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then +Mr. Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather +of a barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully +through his glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, "And +may I presume to inquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you +propose to live?" + +"I shall live," sobbed Ann Veronica. "You needn't be anxious +about that! I shall contrive to live." + +"But I AM anxious," said Mr. Stanley, "I am anxious. Do you +think it's nothing to me to have my daughter running about London +looking for odd jobs and disgracing herself?" + +"Sha'n't get odd jobs," said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes. + +And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering +wrangle. Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann +Veronica to come home, to which, of course, she said she +wouldn't; and then he warned her not to defy him, warned her very +solemnly, and then commanded her again. He then said that if she +would not obey him in this course she should "never darken his +doors again," and was, indeed, frightfully abusive. This threat +terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and +vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time +both talked at once and very wildly. He asked her whether she +understood what she was saying, and went on to say still more +precisely that she should never touch a penny of his money until +she came home again--not one penny. Ann Veronica said she didn't +care. + +Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key. "You poor child!" he +said; "don't you see the infinite folly of these proceedings? +Think! Think of the love and affection you abandon! Think of +your aunt, a second mother to you. Think if your own mother was +alive!" + +He paused, deeply moved. + +"If my own mother was alive," sobbed Ann Veronica, "she would +understand." + +The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting. Ann +Veronica found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, +holding on desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, +quarrelling with him, wrangling with him, thinking of +repartees--almost as if he was a brother. It was horrible, but +what could she do? She meant to live her own life, and he meant, +with contempt and insults, to prevent her. Anything else that +was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or diversion from +that. + +In the retrospect she was amazed to think how things had gone to +pieces, for at the outset she had been quite prepared to go home +again upon terms. While waiting for his coming she had stated +her present and future relations with him with what had seemed to +her the most satisfactory lucidity and completeness. She had +looked forward to an explanation. Instead had come this storm, +this shouting, this weeping, this confusion of threats and +irrelevant appeals. It was not only that her father had said all +sorts of inconsistent and unreasonable things, but that by some +incomprehensible infection she herself had replied in the same +vein. He had assumed that her leaving home was the point at +issue, that everything turned on that, and that the sole +alternative was obedience, and she had fallen in with that +assumption until rebellion seemed a sacred principle. Moreover, +atrociously and inexorably, he allowed it to appear ever and +again in horrible gleams that he suspected there was some man in +the case. . . . Some man! + +And to conclude it all was the figure of her father in the +doorway, giving her a last chance, his hat in one hand, his +umbrella in the other, shaken at her to emphasize his point. + +"You understand, then," he was saying, "you understand?" + +"I understand," said Ann Veronica, tear-wet and flushed with a +reciprocal passion, but standing up to him with an equality that +amazed even herself, "I understand." She controlled a sob. "Not +a penny--not one penny--and never darken your doors again!" + + + +Part 4 + + +The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just +saying it was "an unheard-of thing" for a girl to leave her home +as Ann Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown +in by the pleasant-faced landlady. + +Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and +umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica +firmly. + +"Now," he said, quietly, "it's time we stopped this nonsense." + +Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still +more deadly quiet: "I am not here to bandy words with you. Let +us have no more of this humbug. You are to come home." + +"I thought I explained--" + +"I don't think you can have heard me," said her father; "I have +told you to come home." + +"I thought I explained--" + +"Come home!" + +Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders. + +"Very well," said her father. + +"I think this ends the business," he said, turning to his sister. + +"It's not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn +wisdom--as God pleases." + +"But, my dear Peter!" said Miss Stanley. + +"No," said her brother, conclusively, "it's not for a parent to +go on persuading a child." + +Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl +stood with her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and +intelligent, a strand of her black hair over one eye and looking +more than usually delicate-featured, and more than ever like an +obdurate child. + +"She doesn't know." + +"She does." + +"I can't imagine what makes you fly out against everything like +this," said Miss Stanley to her niece. + +"What is the good of talking?" said her brother. "She must go her +own way. A man's children nowadays are not his own. That's the +fact of the matter. Their minds are turned against him. . . . +Rubbishy novels and pernicious rascals. We can't even protect +them from themselves." + +An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he +said these words. + +"I don't see," gasped Ann Veronica, "why parents and children . . +. shouldn't be friends." + +"Friends!" said her father. "When we see you going through +disobedience to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way. + +I've tried to use my authority. And she defies me. What more is +there to be said? She defies me!" + +It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of +tremendous pathos; she would have given anything to have been +able to frame and make some appeal, some utterance that should +bridge this bottomless chasm that had opened between her and her +father, and she could find nothing whatever to say that was in +the least sincere and appealing. + +"Father," she cried, "I have to live!" + +He misunderstood her. "That," he said, grimly, with his hand on +the door-handle, "must be your own affair, unless you choose to +live at Morningside Park." + +Miss Stanley turned to her. "Vee," she said, "come home. Before +it is too late." + +"Come, Molly," said Mr. Stanley, at the door. + +"Vee!" said Miss Stanley, "you hear what your father says!" + +Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement +toward her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down +something lumpy on the table and turned to follow her brother. +Ann Veronica stared for a moment in amazement at this dark-green +object that clashed as it was put down. It was a purse. She made +a step forward. "Aunt!" she said, "I can't--" + +Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt's blue eye, halted, and +the door clicked upon them. + +There was a pause, and then the front door slammed. . . . + +Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And +this time the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She +had to resist an impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them +and give in. + +"Gods," she said, at last, "I've done it this time!" + +"Well!" She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and +examined the contents. + +It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage +stamps, a small key, and her aunt's return half ticket to +Morningside Park. + + + +Part 5 + + +After the interview Ann Veronica considered herself formally cut +off from home. If nothing else had clinched that, the purse had. + +Nevertheless there came a residuum of expostulations. Her +brother Roddy, who was in the motor line, came to expostulate; +her sister Alice wrote. And Mr. Manning called. + +Her sister Alice seemed to have developed a religious sense away +there in Yorkshire, and made appeals that had no meaning for Ann +Veronica's mind. She exhorted Ann Veronica not to become one of +"those unsexed intellectuals, neither man nor woman." + +Ann Veronica meditated over that phrase. "That's HIM," said Ann +Veronica, in sound, idiomatic English. "Poor old Alice!" + +Her brother Roddy came to her and demanded tea, and asked her to +state a case. "Bit thick on the old man, isn't it?" said Roddy, +who had developed a bluff, straightforward style in the motor +shop. + +"Mind my smoking?" said Roddy. "I don't see quite what your game +is, Vee, but I suppose you've got a game on somewhere. + +"Rummy lot we are!" said Roddy. "Alice--Alice gone dotty, and +all over kids. Gwen--I saw Gwen the other day, and the paint's +thicker than ever. Jim is up to the neck in Mahatmas and +Theosophy and Higher Thought and rot--writes letters worse than +Alice. And now YOU'RE on the war-path. I believe I'm the only +sane member of the family left. The G.V.'s as mad as any of you, +in spite of all his respectability; not a bit of him straight +anywhere, not one bit." + +"Straight?" + +"Not a bit of it! He's been out after eight per cent. since the +beginning. Eight per cent.! He'll come a cropper one of these +days, if you ask me. He's been near it once or twice already. +That's got his nerves to rags. I suppose we're all human beings +really, but what price the sacred Institution of the Family! Us +as a bundle! Eh? . . . I don't half disagree with you, Vee, +really; only thing is, I don't see how you're going to pull it +off. A home MAY be a sort of cage, but still--it's a home. +Gives you a right to hang on to the old man until he +busts--practically. Jolly hard life for a girl, getting a +living. Not MY affair." + +He asked questions and listened to her views for a time. + +"I'd chuck this lark right off if I were you, Vee," he said. +"I'm five years older than you, and no end wiser, being a man. +What you're after is too risky. It's a damned hard thing to do. +It's all very handsome starting out on your own, but it's too +damned hard. That's my opinion, if you ask me. There's nothing a +girl can do that isn't sweated to the bone. You square the G.V., +and go home before you have to. That's my advice. If you don't +eat humble-pie now you may live to fare worse later. _I_ can't +help you a cent. Life's hard enough nowadays for an unprotected +male. Let alone a girl. You got to take the world as it is, and +the only possible trade for a girl that isn't sweated is to get +hold of a man and make him do it for her. It's no good flying +out at that, Vee; _I_ didn't arrange it. It's Providence. +That's how things are; that's the order of the world. Like +appendicitis. It isn't pretty, but we're made so. Rot, no +doubt; but we can't alter it. You go home and live on the G.V., +and get some other man to live on as soon as possible. It isn't +sentiment but it's horse sense. All this Woman-who-Diddery--no +damn good. After all, old P.--Providence, I mean--HAS arranged +it so that men will keep you, more or less. He made the universe +on those lines. You've got to take what you can get." + +That was the quintessence of her brother Roddy. + +He played variations on this theme for the better part of an +hour. + +"You go home," he said, at parting; "you go home. It's all very +fine and all that, Vee, this freedom, but it isn't going to work. + +The world isn't ready for girls to start out on their own yet; +that's the plain fact of the case. Babies and females have got +to keep hold of somebody or go under--anyhow, for the next few +generations. You go home and wait a century, Vee, and then try +again. Then you may have a bit of a chance. Now you haven't the +ghost of one--not if you play the game fair." + + + +Part 6 + + +It was remarkable to Ann Veronica how completely Mr. Manning, in +his entirely different dialect, indorsed her brother Roddy's view +of things. He came along, he said, just to call, with large, +loud apologies, radiantly kind and good. Miss Stanley, it was +manifest, had given him Ann Veronica's address. The kindly faced +landlady had failed to catch his name, and said he was a tall, +handsome gentleman with a great black mustache. Ann Veronica, +with a sigh at the cost of hospitality, made a hasty negotiation +for an extra tea and for a fire in the ground-floor apartment, +and preened herself carefully for the interview. In the little +apartment, under the gas chandelier, his inches and his stoop +were certainly very effective. In the bad light he looked at +once military and sentimental and studious, like one of Ouida's +guardsmen revised by Mr. Haldane and the London School of +Economics and finished in the Keltic school. + +"It's unforgivable of me to call, Miss Stanley," he said, shaking +hands in a peculiar, high, fashionable manner; "but you know you +said we might be friends." + +"It's dreadful for you to be here," he said, indicating the +yellow presence of the first fog of the year without, "but your +aunt told me something of what had happened. It's just like your +Splendid Pride to do it. Quite!" + +He sat in the arm-chair and took tea, and consumed several of the +extra cakes which she had sent out for and talked to her and +expressed himself, looking very earnestly at her with his +deep-set eyes, and carefully avoiding any crumbs on his mustache +the while. Ann Veronica sat firelit by her tea-tray with, quite +unconsciously, the air of an expert hostess. + +"But how is it all going to end?" said Mr. Manning. + +"Your father, of course," he said, "must come to realize just how +Splendid you are! He doesn't understand. I've seen him, and he +doesn't a bit understand. _I_ didn't understand before that +letter. It makes me want to be just everything I CAN be to you. +You're like some splendid Princess in Exile in these Dreadful +Dingy apartments!" + +"I'm afraid I'm anything but a Princess when it comes to earning +a salary," said Ann Veronica. "But frankly, I mean to fight this +through if I possibly can." + +"My God!" said Manning, in a stage-aside. "Earning a salary!" + +"You're like a Princess in Exile!" he repeated, overruling her. +"You come into these sordid surroundings--you mustn't mind my +calling them sordid--and it makes them seem as though they didn't +matter. . . . I don't think they do matter. I don't think any +surroundings could throw a shadow on you." + +Ann Veronica felt a slight embarrassment. "Won't you have some +more tea, Mr. Manning?" she asked. + +"You know--," said Mr. Manning, relinquishing his cup without +answering her question, "when I hear you talk of earning a +living, it's as if I heard of an archangel going on the Stock +Exchange--or Christ selling doves. . . . Forgive my daring. I +couldn't help the thought." + +"It's a very good image," said Ann Veronica. + +"I knew you wouldn't mind." + +"But does it correspond with the facts of the case? You know, Mr. +Manning, all this sort of thing is very well as sentiment, but +does it correspond with the realities? Are women truly such +angelic things and men so chivalrous? You men have, I know, +meant to make us Queens and Goddesses, but in practice--well, +look, for example, at the stream of girls one meets going to work +of a morning, round-shouldered, cheap, and underfed! They aren't +queens, and no one is treating them as queens. And look, again, +at the women one finds letting lodgings. . . . I was looking for +rooms last week. It got on my nerves--the women I saw. Worse +than any man. Everywhere I went and rapped at a door I found +behind it another dreadful dingy woman--another fallen queen, I +suppose--dingier than the last, dirty, you know, in grain. Their +poor hands!" + +"I know," said Mr. Manning, with entirely suitable emotion. + +"And think of the ordinary wives and mothers, with their anxiety, +their limitations, their swarms of children!" + +Mr. Manning displayed distress. He fended these things off from +him with the rump of his fourth piece of cake. "I know that our +social order is dreadful enough," he said, "and sacrifices all +that is best and most beautiful in life. I don't defend it." + +"And besides, when it comes to the idea of queens," Ann Veronica +went on, "there's twenty-one and a half million women to twenty +million men. Suppose our proper place is a shrine. Still, that +leaves over a million shrines short, not reckoning widows who +re-marry. And more boys die than girls, so that the real +disproportion among adults is even greater." + +"I know," said Mr Manning, "I know these Dreadful Statistics. I +know there's a sort of right in your impatience at the slowness +of Progress. But tell me one thing I don't understand--tell me +one thing: How can you help it by coming down into the battle +and the mire? That's the thing that concerns me." + +"Oh, I'm not trying to help it," said Ann Veronica. "I'm only +arguing against your position of what a woman should be, and +trying to get it clear in my own mind. I'm in this apartment and +looking for work because-- Well, what else can I do, when my +father practically locks me up?" + +"I know," said Mr. Manning, "I know. Don't think I can't +sympathize and understand. Still, here we are in this dingy, +foggy city. Ye gods! what a wilderness it is! Every one trying +to get the better of every one, every one regardless of every +one--it's one of those days when every one bumps against +you--every one pouring coal smoke into the air and making +confusion worse confounded, motor omnibuses clattering and +smelling, a horse down in the Tottenham Court Road, an old woman +at the corner coughing dreadfully--all the painful sights of a +great city, and here you come into it to take your chances. It's +too valiant, Miss Stanley, too valiant altogether!" + +Ann Veronica meditated. She had had two days of +employment-seeking now. "I wonder if it is." + +"It isn't," said Mr. Manning, "that I mind Courage in a Woman--I +love and admire Courage. What could be more splendid than a +beautiful girl facing a great, glorious tiger? Una and the Lion +again, and all that! But this isn't that sort of thing; this is +just a great, ugly, endless wilderness of selfish, sweating, +vulgar competition!" + +"That you want to keep me out of?" + +"Exactly!" said Mr. Manning. + +"In a sort of beautiful garden-close--wearing lovely dresses and +picking beautiful flowers?" + +"Ah! If one could!" + +"While those other girls trudge to business and those other women +let lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close +resolves itself into a villa at Morningside Park and my father +being more and more cross and overbearing at meals--and a general +feeling of insecurity and futility." + +Mr. Manning relinquished his cup, and looked meaningly at Ann +Veronica. "There," he said, "you don't treat me fairly, Miss +Stanley. My garden-close would be a better thing than that." + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +IDEALS AND A REALITY + + +Part 1 + + +And now for some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value +in the world. She went about in a negligent November London that +had become very dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, +and tried to find that modest but independent employment she had +so rashly assumed. She went about, intent-looking and +self-possessed, trim and fine, concealing her emotions whatever +they were, as the realities of her position opened out before +her. Her little bed-sitting-room was like a lair, and she went +out from it into this vast, dun world, with its smoke-gray +houses, its glaring streets of shops, its dark streets of homes, +its orange-lit windows, under skies of dull copper or muddy gray +or black, much as an animal goes out to seek food. She would +come back and write letters, carefully planned and written +letters, or read some book she had fetched from Mudie's--she had +invested a half-guinea with Mudie's--or sit over her fire and +think. + +Slowly and reluctantly she came to realize that Vivie Warren was +what is called an "ideal." There were no such girls and no such +positions. No work that offered was at all of the quality she +had vaguely postulated for herself. With such qualifications as +she possessed, two chief channels of employment lay open, and +neither attracted her, neither seemed really to offer a +conclusive escape from that subjection to mankind against which, +in the person of her father, she was rebelling. One main avenue +was for her to become a sort of salaried accessory wife or +mother, to be a governess or an assistant schoolmistress, or a +very high type of governess-nurse. The other was to go into +business --into a photographer's reception-room, for example, or +a costumer's or hat-shop. The first set of occupations seemed to +her to be altogether too domestic and restricted; for the latter +she was dreadfully handicapped by her want of experience. And +also she didn't like them. She didn't like the shops, she didn't +like the other women's faces; she thought the smirking men in +frock-coats who dominated these establishments the most +intolerable persons she had ever had to face. One called her +very distinctly "My dear!" + +Two secretarial posts did indeed seem to offer themselves in +which, at least, there was no specific exclusion of womanhood; +one was under a Radical Member of Parliament, and the other under +a Harley Street doctor, and both men declined her proffered +services with the utmost civility and admiration and terror. +There was also a curious interview at a big hotel with a +middle-aged, white-powdered woman, all covered with jewels and +reeking of scent, who wanted a Companion. She did not think Ann +Veronica would do as her companion. + +And nearly all these things were fearfully ill-paid. They carried +no more than bare subsistence wages; and they demanded all her +time and energy. She had heard of women journalists, women +writers, and so forth; but she was not even admitted to the +presence of the editors she demanded to see, and by no means sure +that if she had been she could have done any work they might have +given her. One day she desisted from her search and went +unexpectedly to the Tredgold College. Her place was not filled; +she had been simply noted as absent, and she did a comforting day +of admirable dissection upon the tortoise. She was so +interested, and this was such a relief from the trudging anxiety +of her search for work, that she went on for a whole week as if +she was still living at home. Then a third secretarial opening +occurred and renewed her hopes again: a position as +amanuensis--with which some of the lighter duties of a nurse were +combined--to an infirm gentleman of means living at Twickenham, +and engaged upon a great literary research to prove that the +"Faery Queen" was really a treatise upon molecular chemistry +written in a peculiar and picturesquely handled cipher. + + + +Part 2 + + +Now, while Ann Veronica was taking these soundings in the +industrial sea, and measuring herself against the world as it is, +she was also making extensive explorations among the ideas and +attitudes of a number of human beings who seemed to be largely +concerned with the world as it ought to be. She was drawn first +by Miss Miniver, and then by her own natural interest, into a +curious stratum of people who are busied with dreams of world +progress, of great and fundamental changes, of a New Age that is +to replace all the stresses and disorders of contemporary life. + +Miss Miniver learned of her flight and got her address from the +Widgetts. She arrived about nine o'clock the next evening in a +state of tremulous enthusiasm. She followed the landlady half way +up-stairs, and called up to Ann Veronica, "May I come up? It's +me! You know--Nettie Miniver!" She appeared before Ann Veronica +could clearly recall who Nettie Miniver might be. + +There was a wild light in her eye, and her straight hair was out +demonstrating and suffragetting upon some independent notions of +its own. Her fingers were bursting through her gloves, as if to +get at once into touch with Ann Veronica. "You're Glorious!" +said Miss Miniver in tones of rapture, holding a hand in each of +hers and peering up into Ann Veronica's face. "Glorious! You're +so calm, dear, and so resolute, so serene! + +"It's girls like you who will show them what We are," said Miss +Miniver; "girls whose spirits have not been broken!" + +Ann Veronica sunned herself a little in this warmth. + +"I was watching you at Morningside Park, dear," said Miss +Miniver. "I am getting to watch all women. I thought then +perhaps you didn't care, that you were like so many of them. NOW +it's just as though you had grown up suddenly." + +She stopped, and then suggested: "I wonder--I should love--if it +was anything _I_ said." + +She did not wait for Ann Veronica's reply. She seemed to assume +that it must certainly be something she had said. "They all +catch on," she said. "It spreads like wildfire. This is such a +grand time! Such a glorious time! There never was such a time +as this! Everything seems so close to fruition, so coming on and +leading on! The Insurrection of Women! They spring up +everywhere. Tell me all that happened, one sister-woman to +another." + +She chilled Ann Veronica a little by that last phrase, and yet +the magnetism of her fellowship and enthusiasm was very strong; +and it was pleasant to be made out a heroine after so much +expostulation and so many secret doubts. + +But she did not listen long; she wanted to talk. She sat, +crouched together, by the corner of the hearthrug under the +bookcase that supported the pig's skull, and looked into the fire +and up at Ann Veronica's face, and let herself go. "Let us put +the lamp out," she said; "the flames are ever so much better for +talking," and Ann Veronica agreed. "You are coming right out +into life--facing it all." + +Ann Veronica sat with her chin on her hand, red-lit and saying +little, and Miss Miniver discoursed. As she talked, the drift +and significance of what she was saying shaped itself slowly to +Ann Veronica's apprehension. It presented itself in the likeness +of a great, gray, dull world--a brutal, superstitious, confused, +and wrong-headed world, that hurt people and limited people +unaccountably. In remote times and countries its evil tendencies +had expressed themselves in the form of tyrannies, massacres, +wars, and what not; but just at present in England they shaped as +commercialism and competition, silk hats, suburban morals, the +sweating system, and the subjection of women. So far the thing +was acceptable enough. But over against the world Miss Miniver +assembled a small but energetic minority, the Children of +Light--people she described as "being in the van," or "altogether +in the van," about whom Ann Veronica's mind was disposed to be +more sceptical. + +Everything, Miss Miniver said, was "working up," everything was +"coming on"--the Higher Thought, the Simple Life, Socialism, +Humanitarianism, it was all the same really. She loved to be +there, taking part in it all, breathing it, being it. Hitherto +in the world's history there had been precursors of this Progress +at great intervals, voices that had spoken and ceased, but now it +was all coming on together in a rush. She mentioned, with +familiar respect, Christ and Buddha and Shelley and Nietzsche and +Plato. Pioneers all of them. Such names shone brightly in the +darkness, with black spaces of unilluminated emptiness about +them, as stars shine in the night; but now--now it was different; +now it was dawn--the real dawn. + +"The women are taking it up," said Miss Miniver; "the women and +the common people, all pressing forward, all roused." + +Ann Veronica listened with her eyes on the fire. + +"Everybody is taking it up," said Miss Miniver. "YOU had to come +in. You couldn't help it. Something drew you. Something draws +everybody. From suburbs, from country towns--everywhere. I see +all the Movements. As far as I can, I belong to them all. I keep +my finger on the pulse of things." + +Ann Veronica said nothing. + +"The dawn!" said Miss Miniver, with her glasses reflecting the +fire like pools of blood-red flame. + +"I came to London," said Ann Veronica, "rather because of my own +difficulty. I don't know that I understand altogether." + +"Of course you don't," said Miss Miniver, gesticulating +triumphantly with her thin hand and thinner wrist, and patting +Ann Veronica's knee. "Of course you don't. That's the wonder of +it. But you will, you will. You must let me take you to +things--to meetings and things, to conferences and talks. Then +you will begin to see. You will begin to see it all opening out. +I am up to the ears in it all--every moment I can spare. I throw +up work--everything! I just teach in one school, one good +school, three days a week. All the rest--Movements! I can live +now on fourpence a day. Think how free that leaves me to follow +things up! I must take you everywhere. I must take you to the +Suffrage people, and the Tolstoyans, and the Fabians." + +"I have heard of the Fabians," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's THE Society!" said Miss Miniver. "It's the centre of the +intellectuals. Some of the meetings are wonderful! Such +earnest, beautiful women! Such deep-browed men! . . . And to +think that there they are making history! There they are putting +together the plans of a new world. Almos light-heartedly. There +is Shaw, and Webb, and Wilkins the author, and Toomer, and Doctor +Tumpany--the most wonderful people! There you see them +discussing, deciding, planning! Just think--THEY ARE MAKING A NEW +WORLD!" + +"But ARE these people going to alter everything?" said Ann +Veronica. + +"What else can happen?" asked Miss Miniver, with a little weak +gesture at the glow. "What else can possibly happen--as things +are going now?" + + + +Part 3 + + +Miss Miniver let Ann Veronica into her peculiar levels of the +world with so enthusiastic a generosity that it seemed +ingratitude to remain critical. Indeed, almost insensibly Ann +Veronica became habituated to the peculiar appearance and the +peculiar manners of the people "in the van." The shock of their +intellectual attitude was over, usage robbed it of the first +quaint effect of deliberate unreason. They were in many respects +so right; she clung to that, and shirked more and more the +paradoxical conviction that they were also somehow, and even in +direct relation to that rightness, absurd. + +Very central in Miss Miniver's universe were the Goopes. The +Goopes were the oddest little couple conceivable, following a +fruitarian career upon an upper floor in Theobald's Road. They +were childless and servantless, and they had reduced simple +living to the finest of fine arts. Mr. Goopes, Ann Veronica +gathered, was a mathematical tutor and visited schools, and his +wife wrote a weekly column in New Ideas upon vegetarian cookery, +vivisection, degeneration, the lacteal secretion, appendicitis, +and the Higher Thought generally, and assisted in the management +of a fruit shop in the Tottenham Court Road. Their very +furniture had mysteriously a high-browed quality, and Mr. Goopes +when at home dressed simply in a pajama-shaped suit of canvas +sacking tied with brown ribbons, while his wife wore a purple +djibbah with a richly embroidered yoke. He was a small, dark, +reserved man, with a large inflexible-looking convex forehead, +and his wife was very pink and high-spirited, with one of those +chins that pass insensibly into a full, strong neck. Once a +week, every Saturday, they had a little gathering from nine till +the small hours, just talk and perhaps reading aloud and +fruitarian refreshments--chestnut sandwiches buttered with nut +tose, and so forth--and lemonade and unfermented wine; and to one +of these symposia Miss Miniver after a good deal of preliminary +solicitude, conducted Ann Veronica. + +She was introduced, perhaps a little too obviously for her taste, +as a girl who was standing out against her people, to a gathering +that consisted of a very old lady with an extremely wrinkled skin +and a deep voice who was wearing what appeared to Ann Veronica's +inexperienced eye to be an antimacassar upon her head, a shy, +blond young man with a narrow forehead and glasses, two +undistinguished women in plain skirts and blouses, and a +middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. and Mrs. +Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. These +were seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very +copper-adorned fireplace, surmounted by a carved wood +inscription: + + "DO IT NOW." + +And to them were presently added a roguish-looking young man, +with reddish hair, an orange tie, and a fluffy tweed suit, and +others who, in Ann Veronica's memory, in spite of her efforts to +recall details, remained obstinately just "others." + +The talk was animated, and remained always brilliant in form even +when it ceased to be brilliant in substance. There were moments +when Ann Veronica rather more than suspected the chief speakers +to be, as school-boys say, showing off at her. + +They talked of a new substitute for dripping in vegetarian +cookery that Mrs. Goopes was convinced exercised an exceptionally +purifying influence on the mind. And then they talked of +Anarchism and Socialism, and whether the former was the exact +opposite of the latter or only a higher form. The reddish-haired +young man contributed allusions to the Hegelian philosophy that +momentarily confused the discussion. Then Alderman Dunstable, +who had hitherto been silent, broke out into speech and went off +at a tangent, and gave his personal impressions of quite a number +of his fellow-councillors. He continued to do this for the rest +of the evening intermittently, in and out, among other topics. He +addressed himself chiefly to Goopes, and spoke as if in reply to +long-sustained inquiries on the part of Goopes into the personnel +of the Marylebone Borough Council. "If you were to ask me," he +would say, "I should say Blinders is straight. An ordinary type, +of course--" + +Mrs. Dunstable's contributions to the conversation were entirely +in the form of nods; whenever Alderman Dunstable praised or +blamed she nodded twice or thrice, according to the requirements +of his emphasis. And she seemed always to keep one eye on Ann +Veronica's dress. Mrs. Goopes disconcerted the Alderman a little +by abruptly challenging the roguish-looking young man in the +orange tie (who, it seemed, was the assistant editor of New +Ideas) upon a critique of Nietzsche and Tolstoy that had appeared +in his paper, in which doubts had been cast upon the perfect +sincerity of the latter. Everybody seemed greatly concerned about +the sincerity of Tolstoy. + +Miss Miniver said that if once she lost her faith in Tolstoy's +sincerity, nothing she felt would really matter much any more, +and she appealed to Ann Veronica whether she did not feel the +same; and Mr. Goopes said that we must distinguish between +sincerity and irony, which was often indeed no more than +sincerity at the sublimated level. + +Alderman Dunstable said that sincerity was often a matter of +opportunity, and illustrated the point to the fair young man with +an anecdote about Blinders on the Dust Destructor Committee, +during which the young man in the orange tie succeeded in giving +the whole discussion a daring and erotic flavor by questioning +whether any one could be perfectly sincere in love. + +Miss Miniver thought that there was no true sincerity except in +love, and appealed to Ann Veronica, but the young man in the +orange tie went on to declare that it was quite possible to be +sincerely in love with two people at the same time, although +perhaps on different planes with each individual, and deceiving +them both. But that brought Mrs. Goopes down on him with the +lesson Titian teaches so beautifully in his "Sacred and Profane +Love," and became quite eloquent upon the impossibility of any +deception in the former. + +Then they discoursed on love for a time, and Alderman Dunstable, +turning back to the shy, blond young man and speaking in +undertones of the utmost clearness, gave a brief and confidential +account of an unfounded rumor of the bifurcation of the +affections of Blinders that had led to a situation of some +unpleasantness upon the Borough Council. + +The very old lady in the antimacassar touched Ann Veronica's arm +suddenly, and said, in a deep, arch voice: + +"Talking of love again; spring again, love again. Oh! you young +people!" + +The young man with the orange tie, in spite of Sisyphus-like +efforts on the part of Goopes to get the topic on to a higher +plane, displayed great persistence in speculating upon the +possible distribution of the affections of highly developed +modern types. + +The old lady in the antimacassar said, abruptly, "Ah! you young +people, you young people, if you only knew!" and then laughed and +then mused in a marked manner; and the young man with the narrow +forehead and glasses cleared his throat and asked the young man +in the orange tie whether he believed that Platonic love was +possible. Mrs. Goopes said she believed in nothing else, and +with that she glanced at Ann Veronica, rose a little abruptly, +and directed Goopes and the shy young man in the handing of +refreshments. + +But the young man with the orange tie remained in his place, +disputing whether the body had not something or other which he +called its legitimate claims. And from that they came back by way +of the Kreutzer Sonata and Resurrection to Tolstoy again. + +So the talk went on. Goopes, who had at first been a little +reserved, resorted presently to the Socratic method to restrain +the young man with the orange tie, and bent his forehead over +him, and brought out at last very clearly from him that the body +was only illusion and everything nothing but just spirit and +molecules of thought. It became a sort of duel at last between +them, and all the others sat and listened--every one, that is, +except the Alderman, who had got the blond young man into a +corner by the green-stained dresser with the aluminum things, and +was sitting with his back to every one else, holding one hand +over his mouth for greater privacy, and telling him, with an +accent of confidential admission, in whispers of the chronic +struggle between the natural modesty and general inoffensiveness +of the Borough Council and the social evil in Marylebone. + +So the talk went on, and presently they were criticising +novelists, and certain daring essays of Wilkins got their due +share of attention, and then they were discussing the future of +the theatre. Ann Veronica intervened a little in the novelist +discussion with a defence of Esmond and a denial that the Egoist +was obscure, and when she spoke every one else stopped talking +and listened. Then they deliberated whether Bernard Shaw ought +to go into Parliament. And that brought them to vegetarianism +and teetotalism, and the young man in the orange tie and Mrs. +Goopes had a great set-to about the sincerity of Chesterton and +Belloc that was ended by Goopes showing signs of resuming the +Socratic method. + +And at last Ann Veronica and Miss Miniver came down the dark +staircase and out into the foggy spaces of the London squares, +and crossed Russell Square, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, making +an oblique route to Ann Veronica's lodging. They trudged along a +little hungry, because of the fruitarian refreshments, and +mentally very active. And Miss Miniver fell discussing whether +Goopes or Bernard Shaw or Tolstoy or Doctor Tumpany or Wilkins +the author had the more powerful and perfect mind in existence at +the present time. She was clear there were no other minds like +them in all the world. + + + +Part 4 + + +Then one evening Ann Veronica went with Miss Miniver into the +back seats of the gallery at Essex Hall, and heard and saw the +giant leaders of the Fabian Society who are re-making the world: +Bernard Shaw and Toomer and Doctor Tumpany and Wilkins the +author, all displayed upon a platform. The place was crowded, +and the people about her were almost equally made up of very +good-looking and enthusiastic young people and a great variety of +Goopes-like types. In the discussion there was the oddest +mixture of things that were personal and petty with an idealist +devotion that was fine beyond dispute. In nearly every speech +she heard was the same implication of great and necessary changes +in the world--changes to be won by effort and sacrifice indeed, +but surely to be won. And afterward she saw a very much larger +and more enthusiastic gathering, a meeting of the advanced +section of the woman movement in Caxton Hall, where the same note +of vast changes in progress sounded; and she went to a soiree of +the Dress Reform Association and visited a Food Reform +Exhibition, where imminent change was made even alarmingly +visible. The women's meeting was much more charged with +emotional force than the Socialists'. Ann Veronica was carried +off her intellectual and critical feet by it altogether, and +applauded and uttered cries that subsequent reflection failed to +endorse. "I knew you would feel it," said Miss Miniver, as they +came away flushed and heated. "I knew you would begin to see how +it all falls into place together." + +It did begin to fall into place together. She became more and +more alive, not so much to a system of ideas as to a big diffused +impulse toward change, to a great discontent with and criticism +of life as it is lived, to a clamorous confusion of ideas for +reconstruction--reconstruction of the methods of business, of +economic development, of the rules of property, of the status of +children, of the clothing and feeding and teaching of every one; +she developed a quite exaggerated consciousness of a multitude of +people going about the swarming spaces of London with their minds +full, their talk and gestures full, their very clothing charged +with the suggestion of the urgency of this pervasive project of +alteration. Some indeed carried themselves, dressed themselves +even, rather as foreign visitors from the land of "Looking +Backward" and "News from Nowhere" than as the indigenous +Londoners they were. For the most part these were detached +people: men practising the plastic arts, young writers, young men +in employment, a very large proportion of girls and women--self- +supporting women or girls of the student class. They made a +stratum into which Ann Veronica was now plunged up to her neck; +it had become her stratum. + +None of the things they said and did were altogether new to Ann +Veronica, but now she got them massed and alive, instead of by +glimpses or in books--alive and articulate and insistent. The +London backgrounds, in Bloomsbury and Marylebone, against which +these people went to and fro, took on, by reason of their gray +facades, their implacably respectable windows and window-blinds, +their reiterated unmeaning iron railings, a stronger and stronger +suggestion of the flavor of her father at his most obdurate +phase, and of all that she felt herself fighting against. + +She was already a little prepared by her discursive reading and +discussion under the Widgett influence for ideas and "movements," +though temperamentally perhaps she was rather disposed to resist +and criticise than embrace them. But the people among whom she +was now thrown through the social exertions of Miss Miniver and +the Widgetts--for Teddy and Hetty came up from Morningside Park +and took her to an eighteen-penny dinner in Soho and introduced +her to some art students, who were also Socialists, and so opened +the way to an evening of meandering talk in a studio--carried +with them like an atmosphere this implication, not only that the +world was in some stupid and even obvious way WRONG, with which +indeed she was quite prepared to agree, but that it needed only a +few pioneers to behave as such and be thoroughly and +indiscriminately "advanced," for the new order to achieve itself. + +When ninety per cent. out of the ten or twelve people one meets +in a month not only say but feel and assume a thing, it is very +hard not to fall into the belief that the thing is so. +Imperceptibly almost Ann Veronica began to acquire the new +attitude, even while her mind still resisted the felted ideas +that went with it. And Miss Miniver began to sway her. + +The very facts that Miss Miniver never stated an argument +clearly, that she was never embarrassed by a sense of +self-contradiction, and had little more respect for consistency +of statement than a washerwoman has for wisps of vapor, which +made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at their first encounter +in Morningside Park, became at last with constant association the +secret of Miss Miniver's growing influence. The brain tires of +resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently +active, the same phrases, the same ideas that it has already +slain, exposed and dissected and buried, it becomes less and less +energetic to repeat the operation. There must be something, one +feels, in ideas that achieve persistently a successful +resurrection. What Miss Miniver would have called the Higher +Truth supervenes. + +Yet through these talks, these meetings and conferences, these +movements and efforts, Ann Veronica, for all that she went with +her friend, and at times applauded with her enthusiastically, yet +went nevertheless with eyes that grew more and more puzzled, and +fine eyebrows more and more disposed to knit. She was with these +movements--akin to them, she felt it at times intensely--and yet +something eluded her. Morningside Park had been passive and +defective; all this rushed about and was active, but it was still +defective. It still failed in something. It did seem germane to +the matter that so many of the people "in the van" were plain +people, or faded people, or tired-looking people. It did affect +the business that they all argued badly and were egotistical in +their manners and inconsistent in their phrases. There were +moments when she doubted whether the whole mass of movements and +societies and gatherings and talks was not simply one coherent +spectacle of failure protecting itself from abjection by the +glamour of its own assertions. It happened that at the extremest +point of Ann Veronica's social circle from the Widgetts was the +family of the Morningside Park horse-dealer, a company of +extremely dressy and hilarious young women, with one equestrian +brother addicted to fancy waistcoats, cigars, and facial spots. +These girls wore hats at remarkable angles and bows to startle +and kill; they liked to be right on the spot every time and up to +everything that was it from the very beginning and they rendered +their conception of Socialists and all reformers by the words +"positively frightening" and "weird." Well, it was beyond +dispute that these words did convey a certain quality of the +Movements in general amid which Miss Miniver disported herself. +They WERE weird. And yet for all that-- + +It got into Ann Veronica's nights at last and kept her awake, the +perplexing contrast between the advanced thought and the advanced +thinker. The general propositions of Socialism, for example, +struck her as admirable, but she certainly did not extend her +admiration to any of its exponents. She was still more stirred +by the idea of the equal citizenship of men and women, by the +realization that a big and growing organization of women were +giving form and a generalized expression to just that personal +pride, that aspiration for personal freedom and respect which had +brought her to London; but when she heard Miss Miniver +discoursing on the next step in the suffrage campaign, or read of +women badgering Cabinet Ministers, padlocked to railings, or +getting up in a public meeting to pipe out a demand for votes and +be carried out kicking and screaming, her soul revolted. She +could not part with dignity. Something as yet unformulated +within her kept her estranged from all these practical aspects of +her beliefs. + +"Not for these things, O Ann Veronica, have you revolted," it +said; "and this is not your appropriate purpose." + +It was as if she faced a darkness in which was something very +beautiful and wonderful as yet unimagined. The little pucker in +her brows became more perceptible. + + + +Part 5 + + +In the beginning of December Ann Veronica began to speculate +privately upon the procedure of pawning. She had decided that she +would begin with her pearl necklace. She spent a very +disagreeable afternoon and evening--it was raining fast outside, +and she had very unwisely left her soundest pair of boots in the +boothole of her father's house in Morningside Park--thinking over +the economic situation and planning a course of action. Her aunt +had secretly sent on to Ann Veronica some new warm underclothing, +a dozen pairs of stockings, and her last winter's jacket, but the +dear lady had overlooked those boots. + +These things illuminated her situation extremely. Finally she +decided upon a step that had always seemed reasonable to her, but +that hitherto she had, from motives too faint for her to +formulate, refrained from taking. She resolved to go into the +City to Ramage and ask for his advice. And next morning she +attired herself with especial care and neatness, found his +address in the Directory at a post-office, and went to him. + +She had to wait some minutes in an outer office, wherein three +young men of spirited costume and appearance regarded her with +ill-concealed curiosity and admiration. Then Ramage appeared +with effusion, and ushered her into his inner apartment. The +three young men exchanged expressive glances. + +The inner apartment was rather gracefully furnished with a thick, +fine Turkish carpet, a good brass fender, a fine old bureau, and +on the walls were engravings of two young girls' heads by Greuze, +and of some modern picture of boys bathing in a sunlit pool. + +"But this is a surprise!" said Ramage. "This is wonderful! I've +been feeling that you had vanished from my world. Have you been +away from Morningside Park?" + +"I'm not interrupting you?" + +"You are. Splendidly. Business exists for such interruptions. +There you are, the best client's chair." + +Ann Veronica sat down, and Ramage's eager eyes feasted on her. + +"I've been looking out for you," he said. "I confess it." + +She had not, she reflected, remembered how prominent his eyes +were. + +"I want some advice," said Ann Veronica. + +"Yes?" + +"You remember once, how we talked--at a gate on the Downs? We +talked about how a girl might get an independent living." + +"Yes, yes." + +"Well, you see, something has happened at home." + +She paused. + +"Nothing has happened to Mr. Stanley?" + +"I've fallen out with my father. It was about--a question of +what I might do or might not do. He--In fact, he--he locked me +in my room. Practically." + +Her breath left her for a moment. + +"I SAY!" said Mr. Ramage. + +"I wanted to go to an art-student ball of which he disapproved." + +"And why shouldn't you?" + +"I felt that sort of thing couldn't go on. So I packed up and +came to London next day." + +"To a friend?" + +"To lodgings--alone." + +"I say, you know, you have some pluck. You did it on your own?" + +Ann Veronica smiled. "Quite on my own," she said. + +"It's magnificent!" He leaned back and regarded her with his +head a little on one side. "By Jove!" he said, "there is +something direct about you. I wonder if I should have locked you +up if I'd been your father. Luckily I'm not. And you started out +forthwith to fight the world and be a citizen on your own basis?" +He came forward again and folded his hands under him on his desk. + +"How has the world taken it?" he asked. "If I was the world I +think I should have put down a crimson carpet, and asked you to +say what you wanted, and generally walk over me. But the world +didn't do that." + +"Not exactly." + +"It presented a large impenetrable back, and went on thinking +about something else." + +"It offered from fifteen to two-and-twenty shillings a week--for +drudgery." + +"The world has no sense of what is due to youth and courage. It +never has had." + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica. "But the thing is, I want a job." + +"Exactly! And so you came along to me. And you see, I don't +turn my back, and I am looking at you and thinking about you from +top to toe." + +"And what do you think I ought to do?" + +"Exactly!" He lifted a paper-weight and dabbed it gently down +again. "What ought you to do?" + +"I've hunted up all sorts of things." + +"The point to note is that fundamentally you don't want +particularly to do it." + +"I don't understand." + +"You want to be free and so forth, yes. But you don't +particularly want to do the job that sets you free--for its own +sake. I mean that it doesn't interest you in itself." + +"I suppose not." + +"That's one of our differences. We men are like children. We +can get absorbed in play, in games, in the business we do. +That's really why we do them sometimes rather well and get on. +But women--women as a rule don't throw themselves into things +like that. As a matter of fact it isn't their affair. And as a +natural consequence, they don't do so well, and they don't get +on--and so the world doesn't pay them. They don't catch on to +discursive interests, you see, because they are more serious, +they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a +little impatient of its--its outer aspects. At least that, I +think, is what makes a clever woman's independent career so much +more difficult than a clever man's." + +"She doesn't develop a specialty." Ann Veronica was doing her +best to follow him. + +"She has one, that's why. Her specialty is the central thing in +life, it is life itself, the warmth of life, sex--and love." + +He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with +his eyes on Ann Veronica's face. He had an air of having told +her a deep, personal secret. She winced as he thrust the fact at +her, was about to answer, and checked herself. She colored +faintly. + +"That doesn't touch the question I asked you," she said. "It may +be true, but it isn't quite what I have in mind." + +"Of course not," said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep +preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like +way upon the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made. +He displayed none of the airy optimism of their previous talk +over the downland gate. He was helpful, but gravely dubious. +"You see," he said, "from my point of view you're grown +up--you're as old as all the goddesses and the contemporary of +any man alive. But from the--the economic point of view you're a +very young and altogether inexperienced person." + +He returned to and developed that idea. "You're still," he said, +"in the educational years. From the point of view of most things +in the world of employment which a woman can do reasonably well +and earn a living by, you're unripe and half-educated. If you +had taken your degree, for example." + +He spoke of secretarial work, but even there she would need to be +able to do typing and shorthand. He made it more and more evident +to her that her proper course was not to earn a salary but to +accumulate equipment. "You see," he said, "you are like an +inaccessible gold-mine in all this sort of matter. You're +splendid stuff, you know, but you've got nothing ready to sell. +That's the flat business situation." + +He thought. Then he slapped his hand on his desk and looked up +with the air of a man struck by a brilliant idea. "Look here," +he said, protruding his eyes; "why get anything to do at all just +yet? Why, if you must be free, why not do the sensible thing? +Make yourself worth a decent freedom. Go on with your studies at +the Imperial College, for example, get a degree, and make +yourself good value. Or become a thorough-going typist and +stenographer and secretarial expert." + +"But I can't do that." + +"Why not?" + +"You see, if I do go home my father objects to the College, and +as for typing--" + +"Don't go home." + +"Yes, but you forget; how am I to live?" + +"Easily. Easily. . . . Borrow. . . . From me." + +"I couldn't do that," said Ann Veronica, sharply. + +"I see no reason why you shouldn't." + +"It's impossible." + +"As one friend to another. Men are always doing it, and if you +set up to be a man--" + +"No, it's absolutely out of the question, Mr. Ramage." And Ann +Veronica's face was hot. + +Ramage pursed his rather loose lips and shrugged his shoulders, +with his eyes fixed steadily upon her. "Well anyhow-- I don't +see the force of your objection, you know. That's my advice to +you. Here I am. Consider you've got resources deposited with +me. Perhaps at the first blush--it strikes you as odd. People +are brought up to be so shy about money. As though it was +indelicate--it's just a sort of shyness. But here I am to +draw upon. Here I am as an alternative either to nasty work--or +going home." + +"It's very kind of you--" began Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit. Just a friendly polite suggestion. I don't suggest +any philanthropy. I shall charge you five per cent., you know, +fair and square." + +Ann Veronica opened her lips quickly and did not speak. But the +five per cent. certainly did seem to improve the aspect of +Ramage's suggestion. + +"Well, anyhow, consider it open." He dabbed with his +paper-weight again, and spoke in an entirely indifferent tone. +"And now tell me, please, how you eloped from Morningside Park. +How did you get your luggage out of the house? Wasn't it--wasn't +it rather in some respects--rather a lark? It's one of my +regrets for my lost youth. I never ran away from anywhere with +anybody anywhen. And now--I suppose I should be considered too +old. I don't feel it. . . . Didn't you feel rather EVENTFUL--in +the train--coming up to Waterloo?" + + + +Part 6 + + +Before Christmas Ann Veronica had gone to Ramage again and +accepted this offer she had at first declined. + +Many little things had contributed to that decision. The chief +influence was her awakening sense of the need of money. She had +been forced to buy herself that pair of boots and a +walking-skirt, and the pearl necklace at the pawnbrokers' had +yielded very disappointingly. And, also, she wanted to borrow +that money. It did seem in so many ways exactly what Ramage said +it was--the sensible thing to do. There it was--to be borrowed. +It would put the whole adventure on a broader and better footing; +it seemed, indeed, almost the only possible way in which she +might emerge from her rebellion with anything like success. If +only for the sake of her argument with her home, she wanted +success. And why, after all, should she not borrow money from +Ramage? + +It was so true what he said; middle-class people WERE +ridiculously squeamish about money. Why should they be? + +She and Ramage were friends, very good friends. If she was in a +position to help him she would help him; only it happened to be +the other way round. He was in a position to help her. What was +the objection? + +She found it impossible to look her own diffidence in the face. +So she went to Ramage and came to the point almost at once. + +"Can you spare me forty pounds?" she said. + +Mr. Ramage controlled his expression and thought very quickly. + +"Agreed," he said, "certainly," and drew a checkbook toward him. + +"It's best," he said, "to make it a good round sum. + +"I won't give you a check though-- Yes, I will. I'll give you an +uncrossed check, and then you can get it at the bank here, quite +close by. . . . You'd better not have all the money on you; you +had better open a small account in the post-office and draw it +out a fiver at a time. That won't involve references, as a bank +account would--and all that sort of thing. The money will last +longer, and--it won't bother you." + +He stood up rather close to her and looked into her eyes. He +seemed to be trying to understand something very perplexing and +elusive. "It's jolly," he said, "to feel you have come to me. +It's a sort of guarantee of confidence. Last time--you made me +feel snubbed." + +He hesitated, and went off at a tangent. "There's no end of +things I'd like to talk over with you. It's just upon my +lunch-time. Come and have lunch with me." + +Ann Veronica fenced for a moment. "I don't want to take up your +time." + +"We won't go to any of these City places. They're just all men, +and no one is safe from scandal. But I know a little place where +we'll get a little quiet talk." + +Ann Veronica for some indefinable reason did not want to lunch +with him, a reason indeed so indefinable that she dismissed it, +and Ramage went through the outer office with her, alert and +attentive, to the vivid interest of the three clerks. The three +clerks fought for the only window, and saw her whisked into a +hansom. Their subsequent conversation is outside the scope of our +story. + +"Ritter's!" said Ramage to the driver, "Dean Street." + +It was rare that Ann Veronica used hansoms, and to be in one was +itself eventful and exhilarating. She liked the high, easy swing +of the thing over its big wheels, the quick clatter-patter of the +horse, the passage of the teeming streets. She admitted her +pleasure to Ramage. + +And Ritter's, too, was very amusing and foreign and discreet; a +little rambling room with a number of small tables, with red +electric light shades and flowers. It was an overcast day, +albeit not foggy, and the electric light shades glowed warmly, +and an Italian waiter with insufficient English took Ramage's +orders, and waited with an appearance of affection. Ann Veronica +thought the whole affair rather jolly. Ritter sold better food +than most of his compatriots, and cooked it better, and Ramage, +with a fine perception of a feminine palate, ordered Vero Capri. +It was, Ann Veronica felt, as a sip or so of that remarkable +blend warmed her blood, just the sort of thing that her aunt +would not approve, to be lunching thus, tete-a-tete with a man; +and yet at the same time it was a perfectly innocent as well as +agreeable proceeding. + +They talked across their meal in an easy and friendly manner +about Ann Veronica's affairs. He was really very bright and +clever, with a sort of conversational boldness that was just +within the limits of permissible daring. She described the +Goopes and the Fabians to him, and gave him a sketch of her +landlady; and he talked in the most liberal and entertaining way +of a modern young woman's outlook. He seemed to know a great +deal about life. He gave glimpses of possibilities. He roused +curiosities. He contrasted wonderfully with the empty +showing-off of Teddy. His friendship seemed a thing worth +having. . . . + +But when she was thinking it over in her room that evening vague +and baffling doubts came drifting across this conviction. She +doubted how she stood toward him and what the restrained gleam of +his face might signify. She felt that perhaps, in her desire to +play an adequate part in the conversation, she had talked rather +more freely than she ought to have done, and given him a wrong +impression of herself. + + + +Part 7 + + +That was two days before Christmas Eve. The next morning came a +compact letter from her father. + + +"MY DEAR DAUGHTER," it ran,--"Here, on the verge of the season of +forgiveness I hold out a last hand to you in the hope of a +reconciliation. I ask you, although it is not my place to ask +you, to return home. This roof is still open to you. You will +not be taunted if you return and everything that can be done will +be done to make you happy. + +"Indeed, I must implore you to return. This adventure of yours +has gone on altogether too long; it has become a serious distress +to both your aunt and myself. We fail altogether to understand +your motives in doing what you are doing, or, indeed, how you are +managing to do it, or what you are managing on. If you will +think only of one trifling aspect--the inconvenience it must be +to us to explain your absence--I think you may begin to realize +what it all means for us. I need hardly say that your aunt joins +with me very heartily in this request. + +"Please come home. You will not find me unreasonable with you. + + "Your affectionate + + "FATHER." + + +Ann Veronica sat over her fire with her father's note in her +hand. "Queer letters he writes," she said. "I suppose most +people's letters are queer. Roof open--like a Noah's Ark. I +wonder if he really wants me to go home. It's odd how little I +know of him, and of how he feels and what he feels." + +"I wonder how he treated Gwen." + +Her mind drifted into a speculation about her sister. "I ought to +look up Gwen," she said. "I wonder what happened." + +Then she fell to thinking about her aunt. "I would like to go +home," she cried, "to please her. She has been a dear. +Considering how little he lets her have." + +The truth prevailed. "The unaccountable thing is that I wouldn't +go home to please her. She is, in her way, a dear. One OUGHT to +want to please her. And I don't. I don't care. I can't even +make myself care." + +Presently, as if for comparison with her father's letter, she got +out Ramage's check from the box that contained her papers. For +so far she had kept it uncashed. She had not even endorsed it. + +"Suppose I chuck it," she remarked, standing with the mauve slip +in her hand--"suppose I chuck it, and surrender and go home! +Perhaps, after all, Roddy was right! + +"Father keeps opening the door and shutting it, but a time will +come-- + +"I could still go home!" + +She held Ramage's check as if to tear it across. "No," she said +at last; "I'm a human being--not a timid female. What could I do +at home? The other's a crumple-up--just surrender. Funk! I'll +see it out." + + + +CHAPTER THE EIGHTH + +BIOLOGY + + +Part 1 + + +January found Ann Veronica a student in the biological laboratory +of the Central Imperial College that towers up from among the +back streets in the angle between Euston Road and Great Portland +Street. She was working very steadily at the Advanced Course in +Comparative Anatomy, wonderfully relieved to have her mind +engaged upon one methodically developing theme in the place of +the discursive uncertainties of the previous two months, and +doing her utmost to keep right in the back of her mind and out of +sight the facts, firstly, that she had achieved this haven of +satisfactory activity by incurring a debt to Ramage of forty +pounds, and, secondly, that her present position was necessarily +temporary and her outlook quite uncertain. + +The biological laboratory had an atmosphere that was all its own. + +It was at the top of the building, and looked clear over a +clustering mass of inferior buildings toward Regent's Park. It +was long and narrow, a well-lit, well-ventilated, quiet gallery +of small tables and sinks, pervaded by a thin smell of methylated +spirit and of a mitigated and sterilized organic decay. Along +the inner side was a wonderfully arranged series of displayed +specimens that Russell himself had prepared. The supreme effect +for Ann Veronica was its surpassing relevance; it made every +other atmosphere she knew seem discursive and confused. The +whole place and everything in it aimed at one thing--to +illustrate, to elaborate, to criticise and illuminate, and make +ever plainer and plainer the significance of animal and vegetable +structure. It dealt from floor to ceiling and end to end with +the Theory of the Forms of Life; the very duster by the +blackboard was there to do its share in that work, the very +washers in the taps; the room was more simply concentrated in aim +even than a church. To that, perhaps, a large part of its +satisfyingness was due. Contrasted with the confused movement +and presences of a Fabian meeting, or the inexplicable enthusiasm +behind the suffrage demand, with the speeches that were partly +egotistical displays, partly artful manoeuvres, and partly +incoherent cries for unsoundly formulated ends, compared with the +comings and goings of audiences and supporters that were like the +eddy-driven drift of paper in the street, this long, quiet, +methodical chamber shone like a star seen through clouds. + +Day after day for a measured hour in the lecture-theatre, with +elaborate power and patience, Russell pieced together difficulty +and suggestion, instance and counter-instance, in the elaborate +construction of the family tree of life. And then the students +went into the long laboratory and followed out these facts in +almost living tissue with microscope and scalpel, probe and +microtome, and the utmost of their skill and care, making now and +then a raid into the compact museum of illustration next door, in +which specimens and models and directions stood in disciplined +ranks, under the direction of the demonstrator Capes. There was +a couple of blackboards at each end of the aisle of tables, and +at these Capes, with quick and nervous speech that contrasted +vividly with Russell's slow, definitive articulation, directed +the dissection and made illuminating comments on the structures +under examination. Then he would come along the laboratory, +sitting down by each student in turn, checking the work and +discussing its difficulties, and answering questions arising out +of Russell's lecture. + +Ann Veronica had come to the Imperial College obsessed by the +great figure of Russell, by the part he had played in the +Darwinian controversies, and by the resolute effect of the +grim-lipped, yellow, leonine face beneath the mane of silvery +hair. Capes was rather a discovery. Capes was something +superadded. Russell burned like a beacon, but Capes illuminated +by darting flashes and threw light, even if it was but momentary +light, into a hundred corners that Russell left steadfastly in +the shade. + +Capes was an exceptionally fair man of two or three-and-thirty, +so ruddily blond that it was a mercy he had escaped light +eyelashes, and with a minor but by no means contemptible +reputation of his own. He talked at the blackboard in a +pleasant, very slightly lisping voice with a curious spontaneity, +and was sometimes very clumsy in his exposition, and sometimes +very vivid. He dissected rather awkwardly and hurriedly, but, on +the whole, effectively, and drew with an impatient directness +that made up in significance what it lacked in precision. Across +the blackboard the colored chalks flew like flights of variously +tinted rockets as diagram after diagram flickered into being. + +There happened that year to be an unusual proportion of girls and +women in the advanced laboratory, perhaps because the class as a +whole was an exceptionally small one. It numbered nine, and four +of these were women students. As a consequence of its small +size, it was possible to get along with the work on a much easier +and more colloquial footing than a larger class would have +permitted. And a custom had grown up of a general tea at four +o'clock, under the auspices of a Miss Garvice, a tall and +graceful girl of distinguished intellectual incompetence, in whom +the hostess instinct seemed to be abnormally developed. + +Capes would come to these teas; he evidently liked to come, and +he would appear in the doorway of the preparation-room, a +pleasing note of shyness in his manner, hovering for an +invitation. + +From the first, Ann Veronica found him an exceptionally +interesting man. To begin with, he struck her as being the most +variable person she had ever encountered. At times he was +brilliant and masterful, talked round and over every one, and +would have been domineering if he had not been extraordinarily +kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, and defeated Miss +Garvice's most skilful attempts to draw him out. Sometimes he was +obviously irritable and uncomfortable and unfortunate in his +efforts to seem at ease. And sometimes he overflowed with a +peculiarly malignant wit that played, with devastating effect, +upon any topics that had the courage to face it. Ann Veronica's +experiences of men had been among more stable types--Teddy, who +was always absurd; her father, who was always authoritative and +sentimental; Manning, who was always Manning. And most of the +others she had met had, she felt, the same steadfastness. +Goopes, she was sure was always high-browed and slow and +Socratic. And Ramage too--about Ramage there would always be +that air of avidity, that air of knowledge and inquiry, the +mixture of things in his talk that were rather good with things +that were rather poor. But one could not count with any +confidence upon Capes. + +The five men students were a mixed company. There was a very +white-faced youngster of eighteen who brushed back his hair +exactly in Russell's manner, and was disposed to be uncomfortably +silent when he was near her, and to whom she felt it was only +Christian kindness to be consistently pleasant; and a lax young +man of five-and-twenty in navy blue, who mingled Marx and Bebel +with the more orthodox gods of the biological pantheon. There +was a short, red-faced, resolute youth who inherited an +authoritative attitude upon bacteriology from his father; a +Japanese student of unassuming manners who drew beautifully and +had an imperfect knowledge of English; and a dark, unwashed +Scotchman with complicated spectacles, who would come every +morning as a sort of volunteer supplementary demonstrator, look +very closely at her work and her, tell her that her dissections +were "fairish," or "very fairish indeed," or "high above the +normal female standard," hover as if for some outbreak of +passionate gratitude and with admiring retrospects that made the +facetted spectacles gleam like diamonds, return to his own place. + +The women, Ann Veronica thought, were not quite so interesting as +the men. There were two school-mistresses, one of whom--Miss +Klegg--might have been a first cousin to Miss Miniver, she had so +many Miniver traits; there was a preoccupied girl whose name Ann +Veronica never learned, but who worked remarkably well; and Miss +Garvice, who began by attracting her very greatly--she moved so +beautifully--and ended by giving her the impression that moving +beautifully was the beginning and end of her being. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next few weeks were a time of the very liveliest thought and +growth for Ann Veronica. The crowding impressions of the +previous weeks seemed to run together directly her mind left the +chaotic search for employment and came into touch again with a +coherent and systematic development of ideas. The advanced work +at the Central Imperial College was in the closest touch with +living interests and current controversies; it drew its +illustrations and material from Russell's two great +researches--upon the relation of the brachiopods to the +echinodermata, and upon the secondary and tertiary mammalian and +pseudo-mammalian factors in the free larval forms of various +marine organisms. Moreover, a vigorous fire of mutual criticism +was going on now between the Imperial College and the Cambridge +Mendelians and echoed in the lectures. From beginning to end it +was first-hand stuff. + +But the influence of the science radiated far beyond its own +special field--beyond those beautiful but highly technical +problems with which we do not propose for a moment to trouble the +naturally terrified reader. Biology is an extraordinarily +digestive science. It throws out a number of broad experimental +generalizations, and then sets out to bring into harmony or +relation with these an infinitely multifarious collection of +phenomena. The little streaks upon the germinating area of an +egg, the nervous movements of an impatient horse, the trick of a +calculating boy, the senses of a fish, the fungus at the root of +a garden flower, and the slime upon a sea-wet rock--ten thousand +such things bear their witness and are illuminated. And not only +did these tentacular generalizations gather all the facts of +natural history and comparative anatomy together, but they seemed +always stretching out further and further into a world of +interests that lay altogether outside their legitimate bounds. + +It came to Ann Veronica one night after a long talk with Miss +Miniver, as a sudden remarkable thing, as a grotesque, novel +aspect, that this slowly elaborating biological scheme had +something more than an academic interest for herself. And not +only so, but that it was after all, a more systematic and +particular method of examining just the same questions that +underlay the discussions of the Fabian Society, the talk of the +West Central Arts Club, the chatter of the studios and the deep, +the bottomless discussions of the simple-life homes. It was the +same Bios whose nature and drift and ways and methods and aspects +engaged them all. And she, she in her own person too, was this +eternal Bios, beginning again its recurrent journey to selection +and multiplication and failure or survival. + +But this was but a momentary gleam of personal application, and +at this time she followed it up no further. + +And now Ann Veronica's evenings were also becoming very busy. +She pursued her interest in the Socialist movement and in the +Suffragist agitation in the company of Miss Miniver. They went +to various central and local Fabian gatherings, and to a number +of suffrage meetings. Teddy Widgett hovered on the fringe of all +these gatherings, blinking at Ann Veronica and occasionally +making a wildly friendly dash at her, and carrying her and Miss +Miniver off to drink cocoa with a choice diversity of other +youthful and congenial Fabians after the meetings. Then Mr. +Manning loomed up ever and again into her world, full of a futile +solicitude, and almost always declaring she was splendid, +splendid, and wishing he could talk things out with her. Teas he +contributed to the commissariat of Ann Veronica's campaign--quite +a number of teas. He would get her to come to tea with him, +usually in a pleasant tea-room over a fruit-shop in Tottenham +Court Road, and he would discuss his own point of view and hint +at a thousand devotions were she but to command him. And he +would express various artistic sensibilities and aesthetic +appreciations in carefully punctuated sentences and a large, +clear voice. At Christmas he gave her a set of a small edition +of Meredith's novels, very prettily bound in flexible leather, +being guided in the choice of an author, as he intimated, rather +by her preferences than his own. + +There was something markedly and deliberately liberal-minded in +his manner in all their encounters. He conveyed not only his +sense of the extreme want of correctitude in their unsanctioned +meetings, but also that, so far as he was concerned, this +irregularity mattered not at all, that he had flung--and kept on +flinging --such considerations to the wind. + +And, in addition, she was now seeing and talking to Ramage almost +weekly, on a theory which she took very gravely, that they were +exceptionally friends. He would ask her to come to dinner with +him in some little Italian or semi-Bohemian restaurant in the +district toward Soho, or in one of the more stylish and +magnificent establishments about Piccadilly Circus, and for the +most part she did not care to refuse. Nor, indeed, did she want +to refuse. These dinners, from their lavish display of ambiguous +hors d'oeuvre to their skimpy ices in dishes of frilled paper, +with their Chianti flasks and Parmesan dishes and their polyglot +waiters and polyglot clientele, were very funny and bright; and +she really liked Ramage, and valued his help and advice. It was +interesting to see how different and characteristic his mode of +approach was to all sorts of questions that interested her, and +it was amusing to discover this other side to the life of a +Morningside Park inhabitant. She had thought that all +Morningside Park householders came home before seven at the +latest, as her father usually did. Ramage talked always about +women or some woman's concern, and very much about Ann Veronica's +own outlook upon life. He was always drawing contrasts between a +woman's lot and a man's, and treating her as a wonderful new +departure in this comparison. Ann Veronica liked their +relationship all the more because it was an unusual one. + +After these dinners they would have a walk, usually to the Thames +Embankment to see the two sweeps of river on either side of +Waterloo Bridge; and then they would part at Westminster Bridge, +perhaps, and he would go on to Waterloo. Once he suggested they +should go to a music-hall and see a wonderful new dancer, but Ann +Veronica did not feel she cared to see a new dancer. So, +instead, they talked of dancing and what it might mean in a human +life. Ann Veronica thought it was a spontaneous release of +energy expressive of well-being, but Ramage thought that by +dancing, men, and such birds and animals as dance, come to feel +and think of their bodies. + +This intercourse, which had been planned to warm Ann Veronica to +a familiar affection with Ramage, was certainly warming Ramage to +a constantly deepening interest in Ann Veronica. He felt that he +was getting on with her very slowly indeed, but he did not see +how he could get on faster. He had, he felt, to create certain +ideas and vivify certain curiosities and feelings in her. Until +that was done a certain experience of life assured him that a +girl is a locked coldness against a man's approach. She had all +the fascination of being absolutely perplexing in this respect. +On the one hand, she seemed to think plainly and simply, and +would talk serenely and freely about topics that most women have +been trained either to avoid or conceal; and on the other she was +unconscious, or else she had an air of being unconscious--that +was the riddle--to all sorts of personal applications that almost +any girl or woman, one might have thought, would have made. He +was always doing his best to call her attention to the fact that +he was a man of spirit and quality and experience, and she a +young and beautiful woman, and that all sorts of constructions +upon their relationship were possible, trusting her to go on from +that to the idea that all sorts of relationships were possible. +She responded with an unfaltering appearance of insensibility, +and never as a young and beautiful woman conscious of sex; always +in the character of an intelligent girl student. + +His perception of her personal beauty deepened and quickened with +each encounter. Every now and then her general presence became +radiantly dazzling in his eyes; she would appear in the street +coming toward him, a surprise, so fine and smiling and welcoming +was she, so expanded and illuminated and living, in contrast with +his mere expectation. Or he would find something--a wave in her +hair, a little line in the contour of her brow or neck, that made +an exquisite discovery. + +He was beginning to think about her inordinately. He would sit in +his inner office and compose conversations with her, penetrating, +illuminating, and nearly conclusive--conversations that never +proved to be of the slightest use at all with her when he met her +face to face. And he began also at times to wake at night and +think about her. + +He thought of her and himself, and no longer in that vein of +incidental adventure in which he had begun. He thought, too, of +the fretful invalid who lay in the next room to his, whose money +had created his business and made his position in the world. + +"I've had most of the things I wanted," said Ramage, in the +stillness of the night. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time Ann Veronica's family had desisted from direct offers +of a free pardon; they were evidently waiting for her resources +to come to an end. Neither father, aunt, nor brothers made a +sign, and then one afternoon in early February her aunt came up +in a state between expostulation and dignified resentment, but +obviously very anxious for Ann Veronica's welfare. "I had a dream +in the night," she said. "I saw you in a sort of sloping, +slippery place, holding on by your hands and slipping. You +seemed to me to be slipping and slipping, and your face was +white. It was really most vivid, most vivid! You seemed to be +slipping and just going to tumble and holding on. It made me +wake up, and there I lay thinking of you, spending your nights up +here all alone, and no one to look after you. I wondered what +you could be doing and what might be happening to you. I said to +myself at once, 'Either this is a coincidence or the caper +sauce.' But I made sure it was you. I felt I MUST do something +anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I could to see you." + +She had spoken rather rapidly. "I can't help saying it," she +said, with the quality of her voice altering, "but I do NOT think +it is right for an unprotected girl to be in London alone as you +are." + +"But I'm quite equal to taking care of myself, aunt." + +"It must be most uncomfortable here. It is most uncomfortable +for every one concerned." + +She spoke with a certain asperity. She felt that Ann Veronica +had duped her in that dream, and now that she had come up to +London she might as well speak her mind. + +"No Christmas dinner," she said, "or anything nice! One doesn't +even know what you are doing." + +"I'm going on working for my degree." + +"Why couldn't you do that at home?" + +"I'm working at the Imperial College. You see, aunt, it's the +only possible way for me to get a good degree in my subjects, and +father won't hear of it. There'd only be endless rows if I was at +home. And how could I come home--when he locks me in rooms and +all that?" + +"I do wish this wasn't going on," said Miss Stanley, after a +pause. "I do wish you and your father could come to some +agreement." + +Ann Veronica responded with conviction: "I wish so, too." + +"Can't we arrange something? Can't we make a sort of treaty?" + +"He wouldn't keep it. He would get very cross one evening and no +one would dare to remind him of it." + +"How can you say such things?" + +"But he would!" + +"Still, it isn't your place to say so." + +"It prevents a treaty." + +"Couldn't _I_ make a treaty?" + +Ann Veronica thought, and could not see any possible treaty that +would leave it open for her to have quasi-surreptitious dinners +with Ramage or go on walking round the London squares discussing +Socialism with Miss Miniver toward the small hours. She had +tasted freedom now, and so far she had not felt the need of +protection. Still, there certainly was something in the idea of +a treaty. + +"I don't see at all how you can be managing," said Miss Stanley, +and Ann Veronica hastened to reply, "I do on very little." Her +mind went back to that treaty. + +"And aren't there fees to pay at the Imperial College?" her aunt +was saying--a disagreeable question. + +"There are a few fees." + +"Then how have you managed?" + +"Bother!" said Ann Veronica to herself, and tried not to look +guilty. "I was able to borrow the money." + +"Borrow the money! But who lent you the money?" + +"A friend," said Ann Veronica. + +She felt herself getting into a corner. She sought hastily in +her mind for a plausible answer to an obvious question that +didn't come. Her aunt went off at a tangent. "But my dear Ann +Veronica, you will be getting into debt!" + +Ann Veronica at once, and with a feeling of immense relief, took +refuge in her dignity. "I think, aunt," she said, "you might +trust to my self-respect to keep me out of that." + +For the moment her aunt could not think of any reply to this +counterstroke, and Ann Veronica followed up her advantage by a +sudden inquiry about her abandoned boots. + +But in the train going home her aunt reasoned it out. + +"If she is borrowing money," said Miss Stanley, "she MUST be +getting into debt. It's all nonsense. . . ." + + + +Part 4 + + +It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in +Ann Veronica's thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, +at last, strides to something more and more like predominance. +She began by being interested in his demonstrations and his +biological theory, then she was attracted by his character, and +then, in a manner, she fell in love with his mind. + +One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion +sprang up about the question of women's suffrage. The movement +was then in its earlier militant phases, and one of the women +only, Miss Garvice, opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed +to be lukewarm. But a man's opposition always inclined her to +the suffrage side; she had a curious feeling of loyalty in seeing +the more aggressive women through. Capes was irritatingly +judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in which case +one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but tepidly +sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous +attack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost +something infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of +life. The discussion wandered, and was punctuated with bread and +butter. Capes was inclined to support Miss Klegg until Miss +Garvice cornered him by quoting him against himself, and citing a +recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in which, following +Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack on Lester +Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant +importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom. + +Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher; +she had a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice's advantage. +Afterwards she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed +to her quite delightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift +of easy, unaffected writing, coupled with very clear and logical +thinking, and to follow his written thought gave her the +sensation of cutting things with a perfectly new, perfectly sharp +knife. She found herself anxious to read more of him, and the +next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and hunted first +among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then through +various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The +ordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, +is apt to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was +delighted to find the same easy and confident luminosity that +distinguished his work for the general reader. She returned to +these latter, and at the back of her mind, as she looked them +over again, was a very distinct resolve to quote them after the +manner of Miss Garvice at the very first opportunity. + +When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with +something like surprise upon her half-day's employment, and +decided that it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was +a really very interesting person indeed. + +And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he +was so distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to +her for some time that this might be because she was falling in +love with him. + + + +Part 5 + + +Yet Ann Veronica was thinking a very great deal about love. A +dozen shynesses and intellectual barriers were being outflanked +or broken down in her mind. All the influences about her worked +with her own predisposition and against all the traditions of her +home and upbringing to deal with the facts of life in an +unabashed manner. Ramage, by a hundred skilful hints had led her +to realize that the problem of her own life was inseparably +associated with, and indeed only one special case of, the +problems of any woman's life, and that the problem of a woman's +life is love. + +"A young man comes into life asking how best he may place +himself," Ramage had said; "a woman comes into life thinking +instinctively how best she may give herself." + +She noted that as a good saying, and it germinated and spread +tentacles of explanation through her brain. The biological +laboratory, perpetually viewing life as pairing and breeding and +selection, and again pairing and breeding, seemed only a +translated generalization of that assertion. And all the talk of +the Miniver people and the Widgett people seemed always to be +like a ship in adverse weather on the lee shore of love. "For +seven years," said Ann Veronica, "I have been trying to keep +myself from thinking about love. . . . + +"I have been training myself to look askance at beautiful +things." + +She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She +made herself a private declaration of liberty. "This is mere +nonsense, mere tongue-tied fear!" she said. "This is the slavery +of the veiled life. I might as well be at Morningside Park. +This business of love is the supreme affair in life, it is the +woman's one event and crisis that makes up for all her other +restrictions, and I cower--as we all cower--with a blushing and +paralyzed mind until it overtakes me! . . . + +"I'll be hanged if I do." + +But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all that +manumission. + +Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing +for openings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. +But something instinctive prevented that, and with the finest +resolve not to be "silly" and prudish she found that whenever he +became at all bold in this matter she became severely scientific +and impersonal, almost entomological indeed, in her method; she +killed every remark as he made it and pinned it out for +examination. In the biological laboratory that was their +invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her own +mental austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her +friend, who evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic +and was willing to give her the benefit of his experiences! Why +should not she be at her ease with him? Why should not she know +things? It is hard enough anyhow for a human being to learn, she +decided, but it is a dozen times more difficult than it need be +because of all this locking of the lips and thoughts. + +She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in +one direction, and talked one night of love and the facts of love +with Miss Miniver. + +But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases +of Mrs. Goopes's: "Advanced people," she said, with an air of +great elucidation, "tend to GENERALIZE love. 'He prayeth best +who loveth best--all things both great and small.' For my own +part I go about loving." + +"Yes, but men;" said Ann Veronica, plunging; "don't you want the +love of men?" + +For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this +question. + +Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost +balefully. "NO!" she said, at last, with something in her voice +that reminded Ann Veronica of a sprung tennis-racket. + +"I've been through all that," she went on, after a pause. + +She spoke slowly. "I have never yet met a man whose intellect I +could respect." + +Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided +to persist on principle. + +"But if you had?" she said. + +"I can't imagine it," said Miss Miniver. "And think, think"--her +voice sank--"of the horrible coarseness!" + +"What coarseness?" said Ann Veronica. + +"My dear Vee!" Her voice became very low. "Don't you know?" + +"Oh! I know--" + +"Well--" Her face was an unaccustomed pink. + +Ann Veronica ignored her friend's confusion. + +"Don't we all rather humbug about the coarseness? All we women, I +mean," said she. She decided to go on, after a momentary halt. +"We pretend bodies are ugly. Really they are the most beautiful +things in the world. We pretend we never think of everything +that makes us what we are." + +"No," cried Miss Miniver, almost vehemently. "You are wrong! I +did not think you thought such things. Bodies! Bodies! Horrible +things! We are souls. Love lives on a higher plane. We are not +animals. If ever I did meet a man I could love, I should love +him" --her voice dropped again--"platonically." + +She made her glasses glint. "Absolutely platonically," she said. + +"Soul to soul." + +She turned her face to the fire, gripped her hands upon her +elbows, and drew her thin shoulders together in a shrug. "Ugh!" +she said. + +Ann Veronica watched her and wondered about her. + +"We do not want the men," said Miss Miniver; "we do not want +them, with their sneers and loud laughter. Empty, silly, coarse +brutes. Brutes! They are the brute still with us! Science some +day may teach us a way to do without them. It is only the women +matter. It is not every sort of creature needs--these males. Some +have no males." + +"There's green-fly," admitted Ann Veronica. "And even then--" + +The conversation hung for a thoughtful moment. + +Ann Veronica readjusted her chin on her hand. "I wonder which of +us is right," she said. "I haven't a scrap--of this sort of +aversion." + +"Tolstoy is so good about this," said Miss Miniver, regardless of +her friend's attitude. "He sees through it all. The Higher Life +and the Lower. He sees men all defiled by coarse thoughts, +coarse ways of living cruelties. Simply because they are +hardened by--by bestiality, and poisoned by the juices of meat +slain in anger and fermented drinks--fancy! drinks that have been +swarmed in by thousands and thousands of horrible little +bacteria!" + +"It's yeast," said Ann Veronica--"a vegetable." + +"It's all the same," said Miss Miniver. "And then they are +swollen up and inflamed and drunken with matter. They are +blinded to all fine and subtle things--they look at life with +bloodshot eyes and dilated nostrils. They are arbitrary and +unjust and dogmatic and brutish and lustful." + +"But do you really think men's minds are altered by the food they +eat?" + +"I know it," said Miss Miniver. "Experte credo. When I am +leading a true life, a pure and simple life free of all +stimulants and excitements, I think--I think --oh! with pellucid +clearness; but if I so much as take a mouthful of meat--or +anything--the mirror is all blurred." + + + +Part 6 + + +Then, arising she knew not how, like a new-born appetite, came a +craving in Ann Veronica for the sight and sound of beauty. + +It was as if her aesthetic sense had become inflamed. Her mind +turned and accused itself of having been cold and hard. She +began to look for beauty and discover it in unexpected aspects +and places. Hitherto she had seen it chiefly in pictures and +other works of art, incidentally, and as a thing taken out of +life. Now the sense of beauty was spreading to a multitude of +hitherto unsuspected aspects of the world about her. + +The thought of beauty became an obsession. It interwove with her +biological work. She found herself asking more and more +curiously, "Why, on the principle of the survival of the fittest, +have I any sense of beauty at all?" That enabled her to go on +thinking about beauty when it seemed to her right that she should +be thinking about biology. + +She was very greatly exercised by the two systems of values--the +two series of explanations that her comparative anatomy on the +one hand and her sense of beauty on the other, set going in her +thoughts. She could not make up her mind which was the finer, +more elemental thing, which gave its values to the other. Was it +that the struggle of things to survive produced as a sort of +necessary by-product these intense preferences and appreciations, +or was it that some mystical outer thing, some great force, drove +life beautyward, even in spite of expediency, regardless of +survival value and all the manifest discretions of life? She +went to Capes with that riddle and put it to him very carefully +and clearly, and he talked well--he always talked at some length +when she took a difficulty to him--and sent her to a various +literature upon the markings of butterflies, the incomprehensible +elaboration and splendor of birds of Paradise and humming-birds' +plumes, the patterning of tigers, and a leopard's spots. He was +interesting and inconclusive, and the original papers to which he +referred her discursive were at best only suggestive. Afterward, +one afternoon, he hovered about her, and came and sat beside her +and talked of beauty and the riddle of beauty for some time. He +displayed a quite unprofessional vein of mysticism in the matter. +He contrasted with Russell, whose intellectual methods were, so +to speak, sceptically dogmatic. Their talk drifted to the beauty +of music, and they took that up again at tea-time. + +But as the students sat about Miss Garvice's tea-pot and drank +tea or smoked cigarettes, the talk got away from Capes. The +Scotchman informed Ann Veronica that your view of beauty +necessarily depended on your metaphysical premises, and the young +man with the Russell-like hair became anxious to distinguish +himself by telling the Japanese student that Western art was +symmetrical and Eastern art asymmetrical, and that among the +higher organisms the tendency was toward an external symmetry +veiling an internal want of balance. Ann Veronica decided she +would have to go on with Capes another day, and, looking up, +discovered him sitting on a stool with his hands in his pockets +and his head a little on one side, regarding her with a +thoughtful expression. She met his eye for a moment in curious +surprise. + +He turned his eyes and stared at Miss Garvice like one who wakes +from a reverie, and then got up and strolled down the laboratory +toward his refuge, the preparation-room. + + + +Part 7 + + +Then one day a little thing happened that clothed itself in +significance. + +She had been working upon a ribbon of microtome sections of the +developing salamander, and he came to see what she had made of +them. She stood up and he sat down at the microscope, and for a +time he was busy scrutinizing one section after another. She +looked down at him and saw that the sunlight was gleaming from +his cheeks, and that all over his cheeks was a fine golden down +of delicate hairs. And at the sight something leaped within her. + +Something changed for her. + +She became aware of his presence as she had never been aware of +any human being in her life before. She became aware of the +modelling of his ear, of the muscles of his neck and the textures +of the hair that came off his brow, the soft minute curve of +eyelid that she could just see beyond his brow; she perceived all +these familiar objects as though they were acutely beautiful +things. They WERE, she realized, acutely beautiful things. Her +sense followed the shoulders under his coat, down to where his +flexible, sensitive-looking hand rested lightly upon the table. +She felt him as something solid and strong and trustworthy beyond +measure. The perception of him flooded her being. + +He got up. "Here's something rather good," he said, and with a +start and an effort she took his place at the microscope, while +he stood beside her and almost leaning over her. + +She found she was trembling at his nearness and full of a +thrilling dread that he might touch her. She pulled herself +together and put her eye to the eye-piece. + +"You see the pointer?" he asked. + +"I see the pointer," she said. + +"It's like this," he said, and dragged a stool beside her and sat +down with his elbow four inches from hers and made a sketch. +Then he got up and left her. + +She had a feeling at his departure as of an immense cavity, of +something enormously gone; she could not tell whether it was +infinite regret or infinite relief. . . . + +But now Ann Veronica knew what was the matter with her. + + + +Part 8 + + +And as she sat on her bed that night, musing and half-undressed, +she began to run one hand down her arm and scrutinize the soft +flow of muscle under her skin. She thought of the marvellous +beauty of skin, and all the delightfulness of living texture. Oh +the back of her arm she found the faintest down of hair in the +world. "Etherialized monkey," she said. She held out her arm +straight before her, and turned her hand this way and that. + +"Why should one pretend?" she whispered. "Why should one +pretend? + +"Think of all the beauty in the world that is covered up and +overlaid." + +She glanced shyly at the mirror above her dressing-table, and +then about her at the furniture, as though it might penetrate to +the thoughts that peeped in her mind. + +"I wonder," said Ann Veronica at last, "if I am beautiful? I +wonder if I shall ever shine like a light, like a translucent +goddess?-- + +"I wonder-- + +"I suppose girls and women have prayed for this, have come to +this-- In Babylon, in Nineveh. + +"Why shouldn't one face the facts of one's self?" + +She stood up. She posed herself before her mirror and surveyed +herself with gravely thoughtful, gravely critical, and yet +admiring eyes. "And, after all, I am just one common person!" + +She watched the throb of the arteries in the stem of her neck, +and put her hand at last gently and almost timidly to where her +heart beat beneath her breast. + + + +Part 9 + + +The realization that she was in love flooded Ann Veronica's mind, +and altered the quality of all its topics. + +She began to think persistently of Capes, and it seemed to her +now that for some weeks at least she must have been thinking +persistently of him unawares. She was surprised to find how +stored her mind was with impressions and memories of him, how +vividly she remembered his gestures and little things that he had +said. It occurred to her that it was absurd and wrong to be so +continuously thinking of one engrossing topic, and she made a +strenuous effort to force her mind to other questions. + +But it was extraordinary what seemingly irrelevant things could +restore her to the thought of Capes again. And when she went to +sleep, then always Capes became the novel and wonderful guest of +her dreams. + +For a time it really seemed all-sufficient to her that she should +love. That Capes should love her seemed beyond the compass of +her imagination. Indeed, she did not want to think of him as +loving her. She wanted to think of him as her beloved person, to +be near him and watch him, to have him going about, doing this +and that, saying this and that, unconscious of her, while she too +remained unconscious of herself. To think of him as loving her +would make all that different. Then he would turn his face to +her, and she would have to think of herself in his eyes. She +would become defensive--what she did would be the thing that +mattered. He would require things of her, and she would be +passionately concerned to meet his requirements. Loving was +better than that. Loving was self-forgetfulness, pure delighting +in another human being. She felt that with Capes near to her she +would be content always to go on loving. + +She went next day to the schools, and her world seemed all made +of happiness just worked up roughly into shapes and occasions and +duties. She found she could do her microscope work all the +better for being in love. She winced when first she heard the +preparation-room door open and Capes came down the laboratory; +but when at last he reached her she was self-possessed. She put +a stool for him at a little distance from her own, and after he +had seen the day's work he hesitated, and then plunged into a +resumption of their discussion about beauty. + +"I think," he said, "I was a little too mystical about beauty the +other day." + +"I like the mystical way," she said. + +"Our business here is the right way. I've been thinking, you +know-- I'm not sure that primarily the perception of beauty isn't +just intensity of feeling free from pain; intensity of perception +without any tissue destruction." + +"I like the mystical way better," said Ann Veronica, and thought. + +"A number of beautiful things are not intense." + +"But delicacy, for example, may be intensely perceived." + +"But why is one face beautiful and another not?" objected Ann +Veronica; "on your theory any two faces side by side in the +sunlight ought to be equally beautiful. One must get them with +exactly the same intensity." + +He did not agree with that. "I don't mean simply intensity of +sensation. I said intensity of perception. You may perceive +harmony, proportion, rhythm, intensely. They are things faint +and slight in themselves, as physical facts, but they are like +the detonator of a bomb: they let loose the explosive. There's +the internal factor as well as the external. . . . I don't know +if I express myself clearly. I mean that the point is that +vividness of perception is the essential factor of beauty; but, +of course, vividness may be created by a whisper." + +"That brings us back," said Ann Veronica, "to the mystery. Why +should some things and not others open the deeps?" + +"Well, that might, after all, be an outcome of selection --like +the preference for blue flowers, which are not nearly so bright +as yellow, of some insects." + +"That doesn't explain sunsets." + +"Not quite so easily as it explains an insect alighting on +colored paper. But perhaps if people didn't like clear, bright, +healthy eyes--which is biologically understandable--they couldn't +like precious stones. One thing may be a necessary collateral of +the others. And, after all, a fine clear sky of bright colors is +the signal to come out of hiding and rejoice and go on with +life." + +"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and shook her head. + +Capes smiled cheerfully with his eyes meeting hers. "I throw it +out in passing," he said. "What I am after is that beauty isn't +a special inserted sort of thing; that's my idea. It's just +life, pure life, life nascent, running clear and strong." + +He stood up to go on to the next student. + +"There's morbid beauty," said Ann Veronica. + +"I wonder if there is!" said Capes, and paused, and then bent +down over the boy who wore his hair like Russell. + +Ann Veronica surveyed his sloping back for a moment, and then +drew her microscope toward her. Then for a time she sat very +still. She felt that she had passed a difficult corner, and that +now she could go on talking with him again, just as she had been +used to do before she understood what was the matter with her. . +. . + +She had one idea, she found, very clear in her mind--that she +would get a Research Scholarship, and so contrive another year in +the laboratory. + +"Now I see what everything means," said Ann Veronica to herself; +and it really felt for some days as though the secret of the +universe, that had been wrapped and hidden from her so +obstinately, was at last altogether displayed. + + + +CHAPTER THE NINTH + +DISCORDS + +Part 1 + +One afternoon, soon after Ann Veronica's great discovery, a +telegram came into the laboratory for her. It ran: + + --------------------------------------------------- +| Bored | and | nothing | to | do | +|----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| +| will | you | dine | with | me | +|----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| +| to-night | somewhere | and | talk | I | +|----------|-----------|----------|--------|--------| +| shall | be | grateful | Ramage | | +--------------------------------------------------- + + +Ann Veronica was rather pleased by this. She had not seen Ramage +for ten or eleven days, and she was quite ready for a gossip with +him. And now her mind was so full of the thought that she was in +love--in love!--that marvellous state! that I really believe she +had some dim idea of talking to him about it. At any rate, it +would be good to hear him saying the sort of things he +did--perhaps now she would grasp them better--with this +world--shaking secret brandishing itself about inside her head +within a yard of him. + +She was sorry to find Ramage a little disposed to be melancholy. + +"I have made over seven hundred pounds in the last week," he +said. + +"That's exhilarating," said Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit of it," he said; "it's only a score in a game." + +"It's a score you can buy all sorts of things with." + +"Nothing that one wants." + +He turned to the waiter, who held a wine-card. "Nothing can cheer +me," he said, "except champagne." He meditated. "This," he said, +and then: "No! Is this sweeter? Very well." + +"Everything goes well with me," he said, folding his arms under +him and regarding Ann Veronica with the slightly projecting eyes +wide open. "And I'm not happy. I believe I'm in love." + +He leaned back for his soup. + +Presently he resumed: "I believe I must be in love." + +"You can't be that," said Ann Veronica, wisely. + +"How do you know?" + +"Well, it isn't exactly a depressing state, is it?" + +"YOU don't know." + +"One has theories," said Ann Veronica, radiantly. + +"Oh, theories! Being in love is a fact." + +"It ought to make one happy." + +"It's an unrest--a longing-- What's that?" The waiter had +intervened. "Parmesan--take it away!" + +He glanced at Ann Veronica's face, and it seemed to him that she +really was exceptionally radiant. He wondered why she thought +love made people happy, and began to talk of the smilax and pinks +that adorned the table. He filled her glass with champagne. +"You MUST," he said, "because of my depression." + +They were eating quails when they returned to the topic of love. +"What made you think" he said, abruptly, with the gleam of +avidity in his face, "that love makes people happy?" + +"I know it must." + +"But how?" + +He was, she thought, a little too insistent. "Women know these +things by instinct," she answered. + +"I wonder," he said, "if women do know things by instinct? I +have my doubts about feminine instinct. It's one of our +conventional superstitions. A woman is supposed to know when a +man is in love with her. Do you think she does?" + +Ann Veronica picked among her salad with a judicial expression of +face. "I think she would," she decided. + +"Ah!" said Ramage, impressively. + +Ann Veronica looked up at him and found him regarding her with +eyes that were almost woebegone, and into which, indeed, he was +trying to throw much more expression than they could carry. +There was a little pause between them, full for Ann Veronica of +rapid elusive suspicions and intimations. + +"Perhaps one talks nonsense about a woman's instinct," she said. +"It's a way of avoiding explanations. And girls and women, +perhaps, are different. I don't know. I don't suppose a girl +can tell if a man is in love with her or not in love with her." +Her mind went off to Capes. Her thoughts took words for +themselves. "She can't. I suppose it depends on her own state of +mind. If one wants a thing very much, perhaps one is inclined to +think one can't have it. I suppose if one were to love some one, +one would feel doubtful. And if one were to love some one very +much, it's just so that one would be blindest, just when one +wanted most to see." + +She stopped abruptly, afraid that Ramage might be able to infer +Capes from the things she had said, and indeed his face was very +eager. + +"Yes?" he said. + +Ann Veronica blushed. "That's all," she said "I'm afraid I'm a +little confused about these things." + +Ramage looked at her, and then fell into deep reflection as the +waiter came to paragraph their talk again. + +"Have you ever been to the opera, Ann Veronica?" said Ramage. + +"Once or twice." + +"Shall we go now?" + +"I think I would like to listen to music. What is there?" + +"Tristan." + +"I've never heard Tristan and Isolde." + +"That settles it. We'll go. There's sure to be a place +somewhere." + +"It's rather jolly of you," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's jolly of you to come," said Ramage. + +So presently they got into a hansom together, and Ann Veronica +sat back feeling very luxurious and pleasant, and looked at the +light and stir and misty glitter of the street traffic from under +slightly drooping eyelids, while Ramage sat closer to her than he +need have done, and glanced ever and again at her face, and made +to speak and said nothing. And when they got to Covent Garden +Ramage secured one of the little upper boxes, and they came into +it as the overture began. + +Ann Veronica took off her jacket and sat down in the corner +chair, and leaned forward to look into the great hazy warm brown +cavity of the house, and Ramage placed his chair to sit beside +her and near her, facing the stage. The music took hold of her +slowly as her eyes wandered from the indistinct still ranks of +the audience to the little busy orchestra with its quivering +violins, its methodical movements of brown and silver +instruments, its brightly lit scores and shaded lights. She had +never been to the opera before except as one of a congested mass +of people in the cheaper seats, and with backs and heads and +women's hats for the frame of the spectacle; there was by +contrast a fine large sense of space and ease in her present +position. The curtain rose out of the concluding bars of the +overture and revealed Isolde on the prow of the barbaric ship. +The voice of the young seaman came floating down from the +masthead, and the story of the immortal lovers had begun. She +knew the story only imperfectly, and followed it now with a +passionate and deepening interest. The splendid voices sang on +from phase to phase of love's unfolding, the ship drove across +the sea to the beating rhythm of the rowers. The lovers broke +into passionate knowledge of themselves and each other, and then, +a jarring intervention, came King Mark amidst the shouts of the +sailormen, and stood beside them. + +The curtain came festooning slowly down, the music ceased, the +lights in the auditorium glowed out, and Ann Veronica woke out of +her confused dream of involuntary and commanding love in a glory +of sound and colors to discover that Ramage was sitting close +beside her with one hand resting lightly on her waist. She made a +quick movement, and the hand fell away. + +"By God! Ann Veronica," he said, sighing deeply. "This stirs +one." + +She sat quite still looking at him. + +"I wish you and I had drunk that love potion," he said. + +She found no ready reply to that, and he went on: "This music is +the food of love. It makes me desire life beyond measure. Life! + +Life and love! It makes me want to be always young, always +strong, always devoting my life--and dying splendidly." + +"It is very beautiful," said Ann Veronica in a low tone. + +They said no more for a moment, and each was now acutely aware of +the other. Ann Veronica was excited and puzzled, with a sense of +a strange and disconcerting new light breaking over her relations +with Ramage. She had never thought of him at all in that way +before. It did not shock her; it amazed her, interested her +beyond measure. But also this must not go on. She felt he was +going to say something more--something still more personal and +intimate. She was curious, and at the same time clearly resolved +she must not hear it. She felt she must get him talking upon some +impersonal theme at any cost. She snatched about in her mind. +"What is the exact force of a motif?" she asked at random. +"Before I heard much Wagnerian music I heard enthusiastic +descriptions of it from a mistress I didn't like at school. She +gave me an impression of a sort of patched quilt; little bits of +patterned stuff coming up again and again." + +She stopped with an air of interrogation. + +Ramage looked at her for a long and discriminating interval +without speaking. He seemed to be hesitating between two courses +of action. "I don't know much about the technique of music," he +said at last, with his eyes upon her. "It's a matter of feeling +with me." + +He contradicted himself by plunging into an exposition of motifs. + +By a tacit agreement they ignored the significant thing between +them, ignored the slipping away of the ground on which they had +stood together hitherto. . . . + +All through the love music of the second act, until the hunting +horns of Mark break in upon the dream, Ann Veronica's +consciousness was flooded with the perception of a man close +beside her, preparing some new thing to say to her, preparing, +perhaps, to touch her, stretching hungry invisible tentacles +about her. She tried to think what she should do in this +eventuality or that. Her mind had been and was full of the +thought of Capes, a huge generalized Capes-lover. And in some +incomprehensible way, Ramage was confused with Capes; she had a +grotesque disposition to persuade herself that this was really +Capes who surrounded her, as it were, with wings of desire. The +fact that it was her trusted friend making illicit love to her +remained, in spite of all her effort, an insignificant thing in +her mind. The music confused and distracted her, and made her +struggle against a feeling of intoxication. Her head swam. That +was the inconvenience of it; her head was swimming. The music +throbbed into the warnings that preceded the king's irruption. + +Abruptly he gripped her wrist. "I love you, Ann Veronica. I +love you--with all my heart and soul." + +She put her face closer to his. She felt the warm nearness of +his. "DON'T!" she said, and wrenched her wrist from his +retaining hand. + +"My God! Ann Veronica," he said, struggling to keep his hold +upon her; "my God! Tell me--tell me now--tell me you love me!" + +His expression was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered +in whispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next +box peeping beyond the partition within a yard of him. + +"My hand! This isn't the place." + +He released her hand and talked in eager undertones against an +auditory background of urgency and distress. + +"Ann Veronica," he said, "I tell you this is love. I love the +soles of your feet. I love your very breath. I have tried not to +tell you--tried to be simply your friend. It is no good. I want +you. I worship you. I would do anything--I would give anything +to make you mine. . . . Do you hear me? Do you hear what I am +saying? . . . Love!" + +He held her arm and abandoned it again at her quick defensive +movement. For a long time neither spoke again. + +She sat drawn together in her chair in the corner of the box, at +a loss what to say or do--afraid, curious, perplexed. It seemed +to her that it was her duty to get up and clamor to go home to +her room, to protest against his advances as an insult. But she +did not in the least want to do that. These sweeping dignities +were not within the compass of her will; she remembered she liked +Ramage, and owed things to him, and she was interested--she was +profoundly interested. He was in love with her! She tried to +grasp all the welter of values in the situation simultaneously, +and draw some conclusion from their disorder. + +He began to talk again in quick undertones that she could not +clearly hear. + +"I have loved you," he was saying, "ever since you sat on that +gate and talked. I have always loved you. I don't care what +divides us. I don't care what else there is in the world. I +want you beyond measure or reckoning. . . ." + +His voice rose and fell amidst the music and the singing of +Tristan and King Mark, like a voice heard in a badly connected +telephone. She stared at his pleading face. + +She turned to the stage, and Tristan was wounded in Kurvenal's +arms, with Isolde at his feet, and King Mark, the incarnation of +masculine force and obligation, the masculine creditor of love +and beauty, stood over him, and the second climax was ending in +wreaths and reek of melodies; and then the curtain was coming +down in a series of short rushes, the music had ended, and the +people were stirring and breaking out into applause, and the +lights of the auditorium were resuming. The lighting-up pierced +the obscurity of the box, and Ramage stopped his urgent flow of +words abruptly and sat back. This helped to restore Ann +Veronica's self-command. + +She turned her eyes to him again, and saw her late friend and +pleasant and trusted companion, who had seen fit suddenly to +change into a lover, babbling interesting inacceptable things. +He looked eager and flushed and troubled. His eyes caught at +hers with passionate inquiries. "Tell me," he said; "speak to +me." She realized it was possible to be sorry for him--acutely +sorry for the situation. Of course this thing was absolutely +impossible. But she was disturbed, mysteriously disturbed. She +remembered abruptly that she was really living upon his money. +She leaned forward and addressed him. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, "please don't talk like this." + +He made to speak and did not. + +"I don't want you to do it, to go on talking to me. I don't want +to hear you. If I had known that you had meant to talk like this +I wouldn't have come here." + +"But how can I help it? How can I keep silence?" + +"Please!" she insisted. "Please not now." + +"I MUST talk with you. I must say what I have to say!" + +"But not now--not here." + +"It came," he said. "I never planned it-- And now I have +begun--" + +She felt acutely that he was entitled to explanations, and as +acutely that explanations were impossible that night. She wanted +to think. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, "I can't-- Not now. Will you please-- +Not now, or I must go." + +He stared at her, trying to guess at the mystery of her thoughts. + +"You don't want to go?" + +"No. But I must--I ought--" + +"I MUST talk about this. Indeed I must." + +"Not now." + +"But I love you. I love you--unendurably." + +"Then don't talk to me now. I don't want you to talk to me now. +There is a place-- This isn't the place. You have misunderstood. + +I can't explain--" + +They regarded one another, each blinded to the other. "Forgive +me," he decided to say at last, and his voice had a little quiver +of emotion, and he laid his hand on hers upon her knee. "I am +the most foolish of men. I was stupid--stupid and impulsive +beyond measure to burst upon you in this way. I--I am a love- +sick idiot, and not accountable for my actions. Will you forgive +me--if I say no more?" + +She looked at him with perplexed, earnest eyes. + +"Pretend," he said, "that all I have said hasn't been said. And +let us go on with our evening. Why not? Imagine I've had a fit +of hysteria--and that I've come round." + +"Yes," she said, and abruptly she liked him enormously. She felt +this was the sensible way out of this oddly sinister situation. + +He still watched her and questioned her. + +"And let us have a talk about this--some other time. Somewhere, +where we can talk without interruption. Will you?" + +She thought, and it seemed to him she had never looked so +self-disciplined and deliberate and beautiful. "Yes," she said, +"that is what we ought to do." But now she doubted again of the +quality of the armistice they had just made. + +He had a wild impulse to shout. "Agreed," he said with queer +exaltation, and his grip tightened on her hand. "And to-night we +are friends?" + +"We are friends," said Ann Veronica, and drew her hand quickly +away from him. + +"To-night we are as we have always been. Except that this music +we have been swimming in is divine. While I have been pestering +you, have you heard it? At least, you heard the first act. And +all the third act is love-sick music. Tristan dying and Isolde +coming to crown his death. Wagner had just been in love when he +wrote it all. It begins with that queer piccolo solo. Now I +shall never hear it but what this evening will come pouring back +over me." + +The lights sank, the prelude to the third act was beginning, the +music rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers +separated--lovers separated with scars and memories between them, +and the curtain went reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded +on his couch and the shepherd crouching with his pipe. + + + +Part 2 + + +They had their explanations the next evening, but they were +explanations in quite other terms than Ann Veronica had +anticipated, quite other and much more startling and illuminating +terms. Ramage came for her at her lodgings, and she met him +graciously and kindly as a queen who knows she must needs give +sorrow to a faithful liege. She was unusually soft and gentle in +her manner to him. He was wearing a new silk hat, with a +slightly more generous brim than its predecessor, and it suited +his type of face, robbed his dark eyes a little of their +aggressiveness and gave him a solid and dignified and benevolent +air. A faint anticipation of triumph showed in his manner and a +subdued excitement. + +"We'll go to a place where we can have a private room," he said. +"Then--then we can talk things out." + +So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and +up-stairs to a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with +whiskers like a French admiral and discretion beyond all limits +in his manner. He seemed to have expected them. He ushered them +with an amiable flat hand into a minute apartment with a little +gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa, and a bright little +table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers. + +"Odd little room," said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that +obtrusive sofa. + +"One can talk without undertones, so to speak," said Ramage. +"It's--private." He stood looking at the preparations before +them with an unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself +to take her jacket, a little awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter +who hung it in the corner of the room. It appeared he had +already ordered dinner and wine, and the whiskered waiter waved +in his subordinate with the soup forthwith. + +"I'm going to talk of indifferent themes," said Ramage, a little +fussily, "until these interruptions of the service are over. +Then--then we shall be together. . . . How did you like Tristan?" + +Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply +came. + +"I thought much of it amazingly beautiful." + +"Isn't it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest +little love-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of +it?" + +"Never." + +"It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. +You get this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and +unfortunately in love with a wealthy patroness, and then out of +his brain comes THIS, a tapestry of glorious music, setting out +love to lovers, lovers who love in spite of all that is wise and +respectable and right." + +Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink from +conversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through +her mind. "I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so +careless of other considerations?" + +"The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief +thing in life." He stopped and said earnestly: "It is the chief +thing in life, and everything else goes down before it. +Everything, my dear, everything! . . . But we have got to talk +upon indifferent themes until we have done with this blond young +gentleman from Bavaria. . . ." + +The dinner came to an end at last, and the whiskered waiter +presented his bill and evacuated the apartment and closed the +door behind him with an almost ostentatious discretion. Ramage +stood up, and suddenly turned the key in the door in an off-hand +manner. "Now," he said, "no one can blunder in upon us. We are +alone and we can say and do what we please. We two." He stood +still, looking at her. + +Ann Veronica tried to seem absolutely unconcerned. The turning of +the key startled her, but she did not see how she could make an +objection. She felt she had stepped into a world of unknown +usages. + +"I have waited for this," he said, and stood quite still, looking +at her until the silence became oppressive. + +"Won't you sit down," she said, "and tell me what you want to +say?" Her voice was flat and faint. Suddenly she had become +afraid. She struggled not to be afraid. After all, what could +happen? + +He was looking at her very hard and earnestly. "Ann Veronica," he +said. + +Then before she could say a word to arrest him he was at her +side. "Don't!" she said, weakly, as he had bent down and put one +arm about her and seized her hands with his disengaged hand and +kissed her--kissed her almost upon her lips. He seemed to do ten +things before she could think to do one, to leap upon her and +take possession. + +Ann Veronica's universe, which had never been altogether so +respectful to her as she could have wished, gave a shout and +whirled head over heels. Everything in the world had changed for +her. If hate could kill, Ramage would have been killed by a +flash of hate. "Mr. Ramage!" she cried, and struggled to her +feet. + +"My darling!" he said, clasping her resolutely in his arms, "my +dearest!" + +"Mr. Ramage!" she began, and his mouth sealed hers and his breath +was mixed with her breath. Her eye met his four inches away, and +his was glaring, immense, and full of resolution, a stupendous +monster of an eye. + +She shut her lips hard, her jaw hardened, and she set herself to +struggle with him. She wrenched her head away from his grip and +got her arm between his chest and hers. They began to wrestle +fiercely. Each became frightfully aware of the other as a +plastic energetic body, of the strong muscles of neck against +cheek, of hands gripping shoulder-blade and waist. "How dare +you!" she panted, with her world screaming and grimacing insult +at her. "How dare you!" + +They were both astonished at the other's strength. Perhaps Ramage +was the more astonished. Ann Veronica had been an ardent hockey +player and had had a course of jiu-jitsu in the High School. Her +defence ceased rapidly to be in any sense ladylike, and became +vigorous and effective; a strand of black hair that had escaped +its hairpins came athwart Ramage's eyes, and then the knuckles of +a small but very hardly clinched fist had thrust itself with +extreme effectiveness and painfulness under his jawbone and ear. + +"Let go!" said Ann Veronica, through her teeth, strenuously +inflicting agony, and he cried out sharply and let go and receded +a pace. + +"NOW!" said Ann Veronica. "Why did you dare to do that?" + + + +Part 3 + + +Each of them stared at the other, set in a universe that had +changed its system of values with kaleidoscopic completeness. +She was flushed, and her eyes were bright and angry; her breath +came sobbing, and her hair was all abroad in wandering strands of +black. He too was flushed and ruffled; one side of his collar had +slipped from its stud and he held a hand to the corner of his +jaw. + +"You vixen!" said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought +of his heart. + +"You had no right--" panted Ann Veronica. + +"Why on earth," he asked, "did you hurt me like that?" + +Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately +attempted to cause him pain. She ignored his question. + +"I never dreamt!" she said. + +"What on earth did you expect me to do, then?" he asked. + + + +Part 4 + + +Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; she +understood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She +understood. She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of +furtive base realizations. She wanted to cry out upon herself for +the uttermost fool in existence. + +"I thought you wanted to have a talk to me," she said. + +"I wanted to make love to you. + +"You knew it," he added, in her momentary silence. + +"You said you were in love with me," said Ann Veronica; "I wanted +to explain--" + +"I said I loved and wanted you." The brutality of his first +astonishment was evaporating. "I am in love with you. You know +I am in love with you. And then you go--and half throttle me. . +. . I believe you've crushed a gland or something. It feels +like it." + +"I am sorry," said Ann Veronica. "What else was I to do?" + +For some seconds she stood watching him. and both were thinking +very quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether +discreditable to her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed +to faint and scream at all these happenings; she ought to have +maintained a front of outraged dignity to veil the sinking of her +heart. I would like to have to tell it so. But indeed that is +not at all a good description of her attitude. She was an +indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted within +limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some +low adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at +least if base, going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent +meeting-places of her mind declaring that the whole affair was +after all--they are the only words that express it--a very great +lark indeed. At the bottom of her heart she was not a bit afraid +of Ramage. She had unaccountable gleams of sympathy with and +liking for him. And the grotesquest fact was that she did not so +much loathe, as experience with a quite critical condemnation +this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before had any +human being kissed her lips. . . . + +It was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements +evaporated and vanished and loathing came, and she really began +to be thoroughly sick and ashamed of the whole disgraceful +quarrel and scuffle. + +He, for his part, was trying to grasp the series of unexpected +reactions that had so wrecked their tete-a-tete. He had meant to +be master of his fate that evening and it had escaped him +altogether. It had, as it were, blown up at the concussion of +his first step. It dawned upon him that he had been abominably +used by Ann Veronica. + +"Look here," he said, "I brought you here to make love to you." + +"I didn't understand--your idea of making love. You had better +let me go again." + +"Not yet," he said. "I do love you. I love you all the more for +the streak of sheer devil in you. . . . You are the most +beautiful, the most desirable thing I have ever met in this +world. It was good to kiss you, even at the price. But, by +Jove! you are fierce! You are like those Roman women who carry +stilettos in their hair." + +"I came here to talk reasonably, Mr. Ramage. It is abominable--" + +"What is the use of keeping up this note of indignation, Ann +Veronica? Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean +to have you! Don't frown me off now. Don't go back into +Victorian respectability and pretend you don't know and you can't +think and all the rest of it. One comes at last to the step from +dreams to reality. This is your moment. No one will ever love +you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of your body and you +night after night. I have been imaging--" + +"Mr. Ramage, I came here-- I didn't suppose for one moment you +would dare--" + +"Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You +want to do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses. +You are afraid of the warmth in your blood. It's just because +all that side of your life hasn't fairly begun." + +He made a step toward her. + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, sharply, "I have to make it plain to you. +I don't think you understand. I don't love you. I don't. I +can't love you. I love some one else. It is repulsive. It +disgusts me that you should touch me." + +He stared in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. "You +love some one else?" he repeated. + +"I love some one else. I could not dream of loving you." + +And then he flashed his whole conception of the relations of men +and women upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went +with an almost instinctive inquiry to his jawbone again. "Then +why the devil," he demanded, "do you let me stand you dinners and +the opera--and why do you come to a cabinet particulier with me?" + +He became radiant with anger. "You mean to tell me" he said, +"that you have a lover? While I have been keeping you! +Yes--keeping you!" + +This view of life he hurled at her as if it were an offensive +missile. It stunned her. She felt she must fly before it and +could no longer do so. She did not think for one moment what +interpretation he might put upon the word "lover." + +"Mr. Ramage," she said, clinging to her one point, "I want to get +out of this horrible little room. It has all been a mistake. I +have been stupid and foolish. Will you unlock that door?" + +"Never!" he said. "Confound your lover! Look here! Do you +really think I am going to run you while he makes love to you? +No fear! I never heard of anything so cool. If he wants you, +let him get you. You're mine. I've paid for you and helped you, +and I'm going to conquer you somehow--if I have to break you to +do it. Hitherto you've seen only my easy, kindly side. But now +confound it! how can you prevent it? I will kiss you." + +"You won't!" said Ann Veronica; with the clearest note of +determination. + +He seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped back +quickly, and her hand knocked a wine-glass from the table to +smash noisily on the floor. She caught at the idea. "If you +come a step nearer to me," she said, "I will smash every glass on +this table." + +"Then, by God!" he said, "you'll be locked up!" + +Ann Veronica was disconcerted for a moment. She had a vision of +policemen, reproving magistrates, a crowded court, public +disgrace. She saw her aunt in tears, her father white-faced and +hard hit. "Don't come nearer!" she said. + +There was a discreet knocking at the door, and Ramage's face +changed. + +"No," she said, under her breath, "you can't face it." And she +knew that she was safe. + +He went to the door. "It's all right," he said, reassuringly to +the inquirer without. + +Ann Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and +dishevelled disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of +her hair, while Ramage parleyed with inaudible interrogations. +"A glass slipped from the table," he explained. . . . "Non. Fas +du tout. Non. . . . Niente. . . . Bitte! . . . Oui, dans la +note. . . . Presently. Presently." That conversation ended and +he turned to her again. + +"I am going," she said grimly, with three hairpins in her mouth. + +She took her hat from the peg in the corner and began to put it +on. He regarded that perennial miracle of pinning with wrathful +eyes. + +"Look here, Ann Veronica," he began. "I want a plain word with +you about all this. Do you mean to tell me you didn't understand +why I wanted you to come here?" + +"Not a bit of it," said Ann Veronica stoutly. + +"You didn't expect that I should kiss you?" + +"How was I to know that a man would--would think it was +possible--when there was nothing--no love?" + +"How did I know there wasn't love?" + +That silenced her for a moment. "And what on earth," he said, +"do you think the world is made of? Why do you think I have been +doing things for you? The abstract pleasure of goodness? Are +you one of the members of that great white sisterhood that takes +and does not give? The good accepting woman! Do you really +suppose a girl is entitled to live at free quarters on any man +she meets without giving any return?" + +"I thought," said Ann Veronica, "you were my friend." + +"Friend! What have a man and a girl in common to make them +friends? Ask that lover of yours! And even with friends, would +you have it all Give on one side and all Take on the other? . . . +Does HE know I keep you? . . . You won't have a man's lips near +you, but you'll eat out of his hand fast enough." + +Ann Veronica was stung to helpless anger. + +"Mr. Ramage," she cried, "you are outrageous! You understand +nothing. You are--horrible. Will you let me go out of this +room?" + +"No," cried Ramage; "hear me out! I'll have that satisfaction, +anyhow. You women, with your tricks of evasion, you're a sex of +swindlers. You have all the instinctive dexterity of parasites. +You make yourself charming for help. You climb by disappointing +men. This lover of yours--" + +"He doesn't know!" cried Ann Veronica. + +"Well, you know." + +Ann Veronica could have wept with vexation. Indeed, a note of +weeping broke her voice for a moment as she burst out, "You know +as well as I do that money was a loan!" + +"Loan!" + +"You yourself called it a loan!" + +"Euphuism. We both understood that." + +"You shall have every penny of it back." + +"I'll frame it--when I get it." + +"I'll pay you if I have to work at shirt-making at threepence an +hour." + +"You'll never pay me. You think you will. It's your way of +glossing over the ethical position. It's the sort of way a woman +always does gloss over her ethical positions. You're all +dependents--all of you. By instinct. Only you good ones--shirk. +You shirk a straightforward and decent return for what you get +from us--taking refuge in purity and delicacy and such-like when +it comes to payment." + +"Mr. Ramage," said Ann Veronica, "I want to go--NOW!" + + + +Part 5 + + +But she did not get away just then. + +Ramage's bitterness passed as abruptly as his aggression. "Oh, +Ann Veronica!" he cried, "I cannot let you go like this! You +don't understand. You can't possibly understand!" + +He began a confused explanation, a perplexing contradictory +apology for his urgency and wrath. He loved Ann Veronica, he +said; he was so mad to have her that he defeated himself, and did +crude and alarming and senseless things. His vicious abusiveness +vanished. He suddenly became eloquent and plausible. He did make +her perceive something of the acute, tormenting desire for her +that had arisen in him and possessed him. She stood, as it were, +directed doorward, with her eyes watching every movement, +listening to him, repelled by him and yet dimly understanding. + +At any rate he made it very clear that night that there was an +ineradicable discord in life, a jarring something that must +shatter all her dreams of a way of living for women that would +enable them to be free and spacious and friendly with men, and +that was the passionate predisposition of men to believe that the +love of women can be earned and won and controlled and compelled. + +He flung aside all his talk of help and disinterested friendship +as though it had never been even a disguise between them, as +though from the first it was no more than a fancy dress they had +put quite understandingly upon their relationship. He had set +out to win her, and she had let him start. And at the thought of +that other lover--he was convinced that that beloved person was a +lover, and she found herself unable to say a word to explain to +him that this other person, the person she loved, did not even +know of her love--Ramage grew angry and savage once more, and +returned suddenly to gibe and insult. Men do services for the +love of women, and the woman who takes must pay. Such was the +simple code that displayed itself in all his thoughts. He left +that arid rule clear of the least mist of refinement or delicacy. + +That he should pay forty pounds to help this girl who preferred +another man was no less in his eyes than a fraud and mockery that +made her denial a maddening and outrageous disgrace to him. And +this though he was evidently passionately in love with her. + +For a while he threatened her. "You have put all your life in my +hands," he declared. "Think of that check you endorsed. There +it is--against you. I defy you to explain it away. What do you +think people will make of that? What will this lover of yours +make of that?" + +At intervals Ann Veronica demanded to go, declaring her undying +resolve to repay him at any cost, and made short movements +doorward. + +But at last this ordeal was over, and Ramage opened the door. +She emerged with a white face and wide-open eyes upon a little, +red-lit landing. She went past three keenly observant and +ostentatiously preoccupied waiters down the thick-carpeted +staircase and out of the Hotel Rococo, that remarkable laboratory +of relationships, past a tall porter in blue and crimson, into a +cool, clear night. + + + +Part 6 + + +When Ann Veronica reached her little bed-sitting-room again, +every nerve in her body was quivering with shame and +self-disgust. + +She threw hat and coat on the bed and sat down before the fire. + +"And now," she said, splintering the surviving piece of coal into +indignant flame-spurting fragments with one dexterous blow, "what +am I to do? + +"I'm in a hole!--mess is a better word, expresses it better . +I'm in a mess--a nasty mess! a filthy mess! Oh, no end of a mess! + +Do you hear, Ann Veronica?--you're in a nasty, filthy, +unforgivable mess! + +"Haven't I just made a silly mess of things? + +"Forty pounds! I haven't got twenty!" + +She got up, stamped with her foot, and then, suddenly remembering +the lodger below, sat down and wrenched off her boots. + +"This is what comes of being a young woman up to date. By Jove! +I'm beginning to have my doubts about freedom! + +"You silly young woman, Ann Veronica! You silly young woman! +The smeariness of the thing! + +"The smeariness of this sort of thing! . . . Mauled about!" + +She fell to rubbing her insulted lips savagely with the back of +her hand. "Ugh!" she said. + +"The young women of Jane Austen's time didn't get into this sort +of scrape! At least--one thinks so. . . . I wonder if some of +them did--and it didn't get reported. Aunt Jane had her quiet +moments. Most of them didn't, anyhow. They were properly +brought up, and sat still and straight, and took the luck fate +brought them as gentlewomen should. And they had an idea of what +men were like behind all their nicety. They knew they were all +Bogey in disguise. I didn't! I didn't! After all--" + +For a time her mind ran on daintiness and its defensive +restraints as though it was the one desirable thing. That world +of fine printed cambrics and escorted maidens, of delicate +secondary meanings and refined allusiveness, presented itself to +her imagination with the brightness of a lost paradise, as indeed +for many women it is a lost paradise. + +"I wonder if there is anything wrong with my manners," she said. +"I wonder if I've been properly brought up. If I had been quite +quiet and white and dignified, wouldn't it have been different? +Would he have dared? . . ." + +For some creditable moments in her life Ann Veronica was utterly +disgusted with herself; she was wrung with a passionate and +belated desire to move gently, to speak softly and +ambiguously--to be, in effect, prim. + +Horrible details recurred to her. + +"Why, among other things, did I put my knuckles in his +neck--deliberately to hurt him?" + +She tried to sound the humorous note. + +"Are you aware, Ann Veronica, you nearly throttled that +gentleman?" + +Then she reviled her own foolish way of putting it. + +"You ass and imbecile, Ann Veronica! You female cad! Cad! Cad! +. . . Why aren't you folded up clean in lavender--as every young +woman ought to be? What have you been doing with yourself? . . +." + +She raked into the fire with the poker. + +"All of which doesn't help me in the slightest degree to pay back +that money." + +That night was the most intolerable one that Ann Veronica had +ever spent. She washed her face with unwonted elaboration before +she went to bed. This time, there was no doubt, she did not +sleep. The more she disentangled the lines of her situation the +deeper grew her self-disgust. Occasionally the mere fact of +lying in bed became unendurable, and she rolled out and marched +about her room and whispered abuse of herself--usually until she +hit against some article of furniture. + +Then she would have quiet times, in which she would say to +herself, "Now look here! Let me think it all out!" + +For the first time, it seemed to her, she faced the facts of a +woman's position in the world--the meagre realities of such +freedom as it permitted her, the almost unavoidable obligation to +some individual man under which she must labor for even a +foothold in the world. She had flung away from her father's +support with the finest assumption of personal independence. And +here she was--in a mess because it had been impossible for her to +avoid leaning upon another man. She had thought--What had she +thought? That this dependence of women was but an illusion which +needed only to be denied to vanish. She had denied it with +vigor, and here she was! + +She did not so much exhaust this general question as pass from it +to her insoluble individual problem again: "What am I to do?" + +She wanted first of all to fling the forty pounds back into +Ramage's face. But she had spent nearly half of it, and had no +conception of how such a sum could be made good again. She +thought of all sorts of odd and desperate expedients, and with +passionate petulance rejected them all. + +She took refuge in beating her pillow and inventing insulting +epithets for herself. She got up, drew up her blind, and stared +out of window at a dawn-cold vision of chimneys for a time, and +then went and sat on the edge of her bed. What was the +alternative to going home? No alternative appeared in that +darkness. + +It seemed intolerable that she should go home and admit herself +beaten. She did most urgently desire to save her face in +Morningside Park, and for long hours she could think of no way of +putting it that would not be in the nature of unconditional +admission of defeat. + +"I'd rather go as a chorus-girl," she said. + +She was not very clear about the position and duties of a +chorus-girl, but it certainly had the air of being a last +desperate resort. There sprang from that a vague hope that +perhaps she might extort a capitulation from her father by a +threat to seek that position, and then with overwhelming +clearness it came to her that whatever happened she would never +be able to tell her father about her debt. The completest +capitulation would not wipe out that trouble. And she felt that +if she went home it was imperative to pay. She would always be +going to and fro up the Avenue, getting glimpses of Ramage, +seeing him in trains. . . . + +For a time she promenaded the room. + +"Why did I ever take that loan? An idiot girl in an asylum would +have known better than that! + +"Vulgarity of soul and innocence of mind--the worst of all +conceivable combinations. I wish some one would kill Ramage by +accident! . . . + +"But then they would find that check endorsed in his bureau. . . +. + +"I wonder what he will do?" She tried to imagine situations that +might arise out of Ramage's antagonism, for he had been so bitter +and savage that she could not believe that he would leave things +as they were. + +The next morning she went out with her post-office savings +bank-book, and telegraphed for a warrant to draw out all the +money she had in the world. It amounted to two-and-twenty +pounds. She addressed an envelope to Ramage, and scrawled on a +half-sheet of paper, "The rest shall follow." The money would be +available in the afternoon, and she would send him four five- +pound notes. The rest she meant to keep for her immediate +necessities. A little relieved by this step toward +reinstatement, she went on to the Imperial College to forget her +muddle of problems for a time, if she could, in the presence of +Capes. + + + +Part 7 + + +For a time the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue. +Her sleepless night had left her languid but not stupefied, and +for an hour or so the work distracted her altogether from her +troubles. + +Then, after Capes had been through her work and had gone on, it +came to her that the fabric of this life of hers was doomed to +almost immediate collapse; that in a little while these studies +would cease, and perhaps she would never set eyes on him again. +After that consolations fled. + +The overnight nervous strain began to tell; she became +inattentive to the work before her, and it did not get on. She +felt sleepy and unusually irritable. She lunched at a creamery +in Great Portland Street, and as the day was full of wintry +sunshine, spent the rest of the lunch-hour in a drowsy gloom, +which she imagined to be thought upon the problems of her +position, on a seat in Regent's Park. A girl of fifteen or +sixteen gave her a handbill that she regarded as a tract until +she saw "Votes for Women" at the top. That turned her mind to +the more generalized aspects of her perplexities again. She had +never been so disposed to agree that the position of women in the +modern world is intolerable. + +Capes joined the students at tea, and displayed himself in an +impish mood that sometimes possessed him. He did not notice that +Ann Veronica was preoccupied and heavy-eyed. Miss Klegg raised +the question of women's suffrage, and he set himself to provoke a +duel between her and Miss Garvice. The youth with the hair +brushed back and the spectacled Scotchman joined in the fray for +and against the women's vote. + +Ever and again Capes appealed to Ann Veronica. He liked to draw +her in, and she did her best to talk. But she did not talk +readily, and in order to say something she plunged a little, and +felt she plunged. Capes scored back with an uncompromising vigor +that was his way of complimenting her intelligence. But this +afternoon it discovered an unusual vein of irritability in her. +He had been reading Belfort Bax, and declared himself a convert. +He contrasted the lot of women in general with the lot of men, +presented men as patient, self-immolating martyrs, and women as +the pampered favorites of Nature. A vein of conviction mingled +with his burlesque. + +For a time he and Miss Klegg contradicted one another. + +The question ceased to be a tea-table talk, and became suddenly +tragically real for Ann Veronica. There he sat, cheerfully +friendly in his sex's freedom--the man she loved, the one man she +cared should unlock the way to the wide world for her imprisoned +feminine possibilities, and he seemed regardless that she stifled +under his eyes; he made a jest of all this passionate insurgence +of the souls of women against the fate of their conditions. + +Miss Garvice repeated again, and almost in the same words she +used at every discussion, her contribution to the great question. + +She thought that women were not made for the struggle and turmoil +of life--their place was the little world, the home; that their +power lay not in votes but in influence over men and in making +the minds of their children fine and splendid. + +"Women should understand men's affairs, perhaps," said Miss +Garvice, "but to mingle in them is just to sacrifice that power +of influencing they can exercise now." + +"There IS something sound in that position," said Capes, +intervening as if to defend Miss Garvice against a possible +attack from Ann Veronica. "It may not be just and so forth, but, +after all, it is how things are. Women are not in the world in +the same sense that men are--fighting individuals in a scramble. +I don't see how they can be. Every home is a little recess, a +niche, out of the world of business and competition, in which +women and the future shelter." + +"A little pit!" said Ann Veronica; "a little prison!" + +"It's just as often a little refuge. Anyhow, that is how things +are." + +"And the man stands as the master at the mouth of the den." + +"As sentinel. You forget all the mass of training and tradition +and instinct that go to make him a tolerable master. Nature is a +mother; her sympathies have always been feminist, and she has +tempered the man to the shorn woman." + +"I wish," said Ann Veronica, with sudden anger, "that you could +know what it is to live in a pit!" + +She stood up as she spoke, and put down her cup beside Miss +Garvice's. She addressed Capes as though she spoke to him alone. + +"I can't endure it," she said. + +Every one turned to her in astonishment. + +She felt she had to go on. "No man can realize," she said, "what +that pit can be. The way--the way we are led on! We are taught +to believe we are free in the world, to think we are queens. . . +. Then we find out. We find out no man will treat a woman fairly +as man to man--no man. He wants you--or he doesn't; and then he +helps some other woman against you. . . . What you say is +probably all true and necessary. . . . But think of the +disillusionment! Except for our sex we have minds like men, +desires like men. We come out into the world, some of us--" + +She paused. Her words, as she said them, seemed to her to mean +nothing, and there was so much that struggled for expression. +"Women are mocked," she said. "Whenever they try to take hold of +life a man intervenes." + +She felt, with a sudden horror, that she might weep. She wished +she had not stood up. She wondered wildly why she had stood up. +No one spoke, and she was impelled to flounder on. "Think of the +mockery!" she said. "Think how dumb we find ourselves and +stifled! I know we seem to have a sort of freedom. . . . Have +you ever tried to run and jump in petticoats, Mr. Capes? Well, +think what it must be to live in them--soul and mind and body! +It's fun for a man to jest at our position." + +"I wasn't jesting," said Capes, abruptly. + +She stood face to face with him, and his voice cut across her +speech and made her stop abruptly. She was sore and overstrung, +and it was intolerable to her that he should stand within three +yards of her unsuspectingly, with an incalculably vast power over +her happiness. She was sore with the perplexities of her +preposterous position. She was sick of herself, of her life, of +everything but him; and for him all her masked and hidden being +was crying out. + +She stopped abruptly at the sound of his voice, and lost the +thread of what she was saying. In the pause she realized the +attention of the others converged upon her, and that the tears +were brimming over her eyes. She felt a storm of emotion surging +up within her. She became aware of the Scotch student regarding +her with stupendous amazement, a tea-cup poised in one hairy hand +and his faceted glasses showing a various enlargement of segments +of his eye. + +The door into the passage offered itself with an irresistible +invitation--the one alternative to a public, inexplicable passion +of weeping. + +Capes flashed to an understanding of her intention, sprang to his +feet, and opened the door for her retreat. + + + +Part 8 + + +"Why should I ever come back?" she said to herself, as she went +down the staircase. + +She went to the post-office and drew out and sent off her money +to Ramage. And then she came out into the street, sure only of +one thing--that she could not return directly to her lodgings. +She wanted air--and the distraction of having moving and changing +things about her. The evenings were beginning to draw out, and +it would not be dark for an hour. She resolved to walk across +the Park to the Zoological gardens, and so on by way of Primrose +Hill to Hampstead Heath. There she would wander about in the +kindly darkness. And think things out. . . . + +Presently she became aware of footsteps hurrying after her, and +glanced back to find Miss Klegg, a little out of breath, in +pursuit. + +Ann Veronica halted a pace, and Miss Klegg came alongside. + +"Do YOU go across the Park?" + +"Not usually. But I'm going to-day. I want a walk." + +"I'm not surprised at it. I thought Mr. Capes most trying." + +"Oh, it wasn't that. I've had a headache all day." + +"I thought Mr. Capes most unfair," Miss Klegg went on in a small, +even voice; "MOST unfair! I'm glad you spoke out as you did." + +"I didn't mind that little argument." + +"You gave it him well. What you said wanted saying. After you +went he got up and took refuge in the preparation-room. Or else +_I_ would have finished him." + +Ann Veronica said nothing, and Miss Klegg went on: "He very often +IS--most unfair. He has a way of sitting on people. He wouldn't +like it if people did it to him. He jumps the words out of your +mouth; he takes hold of what you have to say before you have had +time to express it properly." + +Pause. + +"I suppose he's frightfully clever," said Miss Klegg. + +"He's a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he can't be much over +thirty," said Miss Klegg. + +"He writes very well," said Ann Veronica. + +"He can't be more than thirty. He must have married when he was +quite a young man." + +"Married?" said Ann Veronica. + +"Didn't you know he was married?" asked Miss Klegg, and was +struck by a thought that made her glance quickly at her +companion. + +Ann Veronica had no answer for a moment. She turned her head +away sharply. Some automaton within her produced in a quite +unfamiliar voice the remark, "They're playing football." + +"It's too far for the ball to reach us," said Miss Klegg. + +"I didn't know Mr. Capes was married," said Ann Veronica, +resuming the conversation with an entire disappearance of her +former lassitude. + +"Oh yes," said Miss Klegg; "I thought every one knew." + +"No," said Ann Veronica, offhandedly. "Never heard anything of +it." + +"I thought every one knew. I thought every one had heard about +it." + +"But why?" + +"He's married--and, I believe, living separated from his wife. +There was a case, or something, some years ago." + +"What case?" + +"A divorce--or something--I don't know. But I have heard that he +almost had to leave the schools. If it hadn't been for Professor +Russell standing up for him, they say he would have had to +leave." + +"Was he divorced, do you mean?" + +"No, but he got himself mixed up in a divorce case. I forget the +particulars, but I know it was something very disagreeable. It +was among artistic people." + +Ann Veronica was silent for a while. + +"I thought every one had heard," said Miss Klegg. "Or I wouldn't +have said anything about it." + +"I suppose all men," said Ann Veronica, in a tone of detached +criticism, "get some such entanglement. And, anyhow, it doesn't +matter to us." She turned abruptly at right angles to the path +they followed. "This is my way back to my side of the Park," she +said. + +"I thought you were coming right across the Park." + +"Oh no," said Ann Veronica; "I have some work to do. I just +wanted a breath of air. And they'll shut the gates presently. +It's not far from twilight." + + + + +Part 9 + + +She was sitting brooding over her fire about ten o'clock that +night when a sealed and registered envelope was brought up to +her. + +She opened it and drew out a letter, and folded within it were +the notes she had sent off to Ramage that day. The letter began: + + +"MY DEAREST GIRL,--I cannot let you do this foolish thing--" + + +She crumpled notes and letter together in her hand, and then with +a passionate gesture flung them into the fire. Instantly she +seized the poker and made a desperate effort to get them out +again. But she was only able to save a corner of the letter. +The twenty pounds burned with avidity. + +She remained for some seconds crouching at the fender, poker in +hand. + +"By Jove!" she said, standing up at last, "that about finishes +it, Ann Veronica!" + + + +CHAPTER THE TENTH + +THE SUFFRAGETTES + + +Part 1 + + +"There is only one way out of all this," said Ann Veronica, +sitting up in her little bed in the darkness and biting at her +nails. + +"I thought I was just up against Morningside Park and father, but +it's the whole order of things--the whole blessed order of +things. . . ." + +She shivered. She frowned and gripped her hands about her knees +very tightly. Her mind developed into savage wrath at the +present conditions of a woman's life. + +"I suppose all life is an affair of chances. But a woman's life +is all chance. It's artificially chance. Find your man, that's +the rule. All the rest is humbug and delicacy. He's the handle +of life for you. He will let you live if it pleases him. . . . + +"Can't it be altered? + +"I suppose an actress is free? . . ." + +She tried to think of some altered state of affairs in which +these monstrous limitations would be alleviated, in which women +would stand on their own feet in equal citizenship with men. For +a time she brooded on the ideals and suggestions of the +Socialists, on the vague intimations of an Endowment of +Motherhood, of a complete relaxation of that intense individual +dependence for women which is woven into the existing social +order. At the back of her mind there seemed always one +irrelevant qualifying spectator whose presence she sought to +disregard. She would not look at him, would not think of him; +when her mind wavered, then she muttered to herself in the +darkness so as to keep hold of her generalizations. + +"It is true. It is no good waiving the thing; it is true. +Unless women are never to be free, never to be even respected, +there must be a generation of martyrs. . . . Why shouldn't we be +martyrs? There's nothing else for most of us, anyhow. It's a +sort of blacklegging to want to have a life of one's own. . . ." + +She repeated, as if she answered an objector: "A sort of +blacklegging. + +"A sex of blacklegging clients." + +Her mind diverged to other aspects, and another type of +womanhood. + +"Poor little Miniver! What can she be but what she is? . . . +Because she states her case in a tangle, drags it through swamps +of nonsense, it doesn't alter the fact that she is right." + +That phrase about dragging the truth through swamps of nonsense +she remembered from Capes. At the recollection that it was his, +she seemed to fall through a thin surface, as one might fall +through the crust of a lava into glowing depths. She wallowed +for a time in the thought of Capes, unable to escape from his +image and the idea of his presence in her life. + +She let her mind run into dreams of that cloud paradise of an +altered world in which the Goopes and Minivers, the Fabians and +reforming people believed. Across that world was written in +letters of light, "Endowment of Motherhood." Suppose in some +complex yet conceivable way women were endowed, were no longer +economically and socially dependent on men. "If one was free," +she said, "one could go to him. . . . This vile hovering to +catch a man's eye! . . . One could go to him and tell him one +loved him. I want to love him. A little love from him would be +enough. It would hurt no one. It would not burden him with any +obligation." + +She groaned aloud and bowed her forehead to her knees. She +floundered deep. She wanted to kiss his feet. His feet would +have the firm texture of his hands. + +Then suddenly her spirit rose in revolt. "I will not have this +slavery," she said. "I will not have this slavery." + +She shook her fist ceilingward. "Do you hear!" she said +"whatever you are, wherever you are! I will not be slave to the +thought of any man, slave to the customs of any time. Confound +this slavery of sex! I am a man! I will get this under if I am +killed in doing it!" + +She scowled into the cold blacknesses about her. + +"Manning," she said, and contemplated a figure of inaggressive +persistence. "No!" Her thoughts had turned in a new direction. + +"It doesn't matter," she said, after a long interval, "if they +are absurd. They mean something. They mean everything that +women can mean--except submission. The vote is only the +beginning, the necessary beginning. If we do not begin--" + +She had come to a resolution. Abruptly she got out of bed, +smoothed her sheet and straightened her pillow and lay down, and +fell almost instantly asleep. + + + +Part 2 + + +The next morning was as dark and foggy as if it was mid-November +instead of early March. Ann Veronica woke rather later than +usual, and lay awake for some minutes before she remembered a +certain resolution she had taken in the small hours. Then +instantly she got out of bed and proceeded to dress. + +She did not start for the Imperial College. She spent the +morning up to ten in writing a series of unsuccessful letters to +Ramage, which she tore up unfinished; and finally she desisted +and put on her jacket and went out into the lamp-lit obscurity +and slimy streets. She turned a resolute face southward. + +She followed Oxford Street into Holborn, and then she inquired +for Chancery Lane. There she sought and at last found 107A, one +of those heterogeneous piles of offices which occupy the eastern +side of the lane. She studied the painted names of firms and +persons and enterprises on the wall, and discovered that the +Women's Bond of Freedom occupied several contiguous suites on the +first floor. She went up-stairs and hesitated between four doors +with ground-glass panes, each of which professed "The Women's +Bond of Freedom" in neat black letters. She opened one and found +herself in a large untidy room set with chairs that were a little +disarranged as if by an overnight meeting. On the walls were +notice-boards bearing clusters of newspaper slips, three or four +big posters of monster meetings, one of which Ann Veronica had +attended with Miss Miniver, and a series of announcements in +purple copying-ink, and in one corner was a pile of banners. +There was no one at all in this room, but through the half-open +door of one of the small apartments that gave upon it she had a +glimpse of two very young girls sitting at a littered table and +writing briskly. + +She walked across to this apartment and, opening the door a +little wider, discovered a press section of the movement at work. + +"I want to inquire," said Ann Veronica. + +"Next door," said a spectacled young person of seventeen or +eighteen, with an impatient indication of the direction. + +In the adjacent apartment Ann Veronica found a middle-aged woman +with a tired face under the tired hat she wore, sitting at a desk +opening letters while a dusky, untidy girl of eight-or +nine-and-twenty hammered industriously at a typewriter. The +tired woman looked up in inquiring silence at Ann Veronica's +diffident entry. + +"I want to know more about this movement," said Ann Veronica. + +"Are you with us?" said the tired woman. + +"I don't know," said Ann Veronica; "I think I am. I want very +much to do something for women. But I want to know what you are +doing." + +The tired woman sat still for a moment. "You haven't come here +to make a lot of difficulties?" she asked. + +"No," said Ann Veronica, "but I want to know." + +The tired woman shut her eyes tightly for a moment, and then +looked with them at Ann Veronica. "What can you do?" she asked. + +"Do?" + +"Are you prepared to do things for us? Distribute bills? Write +letters? Interrupt meetings? Canvass at elections? Face +dangers?" + +"If I am satisfied--" + +"If we satisfy you?" + +"Then, if possible, I would like to go to prison." + +"It isn't nice going to prison." + +"It would suit me." + +"It isn't nice getting there." + +"That's a question of detail," said Ann Veronica. + +The tired woman looked quietly at her. "What are your +objections?" she said. + +"It isn't objections exactly. I want to know what you are doing; +how you think this work of yours really does serve women." + +"We are working for the equal citizenship of men and women," said +the tired woman. "Women have been and are treated as the +inferiors of men, we want to make them their equals." + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "I agree to that. But--" + +The tired woman raised her eyebrows in mild protest. + +"Isn't the question more complicated than that?" said Ann +Veronica. + +"You could have a talk to Miss Kitty Brett this afternoon, if you +liked. Shall I make an appointment for you?" + +Miss Kitty Brett was one of the most conspicuous leaders of the +movement. Ann Veronica snatched at the opportunity, and spent +most of the intervening time in the Assyrian Court of the British +Museum, reading and thinking over a little book upon the feminist +movement the tired woman had made her buy. She got a bun and +some cocoa in the little refreshment-room, and then wandered +through the galleries up-stairs, crowded with Polynesian idols +and Polynesian dancing-garments, and all the simple immodest +accessories to life in Polynesia, to a seat among the mummies. +She was trying to bring her problems to a head, and her mind +insisted upon being even more discursive and atmospheric than +usual. It generalized everything she put to it. + +"Why should women be dependent on men?" she asked; and the +question was at once converted into a system of variations upon +the theme of "Why are things as they are?"--"Why are human beings +viviparous?"--"Why are people hungry thrice a day?"--"Why does +one faint at danger?" + +She stood for a time looking at the dry limbs and still human +face of that desiccated unwrapped mummy from the very beginnings +of social life. It looked very patient, she thought, and a +little self-satisfied. It looked as if it had taken its world +for granted and prospered on that assumption--a world in which +children were trained to obey their elders and the wills of women +over-ruled as a matter of course. It was wonderful to think this +thing had lived, had felt and suffered. Perhaps once it had +desired some other human being intolerably. Perhaps some one had +kissed the brow that was now so cadaverous, rubbed that sunken +cheek with loving fingers, held that stringy neck with +passionately living hands. But all of that was forgotten. "In +the end," it seemed to be thinking, "they embalmed me with the +utmost respect--sound spices chosen to endure--the best! I took +my world as I found it. THINGS ARE SO!" + + + +Part 3 + + +Ann Veronica's first impression of Kitty Brett was that she was +aggressive and disagreeable; her next that she was a person of +amazing persuasive power. She was perhaps three-and-twenty, and +very pink and healthy-looking, showing a great deal of white and +rounded neck above her business-like but altogether feminine +blouse, and a good deal of plump, gesticulating forearm out of +her short sleeve. She had animated dark blue-gray eyes under her +fine eyebrows, and dark brown hair that rolled back simply and +effectively from her broad low forehead. And she was about as +capable of intelligent argument as a runaway steam-roller. She +was a trained being--trained by an implacable mother to one end. + +She spoke with fluent enthusiasm. She did not so much deal with +Ann Veronica's interpolations as dispose of them with quick and +use-hardened repartee, and then she went on with a fine +directness to sketch the case for her agitation, for that +remarkable rebellion of the women that was then agitating the +whole world of politics and discussion. She assumed with a kind +of mesmeric force all the propositions that Ann Veronica wanted +her to define. + +"What do we want? What is the goal?" asked Ann Veronica. + +"Freedom! Citizenship! And the way to that--the way to +everything--is the Vote." + +Ann Veronica said something about a general change of ideas. + +"How can you change people's ideas if you have no power?" said +Kitty Brett. + +Ann Veronica was not ready enough to deal with that +counter-stroke . + +"One doesn't want to turn the whole thing into a mere sex +antagonism." + +"When women get justice," said Kitty Brett, "there will be no sex +antagonism. None at all. Until then we mean to keep on +hammering away." + +"It seems to me that much of a woman's difficulties are +economic." + +"That will follow," said Kitty Brett--"that will follow." + +She interrupted as Ann Veronica was about to speak again, with a +bright contagious hopefulness. "Everything will follow," she +said. + +"Yes," said Ann Veronica, trying to think where they were, trying +to get things plain again that had seemed plain enough in the +quiet of the night. + +"Nothing was ever done," Miss Brett asserted, "without a certain +element of Faith. After we have got the Vote and are recognized +as citizens, then we can come to all these other things." + +Even in the glamour of Miss Brett's assurance it seemed to Ann +Veronica that this was, after all, no more than the gospel of +Miss Miniver with a new set of resonances. And like that gospel +it meant something, something different from its phrases, +something elusive, and yet something that in spite of the +superficial incoherence of its phrasing, was largely essentially +true. There was something holding women down, holding women back, +and if it wasn't exactly man-made law, man-made law was an aspect +of it. There was something indeed holding the whole species back +from the imaginable largeness of life. . . . + +"The Vote is the symbol of everything," said Miss Brett. + +She made an abrupt personal appeal. + +"Oh! please don't lose yourself in a wilderness of secondary +considerations," she said. "Don't ask me to tell you all that +women can do, all that women can be. There is a new life, +different from the old life of dependence, possible. If only we +are not divided. If only we work together. This is the one +movement that brings women of different classes together for a +common purpose. If you could see how it gives them souls, women +who have taken things for granted, who have given themselves up +altogether to pettiness and vanity. . . ." + +"Give me something to do," said Ann Veronica, interrupting her +persuasions at last. "It has been very kind of you to see me, +but I don't want to sit and talk and use your time any longer. I +want to do something. I want to hammer myself against all this +that pens women in. I feel that I shall stifle unless I can do +something--and do something soon." + + + +Part 4 + + +It was not Ann Veronica's fault that the night's work should have +taken upon itself the forms of wild burlesque. She was in deadly +earnest in everything she did. It seemed to her the last +desperate attack upon the universe that would not let her live as +she desired to live, that penned her in and controlled her and +directed her and disapproved of her, the same invincible +wrappering, the same leaden tyranny of a universe that she had +vowed to overcome after that memorable conflict with her father +at Morningside Park. + +She was listed for the raid--she was informed it was to be a raid +upon the House of Commons, though no particulars were given +her--and told to go alone to 14, Dexter Street, Westminster, and +not to ask any policeman to direct her. 14, Dexter Street, +Westminster, she found was not a house but a yard in an obscure +street, with big gates and the name of Podgers & Carlo, Carriers +and Furniture Removers, thereon. She was perplexed by this, and +stood for some seconds in the empty street hesitating, until the +appearance of another circumspect woman under the street lamp at +the corner reassured her. In one of the big gates was a little +door, and she rapped at this. It was immediately opened by a man +with light eyelashes and a manner suggestive of restrained +passion. "Come right in," he hissed under his breath, with the +true conspirator's note, closed the door very softly and pointed, +"Through there!" + +By the meagre light of a gas lamp she perceived a cobbled yard +with four large furniture vans standing with horses and lamps +alight. A slender young man, wearing glasses, appeared from the +shadow of the nearest van. "Are you A, B, C, or D?" he asked. + +"They told me D," said Ann Veronica. + +"Through there," he said, and pointed with the pamphlet he was +carrying. + +Ann Veronica found herself in a little stirring crowd of excited +women, whispering and tittering and speaking in undertones. + +The light was poor, so that she saw their gleaming faces dimly +and indistinctly. No one spoke to her. She stood among them, +watching them and feeling curiously alien to them. The oblique +ruddy lighting distorted them oddly, made queer bars and patches +of shadow upon their clothes. "It's Kitty's idea," said one, "we +are to go in the vans." + +"Kitty is wonderful," said another. + +"Wonderful!" + +"I have always longed for prison service," said a voice, "always. + +From the beginning. But it's only now I'm able to do it." + +A little blond creature close at hand suddenly gave way to a fit +of hysterical laughter, and caught up the end of it with a sob. + +"Before I took up the Suffrage," a firm, flat voice remarked, "I +could scarcely walk up-stairs without palpitations." + +Some one hidden from Ann Veronica appeared to be marshalling the +assembly. "We have to get in, I think," said a nice little old +lady in a bonnet to Ann Veronica, speaking with a voice that +quavered a little. "My dear, can you see in this light? I think +I would like to get in. Which is C?" + +Ann Veronica, with a curious sinking of the heart, regarded the +black cavities of the vans. Their doors stood open, and placards +with big letters indicated the section assigned to each. She +directed the little old woman and then made her way to van D. A +young woman with a white badge on her arm stood and counted the +sections as they entered their vans. + +"When they tap the roof," she said, in a voice of authority, "you +are to come out. You will be opposite the big entrance in Old +Palace Yard. It's the public entrance. You are to make for that +and get into the lobby if you can, and so try and reach the floor +of the House, crying 'Votes for Women!' as you go." + +She spoke like a mistress addressing school-children. + +"Don't bunch too much as you come out," she added. + +"All right?" asked the man with the light eyelashes, suddenly +appearing in the doorway. He waited for an instant, wasting an +encouraging smile in the imperfect light, and then shut the doors +of the van, leaving the women in darkness. . . . + +The van started with a jerk and rumbled on its way. + +"It's like Troy!" said a voice of rapture. "It's exactly like Troy!" + + + +Part 5 + + +So Ann Veronica, enterprising and a little dubious as ever, +mingled with the stream of history and wrote her Christian name +upon the police-court records of the land. + +But out of a belated regard for her father she wrote the surname +of some one else. + +Some day, when the rewards of literature permit the arduous +research required, the Campaign of the Women will find its +Carlyle, and the particulars of that marvellous series of +exploits by which Miss Brett and her colleagues nagged the whole +Western world into the discussion of women's position become the +material for the most delightful and amazing descriptions. At +present the world waits for that writer, and the confused record +of the newspapers remains the only resource of the curious. When +he comes he will do that raid of the pantechnicons the justice it +deserves; he will picture the orderly evening scene about the +Imperial Legislature in convincing detail, the coming and going +of cabs and motor-cabs and broughams through the chill, damp +evening into New Palace Yard, the reinforced but untroubled and +unsuspecting police about the entries of those great buildings +whose square and panelled Victorian Gothic streams up from the +glare of the lamps into the murkiness of the night; Big Ben +shining overhead, an unassailable beacon, and the incidental +traffic of Westminster, cabs, carts, and glowing omnibuses going +to and from the bridge. About the Abbey and Abingdon Street +stood the outer pickets and detachments of the police, their +attention all directed westward to where the women in Caxton +Hall, Westminster, hummed like an angry hive. Squads reached to +the very portal of that centre of disturbance. And through all +these defences and into Old Palace Yard, into the very vitals of +the defenders' position, lumbered the unsuspected vans. + +They travelled past the few idle sightseers who had braved the +uninviting evening to see what the Suffragettes might be doing; +they pulled up unchallenged within thirty yards of those coveted +portals. + +And then they disgorged. + +Were I a painter of subject pictures, I would exhaust all my +skill in proportion and perspective and atmosphere upon the +august seat of empire, I would present it gray and dignified and +immense and respectable beyond any mere verbal description, and +then, in vivid black and very small, I would put in those +valiantly impertinent vans, squatting at the base of its +altitudes and pouring out a swift, straggling rush of ominous +little black objects, minute figures of determined women at war +with the universe. + +Ann Veronica was in their very forefront. + +In an instant the expectant calm of Westminster was ended, and +the very Speaker in the chair blenched at the sound of the +policemen's whistles. The bolder members in the House left their +places to go lobbyward, grinning. Others pulled hats over their +noses, cowered in their seats, and feigned that all was right +with the world. In Old Palace Yard everybody ran. They either +ran to see or ran for shelter. Even two Cabinet Ministers took +to their heels, grinning insincerely. At the opening of the van +doors and the emergence into the fresh air Ann Veronica's doubt +and depression gave place to the wildest exhilaration. That same +adventurousness that had already buoyed her through crises that +would have overwhelmed any normally feminine girl with shame and +horror now became uppermost again. Before her was a great Gothic +portal. Through that she had to go. + +Past her shot the little old lady in the bonnet, running +incredibly fast, but otherwise still alertly respectable, and she +was making a strange threatening sound as she ran, such as one +would use in driving ducks out of a garden--"B-r-r-r-r-r--!" and +pawing with black-gloved hands. The policemen were closing in +from the sides to intervene. The little old lady struck like a +projectile upon the resounding chest of the foremost of these, +and then Ann Veronica had got past and was ascending the steps. + +Then most horribly she was clasped about the waist from behind +and lifted from the ground. + +At that a new element poured into her excitement, an element of +wild disgust and terror. She had never experienced anything so +disagreeable in her life as the sense of being held helplessly +off her feet. She screamed involuntarily--she had never in her +life screamed before --and then she began to wriggle and fight +like a frightened animal against the men who were holding her. + +The affair passed at one leap from a spree to a nightmare of +violence and disgust. Her hair got loose, her hat came over one +eye, and she had no arm free to replace it. She felt she must +suffocate if these men did not put her down, and for a time they +would not put her down. Then with an indescribable relief her +feet were on the pavement, and she was being urged along by two +policemen, who were gripping her wrists in an irresistible expert +manner. She was writhing to get her hands loose and found +herself gasping with passionate violence, "It's +damnable!--damnable!" to the manifest disgust of the fatherly +policeman on her right. + +Then they had released her arms and were trying to push her away. + +"You be off, missie," said the fatherly policeman. "This ain't +no place for you." + +He pushed her a dozen yards along the greasy pavement with flat, +well-trained hands that there seemed to be no opposing. Before +her stretched blank spaces, dotted with running people coming +toward her, and below them railings and a statue. She almost +submitted to this ending of her adventure. But at the word +"home" she turned again. + +"I won't go home," she said; "I won't!" and she evaded the clutch +of the fatherly policeman and tried to thrust herself past him in +the direction of that big portal. "Steady on!" he cried. + +A diversion was created by the violent struggles of the little +old lady. She seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. A +knot of three policemen in conflict with her staggered toward Ann +Veronica's attendants and distracted their attention. "I WILL be +arrested! I WON'T go home!" the little old lady was screaming +over and over again. They put her down, and she leaped at them; +she smote a helmet to the ground. + +"You'll have to take her!" shouted an inspector on horseback, and +she echoed his cry: "You'll have to take me!" They seized upon +her and lifted her, and she screamed. Ann Veronica became +violently excited at the sight. "You cowards!" said Ann +Veronica, "put her down!" and tore herself from a detaining hand +and battered with her fists upon the big red ear and blue +shoulder of the policeman who held the little old lady. + +So Ann Veronica also was arrested. + +And then came the vile experience of being forced and borne along +the street to the police-station. Whatever anticipation Ann +Veronica had formed of this vanished in the reality. Presently +she was going through a swaying, noisy crowd, whose faces grinned +and stared pitilessly in the light of the electric standards. +"Go it, miss!" cried one. "Kick aht at 'em!" though, indeed, she +went now with Christian meekness, resenting only the thrusting +policemen's hands. Several people in the crowd seemed to be +fighting. Insulting cries became frequent and various, but for +the most part she could not understand what was said. "Who'll +mind the baby nar?" was one of the night's inspirations, and very +frequent. A lean young man in spectacles pursued her for some +time, crying "Courage! Courage!" Somebody threw a dab of mud at +her, and some of it got down her neck. Immeasurable disgust +possessed her. She felt draggled and insulted beyond redemption. + +She could not hide her face. She attempted by a sheer act of +will to end the scene, to will herself out of it anywhere. She +had a horrible glimpse of the once nice little old lady being +also borne stationward, still faintly battling and very +muddy--one lock of grayish hair straggling over her neck, her +face scared, white, but triumphant. Her bonnet dropped off and +was trampled into the gutter. A little Cockney recovered it, and +made ridiculous attempts to get to her and replace it. + +"You must arrest me!" she gasped, breathlessly, insisting +insanely on a point already carried; "you shall!" + +The police-station at the end seemed to Ann Veronica like a +refuge from unnamable disgraces. She hesitated about her name, +and, being prompted, gave it at last as Ann Veronica Smith, 107A, +Chancery Lane. . . . + +Indignation carried her through that night, that men and the +world could so entreat her. The arrested women were herded in a +passage of the Panton Street Police-station that opened upon a +cell too unclean for occupation, and most of them spent the night +standing. Hot coffee and cakes were sent in to them in the +morning by some intelligent sympathizer, or she would have +starved all day. Submission to the inevitable carried her +through the circumstances of her appearance before the +magistrate. + +He was no doubt doing his best to express the attitude of society +toward these wearily heroic defendants, but he seemed to be +merely rude and unfair to Ann Veronica. He was not, it seemed, +the proper stipendiary at all, and there had been some demur to +his jurisdiction that had ruffled him. He resented being +regarded as irregular. He felt he was human wisdom prudentially +interpolated. . . . "You silly wimmin," he said over and over +again throughout the hearing, plucking at his blotting-pad with +busy hands. "You silly creatures! Ugh! Fie upon you!" The +court was crowded with people, for the most part supporters and +admirers of the defendants, and the man with the light eyelashes +was conspicuously active and omnipresent. + +Ann Veronica's appearance was brief and undistinguished. She had +nothing to say for herself. She was guided into the dock and +prompted by a helpful police inspector. She was aware of the +body of the court, of clerks seated at a black table littered +with papers, of policemen standing about stiffly with expressions +of conscious integrity, and a murmuring background of the heads +and shoulders of spectators close behind her. On a high chair +behind a raised counter the stipendiary's substitute regarded her +malevolently over his glasses. A disagreeable young man, with red +hair and a loose mouth, seated at the reporter's table, was only +too manifestly sketching her. + +She was interested by the swearing of the witnesses. The kissing +of the book struck her as particularly odd, and then the +policemen gave their evidence in staccato jerks and stereotyped +phrases. + +"Have you anything to ask the witness?" asked the helpful +inspector. + +The ribald demons that infested the back of Ann Veronica's mind +urged various facetious interrogations upon her, as, for example, +where the witness had acquired his prose style. She controlled +herself, and answered meekly, "No." + +"Well, Ann Veronica Smith," the magistrate remarked when the case +was all before him, "you're a good-looking, strong, respectable +gell, and it's a pity you silly young wimmin can't find something +better to do with your exuberance. Two-and-twenty! I can't +imagine what your parents can be thinking about to let you get +into these scrapes." + +Ann Veronica's mind was filled with confused unutterable replies. + +"You are persuaded to come and take part in these outrageous +proceedings--many of you, I am convinced, have no idea whatever +of their nature. I don't suppose you could tell me even the +derivation of suffrage if I asked you. No! not even the +derivation! But the fashion's been set and in it you must be." + +The men at the reporter's table lifted their eyebrows, smiled +faintly, and leaned back to watch how she took her scolding. One +with the appearance of a bald little gnome yawned agonizingly. +They had got all this down already--they heard the substance of +it now for the fourteenth time. The stipendiary would have done +it all very differently. + +She found presently she was out of the dock and confronted with +the alternative of being bound over in one surety for the sum of +forty pounds--whatever that might mean or a month's imprisonment. + +"Second class," said some one, but first and second were all +alike to her. She elected to go to prison. + +At last, after a long rumbling journey in a stuffy windowless +van, she reached Canongate Prison--for Holloway had its quota +already. It was bad luck to go to Canongate. + +Prison was beastly. Prison was bleak without spaciousness, and +pervaded by a faint, oppressive smell; and she had to wait two +hours in the sullenly defiant company of two unclean women +thieves before a cell could be assigned to her. Its dreariness, +like the filthiness of the police cell, was a discovery for her. +She had imagined that prisons were white-tiled places, reeking of +lime-wash and immaculately sanitary. Instead, they appeared to be +at the hygienic level of tramps' lodging-houses. She was bathed +in turbid water that had already been used. She was not allowed +to bathe herself: another prisoner, with a privileged manner, +washed her. Conscientious objectors to that process are not +permitted, she found, in Canongate. Her hair was washed for her +also. Then they dressed her in a dirty dress of coarse serge and +a cap, and took away her own clothes. The dress came to her only +too manifestly unwashed from its former wearer; even the +under-linen they gave her seemed unclean. Horrible memories of +things seen beneath the microscope of the baser forms of life +crawled across her mind and set her shuddering with imagined +irritations. She sat on the edge of the bed--the wardress was +too busy with the flood of arrivals that day to discover that she +had it down--and her skin was shivering from the contact of these +garments. She surveyed accommodation that seemed at first merely +austere, and became more and more manifestly inadequate as the +moments fled by. She meditated profoundly through several +enormous cold hours on all that had happened and all that she had +done since the swirl of the suffrage movement had submerged her +personal affairs. . . . + +Very slowly emerging out of a phase of stupefaction, these +personal affairs and her personal problem resumed possession of +her mind. She had imagined she had drowned them altogether. + + + +CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH + +THOUGHTS IN PRISON + + +Part 1 + + +The first night in prison she found it impossible to sleep. The +bed was hard beyond any experience of hers, the bed-clothes +coarse and insufficient, the cell at once cold and stuffy. The +little grating in the door, the sense of constant inspection, +worried her. She kept opening her eyes and looking at it. She +was fatigued physically and mentally, and neither mind nor body +could rest. She became aware that at regular intervals a light +flashed upon her face and a bodiless eye regarded her, and this, +as the night wore on, became a torment. . . . + +Capes came back into her mind. He haunted a state between hectic +dreaming and mild delirium, and she found herself talking aloud +to him. All through the night an entirely impossible and +monumental Capes confronted her, and she argued with him about +men and women. She visualized him as in a policeman's uniform +and quite impassive. On some insane score she fancied she had to +state her case in verse. "We are the music and you are the +instrument," she said; "we are verse and you are prose. + + "For men have reason, women rhyme + A man scores always, all the time." + +This couplet sprang into her mind from nowhere, and immediately +begot an endless series of similar couplets that she began to +compose and address to Capes. They came teeming distressfully +through her aching brain: + + "A man can kick, his skirts don't tear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "His dress for no man lays a snare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + For hats that fail and hats that flare; + Toppers their universal wear; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "Men's waists are neither here nor there; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "A man can manage without hair; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "There are no males at men to stare; + A man scores always, everywhere. + + "And children must we women bear-- + +"Oh, damn!" she cried, as the hundred-and-first couplet or so +presented itself in her unwilling brain. + +For a time she worried about that compulsory bath and cutaneous +diseases. + +Then she fell into a fever of remorse for the habit of bad +language she had acquired. + + "A man can smoke, a man can swear; + A man scores always, everywhere." + +She rolled over on her face, and stuffed her fingers in her ears +to shut out the rhythm from her mind. She lay still for a long +time, and her mind resumed at a more tolerable pace. She found +herself talking to Capes in an undertone of rational admission. + +"There is something to be said for the lady-like theory after +all," she admitted. "Women ought to be gentle and submissive +persons, strong only in virtue and in resistance to evil +compulsion. My dear--I can call you that here, anyhow--I know +that. The Victorians over-did it a little, I admit. Their idea +of maidenly innocence was just a blank white--the sort of flat +white that doesn't shine. But that doesn't alter the fact that +there IS innocence. And I've read, and thought, and guessed, and +looked--until MY innocence--it's smirched. + +"Smirched! . . . + +"You see, dear, one IS passionately anxious for something--what +is it? One wants to be CLEAN. You want me to be clean. You +would want me to be clean, if you gave me a thought, that is. . . +. + +"I wonder if you give me a thought. . . . + +"I'm not a good woman. I don't mean I'm not a good woman--I mean +that I'm not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I +hardly know what I am saying. I mean I'm not a good specimen of +a woman. I've got a streak of male. Things happen to women-- +proper women--and all they have to do is to take them well. +They've just got to keep white. But I'm always trying to make +things happen. And I get myself dirty . . . + +"It's all dirt that washes off, dear, but it's dirt. + +"The white unaggressive woman who corrects and nurses and serves, +and is worshipped and betrayed--the martyr-queen of men, the +white mother. . . . You can't do that sort of thing unless you +do it over religion, and there's no religion in me--of that +sort--worth a rap. + +"I'm not gentle. Certainly not a gentlewoman. + +"I'm not coarse--no! But I've got no purity of mind--no real +purity of mind. A good woman's mind has angels with flaming +swords at the portals to keep out fallen thoughts. . . . + +"I wonder if there are any good women really. + +"I wish I didn't swear. I do swear. It began as a joke. . . . +It developed into a sort of secret and private bad manners. It's +got to be at last like tobacco-ash over all my sayings and +doings. . . . + +" 'Go it, missie,' they said; "kick aht!' + +"I swore at that policeman--and disgusted him. Disgusted him! + + "For men policemen never blush; + A man in all things scores so much . . . + + +"Damn! Things are getting plainer. It must be the dawn creeping +in. + + "Now here hath been dawning another blue day; + I'm just a poor woman, please take it away. + + +"Oh, sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!" + + + +Part 2 + + +"Now," said Ann Veronica, after the half-hour of exercise, and +sitting on the uncomfortable wooden seat without a back that was +her perch by day, "it's no good staying here in a sort of maze. +I've got nothing to do for a month but think. I may as well +think. I ought to be able to think things out. + +"How shall I put the question? What am I? What have I got to do +with myself? . . . + +"I wonder if many people HAVE thought things out? + +"Are we all just seizing hold of phrases and obeying moods? + +"It wasn't so with old-fashioned people, they knew right from +wrong; they had a clear-cut, religious faith that seemed to +explain everything and give a rule for everything. We haven't. +I haven't, anyhow. And it's no good pretending there is one when +there isn't. . . . I suppose I believe in God. . . . Never +really thought about Him--people don't. . . . I suppose my creed +is, 'I believe rather indistinctly in God the Father Almighty, +substratum of the evolutionary process, and, in a vein of vague +sentimentality that doesn't give a datum for anything at all, in +Jesus Christ, His Son.' . . . + +"It's no sort of good, Ann Veronica, pretending one does believe +when one doesn't. . . . + +"And as for praying for faith--this sort of monologue is about as +near as any one of my sort ever gets to prayer. Aren't I +asking--asking plainly now? . . . + +"We've all been mixing our ideas, and we've got intellectual hot +coppers--every blessed one of us. . . . + +"A confusion of motives--that's what I am! . . . + +"There is this absurd craving for Mr. Capes--the 'Capes crave,' +they would call it in America. Why do I want him so badly? Why +do I want him, and think about him, and fail to get away from +him? + +"It isn't all of me. + +"The first person you love, Ann Veronica, is yourself--get hold +of that! The soul you have to save is Ann Veronica's soul. . . +." + +She knelt upon the floor of her cell and clasped her hands, and +remained for a long time in silence. + +"Oh, God!" she said at last, "how I wish I had been taught to +pray!" + + + +Part 3 + + +She had some idea of putting these subtle and difficult issues to +the chaplain when she was warned of his advent. But she had not +reckoned with the etiquette of Canongate. She got up, as she had +been told to do, at his appearance, and he amazed her by sitting +down, according to custom, on her stool. He still wore his hat, +to show that the days of miracles and Christ being civil to +sinners are over forever. She perceived that his countenance was +only composed by a great effort, his features severely +compressed. He was ruffled, and his ears were red, no doubt from +some adjacent controversy. He classified her as he seated +himself. + +"Another young woman, I suppose," he said, "who knows better than +her Maker about her place in the world. Have you anything to ask +me?" + +Ann Veronica readjusted her mind hastily. Her back stiffened. +She produced from the depths of her pride the ugly investigatory +note of the modern district visitor. "Are you a special sort of +clergyman," she said, after a pause, and looking down her nose at +him, "or do you go to the Universities?" + +"Oh!" he said, profoundly. + +He panted for a moment with unuttered replies, and then, with a +scornful gesture, got up and left the cell. + +So that Ann Veronica was not able to get the expert advice she +certainly needed upon her spiritual state. + + + +Part 4 + + +After a day or so she thought more steadily. She found herself +in a phase of violent reaction against the suffrage movement, a +phase greatly promoted by one of those unreasonable objections +people of Ann Veronica's temperament take at times--to the girl +in the next cell to her own. She was a large, resilient girl, +with a foolish smile, a still more foolish expression of +earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. She was noisy and +hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably +done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that +silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard +slouched round with carelessly dispersed feet. Ann Veronica +decided that "hoydenish ragger" was the only phrase to express +her. She was always breaking rules, whispering asides, +intimating signals. She became at times an embodiment for Ann +Veronica of all that made the suffrage movement defective and +unsatisfying. + +She was always initiating petty breaches of discipline. Her +greatest exploit was the howling before the mid-day meal. This +was an imitation of the noises made by the carnivora at the +Zoological Gardens at feeding-time; the idea was taken up by +prisoner after prisoner until the whole place was alive with +barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican chatterings, and feline +yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of hysterical laughter. To +many in that crowded solitude it came as an extraordinary relief. +It was better even than the hymn-singing. But it annoyed Ann +Veronica. + +"Idiots!" she said, when she heard this pandemonium, and with +particular reference to this young lady with the throaty +contralto next door. "Intolerable idiots! . . ." + +It took some days for this phase to pass, and it left some scars +and something like a decision. "Violence won't do it," said Ann +Veronica. "Begin violence, and the woman goes under. . . . + +"But all the rest of our case is right. . . . Yes." + +As the long, solitary days wore on, Ann Veronica found a number +of definite attitudes and conclusions in her mind. + +One of these was a classification of women into women who are and +women who are not hostile to men. "The real reason why I am out +of place here," she said, "is because I like men. I can talk +with them. I've never found them hostile. I've got no feminine +class feeling. I don't want any laws or freedoms to protect me +from a man like Mr. Capes. I know that in my heart I would take +whatever he gave. . . . + +"A woman wants a proper alliance with a man, a man who is better +stuff than herself. She wants that and needs it more than +anything else in the world. It may not be just, it may not be +fair, but things are so. It isn't law, nor custom, nor masculine +violence settled that. It is just how things happen to be. She +wants to be free--she wants to be legally and economically free, +so as not to be subject to the wrong man; but only God, who made +the world, can alter things to prevent her being slave to the +right one. + +"And if she can't have the right one? + +"We've developed such a quality of preference!" + +She rubbed her knuckles into her forehead. "Oh, but life is +difficult!" she groaned. "When you loosen the tangle in one +place you tie a knot in another. . . . Before there is any +change, any real change, I shall be dead--dead--dead and +finished--two hundred years! . . ." + + + +Part 5 + + +One afternoon, while everything was still, the wardress heard her +cry out suddenly and alarmingly, and with great and unmistakable passion, +"Why in the name of goodness did I burn that twenty pounds?" + + + +Part 6 + + +She sat regarding her dinner. The meat was coarse and +disagreeably served. + +"I suppose some one makes a bit on the food," she said. . . . + +"One has such ridiculous ideas of the wicked common people and +the beautiful machinery of order that ropes them in. And here +are these places, full of contagion! + +"Of course, this is the real texture of life, this is what we +refined secure people forget. We think the whole thing is +straight and noble at bottom, and it isn't. We think if we just +defy the friends we have and go out into the world everything +will become easy and splendid. One doesn't realize that even the +sort of civilization one has at Morningside Park is held together +with difficulty. By policemen one mustn't shock. + +"This isn't a world for an innocent girl to walk about in. It's +a world of dirt and skin diseases and parasites. It's a world in +which the law can be a stupid pig and the police-stations dirty +dens. One wants helpers and protectors--and clean water. + +"Am I becoming reasonable or am I being tamed? + +"I'm simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and +puzzling. I thought one had only to take it by the throat. + +"It hasn't GOT a throat!" + + + +Part 7 + + +One day the idea of self-sacrifice came into her head, and she +made, she thought, some important moral discoveries. + +It came with an extreme effect of re-discovery, a remarkable +novelty. "What have I been all this time?" she asked herself, +and answered, "Just stark egotism, crude assertion of Ann +Veronica, without a modest rag of religion or discipline or +respect for authority to cover me!" + +It seemed to her as though she had at last found the touchstone +of conduct. She perceived she had never really thought of any +one but herself in all her acts and plans. Even Capes had been +for her merely an excitant to passionate love--a mere idol at +whose feet one could enjoy imaginative wallowings. She had set +out to get a beautiful life, a free, untrammelled life, +self-development, without counting the cost either for herself or +others. + +"I have hurt my father," she said; "I have hurt my aunt. I have +hurt and snubbed poor Teddy. I've made no one happy. I deserve +pretty much what I've got. . . . + +"If only because of the way one hurts others if one kicks loose +and free, one has to submit. . . . + +"Broken-in people! I suppose the world is just all egotistical +children and broken-in people. + +"Your little flag of pride must flutter down with the rest of +them, Ann Veronica. . . . + +"Compromise--and kindness. + +"Compromise and kindness. + +"Who are YOU that the world should lie down at your feet? + +"You've got to be a decent citizen, Ann Veronica. Take your half +loaf with the others. You mustn't go clawing after a man that +doesn't belong to you--that isn't even interested in you. That's +one thing clear. + +"You've got to take the decent reasonable way. You've got to +adjust yourself to the people God has set about you. Every one +else does." + +She thought more and more along that line. There was no reason +why she shouldn't be Capes' friend. He did like her, anyhow; he +was always pleased to be with her. There was no reason why she +shouldn't be his restrained and dignified friend. After all, +that was life. Nothing was given away, and no one came so rich +to the stall as to command all that it had to offer. Every one +has to make a deal with the world. + +It would be very good to be Capes' friend. + +She might be able to go on with biology, possibly even work upon +the same questions that he dealt with. . . . + +Perhaps her granddaughter might marry his grandson. . . . + +It grew clear to her that throughout all her wild raid for +independence she had done nothing for anybody, and many people +had done things for her. She thought of her aunt and that purse +that was dropped on the table, and of many troublesome and +ill-requited kindnesses; she thought of the help of the Widgetts, +of Teddy's admiration; she thought, with a new-born charity, of +her father, of Manning's conscientious unselfishness, of Miss +Miniver's devotion. + +"And for me it has been Pride and Pride and Pride! + +"I am the prodigal daughter. I will arise and go to my father, +and will say unto him-- + +"I suppose pride and self-assertion are sin? Sinned against +heaven-- Yes, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. . . . + +"Poor old daddy! I wonder if he'll spend much on the fatted +calf? . . . + +"The wrappered life-discipline! One comes to that at last. I +begin to understand Jane Austen and chintz covers and decency and +refinement and all the rest of it. One puts gloves on one's +greedy fingers. One learns to sit up . . . + +"And somehow or other," she added, after a long interval, "I must +pay Mr. Ramage back his forty pounds." + + + +CHAPTER THE TWELFTH + +ANN VERONICA PUTS THINGS IN ORDER + + +Part 1 + + +Ann Veronica made a strenuous attempt to carry out her good +resolutions. She meditated long and carefully upon her letter to +her father before she wrote it, and gravely and deliberately +again before she despatched it. + + +"MY DEAR FATHER," she wrote,--"I have been thinking hard about +everything since I was sent to this prison. All these experiences +have taught me a great deal about life and realities. I see that +compromise is more necessary to life than I ignorantly supposed +it to be, and I have been trying to get Lord Morley's book on +that subject, but it does not appear to be available in the +prison library, and the chaplain seems to regard him as an +undesirable writer." + +At this point she had perceived that she was drifting from her +subject. + +"I must read him when I come out. But I see very clearly that as +things are a daughter is necessarily dependent on her father and +bound while she is in that position to live harmoniously with his +ideals." + +"Bit starchy," said Ann Veronica, and altered the key abruptly. +Her concluding paragraph was, on the whole, perhaps, hardly +starchy enough. + +"Really, daddy, I am sorry for all I have done to put you out. +May I come home and try to be a better daughter to you? + + "ANN VERONICA." + + + +Part 2 + + +Her aunt came to meet her outside Canongate, and, being a little +confused between what was official and what was merely a +rebellious slight upon our national justice, found herself +involved in a triumphal procession to the Vindicator Vegetarian +Restaurant, and was specifically and personally cheered by a +small, shabby crowd outside that rendezvous. They decided quite +audibly, "She's an Old Dear, anyhow. Voting wouldn't do no 'arm +to 'er." She was on the very verge of a vegetarian meal before +she recovered her head again. Obeying some fine instinct, she +had come to the prison in a dark veil, but she had pushed this up +to kiss Ann Veronica and never drawn it down again. Eggs were +procured for her, and she sat out the subsequent emotions and +eloquence with the dignity becoming an injured lady of good +family. The quiet encounter and home-coming Ann Veronica and she +had contemplated was entirely disorganized by this misadventure; +there were no adequate explanations, and after they had settled +things at Ann Veronica's lodgings, they reached home in the early +afternoon estranged and depressed, with headaches and the trumpet +voice of the indomitable Kitty Brett still ringing in their ears. + +"Dreadful women, my dear!" said Miss Stanley. "And some of them +quite pretty and well dressed. No need to do such things. We +must never let your father know we went. Why ever did you let me +get into that wagonette?" + +"I thought we had to," said Ann Veronica, who had also been a +little under the compulsion of the marshals of the occasion. "It +was very tiring." + +"We will have some tea in the drawing-room as soon as ever we +can--and I will take my things off. I don't think I shall ever +care for this bonnet again. We'll have some buttered toast. +Your poor cheeks are quite sunken and hollow. . . ." + + + +Part 3 + + +When Ann Veronica found herself in her father's study that +evening it seemed to her for a moment as though all the events of +the past six months had been a dream. The big gray spaces of +London, the shop-lit, greasy, shining streets, had become very +remote; the biological laboratory with its work and emotions, the +meetings and discussions, the rides in hansoms with Ramage, were +like things in a book read and closed. The study seemed +absolutely unaltered, there was still the same lamp with a little +chip out of the shade, still the same gas fire, still the same +bundle of blue and white papers, it seemed, with the same pink +tape about them, at the elbow of the arm-chair, still the same +father. He sat in much the same attitude, and she stood just as +she had stood when he told her she could not go to the Fadden +Dance. Both had dropped the rather elaborate politeness of the +dining-room, and in their faces an impartial observer would have +discovered little lines of obstinate wilfulness in common; a +certain hardness--sharp, indeed, in the father and softly rounded +in the daughter --but hardness nevertheless, that made every +compromise a bargain and every charity a discount. + +"And so you have been thinking?" her father began, quoting her +letter and looking over his slanting glasses at her. "Well, my +girl, I wish you had thought about all these things before these +bothers began." + +Ann Veronica perceived that she must not forget to remain +eminently reasonable. + +"One has to live and learn," she remarked, with a passable +imitation of her father's manner. + +"So long as you learn," said Mr. Stanley. + +Their conversation hung. + +"I suppose, daddy, you've no objection to my going on with my +work at the Imperial College?" she asked. + +"If it will keep you busy," he said, with a faintly ironical +smile. + +"The fees are paid to the end of the session." + +He nodded twice, with his eyes on the fire, as though that was a +formal statement. + +"You may go on with that work," he said, "so long as you keep in +harmony with things at home. I'm convinced that much of +Russell's investigations are on wrong lines, unsound lines. +Still--you must learn for yourself. You're of age--you're of +age." + +"The work's almost essential for the B.Sc. exam." + +"It's scandalous, but I suppose it is." + +Their agreement so far seemed remarkable, and yet as a +home-coming the thing was a little lacking in warmth. But Ann +Veronica had still to get to her chief topic. They were silent +for a time. "It's a period of crude views and crude work," said +Mr. Stanley. "Still, these Mendelian fellows seem likely to give +Mr. Russell trouble, a good lot of trouble. Some of their +specimens--wonderfully selected, wonderfully got up." + +"Daddy," said Ann Veronica, "these affairs--being away from home +has--cost money." + +"I thought you would find that out." + +"As a matter of fact, I happen to have got a little into debt." + +"NEVER!" + +Her heart sank at the change in his expression. + +"Well, lodgings and things! And I paid my fees at the College." + +"Yes. But how could you get--Who gave you credit? + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, "my landlady kept on my room while +I was in Holloway, and the fees for the College mounted up pretty +considerably." She spoke rather quickly, because she found her +father's question the most awkward she had ever had to answer in +her life. + +"Molly and you settled about the rooms. She said you HAD some +money." + +"I borrowed it," said Ann Veronica in a casual tone, with white +despair in her heart. + +"But who could have lent you money?" + +"I pawned my pearl necklace. I got three pounds, and there's +three on my watch." + +"Six pounds. H'm. Got the tickets? Yes, but then--you said you +borrowed?" + +"I did, too," said Ann Veronica. + +"Who from?" + +She met his eye for a second and her heart failed her. The truth +was impossible, indecent. If she mentioned Ramage he might have +a fit--anything might happen. She lied. "The Widgetts," she +said. + +"Tut, tut!" he said. "Really, Vee, you seem to have advertised +our relations pretty generally!" + +"They--they knew, of course. Because of the Dance." + +"How much do you owe them?" + +She knew forty pounds was a quite impossible sum for their +neighbors. She knew, too, she must not hesitate. "Eight +pounds," she plunged, and added foolishly, "fifteen pounds will +see me clear of everything." She muttered some unlady-like +comment upon herself under her breath and engaged in secret +additions. + +Mr. Stanley determined to improve the occasion. He seemed to +deliberate. "Well," he said at last slowly, "I'll pay it. I'll +pay it. But I do hope, Vee, I do hope --this is the end of these +adventures. I hope you have learned your lesson now and come to +see--come to realize --how things are. People, nobody, can do as +they like in this world. Everywhere there are limitations." + +"I know," said Ann Veronica (fifteen pounds!). "I have learned +that. I mean--I mean to do what I can." (Fifteen pounds. +Fifteen from forty is twenty-five.) + +He hesitated. She could think of nothing more to say. + +"Well," she achieved at last. "Here goes for the new life!" + +"Here goes for the new life," he echoed and stood up. Father and +daughter regarded each other warily, each more than a little +insecure with the other. He made a movement toward her, and then +recalled the circumstances of their last conversation in that +study. She saw his purpose and his doubt hesitated also, and +then went to him, took his coat lapels, and kissed him on the +cheek. + +"Ah, Vee," he said, "that's better! and kissed her back rather +clumsily. "We're going to be sensible." + +She disengaged herself from him and went out of the room with a +grave, preoccupied expression. (Fifteen pounds! And she wanted +forty!) + + + +Part 4 + + +It was, perhaps, the natural consequence of a long and tiring and +exciting day that Ann Veronica should pass a broken and +distressful night, a night in which the noble and self-subduing +resolutions of Canongate displayed themselves for the first time +in an atmosphere of almost lurid dismay. Her father's peculiar +stiffness of soul presented itself now as something altogether +left out of the calculations upon which her plans were based, +and, in particular, she had not anticipated the difficulty she +would find in borrowing the forty pounds she needed for Ramage. +That had taken her by surprise, and her tired wits had failed +her. She was to have fifteen pounds, and no more. She knew that +to expect more now was like anticipating a gold-mine in the +garden. The chance had gone. It became suddenly glaringly +apparent to her that it was impossible to return fifteen pounds +or any sum less than twenty pounds to Ramage --absolutely +impossible. She realized that with a pang of disgust and horror. + +Already she had sent him twenty pounds, and never written to +explain to him why it was she had not sent it back sharply +directly he returned it. She ought to have written at once and +told him exactly what had happened. Now if she sent fifteen +pounds the suggestion that she had spent a five-pound note in the +meanwhile would be irresistible. No! That was impossible. She +would have just to keep the fifteen pounds until she could make +it twenty. That might happen on her birthday--in August. + +She turned about, and was persecuted by visions, half memories, +half dreams, of Ramage. He became ugly and monstrous, dunning +her, threatening her, assailing her. + +"Confound sex from first to last!" said Ann Veronica. "Why can't +we propagate by sexless spores, as the ferns do? We restrict +each other, we badger each other, friendship is poisoned and +buried under it! . . . I MUST pay off that forty pounds. I +MUST." + +For a time there seemed no comfort for her even in Capes. She +was to see Capes to-morrow, but now, in this state of misery she +had achieved, she felt assured he would turn his back upon her, +take no notice of her at all. And if he didn't, what was the +good of seeing him? + +"I wish he was a woman," she said, "then I could make him my +friend. I want him as my friend. I want to talk to him and go +about with him. Just go about with him." + +She was silent for a time, with her nose on the pillow, and that +brought her to: "What's the good of pretending? + +"I love him," she said aloud to the dim forms of her room, and +repeated it, and went on to imagine herself doing acts of +tragically dog-like devotion to the biologist, who, for the +purposes of the drama, remained entirely unconscious of and +indifferent to her proceedings. + +At last some anodyne formed itself from these exercises, and, +with eyelashes wet with such feeble tears as only +three-o'clock-in-the-morning pathos can distil, she fell asleep. + + + +Part 5 + + +Pursuant to some altogether private calculations she did not go +up to the Imperial College until after mid-day, and she found the +laboratory deserted, even as she desired. She went to the table +under the end window at which she had been accustomed to work, +and found it swept and garnished with full bottles of re-agents. +Everything was very neat; it had evidently been straightened up +and kept for her. She put down the sketch-books and apparatus +she had brought with her, pulled out her stool, and sat down. As +she did so the preparation-room door opened behind her. She +heard it open, but as she felt unable to look round in a careless +manner she pretended not to hear it. Then Capes' footsteps +approached. She turned with an effort. + +"I expected you this morning," he said. "I saw--they knocked off +your fetters yesterday." + +"I think it is very good of me to come this afternoon." + +"I began to be afraid you might not come at all." + +"Afraid!" + +"Yes. I'm glad you're back for all sorts of reasons." He spoke a +little nervously. "Among other things, you know, I didn't +understand quite--I didn't understand that you were so keenly +interested in this suffrage question. I have it on my conscience +that I offended you--" + +"Offended me when?" + +"I've been haunted by the memory of you. I was rude and stupid. +We were talking about the suffrage--and I rather scoffed." + +"You weren't rude," she said. + +"I didn't know you were so keen on this suffrage business." + +"Nor I. You haven't had it on your mind all this time?" + +"I have rather. I felt somehow I'd hurt you." + +"You didn't. I--I hurt myself." + +"I mean--" + +"I behaved like an idiot, that's all. My nerves were in rags. I +was worried. We're the hysterical animal, Mr. Capes. I got +myself locked up to cool off. By a sort of instinct. As a dog +eats grass. I'm right again now." + +"Because your nerves were exposed, that was no excuse for my +touching them. I ought to have seen--" + +"It doesn't matter a rap--if you're not disposed to resent +the--the way I behaved." + +"_I_ resent!" + +"I was only sorry I'd been so stupid." + +"Well, I take it we're straight again," said Capes with a note of +relief, and assumed an easier position on the edge of her table. +"But if you weren't keen on the suffrage business, why on earth +did you go to prison?" + +Ann Veronica reflected. "It was a phase," she said. + +He smiled. "It's a new phase in the life history," he remarked. +"Everybody seems to have it now. Everybody who's going to develop +into a woman." + +"There's Miss Garvice." + +"She's coming on," said Capes. "And, you know, you're altering +us all. I'M shaken. The campaign's a success." He met her +questioning eye, and repeated, "Oh! it IS a success. A man is so +apt to--to take women a little too lightly. Unless they remind +him now and then not to. . . . YOU did." + +"Then I didn't waste my time in prison altogether?" + +"It wasn't the prison impressed me. But I liked the things you +said here. I felt suddenly I understood you--as an intelligent +person. If you'll forgive my saying that, and implying what goes +with it. There's something--puppyish in a man's usual attitude +to women. That is what I've had on my conscience. . . . I don't +think we're altogether to blame if we don't take some of your lot +seriously. Some of your sex, I mean. But we smirk a little, I'm +afraid, habitually when we talk to you. We smirk, and we're a +bit--furtive." + +He paused, with his eyes studying her gravely. "You, anyhow, +don't deserve it," he said. + +Their colloquy was ended abruptly by the apparition of Miss Klegg +at the further door. When she saw Ann Veronica she stood for a +moment as if entranced, and then advanced with outstretched +hands. "Veronique!" she cried with a rising intonation, though +never before had she called Ann Veronica anything but Miss +Stanley, and seized her and squeezed her and kissed her with +profound emotion. "To think that you were going to do it--and +never said a word! You are a little thin, but except for that +you look--you look better than ever. Was it VERY horrible? I +tried to get into the police-court, but the crowd was ever so +much too big, push as I would. . . . + +"I mean to go to prison directly the session is over," said Miss +Klegg. "Wild horses--not if they have all the mounted police in +London--shan't keep me out." + + + +Part 6 + + +Capes lit things wonderfully for Ann Veronica all that afternoon, +he was so friendly, so palpably interested in her, and glad to +have her back with him. Tea in the laboratory was a sort of +suffragette reception. Miss Garvice assumed a quality of +neutrality, professed herself almost won over by Ann Veronica's +example, and the Scotchman decided that if women had a +distinctive sphere it was, at any rate, an enlarging sphere, and +no one who believed in the doctrine of evolution could logically +deny the vote to women "ultimately," however much they might be +disposed to doubt the advisability of its immediate concession. +It was a refusal of expediency, he said, and not an absolute +refusal. The youth with his hair like Russell cleared his throat +and said rather irrelevantly that he knew a man who knew Thomas +Bayard Simmons, who had rioted in the Strangers' Gallery, and +then Capes, finding them all distinctly pro-Ann Veronica, if not +pro-feminist, ventured to be perverse, and started a vein of +speculation upon the Scotchman's idea--that there were still +hopes of women evolving into something higher. + +He was unusually absurd and ready, and all the time it seemed to +Ann Veronica as a delightful possibility, as a thing not indeed +to be entertained seriously, but to be half furtively felt, that +he was being so agreeable because she had come back again. She +returned home through a world that was as roseate as it had been +gray overnight. + +But as she got out of the train at Morningside Park Station she +had a shock. She saw, twenty yards down the platform, the shiny +hat and broad back and inimitable swagger of Ramage. She dived +at once behind the cover of the lamp-room and affected serious +trouble with her shoe-lace until he was out of the station, and +then she followed slowly and with extreme discretion until the +bifurcation of the Avenue from the field way insured her escape. +Ramage went up the Avenue, and she hurried along the path with a +beating heart and a disagreeable sense of unsolved problems in +her mind. + +"That thing's going on," she told herself. "Everything goes on, +confound it! One doesn't change anything one has set going by +making good resolutions." + +And then ahead of her she saw the radiant and welcoming figure of +Manning. He came as an agreeable diversion from an insoluble +perplexity. She smiled at the sight of him, and thereat his +radiation increased. + +"I missed the hour of your release," he said, "but I was at the +Vindicator Restaurant. You did not see me, I know. I was among +the common herd in the place below, but I took good care to see +you." + +"Of course you're converted?" she said. + +"To the view that all those Splendid Women in the movement ought +to have votes. Rather! Who could help it?" + +He towered up over her and smiled down at her in his fatherly +way. + +"To the view that all women ought to have votes whether they like +it or not." + +He shook his head, and his eyes and the mouth under the black +mustache wrinkled with his smile. And as he walked by her side +they began a wrangle that was none the less pleasant to Ann +Veronica because it served to banish a disagreeable +preoccupation. It seemed to her in her restored geniality that +she liked Manning extremely. The brightness Capes had diffused +over the world glorified even his rival. + + + +Part 7 + + +The steps by which Ann Veronica determined to engage herself to +marry Manning were never very clear to her. A medley of motives +warred in her, and it was certainly not one of the least of these +that she knew herself to be passionately in love with Capes; at +moments she had a giddy intimation that he was beginning to feel +keenly interested in her. She realized more and more the quality +of the brink upon which she stood--the dreadful readiness with +which in certain moods she might plunge, the unmitigated +wrongness and recklessness of such a self-abandonment. "He must +never know," she would whisper to herself, "he must never know. +Or else--Else it will be impossible that I can be his friend." + +That simple statement of the case was by no means all that went +on in Ann Veronica's mind. But it was the form of her ruling +determination; it was the only form that she ever allowed to see +daylight. What else was there lurked in shadows and deep places; +if in some mood of reverie it came out into the light, it was +presently overwhelmed and hustled back again into hiding. She +would never look squarely at these dream forms that mocked the +social order in which she lived, never admit she listened to the +soft whisperings in her ear. But Manning seemed more and more +clearly indicated as a refuge, as security. Certain simple +purposes emerged from the disingenuous muddle of her feelings and +desires. Seeing Capes from day to day made a bright eventfulness +that hampered her in the course she had resolved to follow. She +vanished from the laboratory for a week, a week of oddly +interesting days. . . . + +When she renewed her attendance at the Imperial College the third +finger of her left hand was adorned with a very fine old ring +with dark blue sapphires that had once belonged to a great-aunt +of Manning's. + +That ring manifestly occupied her thoughts a great deal. She +kept pausing in her work and regarding it, and when Capes came +round to her, she first put her hand in her lap and then rather +awkwardly in front of him. But men are often blind to rings. He +seemed to be. + +In the afternoon she had considered certain doubts very +carefully, and decided on a more emphatic course of action. "Are +these ordinary sapphires?" she said. He bent to her hand, and she +slipped off the ring and gave it to him to examine. + +"Very good," he said. "Rather darker than most of them. But I'm +generously ignorant of gems. Is it an old ring?" he asked, +returning it. + +"I believe it is. It's an engagement ring. . . ." She slipped +it on her finger, and added, in a voice she tried to make +matter-of-fact: "It was given to me last week." + +"Oh!" he said, in a colorless tone, and with his eyes on her +face. + +"Yes. Last week." + +She glanced at him, and it was suddenly apparent for one instant +of illumination that this ring upon her finger was the crowning +blunder of her life. It was apparent, and then it faded into the +quality of an inevitable necessity. + +"Odd!" he remarked, rather surprisingly, after a little interval. + +There was a brief pause, a crowded pause, between them. + +She sat very still, and his eyes rested on that ornament for a +moment, and then travelled slowly to her wrist and the soft lines +of her forearm. + +"I suppose I ought to congratulate you," he said. Their eyes met, +and his expressed perplexity and curiosity. "The fact is--I +don't know why--this takes me by surprise. Somehow I haven't +connected the idea with you. You seemed complete--without that." + +"Did I?" she said. + +"I don't know why. But this is like--like walking round a house +that looks square and complete and finding an unexpected long +wing running out behind." + +She looked up at him, and found he was watching her closely. For +some seconds of voluminous thinking they looked at the ring +between them, and neither spoke. Then Capes shifted his eyes to +her microscope and the little trays of unmounted sections beside +it. "How is that carmine working?" he asked, with a forced +interest. + +"Better," said Ann Veronica, with an unreal alacrity. "But it +still misses the nucleolus." + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH + +THE SAPPHIRE RING + + +Part 1 + + +For a time that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all, +the satisfactory solution of Ann Veronica's difficulties. It was +like pouring a strong acid over dulled metal. A tarnish of +constraint that had recently spread over her intercourse with +Capes vanished again. They embarked upon an open and declared +friendship. They even talked about friendship. They went to the +Zoological Gardens together one Saturday to see for themselves a +point of morphological interest about the toucan's bill--that +friendly and entertaining bird--and they spent the rest of the +afternoon walking about and elaborating in general terms this +theme and the superiority of intellectual fellowship to all +merely passionate relationships. Upon this topic Capes was heavy +and conscientious, but that seemed to her to be just exactly what +he ought to be. He was also, had she known it, more than a +little insincere. "We are only in the dawn of the Age of +Friendship," he said, "when interest, I suppose, will take the +place of passions. Either you have had to love people or hate +them--which is a sort of love, too, in its way--to get anything +out of them. Now, more and more, we're going to be interested in +them, to be curious about them and--quite mildly-experimental +with them." He seemed to be elaborating ideas as he talked. +They watched the chimpanzees in the new apes' house, and admired +the gentle humanity of their eyes--"so much more human than human +beings" --and they watched the Agile Gibbon in the next apartment +doing wonderful leaps and aerial somersaults. + +"I wonder which of us enjoys that most," said Capes--"does he, or +do we?" + +"He seems to get a zest--" + +"He does it and forgets it. We remember it. These joyful bounds +just lace into the stuff of my memories and stay there forever. +Living's just material." + +"It's very good to be alive." + +"It's better to know life than be life." + +"One may do both," said Ann Veronica. + +She was in a very uncritical state that afternoon. When he said, +"Let's go and see the wart-hog," she thought no one ever had had +so quick a flow of good ideas as he; and when he explained that +sugar and not buns was the talisman of popularity among the +animals, she marvelled at his practical omniscience. + +Finally, at the exit into Regent's Park, they ran against Miss +Klegg. It was the expression of Miss Klegg's face that put the +idea into Ann Veronica's head of showing Manning at the College +one day, an idea which she didn't for some reason or other carry +out for a fortnight. + + + +Part 2 + + +When at last she did so, the sapphire ring took on a new quality +in the imagination of Capes. It ceased to be the symbol of +liberty and a remote and quite abstracted person, and became +suddenly and very disagreeably the token of a large and +portentous body visible and tangible. + +Manning appeared just at the end of the afternoon's work, and the +biologist was going through some perplexities the Scotchman had +created by a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of Hyrax and a +young African elephant. He was clearing up these difficulties by +tracing a partially obliterated suture the Scotchman had +overlooked when the door from the passage opened, and Manning +came into his universe. + +Seen down the length of the laboratory, Manning looked a very +handsome and shapely gentleman indeed, and, at the sight of his +eager advance to his fiancee, Miss Klegg replaced one +long-cherished romance about Ann Veronica by one more normal and +simple. He carried a cane and a silk hat with a mourning-band in +one gray-gloved hand; his frock-coat and trousers were admirable; +his handsome face, his black mustache, his prominent brow +conveyed an eager solicitude. + +"I want," he said, with a white hand outstretched, "to take you +out to tea." + +"I've been clearing up," said Ann Veronica, brightly. + +"All your dreadful scientific things?" he said, with a smile that +Miss Klegg thought extraordinarily kindly. + +"All my dreadful scientific things," said Ann Veronica. + +He stood back, smiling with an air of proprietorship, and looking +about him at the business-like equipment of the room. The low +ceiling made him seem abnormally tall. Ann Veronica wiped a +scalpel, put a card over a watch-glass containing thin shreds of +embryonic guinea-pig swimming in mauve stain, and dismantled her +microscope. + +"I wish I understood more of biology," said Manning. + +"I'm ready," said Ann Veronica, closing her microscope-box with a +click, and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. "We +have no airs and graces here, and my hat hangs from a peg in the +passage." + +She led the way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and +round her and opened the door for her. When Capes glanced up at +them for a moment, Manning seemed to be holding his arms all +about her, and there was nothing but quiet acquiescence in her +bearing. + +After Capes had finished the Scotchman's troubles he went back +into the preparation-room. He sat down on the sill of the open +window, folded his arms, and stared straight before him for a +long time over the wilderness of tiles and chimney-pots into a +sky that was blue and empty. He was not addicted to monologue, +and the only audible comment he permitted himself at first upon a +universe that was evidently anything but satisfactory to him that +afternoon, was one compact and entirely unassigned "Damn!" + +The word must have had some gratifying quality, because he +repeated it. Then he stood up and repeated it again. "The fool +I have been!" he cried; and now speech was coming to him. He +tried this sentence with expletives. "Ass!" he went on, still +warming. "Muck-headed moral ass! I ought to have done anything. + +I ought to have done anything! + +"What's a man for? + +"Friendship!" + +He doubled up his fist, and seemed to contemplate thrusting it +through the window. He turned his back on that temptation. Then +suddenly he seized a new preparation bottle that stood upon his +table and contained the better part of a week's work--a displayed +dissection of a snail, beautifully done--and hurled it across the +room, to smash resoundingly upon the cemented floor under the +bookcase; then, without either haste or pause, he swept his arm +along a shelf of re-agents and sent them to mingle with the +debris on the floor. They fell in a diapason of smashes. "H'm!" +he said, regarding the wreckage with a calmer visage. "Silly!" he +remarked after a pause. "One hardly knows--all the time." + +He put his hands in his pockets, his mouth puckered to a whistle, +and he went to the door of the outer preparation-room and stood +there, looking, save for the faintest intensification of his +natural ruddiness, the embodiment of blond serenity. + +"Gellett," he called, "just come and clear up a mess, will you? +I've smashed some things." + + + +Part 3 + + +There was one serious flaw in Ann Veronica's arrangements for +self-rehabilitation, and that was Ramage. He hung over her--he +and his loan to her and his connection with her and that terrible +evening--a vague, disconcerting possibility of annoyance and +exposure. She could not see any relief from this anxiety except +repayment, and repayment seemed impossible. The raising of +twenty-five pounds was a task altogether beyond her powers. Her +birthday was four months away, and that, at its extremist point, +might give her another five pounds. + +The thing rankled in her mind night and day. She would wake in +the night to repeat her bitter cry: "Oh, why did I burn those +notes?" + +It added greatly to the annoyance of the situation that she had +twice seen Ramage in the Avenue since her return to the shelter +of her father's roof. He had saluted her with elaborate +civility, his eyes distended with indecipherable meanings. + +She felt she was bound in honor to tell the whole affair to +Manning sooner or later. Indeed, it seemed inevitable that she +must clear it up with his assistance, or not at all. And when +Manning was not about the thing seemed simple enough. She would +compose extremely lucid and honorable explanations. But when it +came to broaching them, it proved to be much more difficult than +she had supposed. + +They went down the great staircase of the building, and, while +she sought in her mind for a beginning, he broke into +appreciation of her simple dress and self-congratulations upon +their engagement. + +"It makes me feel," he said, "that nothing is impossible--to have +you here beside me. I said, that day at Surbiton, 'There's many +good things in life, but there's only one best, and that's the +wild-haired girl who's pulling away at that oar. I will make her +my Grail, and some day, perhaps, if God wills, she shall become +my wife!' " + +He looked very hard before him as he said this, and his voice was +full of deep feeling. + +"Grail!" said Ann Veronica, and then: "Oh, yes--of course! +Anything but a holy one, I'm afraid." + +"Altogether holy, Ann Veronica. Ah! but you can't imagine what +you are to me and what you mean to me! I suppose there is +something mystical and wonderful about all women." + +"There is something mystical and wonderful about all human +beings. I don't see that men need bank it with the women." + +"A man does," said Manning--"a true man, anyhow. And for me there +is only one treasure-house. By Jove! When I think of it I want +to leap and shout!" + +"It would astonish that man with the barrow." + +"It astonishes me that I don't," said Manning, in a tone of +intense self-enjoyment. + +"I think," began Ann Veronica, "that you don't realize--" + +He disregarded her entirely. He waved an arm and spoke with a +peculiar resonance. "I feel like a giant! I believe now I shall +do great things. Gods! what it must be to pour out strong, +splendid verse--mighty lines! mighty lines! If I do, Ann +Veronica, it will be you. It will be altogether you. I will +dedicate my books to you. I will lay them all at your feet." + +He beamed upon her. + +"I don't think you realize," Ann Veronica began again, "that I am +rather a defective human being." + +"I don't want to," said Manning. "They say there are spots on +the sun. Not for me. It warms me, and lights me, and fills my +world with flowers. Why should I peep at it through smoked glass +to see things that don't affect me?" He smiled his delight at +his companion. + +"I've got bad faults." + +He shook his head slowly, smiling mysteriously. + +"But perhaps I want to confess them." + +"I grant you absolution." + +"I don't want absolution. I want to make myself visible to you." + +"I wish I could make you visible to yourself. I don't believe in +the faults. They're just a joyous softening of the outline--more +beautiful than perfection. Like the flaws of an old marble. If +you talk of your faults, I shall talk of your splendors." + +"I do want to tell you things, nevertheless." + +"We'll have, thank God! ten myriad days to tell each other +things. When I think of it--" + +"But these are things I want to tell you now!" + +"I made a little song of it. Let me say it to you. I've no name +for it yet. Epithalamy might do. + + "Like him who stood on Darien + I view uncharted sea + Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights + Before my Queen and me. + + +"And that only brings me up to about sixty-five! + + "A glittering wilderness of time + That to the sunset reaches + No keel as yet its waves has ploughed + Or gritted on its beaches. + + "And we will sail that splendor wide, + From day to day together, + From isle to isle of happiness + Through year's of God's own weather." + + +"Yes," said his prospective fellow-sailor, "that's very pretty." +She stopped short, full of things un-said. Pretty! Ten +thousand days, ten thousand nights! + +"You shall tell me your faults," said Manning. "If they matter +to you, they matter." + +"It isn't precisely faults," said Ann Veronica. "It's something +that bothers me." Ten thousand! Put that way it seemed so +different. + +"Then assuredly!" said Manning. + +She found a little difficulty in beginning. She was glad when he +went on: "I want to be your city of refuge from every sort of +bother. I want to stand between you and all the force and +vileness of the world. I want to make you feel that here is a +place where the crowd does not clamor nor ill-winds blow." + +"That is all very well," said Ann Veronica, unheeded. + +"That is my dream of you," said Manning, warming. "I want my life +to be beaten gold just in order to make it a fitting setting for +yours. There you will be, in an inner temple. I want to enrich +it with hangings and gladden it with verses. I want to fill it +with fine and precious things. And by degrees, perhaps, that +maiden distrust of yours that makes you shrink from my kisses, +will vanish. . . . Forgive me if a certain warmth creeps into my +words! The Park is green and gray to-day, but I am glowing pink +and gold. . . . It is difficult to express these things." + + + +Part 4 + + +They sat with tea and strawberries and cream before them at a +little table in front of the pavilion in Regent's Park. Her +confession was still unmade. Manning leaned forward on the +table, talking discursively on the probable brilliance of their +married life. Ann Veronica sat back in an attitude of +inattention, her eyes on a distant game of cricket, her mind +perplexed and busy. She was recalling the circumstances under +which she had engaged herself to Manning, and trying to +understand a curious development of the quality of this +relationship. + +The particulars of her engagement were very clear in her memory. +She had taken care he should have this momentous talk with her on +a garden-seat commanded by the windows of the house. They had +been playing tennis, with his manifest intention looming over +her. + +"Let us sit down for a moment," he had said. He made his speech +a little elaborately. She plucked at the knots of her racket and +heard him to the end, then spoke in a restrained undertone. + +"You ask me to be engaged to you, Mr. Manning," she began. + +"I want to lay all my life at your feet." + +"Mr. Manning, I do not think I love you. . . . I want to be very +plain with you. I have nothing, nothing that can possibly be +passion for you. I am sure. Nothing at all." + +He was silent for some moments. + +"Perhaps that is only sleeping," he said. "How can you know?" + +"I think--perhaps I am rather a cold-blooded person." + +She stopped. He remained listening attentively. + +"You have been very kind to me," she said. + +"I would give my life for you." + +Her heart had warmed toward him. It had seemed to her that life +might be very good indeed with his kindliness and sacrifice about +her. She thought of him as always courteous and helpful, as +realizing, indeed, his ideal of protection and service, as +chivalrously leaving her free to live her own life, rejoicing +with an infinite generosity in every detail of her irresponsive +being. She twanged the catgut under her fingers. + +"It seems so unfair," she said, "to take all you offer me and +give so little in return." + +"It is all the world to me. And we are not traders looking at +equivalents." + +"You know, Mr. Manning, I do not really want to marry." + +"No." + +"It seems so--so unworthy"--she picked among her phrases "of the +noble love you give--" + +She stopped, through the difficulty she found in expressing +herself. + +"But I am judge of that," said Manning. + +"Would you wait for me?" + +Manning was silent for a space. "As my lady wills." + +"Would you let me go on studying for a time?" + +"If you order patience." + +"I think, Mr. Manning . . . I do not know. It is so difficult. +When I think of the love you give me--One ought to give you back +love." + +"You like me?" + +"Yes. And I am grateful to you. . . ." + +Manning tapped with his racket on the turf through some moments +of silence. "You are the most perfect, the most glorious of +created things--tender, frank intellectual, brave, beautiful. I +am your servitor. I am ready to wait for you, to wait your +pleasure, to give all my life to winning it. Let me only wear +your livery. Give me but leave to try. You want to think for a +time, to be free for a time. That is so like you, Diana--Pallas +Athene! (Pallas Athene is better.) You are all the slender +goddesses. I understand. Let me engage myself. That is all I +ask." + +She looked at him; his face, downcast and in profile, was +handsome and strong. Her gratitude swelled within her. + +"You are too good for me," she said in a low voice. + +"Then you--you will?" + +A long pause. + +"It isn't fair. . . ." + +"But will you?" + +"YES." + +For some seconds he had remained quite still. + +"If I sit here," he said, standing up before her abruptly, "I +shall have to shout. Let us walk about. Tum, tum, tirray, tum, +tum, tum, te-tum--that thing of Mendelssohn's! If making one +human being absolutely happy is any satisfaction to you--" + +He held out his hands, and she also stood up. + +He drew her close up to him with a strong, steady pull. Then +suddenly, in front of all those windows, he folded her in his +arms and pressed her to him, and kissed her unresisting face. + +"Don't!" cried Ann Veronica, struggling faintly, and he released +her. + +"Forgive me," he said. "But I am at singing-pitch." + +She had a moment of sheer panic at the thing she had done. "Mr. +Manning," she said, "for a time--Will you tell no one? Will you +keep this--our secret? I'm doubtful-- Will you please not even +tell my aunt?" + +"As you will," he said. "But if my manner tells! I cannot help +it if that shows. You only mean a secret for a little time?" + +"Just for a little time," she said; "yes. . . ." + +But the ring, and her aunt's triumphant eye, and a note of +approval in her father's manner, and a novel disposition in him +to praise Manning in a just, impartial voice had soon placed very +definite qualifications upon that covenanted secrecy. + + + +Part 5 + + +At first the quality of her relationship to Manning seemed moving +and beautiful to Ann Veronica. She admired and rather pitied +him, and she was unfeignedly grateful to him. She even thought +that perhaps she might come to love him, in spite of that faint +indefinable flavor of absurdity that pervaded his courtly +bearing. She would never love him as she loved Capes, of course, +but there are grades and qualities of love. For Manning it would +be a more temperate love altogether. Much more temperate; the +discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending +wife. She had been quite convinced that an engagement with him +and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromise +which distinguishes the ways of the wise. It would be the +wrappered world almost at its best. She saw herself building up +a life upon that--a life restrained, kindly, beautiful, a little +pathetic and altogether dignified; a life of great disciplines +and suppressions and extensive reserves. . . + +But the Ramage affair needed clearing up, of course; it was a +flaw upon that project. She had to explain about and pay off +that forty pounds. . . . + +Then, quite insensibly, her queenliness had declined. She was +never able to trace the changes her attitude had undergone, from +the time when she believed herself to be the pampered Queen of +Fortune, the crown of a good man's love (and secretly, but nobly, +worshipping some one else), to the time when she realized she was +in fact just a mannequin for her lover's imagination, and that he +cared no more for the realities of her being, for the things she +felt and desired, for the passions and dreams that might move +her, than a child cares for the sawdust in its doll. She was the +actress his whim had chosen to play a passive part. . . . + +It was one of the most educational disillusionments in Ann +Veronica's career. + +But did many women get anything better? + +This afternoon, when she was urgent to explain her hampering and +tainting complication with Ramage, the realization of this alien +quality in her relationship with Manning became acute. Hitherto +it had been qualified by her conception of all life as a +compromise, by her new effort to be unexacting of life. But she +perceived that to tell Manning of her Ramage adventures as they +had happened would be like tarring figures upon a water-color. +They were in different key, they had a different timbre. How +could she tell him what indeed already began to puzzle herself, +why she had borrowed that money at all? The plain fact was that +she had grabbed a bait. She had grabbed! She became less and +less attentive to his meditative, self-complacent fragments of +talk as she told herself this. Her secret thoughts made some +hasty, half-hearted excursions into the possibility of telling +the thing in romantic tones--Ramage was as a black villain, she +as a white, fantastically white, maiden. . . . She doubted if +Manning would even listen to that. He would refuse to listen and +absolve her unshriven. + +Then it came to her with a shock, as an extraordinary oversight, +that she could never tell Manning about Ramage--never. + +She dismissed the idea of doing so. But that still left the +forty pounds! . . . + +Her mind went on generalizing. So it would always be between +herself and Manning. She saw her life before her robbed of all +generous illusions, the wrappered life unwrappered forever, +vistas of dull responses, crises of make-believe, years of +exacting mutual disregard in a misty garden of fine sentiments. + +But did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps every +woman conceals herself from a man perforce! . . . + +She thought of Capes. She could not help thinking of Capes. +Surely Capes was different. Capes looked at one and not over +one, spoke to one, treated one as a visible concrete fact. Capes +saw her, felt for her, cared for her greatly, even if he did not +love her. Anyhow, he did not sentimentalize her. And she had +been doubting since that walk in the Zoological Gardens whether, +indeed, he did simply care for her. Little things, almost +impalpable, had happened to justify that doubt; something in his +manner had belied his words. Did he not look for her in the +morning when she entered--come very quickly to her? She thought +of him as she had last seen him looking down the length of the +laboratory to see her go. Why had he glanced up--quite in that +way? . . . + +The thought of Capes flooded her being like long-veiled sunlight +breaking again through clouds. It came to her like a dear thing +rediscovered, that she loved Capes. It came to her that to marry +any one but Capes was impossible. If she could not marry him, +she would not marry any one. She would end this sham with +Manning. It ought never to have begun. It was cheating, pitiful +cheating. And then if some day Capes wanted her--saw fit to +alter his views upon friendship. . . . + +Dim possibilities that she would not seem to look at even to +herself gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind. + +She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution, and in one moment +had made it into a new self. She flung aside every plan she had +in life, every discretion. Of course, why not? She would be +honest, anyhow! + +She turned her eyes to Manning. + +He was sitting back from the table now, with one arm over the +back of his green chair and the other resting on the little +table. He was smiling under his heavy mustache, and his head was +a little on one side as he looked at her. + +"And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?" he was +saying. His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene disbelief in +any confessible thing. Ann Veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and +the vestiges of her strawberries and cream, and put her elbows +before her on the table. "Mr. Manning," she said, "I HAVE a +confession to make." + +"I wish you would use my Christian name," he said. + +She attended to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant. + +Something in her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted +gravity to him. For the first time he seemed to wonder what it +might be that she had to confess. His smile faded. + +"I don't think our engagement can go on," she plunged, and felt +exactly that loss of breath that comes with a dive into icy +water. + +"But, how," he said, sitting up astonished beyond measure, "not +go on?" + +"I have been thinking while you have been talking. You see--I +didn't understand." + +She stared hard at her finger-nails. "It is hard to express +one's self, but I do want to be honest with you. When I promised +to marry you I thought I could; I thought it was a possible +arrangement. I did think it could be done. I admired your +chivalry. I was grateful." + +She paused. + +"Go on," he said. + +She moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a still lower +tone. "I told you I did not love you." + +"I know," said Manning, nodding gravely. "It was fine and brave +of you." + +"But there is something more." + +She paused again. + +"I--I am sorry-- I didn't explain. These things are difficult. +It wasn't clear to me that I had to explain. . . . I love some +one else." + +They remained looking at each other for three or four seconds. +Then Manning flopped back in his chair and dropped his chin like +a man shot. There was a long silence between them. + +"My God!" he said at last, with tremendous feeling, and then +again, "My God!" + +Now that this thing was said her mind was clear and calm. She +heard this standard expression of a strong soul wrung with a +critical coldness that astonished herself. She realized dimly +that there was no personal thing behind his cry, that countless +myriads of Mannings had "My God!"-ed with an equal gusto at +situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated her remorse +enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and conveyed +magnificent tragedy by his pose. + +"But why," he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, +and looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, "why did you +not tell me this before?" + +"I didn't know-- I thought I might be able to control myself." + +"And you can't?" + +"I don't think I ought to control myself." + +"And I have been dreaming and thinking--" + +"I am frightfully sorry. . . ." + +"But-- This bolt from the blue! My God! Ann Veronica, you don't +understand. This--this shatters a world!" + +She tried to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism was +strong and clear. + +He went on with intense urgency. + +"Why did you ever let me love you? Why did you ever let me peep +through the gates of Paradise? Oh! my God! I don't begin to +feel and realize this yet. It seems to me just talk; it seems to +me like the fancy of a dream. Tell me I haven't heard. This is +a joke of yours." He made his voice very low and full, and +looked closely into her face. + +She twisted her fingers tightly. "It isn't a joke," she said. +"I feel shabby and disgraced. . . . I ought never to have +thought of it. Of you, I mean. . . ." + +He fell back in his chair with an expression of tremendous +desolation. "My God!" he said again. . . . + +They became aware of the waitress standing over them with book +and pencil ready for their bill. "Never mind the bill," said +Manning tragically, standing up and thrusting a four-shilling +piece into her hand, and turning a broad back on her +astonishment. "Let us walk across the Park at least," he said to +Ann Veronica. "Just at present my mind simply won't take hold of +this at all. . . . I tell you--never mind the bill. Keep it! +Keep it!" + + + +Part 6 + + +They walked a long way that afternoon. They crossed the Park to +the westward, and then turned back and walked round the circle +about the Royal Botanical Gardens and then southwardly toward +Waterloo. They trudged and talked, and Manning struggled, as he +said, to "get the hang of it all." + +It was a long, meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and +unavoidable. Ann Veronica was apologetic to the bottom of her +soul. At the same time she was wildly exultant at the resolution +she had taken, the end she had made to her blunder. She had only +to get through this, to solace Manning as much as she could, to +put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as were possible, and +then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fate to the +test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action in +accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them +or care for them. Then she realized that it was her business to +let Manning talk and impose his own interpretations upon the +situation so far as he was concerned. She did her best to do +this. But about his unknown rival he was acutely curious. + +He made her tell him the core of the difficulty. + +"I cannot say who he is," said Ann Veronica, "but he is a married +man. . . . No! I do not even know that he cares for me. It is +no good going into that. Only I just want him. I just want him, +and no one else will do. It is no good arguing about a thing +like that." + +"But you thought you could forget him." + +"I suppose I must have thought so. I didn't understand. Now I +do." + +"By God!" said Manning, making the most of the word, "I suppose +it's fate. Fate! You are so frank so splendid! + +"I'm taking this calmly now," he said, almost as if he +apologized, "because I'm a little stunned." + +Then he asked, "Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love +to you?" + +Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. "I wish he had," she said. + +"But--" + +The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on +her nerves. "When one wants a thing more than anything else in +the world," she said with outrageous frankness, "one naturally +wishes one had it." + +She shocked him by that. She shattered the edifice he was +building up of himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his +chance to win her from a hopeless and consuming passion. + +"Mr. Manning," she said, "I warned you not to idealize me. Men +ought not to idealize any woman. We aren't worth it. We've done +nothing to deserve it. And it hampers us. You don't know the +thoughts we have; the things we can do and say. You are a +sisterless man; you have never heard the ordinary talk that goes +on at a girls' boarding-school." + +"Oh! but you ARE splendid and open and fearless! As if I couldn't +allow! What are all these little things? Nothing! Nothing! You +can't sully yourself. You can't! I tell you frankly you may +break off your engagement to me--I shall hold myself still +engaged to you, yours just the same. As for this +infatuation--it's like some obsession, some magic thing laid upon +you. It's not you--not a bit. It's a thing that's happened to +you. It is like some accident. I don't care. In a sense I +don't care. It makes no difference. . . . All the same, I wish +I had that fellow by the throat! Just the virile, unregenerate +man in me wishes that. . . . + +"I suppose I should let go if I had. + +"You know," he went on, "this doesn't seem to me to end anything. + +I'm rather a persistent person. I'm the sort of dog, if you turn +it out of the room it lies down on the mat at the door. I'm not +a lovesick boy. I'm a man, and I know what I mean. It's a +tremendous blow, of course--but it doesn't kill me. And the +situation it makes!--the situation!" + +Thus Manning, egotistical, inconsecutive, unreal. And Ann +Veronica walked beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to +him by the thought of how she had ill-used him, and all the time, +as her feet and mind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more +that at the cost of this one interminable walk she escaped the +prospect of--what was it?--"Ten thousand days, ten thousand +nights" in his company. Whatever happened she need never return +to that possibility. + +"For me," Manning went on, "this isn't final. In a sense it +alters nothing. I shall still wear your favor--even if it is a +stolen and forbidden favor--in my casque. . . . I shall still +believe in you. Trust you." + +He repeated several times that he would trust her, though it +remained obscure just exactly where the trust came in. + +"Look here," he cried out of a silence, with a sudden flash of +understanding, "did you mean to throw me over when you came out +with me this afternoon?" + +Ann Veronica hesitated, and with a startled mind realized the +truth. "No," she answered, reluctantly. + +"Very well," said Manning. "Then I don't take this as final. +That's all. I've bored you or something. . . . You think you +love this other man! No doubt you do love him. Before you have +lived--" + +He became darkly prophetic. He thrust out a rhetorical hand. + +"I will MAKE you love me! Until he has faded--faded into a +memory. . ." + +He saw her into the train at Waterloo, and stood, a tall, grave +figure, with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward slowly +and hid him. Ann Veronica sat back with a sigh of relief. +Manning might go on now idealizing her as much as he liked. She +was no longer a confederate in that. He might go on as the +devoted lover until he tired. She had done forever with the Age +of Chivalry, and her own base adaptations of its traditions to +the compromising life. She was honest again. + +But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she +perceived the tangled skein of life was now to be further +complicated by his romantic importunity. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH + +THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT + + +Part 1 + + +Spring had held back that year until the dawn of May, and then +spring and summer came with a rush together. Two days after this +conversation between Manning and Ann Veronica, Capes came into +the laboratory at lunch-time and found her alone there standing +by the open window, and not even pretending to be doing anything. + +He came in with his hands in his trousers pockets and a general +air of depression in his bearing. He was engaged in detesting +Manning and himself in almost equal measure. His face brightened +at the sight of her, and he came toward her. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. + +"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, and stared over her shoulder out of +the window. + +"So am I. . . . Lassitude?" + +"I suppose so." + +"_I_ can't work." + +"Nor I," said Ann Veronica. + +Pause. + +"It's the spring," he said. "It's the warming up of the year, +the coming of the light mornings, the way in which everything +begins to run about and begin new things. Work becomes +distasteful; one thinks of holidays. This year--I've got it +badly. I want to get away. I've never wanted to get away so +much." + +"Where do you go?" + +"Oh!--Alps." + +"Climbing?" + +"Yes." + +"That's rather a fine sort of holiday!" + +He made no answer for three or four seconds. + +"Yes," he said, "I want to get away. I feel at moments as though +I could bolt for it. . . . Silly, isn't it? Undisciplined." + +He went to the window and fidgeted with the blind, looking out to +where the tree-tops of Regent's Park showed distantly over the +houses. He turned round toward her and found her looking at him +and standing very still. + +"It's the stir of spring," he said. + +"I believe it is." + +She glanced out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth +of hard spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild +resolution, and, lest she should waver from it, she set about at +once to realize it. "I've broken off my engagement," she said, +in a matter-of-fact tone, and found her heart thumping in her +neck. He moved slightly, and she went on, with a slight catching +of her breath: "It's a bother and disturbance, but you see--" +She had to go through with it now, because she could think of +nothing but her preconceived words. Her voice was weak and flat. + +"I've fallen in love." + +He never helped her by a sound. + +"I--I didn't love the man I was engaged to," she said. She met +his eyes for a moment, and could not interpret their expression. +They struck her as cold and indifferent. + +Her heart failed her and her resolution became water. She +remained standing stiffly, unable even to move. She could not +look at him through an interval that seemed to her a vast gulf of +time. But she felt his lax figure become rigid. + +At last his voice came to release her tension. + +"I thought you weren't keeping up to the mark. You-- It's jolly +of you to confide in me. Still--" Then, with incredible and +obviously deliberate stupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, +he asked, "Who is the man?" + +Her spirit raged within her at the dumbness, the paralysis that +had fallen upon her. Grace, confidence, the power of movement +even, seemed gone from her. A fever of shame ran through her +being. Horrible doubts assailed her. She sat down awkwardly and +helplessly on one of the little stools by her table and covered +her face with her hands. + +"Can't you SEE how things are?" she said. + + + +Part 2 + + +Before Capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of +the laboratory opened noisily and Miss Klegg appeared. She went +to her own table and sat down. At the sound of the door Ann +Veronica uncovered a tearless face, and with one swift movement +assumed a conversational attitude. Things hung for a moment in +an awkward silence. + +"You see," said Ann Veronica, staring before her at the +window-sash, "that's the form my question takes at the present +time." + +Capes had not quite the same power of recovery. He stood with +his hands in his pockets looking at Miss Klegg's back. His face +was white. "It's--it's a difficult question." He appeared to be +paralyzed by abstruse acoustic calculations. Then, very +awkwardly, he took a stool and placed it at the end of Ann +Veronica's table, and sat down. He glanced at Miss Klegg again, +and spoke quickly and furtively, with eager eyes on Ann +Veronica's face. + +"I had a faint idea once that things were as you say they are, +but the affair of the ring--of the unexpected ring--puzzled me. +Wish SHE"--he indicated Miss Klegg's back with a nod--"was at the +bottom of the sea. . . . I would like to talk to you about +this--soon. If you don't think it would be a social outrage, +perhaps I might walk with you to your railway station." + +"I will wait," said Ann Veronica, still not looking at him, "and +we will go into Regent's Park. No--you shall come with me to +Waterloo." + +"Right!" he said, and hesitated, and then got up and went into +the preparation-room. + + + +Part 3 + + +For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that +lead southward from the College. Capes bore a face of infinite +perplexity. + +"The thing I feel most disposed to say, Miss Stanley," he began +at last, "is that this is very sudden." + +"It's been coming on since first I came into the laboratory." + +"What do you want?" he asked, bluntly. + +"You!" said Ann Veronica. + +The sense of publicity, of people coming and going about them, +kept them both unemotional. And neither had any of that +theatricality which demands gestures and facial expression. + +"I suppose you know I like you tremendously?" he pursued. + +"You told me that in the Zoological Gardens." + +She found her muscles a-tremble. But there was nothing in her +bearing that a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the +excitement that possessed her. + +"I"--he seemed to have a difficulty with the word--"I love you. +I've told you that practically already. But I can give it its +name now. You needn't be in any doubt about it. I tell you that +because it puts us on a footing. . . ." + +They went on for a time without another word. + +"But don't you know about me?" he said at last. + +"Something. Not much." + +"I'm a married man. And my wife won't live with me for reasons +that I think most women would consider sound. . . . Or I should +have made love to you long ago." + +There came a silence again. + +"I don't care," said Ann Veronica. + +"But if you knew anything of that--" + +"I did. It doesn't matter." + +"Why did you tell me? I thought--I thought we were going to be +friends." + +He was suddenly resentful. He seemed to charge her with the ruin +of their situation. "Why on earth did you TELL me?" he cried. + +"I couldn't help it. It was an impulse. I HAD to." + +"But it changes things. I thought you understood." + +"I had to," she repeated. "I was sick of the make-believe. I +don't care! I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did." + +"Look here!" said Capes, "what on earth do you want? What do you +think we can do? Don't you know what men are, and what life +is?--to come to me and talk to me like this!" + +"I know--something, anyhow. But I don't care; I haven't a spark +of shame. I don't see any good in life if it hasn't got you in +it. I wanted you to know. And now you know. And the fences are +down for good. You can't look me in the eyes and say you don't +care for me." + +"I've told you," he said. + +"Very well," said Ann Veronica, with an air of concluding the +discussion. + +They walked side by side for a time. + +"In that laboratory one gets to disregard these passions," began +Capes. "Men are curious animals, with a trick of falling in love +readily with girls about your age. One has to train one's self +not to. I've accustomed myself to think of you--as if you were +like every other girl who works at the schools--as something +quite outside these possibilities. If only out of loyalty to co- +education one has to do that. Apart from everything else, this +meeting of ours is a breach of a good rule." + +"Rules are for every day," said Ann Veronica. "This is not every +day. This is something above all rules." + +"For you." + +"Not for you?" + +"No. No; I'm going to stick to the rules. . . . It's odd, but +nothing but cliche seems to meet this case. You've placed me in a +very exceptional position, Miss Stanley." The note of his own +voice exasperated him. "Oh, damn!" he said. + +She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems with +himself. + +"No!" he said aloud at last. + +"The plain common-sense of the case," he said, "is that we can't +possibly be lovers in the ordinary sense. That, I think, is +manifest. You know, I've done no work at all this afternoon. +I've been smoking cigarettes in the preparation-room and thinking +this out. We can't be lovers in the ordinary sense, but we can +be great and intimate friends." + +"We are," said Ann Veronica. + +"You've interested me enormously. . . ." + +He paused with a sense of ineptitude. "I want to be your +friend," he said. "I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let +us be friends--as near and close as friends can be." + +Ann Veronica gave him a pallid profile. + +"What is the good of pretending?" she said. + +"We don't pretend." + +"We do. Love is one thing and friendship quite another. Because +I'm younger than you. . . . I've got imagination. . . . I know +what I am talking about. Mr. Capes, do you think . . . do you +think I don't know the meaning of love?" + + + +Part 4 + + +Capes made no answer for a time. + +"My mind is full of confused stuff," he said at length. "I've +been thinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of +thought and feeling there are bottled up too. . . . I feel a +mixture of beast and uncle. I feel like a fraudulent trustee. +Every rule is against me-- Why did I let you begin this? I might +have told--" + +"I don't see that you could help--" + +"I might have helped--" + +"You couldn't." + +"I ought to have--all the same. + +"I wonder," he said, and went off at a tangent. "You know about +my scandalous past?" + +"Very little. It doesn't seem to matter. Does it?" + +"I think it does. Profoundly." + +"How?" + +"It prevents our marrying. It forbids--all sorts of things." + +"It can't prevent our loving." + +"I'm afraid it can't. But, by Jove! it's going to make our +loving a fiercely abstract thing." + +"You are separated from your wife?" + +"Yes, but do you know how?" + +"Not exactly." + +"Why on earth--? A man ought to be labelled. You see, I'm +separated from my wife. But she doesn't and won't divorce me. +You don't understand the fix I am in. And you don't know what +led to our separation. And, in fact, all round the problem you +don't know and I don't see how I could possibly have told you +before. I wanted to, that day in the Zoo. But I trusted to that +ring of yours." + +"Poor old ring!" said Ann Veronica. + +"I ought never have gone to the Zoo, I suppose. I asked you to +go. But a man is a mixed creature. . . . I wanted the time with +you. I wanted it badly." + +"Tell me about yourself," said Ann Veronica. + +"To begin with, I was--I was in the divorce court. I was--I was a +co-respondent. You understand that term?" + +Ann Veronica smiled faintly. "A modern girl does understand +these terms. She reads novels--and history --and all sorts of +things. Did you really doubt if I knew?" + +"No. But I don't suppose you can understand." + +"I don't see why I shouldn't." + +"To know things by name is one thing; to know them by seeing them +and feeling them and being them quite another. That is where +life takes advantage of youth. You don't understand." + +"Perhaps I don't." + +"You don't. That's the difficulty. If I told you the facts, I +expect, since you are in love with me, you'd explain the whole +business as being very fine and honorable for me--the Higher +Morality, or something of that sort. . . . It wasn't." + +"I don't deal very much," said Ann Veronica, "in the Higher +Morality, or the Higher Truth, or any of those things." + +"Perhaps you don't. But a human being who is young and clean, as +you are, is apt to ennoble--or explain away." + +"I've had a biological training. I'm a hard young woman." + +"Nice clean hardness, anyhow. I think you are hard. There's +something--something ADULT about you. I'm talking to you now as +though you had all the wisdom and charity in the world. I'm +going to tell you things plainly. Plainly. It's best. And then +you can go home and think things over before we talk again. I +want you to be clear what you're really and truly up to, anyhow." + +"I don't mind knowing," said Ann Veronica. + +"It's precious unromantic." + +"Well, tell me." + +"I married pretty young," said Capes. "I've got--I have to tell +you this to make myself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my +composition. I married--I married a woman whom I still think one +of the most beautiful persons in the world. She is a year or so +older than I am, and she is, well, of a very serene and proud and +dignified temperament. If you met her you would, I am certain, +think her as fine as I do. She has never done a really ignoble +thing that I know of--never. I met her when we were both very +young, as young as you are. I loved her and made love to her, +and I don't think she quite loved me back in the same way." + +He paused for a time. Ann Veronica said nothing. + +"These are the sort of things that aren't supposed to happen. +They leave them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young +people ignore them until they find themselves up against them. +My wife doesn't understand, doesn't understand now. She despises +me, I suppose. . . . We married, and for a time we were happy. +She was fine and tender. I worshipped her and subdued myself." + +He left off abruptly. "Do you understand what I am talking +about? It's no good if you don't." + +"I think so," said Ann Veronica, and colored. "In fact, yes, I +do." + +"Do you think of these things--these matters--as belonging to our +Higher Nature or our Lower?" + +"I don't deal in Higher Things, I tell you," said Ann Veronica, +"or Lower, for the matter of that. I don't classify." She +hesitated. "Flesh and flowers are all alike to me." + +"That's the comfort of you. Well, after a time there came a +fever in my blood. Don't think it was anything better than +fever--or a bit beautiful. It wasn't. Quite soon, after we were +married--it was just within a year--I formed a friendship with +the wife of a friend, a woman eight years older than myself. . . +. It wasn't anything splendid, you know. It was just a shabby, +stupid, furtive business that began between us. Like stealing. +We dressed it in a little music. . . . I want you to understand +clearly that I was indebted to the man in many small ways. I was +mean to him. . . . It was the gratification of an immense +necessity. We were two people with a craving. We felt like +thieves. We WERE thieves. . . . We LIKED each other well enough. +Well, my friend found us out, and would give no quarter. He +divorced her. How do you like the story?" + +"Go on," said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, "tell me all of +it." + +"My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. She thought +me--filthy. All her pride raged at me. One particularly +humiliating thing came out--humiliating for me. There was a +second co-respondent. I hadn't heard of him before the trial. I +don't know why that should be so acutely humiliating. There's no +logic in these things. It was." + +"Poor you!" said Ann Veronica. + +"My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me. +She could hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a +separation. She had money of her own--much more than I have--and +there was no need to squabble about that. She has given herself +up to social work." + +"Well--" + +"That's all. Practically all. And yet-- Wait a little, you'd +better have every bit of it. One doesn't go about with these +passions allayed simply because they have made wreckage and a +scandal. There one is! The same stuff still! One has a craving +in one's blood, a craving roused, cut off from its redeeming and +guiding emotional side. A man has more freedom to do evil than a +woman. Irregularly, in a quite inglorious and unromantic way, +you know, I am a vicious man. That's --that's my private life. +Until the last few months. It isn't what I have been but what I +am. I haven't taken much account of it until now. My honor has +been in my scientific work and public discussion and the things I +write. Lots of us are like that. But, you see, I'm smirched. +For the sort of love-making you think about. I've muddled all +this business. I've had my time and lost my chances. I'm +damaged goods. And you're as clean as fire. You come with those +clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel. . . ." + +He stopped abruptly. + +"Well?" she said. + +"That's all." + +"It's so strange to think of you--troubled by such things. I +didn't think-- I don't know what I thought. Suddenly all this +makes you human. Makes you real." + +"But don't you see how I must stand to you? Don't you see how it +bars us from being lovers-- You can't --at first. You must think +it over. It's all outside the world of your experience." + +"I don't think it makes a rap of difference, except for one +thing. I love you more. I've wanted you--always. I didn't +dream, not even in my wildest dreaming, that--you might have any +need of me." + +He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried +out within him, and for a time they were both too full for +speech. + +They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station. + +"You go home and think of all this," he said, "and talk about it +to-morrow. Don't, don't say anything now, not anything. As for +loving you, I do. I do--with all my heart. It's no good hiding +it any more. I could never have talked to you like this, +forgetting everything that parts us, forgetting even your age, if +I did not love you utterly. If I were a clean, free man--We'll +have to talk of all these things. Thank goodness there's plenty +of opportunity! And we two can talk. Anyhow, now you've begun +it, there's nothing to keep us in all this from being the best +friends in the world. And talking of every conceivable thing. Is +there?" + +"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, with a radiant face. + +"Before this there was a sort of restraint--a make-believe. It's +gone." + +"It's gone." + +"Friendship and love being separate things. And that confounded +engagement!" + +"Gone!" + +They came upon a platform, and stood before her compartment. + +He took her hand and looked into her eyes and spoke, divided +against himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere. + +"I shall be very glad to have you for a friend," he said, "loving +friend. I had never dreamed of such a friend as you." + +She smiled, sure of herself beyond any pretending, into his +troubled eyes. Hadn't they settled that already? + +"I want you as a friend," he persisted, almost as if he disputed something. + + + +Part 5 + + +The next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour +in the reasonable certainty that he would come to her. + +"Well, you have thought it over?" he said, sitting down beside her. + +"I've been thinking of you all night," she answered. + +"Well?" + +"I don't care a rap for all these things." + +He said nothing for a space. + +"I don't see there's any getting away from the fact that you and +I love each other," he said, slowly. "So far you've got me and I +you. . . . You've got me. I'm like a creature just wakened up. +My eyes are open to you. I keep on thinking of you. I keep on +thinking of little details and aspects of your voice, your eyes, +the way you walk, the way your hair goes back from the side of +your forehead. I believe I have always been in love with you. +Always. Before ever I knew you." + +She sat motionless, with her hand tightening over the edge of the +table, and he, too, said no more. She began to tremble +violently. + +He stood up abruptly and went to the window. + +"We have," he said, "to be the utmost friends." + +She stood up and held her arms toward him. "I want you to kiss +me," she said. + +He gripped the window-sill behind him. + +"If I do," he said. . . . "No! I want to do without that. I +want to do without that for a time. I want to give you time to +think. I am a man--of a sort of experience. You are a girl with +very little. Just sit down on that stool again and let's talk of +this in cold blood. People of your sort-- I don't want the +instincts to--to rush our situation. Are you sure what it is you +want of me?" + +"I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself +to you. I want to be whatever I can to you." She paused for a +moment. "Is that plain?" she asked. + +"If I didn't love you better than myself," said Capes, "I +wouldn't fence like this with you. + +"I am convinced you haven't thought this out," he went on. "You +do not know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our +heads swim with the thought of being together. But what can we +do? Here am I, fixed to respectability and this laboratory; +you're living at home. It means . . . just furtive meetings." + +"I don't care how we meet," she said. + +"It will spoil your life." + +"It will make it. I want you. I am clear I want you. You are +different from all the world for me. You can think all round me. +You are the one person I can understand and feel--feel right +with. I don't idealize you. Don't imagine that. It isn't +because you're good, but because I may be rotten bad; and there's +something--something living and understanding in you. Something +that is born anew each time we meet, and pines when we are +separated. You see, I'm selfish. I'm rather scornful. I think +too much about myself. You're the only person I've really given +good, straight, unselfish thought to. I'm making a mess of my +life--unless you come in and take it. I am. In you--if you can +love me--there is salvation. Salvation. I know what I am doing +better than you do. Think--think of that engagement!" + +Their talk had come to eloquent silences that contradicted all he +had to say. + +She stood up before him, smiling faintly. + +"I think we've exhausted this discussion," she said. + +"I think we have," he answered, gravely, and took her in his +arms, and smoothed her hair from her forehead, and very tenderly +kissed her lips. + + + +Part 6 + + +They spent the next Sunday in Richmond Park, and mingled the +happy sensation of being together uninterruptedly through the +long sunshine of a summer's day with the ample discussion of +their position. "This has all the clean freshness of spring and +youth," said Capes; "it is love with the down on; it is like the +glitter of dew in the sunlight to be lovers such as we are, with +no more than one warm kiss between us. I love everything to-day, +and all of you, but I love this, this--this innocence upon us +most of all. + +"You can't imagine," he said, "what a beastly thing a furtive +love affair can be. + +"This isn't furtive," said Ann Veronica. + +"Not a bit of it. And we won't make it so. . . . We mustn't +make it so." + +They loitered under trees, they sat on mossy banks they gossiped +on friendly benches, they came back to lunch at the "Star and +Garter," and talked their afternoon away in the garden that looks +out upon the crescent of the river. They had a universe to talk +about--two universes. + +"What are we going to do?" said Capes, with his eyes on the broad +distances beyond the ribbon of the river. + +"I will do whatever you want," said Ann Veronica. + +"My first love was all blundering," said Capes. + +He thought for a moment, and went on: "Love is something that +has to be taken care of. One has to be so careful. . . . It's a +beautiful plant, but a tender one. . . . I didn't know. I've a +dread of love dropping its petals, becoming mean and ugly. How +can I tell you all I feel? I love you beyond measure. And I'm +afraid. . . . I'm anxious, joyfully anxious, like a man when he +has found a treasure." + +"YOU know," said Ann Veronica. "I just came to you and put +myself in your hands." + +"That's why, in a way, I'm prudish. I've--dreads. I don't want +to tear at you with hot, rough hands." + +"As you will, dear lover. But for me it doesn't matter. Nothing +is wrong that you do. Nothing. I am quite clear about this. I +know exactly what I am doing. I give myself to you." + +"God send you may never repent it!" cried Capes. + +She put her hand in his to be squeezed. + +"You see," he said, "it is doubtful if we can ever marry. Very +doubtful. I have been thinking-- I will go to my wife again. I +will do my utmost. But for a long time, anyhow, we lovers have +to be as if we were no more than friends." + +He paused. She answered slowly. "That is as you will," she +said. + +"Why should it matter?" he said. + +And then, as she answered nothing, "Seeing that we are lovers." + + + +Part 7 + + +It was rather less than a week after that walk that Capes came +and sat down beside Ann Veronica for their customary talk in the +lunch hour. He took a handful of almonds and raisins that she +held out to him--for both these young people had given up the +practice of going out for luncheon--and kept her hand for a +moment to kiss her finger-tips. He did not speak for a moment. + +"Well?" she said. + +"I say!" he said, without any movement. "Let's go." + +"Go!" She did not understand him at first, and then her heart +began to beat very rapidly. + +"Stop this--this humbugging," he explained. "It's like the +Picture and the Bust. I can't stand it. Let's go. Go off and +live together--until we can marry. Dare you?" + +"Do you mean NOW?" + +"At the end of the session. It's the only clean way for us. Are +you prepared to do it?" + +Her hands clenched. "Yes," she said, very faintly. And then: +"Of course! Always. It is what I have wanted, what I have meant +all along." + +She stared before her, trying to keep back a rush of tears. + +Capes kept obstinately stiff, and spoke between his teeth. + +"There's endless reasons, no doubt, why we shouldn't," he said. +"Endless. It's wrong in the eyes of most people. For many of +them it will smirch us forever. . . . You DO understand?" + +"Who cares for most people?" she said, not looking at him. + +"I do. It means social isolation--struggle." + +"If you dare--I dare," said Ann Veronica. "I was never so clear +in all my life as I have been in this business." She lifted +steadfast eyes to him. "Dare!" she said. The tears were welling +over now, but her voice was steady. "You're not a man for +me--not one of a sex, I mean. You're just a particular being +with nothing else in the world to class with you. You are just +necessary to life for me. I've never met any one like you. To +have you is all important. Nothing else weighs against it. +Morals only begin when that is settled. I sha'n't care a rap if +we can never marry. I'm not a bit afraid of anything--scandal, +difficulty, struggle. . . . I rather want them. I do want +them." + +"You'll get them," he said. "This means a plunge." + +"Are you afraid?" + +"Only for you! Most of my income will vanish. Even unbelieving +biological demonstrators must respect decorum; and besides, you +see--you were a student. We shall have--hardly any money." + +"I don't care." + +"Hardship and danger." + +"With you!" + +"And as for your people?" + +"They don't count. That is the dreadful truth. This--all this +swamps them. They don't count, and I don't care." + +Capes suddenly abandoned his attitude of meditative restraint. +"By Jove!" he broke out, "one tries to take a serious, sober +view. I don't quite know why. But this is a great lark, Ann +Veronica! This turns life into a glorious adventure!" + +"Ah!" she cried in triumph. + +"I shall have to give up biology, anyhow. I've always had a +sneaking desire for the writing-trade. That is what I must do. +I can." + +"Of course you can." + +"And biology was beginning to bore me a bit. One research is +very like another. . . . Latterly I've been doing things. . . . +Creative work appeals to me wonderfully. Things seem to come +rather easily. . . . But that, and that sort of thing, is just a +day-dream. For a time I must do journalism and work hard. . . . +What isn't a day-dream is this: that you and I are going to put +an end to flummery--and go!" + +"Go!" said Ann Veronica, clenching her hands. + +"For better or worse." + +"For richer or poorer." + +She could not go on, for she was laughing and crying at the same +time. "We were bound to do this when you kissed me," she sobbed +through her tears. "We have been all this time-- Only your queer +code of honor-- Honor! Once you begin with love you have to see +it through." + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH + +THE LAST DAYS AT HOME + + +Part 1 + + +They decided to go to Switzerland at the session's end. "We'll +clean up everything tidy," said Capes. . . . + +For her pride's sake, and to save herself from long day-dreams +and an unappeasable longing for her lover, Ann Veronica worked +hard at her biology during those closing weeks. She was, as +Capes had said, a hard young woman. She was keenly resolved to +do well in the school examination, and not to be drowned in the +seas of emotion that threatened to submerge her intellectual +being. + +Nevertheless, she could not prevent a rising excitement as the +dawn of the new life drew near to her--a thrilling of the nerves, +a secret and delicious exaltation above the common circumstances +of existence. Sometimes her straying mind would become +astonishingly active--embroidering bright and decorative things +that she could say to Capes; sometimes it passed into a state of +passive acquiescence, into a radiant, formless, golden joy. She +was aware of people--her aunt, her father, her fellow-students, +friends, and neighbors--moving about outside this glowing secret, +very much as an actor is aware of the dim audience beyond the +barrier of the footlights. They might applaud, or object, or +interfere, but the drama was her very own. She was going through +with that, anyhow. + +The feeling of last days grew stronger with her as their number +diminished. She went about the familiar home with a clearer and +clearer sense of inevitable conclusions. She became exceptionally +considerate and affectionate with her father and aunt, and more +and more concerned about the coming catastrophe that she was +about to precipitate upon them. Her aunt had a once exasperating +habit of interrupting her work with demands for small household +services, but now Ann Veronica rendered them with a queer +readiness of anticipatory propitiation. She was greatly exercised +by the problem of confiding in the Widgetts; they were dears, and +she talked away two evenings with Constance without broaching the +topic; she made some vague intimations in letters to Miss Miniver +that Miss Miniver failed to mark. But she did not bother her +head very much about her relations with these sympathizers. + +And at length her penultimate day in Morningside Park dawned for +her. She got up early, and walked about the garden in the dewy +June sunshine and revived her childhood. She was saying good-bye +to childhood and home, and her making; she was going out into the +great, multitudinous world; this time there would be no +returning. She was at the end of girlhood and on the eve of a +woman's crowning experience. She visited the corner that had +been her own little garden--her forget-me-nots and candytuft had +long since been elbowed into insignificance by weeds; she visited +the raspberry-canes that had sheltered that first love affair +with the little boy in velvet, and the greenhouse where she had +been wont to read her secret letters. Here was the place behind +the shed where she had used to hide from Roddy's persecutions, +and here the border of herbaceous perennials under whose stems +was fairyland. The back of the house had been the Alps for +climbing, and the shrubs in front of it a Terai. The knots and +broken pale that made the garden-fence scalable, and gave access +to the fields behind, were still to be traced. And here against +a wall were the plum-trees. In spite of God and wasps and her +father, she had stolen plums; and once because of discovered +misdeeds, and once because she had realized that her mother was +dead, she had lain on her face in the unmown grass, beneath the +elm-trees that came beyond the vegetables, and poured out her +soul in weeping. + +Remote little Ann Veronica! She would never know the heart of +that child again! That child had loved fairy princes with velvet +suits and golden locks, and she was in love with a real man named +Capes, with little gleams of gold on his cheek and a pleasant +voice and firm and shapely hands. She was going to him soon and +certainly, going to his strong, embracing arms. She was going +through a new world with him side by side. She had been so busy +with life that, for a vast gulf of time, as it seemed, she had +given no thought to those ancient, imagined things of her +childhood. Now, abruptly, they were real again, though very +distant, and she had come to say farewell to them across one +sundering year. + +She was unusually helpful at breakfast, and unselfish about the +eggs: and then she went off to catch the train before her +father's. She did this to please him. He hated travelling +second-class with her--indeed, he never did--but he also disliked +travelling in the same train when his daughter was in an inferior +class, because of the look of the thing. So he liked to go by a +different train. And in the Avenue she had an encounter with +Ramage. + +It was an odd little encounter, that left vague and dubitable +impressions in her mind. She was aware of him--a silk-hatted, +shiny-black figure on the opposite side of the Avenue; and then, +abruptly and startlingly, he crossed the road and saluted and +spoke to her. + +"I MUST speak to you," he said. "I can't keep away from you." + +She made some inane response. She was struck by a change in his +appearance. His eyes looked a little bloodshot to her; his face +had lost something of its ruddy freshness. + +He began a jerky, broken conversation that lasted until they +reached the station, and left her puzzled at its drift and +meaning. She quickened her pace, and so did he, talking at her +slightly averted ear. She made lumpish and inadequate +interruptions rather than replies. At times he seemed to be +claiming pity from her; at times he was threatening her with her +check and exposure; at times he was boasting of his inflexible +will, and how, in the end, he always got what he wanted. He said +that his life was boring and stupid without her. Something or +other--she did not catch what--he was damned if he could stand. +He was evidently nervous, and very anxious to be impressive; his +projecting eyes sought to dominate. The crowning aspect of the +incident, for her mind, was the discovery that he and her +indiscretion with him no longer mattered very much. Its +importance had vanished with her abandonment of compromise. Even +her debt to him was a triviality now. + +And of course! She had a brilliant idea. It surprised her she +hadn't thought of it before! She tried to explain that she was +going to pay him forty pounds without fail next week. She said +as much to him. She repeated this breathlessly. + +"I was glad you did not send it back again," he said. + +He touched a long-standing sore, and Ann Veronica found herself +vainly trying to explain--the inexplicable. "It's because I mean +to send it back altogether," she said. + +He ignored her protests in order to pursue some impressive line +of his own. + +"Here we are, living in the same suburb," he began. "We have to +be--modern." + +Her heart leaped within her as she caught that phrase. That knot +also would be cut. Modern, indeed! She was going to be as +primordial as chipped flint. + + + +Part 2 + + +In the late afternoon, as Ann Veronica was gathering flowers for +the dinner-table, her father came strolling across the lawn +toward her with an affectation of great deliberation. + +"I want to speak to you about a little thing, Vee," said Mr. +Stanley. + +Ann Veronica's tense nerves started, and she stood still with her +eyes upon him, wondering what it might be that impended. + +"You were talking to that fellow Ramage to-day--in the Avenue. +Walking to the station with him." + +So that was it! + +"He came and talked to me." + +"Ye--e--es. "Mr. Stanley considered. "Well, I don't want you to +talk to him," he said, very firmly. + +Ann Veronica paused before she answered. "Don't you think I +ought to?" she asked, very submissively. + +"No." Mr. Stanley coughed and faced toward the house. "He is +not-- I don't like him. I think it inadvisable-- I don't want an +intimacy to spring up between you and a man of that type." + +Ann Veronica reflected. "I HAVE--had one or two talks with him, +daddy." + +"Don't let there be any more. I-- In fact, I dislike him +extremely." + +"Suppose he comes and talks to me?" + +"A girl can always keep a man at a distance if she cares to do +it. She-- She can snub him." + +Ann Veronica picked a cornflower. + +"I wouldn't make this objection," Mr. Stanley went on, "but there +are things--there are stories about Ramage. He's--He lives in a +world of possibilities outside your imagination. His treatment +of his wife is most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. A bad +man, in fact. A dissipated, loose-living man." + +"I'll try not to see him again," said Ann Veronica. "I didn't +know you objected to him, daddy." + +"Strongly," said Mr. Stanley, "very strongly." + +The conversation hung. Ann Veronica wondered what her father +would do if she were to tell him the full story of her relations +with Ramage. + +"A man like that taints a girl by looking at her, by his mere +conversation." He adjusted his glasses on his nose. There was +another little thing he had to say. "One has to be so careful of +one's friends and acquaintances," he remarked, by way of +transition. "They mould one insensibly." His voice assumed an +easy detached tone. "I suppose, Vee, you don't see much of those +Widgetts now?" + +"I go in and talk to Constance sometimes." + +"Do you?" + +"We were great friends at school." + +"No doubt. . . . Still--I don't know whether I quite +like--Something ramshackle about those people, Vee. While I am +talking about your friends, I feel--I think you ought to know how +I look at it." His voice conveyed studied moderation. "I don't +mind, of course, your seeing her sometimes, still there are +differences--differences in social atmospheres. One gets drawn +into things. Before you know where you are you find yourself in +a complication. I don't want to influence you +unduly--But--They're artistic people, Vee. That's the fact about +them. We're different." + +"I suppose we are," said Vee, rearranging the flowers in her +hand. + +"Friendships that are all very well between school-girls don't +always go on into later life. It's--it's a social difference." + +"I like Constance very much." + +"No doubt. Still, one has to be reasonable. As you admitted to +me--one has to square one's self with the world. You don't know. +With people of that sort all sorts of things may happen. We +don't want things to happen." + +Ann Veronica made no answer. + +A vague desire to justify himself ruffled her father. "I may seem +unduly--anxious. I can't forget about your sister. It's that +has always made me--SHE, you know, was drawn into a set--didn't +discriminate Private theatricals." + +Ann Veronica remained anxious to hear more of her sister's story +from her father's point of view, but he did not go on. Even so +much allusion as this to that family shadow, she felt, was an +immense recognition of her ripening years. She glanced at him. +He stood a little anxious and fussy, bothered by the +responsibility of her, entirely careless of what her life was or +was likely to be, ignoring her thoughts and feelings, ignorant of +every fact of importance in her life, explaining everything he +could not understand in her as nonsense and perversity, concerned +only with a terror of bothers and undesirable situations. "We +don't want things to happen!" Never had he shown his daughter so +clearly that the womenkind he was persuaded he had to protect and +control could please him in one way, and in one way only, and +that was by doing nothing except the punctual domestic duties and +being nothing except restful appearances. He had quite enough to +see to and worry about in the City without their doing things. He +had no use for Ann Veronica; he had never had a use for her since +she had been too old to sit upon his knee. Nothing but the +constraint of social usage now linked him to her. And the less +"anything" happened the better. The less she lived, in fact, the +better. These realizations rushed into Ann Veronica's mind and +hardened her heart against him. She spoke slowly. "I may not +see the Widgetts for some little time, father," she said. "I +don't think I shall." + +"Some little tiff?" + +"No; but I don't think I shall see them." + +Suppose she were to add, "I am going away!" + +"I'm glad to hear you say it," said Mr. Stanley, and was so +evidently pleased that Ann Veronica's heart smote her. + +"I am very glad to hear you say it," he repeated, and refrained +from further inquiry. "I think we are growing sensible," he +said. "I think you are getting to understand me better." + +He hesitated, and walked away from her toward the house. Her +eyes followed him. The curve of his shoulders, the very angle of +his feet, expressed relief at her apparent obedience. "Thank +goodness!" said that retreating aspect, "that's said and over. +Vee's all right. There's nothing happened at all!" She didn't +mean, he concluded, to give him any more trouble ever, and he was +free to begin a fresh chromatic novel--he had just finished the +Blue Lagoon, which he thought very beautiful and tender and +absolutely irrelevant to Morningside Park--or work in peace at +his microtome without bothering about her in the least. + +The immense disillusionment that awaited him! The devastating +disillusionment! She had a vague desire to run after him, to +state her case to him, to wring some understanding from him of +what life was to her. She felt a cheat and a sneak to his +unsuspecting retreating back. + +"But what can one do?" asked Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 3 + + +She dressed carefully for dinner in a black dress that her father +liked, and that made her look serious and responsible. Dinner +was quite uneventful. Her father read a draft prospectus warily, +and her aunt dropped fragments of her projects for managing while +the cook had a holiday. After dinner Ann Veronica went into the +drawing-room with Miss Stanley, and her father went up to his den +for his pipe and pensive petrography. Later in the evening she +heard him whistling, poor man! + +She felt very restless and excited. She refused coffee, though +she knew that anyhow she was doomed to a sleepless night. She +took up one of her father's novels and put it down again, fretted +up to her own room for some work, sat on her bed and meditated +upon the room that she was now really abandoning forever, and +returned at length with a stocking to darn. Her aunt was making +herself cuffs out of little slips of insertion under the newly +lit lamp. + +Ann Veronica sat down in the other arm-chair and darned badly for +a minute or so. Then she looked at her aunt, and traced with a +curious eye the careful arrangement of her hair, her sharp nose, +the little drooping lines of mouth and chin and cheek. + +Her thought spoke aloud. "Were you ever in love, aunt?" she +asked. + +Her aunt glanced up startled, and then sat very still, with hands +that had ceased to work. "What makes you ask such a question, +Vee?" she said. + +"I wondered." + +Her aunt answered in a low voice: "I was engaged to him, dear, +for seven years, and then he died." + +Ann Veronica made a sympathetic little murmur. + +"He was in holy orders, and we were to have been married when he +got a living. He was a Wiltshire Edmondshaw, a very old family." + +She sat very still. + +Ann Veronica hesitated with a question that had leaped up in her +mind, and that she felt was cruel. "Are you sorry you waited, +aunt?" she said. + +Her aunt was a long time before she answered. "His stipend +forbade it," she said, and seemed to fall into a train of +thought. "It would have been rash and unwise," she said at the +end of a meditation. "What he had was altogether insufficient." + +Ann Veronica looked at the mildly pensive gray eyes and the +comfortable, rather refined face with a penetrating curiosity. +Presently her aunt sighed deeply and looked at the clock. "Time +for my Patience," she said. She got up, put the neat cuffs she +had made into her work-basket, and went to the bureau for the +little cards in the morocco case. Ann Veronica jumped up to get +her the card-table. "I haven't seen the new Patience, dear," she +said. "May I sit beside you?" + +"It's a very difficult one," said her aunt. "Perhaps you will +help me shuffle?" + +Ann Veronica did, and also assisted nimbly with the arrangements +of the rows of eight with which the struggle began. Then she sat +watching the play, sometimes offering a helpful suggestion, +sometimes letting her attention wander to the smoothly shining +arms she had folded across her knees just below the edge of the +table. She was feeling extraordinarily well that night, so that +the sense of her body was a deep delight, a realization of a +gentle warmth and strength and elastic firmness. Then she +glanced at the cards again, over which her aunt's many-ringed +hand played, and then at the rather weak, rather plump face that +surveyed its operations. + +It came to Ann Veronica that life was wonderful beyond measure. +It seemed incredible that she and her aunt were, indeed, +creatures of the same blood, only by a birth or so different +beings, and part of that same broad interlacing stream of human +life that has invented the fauns and nymphs, Astarte, Aphrodite, +Freya, and all the twining beauty of the gods. The love-songs of +all the ages were singing in her blood, the scent of night stock +from the garden filled the air, and the moths that beat upon the +closed frames of the window next the lamp set her mind dreaming +of kisses in the dusk. Yet her aunt, with a ringed hand flitting +to her lips and a puzzled, worried look in her eyes, deaf to all +this riot of warmth and flitting desire, was playing +Patience--playing Patience, as if Dionysius and her curate had +died together. A faint buzz above the ceiling witnessed that +petrography, too, was active. Gray and tranquil world! Amazing, +passionless world! A world in which days without meaning, days +in which "we don't want things to happen" followed days without +meaning--until the last thing happened, the ultimate, +unavoidable, coarse, "disagreeable." It was her last evening in +that wrappered life against which she had rebelled. Warm reality +was now so near her she could hear it beating in her ears. Away +in London even now Capes was packing and preparing; Capes, the +magic man whose touch turned one to trembling fire. What was he +doing? What was he thinking? It was less than a day now, less +than twenty hours. Seventeen hours, sixteen hours. She glanced +at the soft-ticking clock with the exposed brass pendulum upon +the white marble mantel, and made a rapid calculation. To be +exact, it was just sixteen hours and twenty minutes. The slow +stars circled on to the moment of their meeting. The softly +glittering summer stars! She saw them shining over mountains of +snow, over valleys of haze and warm darkness. . . . There would +be no moon. + +"I believe after all it's coming out!" said Miss Stanley. "The +aces made it easy." + +Ann Veronica started from her reverie, sat up in her chair, +became attentive. "Look, dear," she said presently, "you can put +the ten on the Jack." + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH + +IN THE MOUNTAINS + + +Part 1 + + +Next day Ann Veronica and Capes felt like newborn things. It +seemed to them they could never have been really alive before, +but only dimly anticipating existence. They sat face to face +beneath an experienced-looking rucksack and a brand new +portmanteau and a leather handbag, in the afternoon-boat train +that goes from Charing Cross to Folkestone for Boulogne. They +tried to read illustrated papers in an unconcerned manner and +with forced attention, lest they should catch the leaping +exultation in each other's eyes. And they admired Kent sedulously +from the windows. + +They crossed the Channel in sunshine and a breeze that just +ruffled the sea to glittering scales of silver. Some of the +people who watched them standing side by side thought they must +be newly wedded because of their happy faces, and others that +they were an old-established couple because of their easy +confidence in each other. + +At Boulogne they took train to Basle; next morning they +breakfasted together in the buffet of that station, and thence +they caught the Interlaken express, and so went by way of Spies +to Frutigen. There was no railway beyond Frutigen in those +days; they sent their baggage by post to Kandersteg, and walked +along the mule path to the left of the stream to that queer +hollow among the precipices, Blau See, where the petrifying +branches of trees lie in the blue deeps of an icy lake, and +pine-trees clamber among gigantic boulders. A little inn flying +a Swiss flag nestles under a great rock, and there they put aside +their knapsacks and lunched and rested in the mid-day shadow of +the gorge and the scent of resin. And later they paddled in a +boat above the mysterious deeps of the See, and peered down into +the green-blues and the blue-greens together. By that time it +seemed to them they had lived together twenty years. + +Except for one memorable school excursion to Paris, Ann Veronica +had never yet been outside England. So that it seemed to her the +whole world had changed--the very light of it had changed. +Instead of English villas and cottages there were chalets and +Italian-built houses shining white; there were lakes of emerald +and sapphire and clustering castles, and such sweeps of hill and +mountain, such shining uplands of snow, as she had never seen +before. Everything was fresh and bright, from the kindly manners +of the Frutigen cobbler, who hammered mountain nails into her +boots, to the unfamiliar wild flowers that spangled the wayside. +And Capes had changed into the easiest and jolliest companion in +the world. The mere fact that he was there in the train +alongside her, helping her, sitting opposite to her in the +dining-car, presently sleeping on a seat within a yard of her, +made her heart sing until she was afraid their fellow passengers +would hear it. It was too good to be true. She would not sleep +for fear of losing a moment of that sense of his proximity. To +walk beside him, dressed akin to him, rucksacked and +companionable, was bliss in itself; each step she took was like +stepping once more across the threshold of heaven. + +One trouble, however, shot its slanting bolts athwart the shining +warmth of that opening day and marred its perfection, and that +was the thought of her father. + +She had treated him badly; she had hurt him and her aunt; she had +done wrong by their standards, and she would never persuade them +that she had done right. She thought of her father in the garden, +and of her aunt with her Patience, as she had seen them--how many +ages was it ago? Just one day intervened. She felt as if she +had struck them unawares. The thought of them distressed her +without subtracting at all from the oceans of happiness in which +she swam. But she wished she could put the thing she had done in +some way to them so that it would not hurt them so much as the +truth would certainly do. The thought of their faces, and +particularly of her aunt's, as it would meet the fact-- +disconcerted, unfriendly, condemning, pained--occurred to her +again and again. + +"Oh! I wish," she said, "that people thought alike about these +things." + +Capes watched the limpid water dripping from his oar. "I wish +they did," he said, "but they don't." + +"I feel-- All this is the rightest of all conceivable things. I +want to tell every one. I want to boast myself." + +"I know." + +"I told them a lie. I told them lies. I wrote three letters +yesterday and tore them up. It was so hopeless to put it to +them. At last--I told a story." + +"You didn't tell them our position?" + +"I implied we had married." + +"They'll find out. They'll know." + +"Not yet." + +"Sooner or later." + +"Possibly--bit by bit. . . . But it was hopelessly hard to put. +I said I knew he disliked and distrusted you and your work--that +you shared all Russell's opinions: he hates Russell beyond +measure--and that we couldn't possibly face a conventional +marriage. What else could one say? I left him to suppose--a +registry perhaps. . . ." + +Capes let his oar smack on the water. + +"Do you mind very much?" + +He shook his head. + +"But it makes me feel inhuman," he added. + +"And me. . . ." + +"It's the perpetual trouble," he said, "of parent and child. +They can't help seeing things in the way they do. Nor can we. +WE don't think they're right, but they don't think we are. A +deadlock. In a very definite sense we are in the +wrong--hopelessly in the wrong. But--It's just this: who was to +be hurt?" + +"I wish no one had to be hurt," said Ann Veronica. "When one is +happy--I don't like to think of them. Last time I left home I +felt as hard as nails. But this is all different. It is +different." + +"There's a sort of instinct of rebellion," said Capes. "It isn't +anything to do with our times particularly. People think it is, +but they are wrong. It's to do with adolescence. Long before +religion and Society heard of Doubt, girls were all for midnight +coaches and Gretna Green. It's a sort of home-leaving instinct." + +He followed up a line of thought. + +"There's another instinct, too," he went on, "in a state of +suppression, unless I'm very much mistaken; a child-expelling +instinct. . . . I wonder. . . . There's no family uniting +instinct, anyhow; it's habit and sentiment and material +convenience hold families together after adolescence. There's +always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. Always! I +don't believe there is any strong natural affection at all +between parents and growing-up children. There wasn't, I know, +between myself and my father. I didn't allow myself to see +things as they were in those days; now I do. I bored him. I +hated him. I suppose that shocks one's ideas. . . . It's true. +. . . There are sentimental and traditional deferences and +reverences, I know, between father and son; but that's just +exactly what prevents the development of an easy friendship. +Father-worshipping sons are abnormal--and they're no good. No +good at all. One's got to be a better man than one's father, or +what is the good of successive generations? Life is rebellion, +or nothing." + +He rowed a stroke and watched the swirl of water from his oar +broaden and die away. At last he took up his thoughts again: "I +wonder if, some day, one won't need to rebel against customs and +laws? If this discord will have gone? Some day, perhaps--who +knows?--the old won't coddle and hamper the young, and the young +won't need to fly in the faces of the old. They'll face facts as +facts, and understand. Oh, to face facts! Gods! what a world it +might be if people faced facts! Understanding! Understanding! +There is no other salvation. Some day older people, perhaps, +will trouble to understand younger people, and there won't be +these fierce disruptions; there won't be barriers one must defy +or perish. . . . That's really our choice now, defy--or +futility. . . . The world, perhaps, will be educated out of its +idea of fixed standards. . . . I wonder, Ann Veronica, if, when +our time comes, we shall be any wiser?" + +Ann Veronica watched a water-beetle fussing across the green +depths. "One can't tell. I'm a female thing at bottom. I like +high tone for a flourish and stars and ideas; but I want my +things." + + + +Part 2 + + +Capes thought. + +"It's odd--I have no doubt in my mind that what we are doing is +wrong," he said. "And yet I do it without compunction." + +"I never felt so absolutely right," said Ann Veronica. + +"You ARE a female thing at bottom," he admitted. "I'm not nearly +so sure as you. As for me, I look twice at it. . . . Life is +two things, that's how I see it; two things mixed and muddled up +together. Life is morality--life is adventure. Squire and +master. Adventure rules, and morality--looks up the trains in the +Bradshaw. Morality tells you what is right, and adventure moves +you. If morality means anything it means keeping bounds, +respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If +individuality means anything it means breaking bounds--adventure. + +Will you be moral and your species, or immoral and yourself? +We've decided to be immoral. We needn't try and give ourselves +airs. We've deserted the posts in which we found ourselves, cut +our duties, exposed ourselves to risks that may destroy any sort +of social usefulness in us. . . . I don't know. One keeps rules +in order to be one's self. One studies Nature in order not to be +blindly ruled by her. There's no sense in morality, I suppose, +unless you are fundamentally immoral." + +She watched his face as he traced his way through these +speculative thickets. + +"Look at our affair," he went on, looking up at her. "No power on +earth will persuade me we're not two rather disreputable persons. +You desert your home; I throw up useful teaching, risk every hope +in your career. Here we are absconding, pretending to be what we +are not; shady, to say the least of it. It's not a bit of good +pretending there's any Higher Truth or wonderful principle in +this business. There isn't. We never started out in any +high-browed manner to scandalize and Shelleyfy. When first you +left your home you had no idea that _I_ was the hidden impulse. +I wasn't. You came out like an ant for your nuptial flight. It +was just a chance that we in particular hit against each +other--nothing predestined about it. We just hit against each +other, and here we are flying off at a tangent, a little +surprised at what we are doing, all our principles abandoned, and +tremendously and quite unreasonably proud of ourselves. Out of +all this we have struck a sort of harmony. . . . And it's +gorgeous!" + +"Glorious!" said Ann Veronica. + +"Would YOU like us--if some one told you the bare outline of our +story?--and what we are doing?" + +"I shouldn't mind," said Ann Veronica. + +"But if some one else asked your advice? If some one else said, +'Here is my teacher, a jaded married man on the verge of middle +age, and he and I have a violent passion for one another. We +propose to disregard all our ties, all our obligations, all the +established prohibitions of society, and begin life together +afresh.' What would you tell her?" + +"If she asked advice, I should say she wasn't fit to do anything +of the sort. I should say that having a doubt was enough to +condemn it." + +"But waive that point." + +"It would be different all the same. It wouldn't be you." + +"It wouldn't be you either. I suppose that's the gist of the +whole thing." He stared at a little eddy. "The rule's all right, +so long as there isn't a case. Rules are for established things, +like the pieces and positions of a game. Men and women are not +established things; they're experiments, all of them. Every +human being is a new thing, exists to do new things. Find the +thing you want to do most intensely, make sure that's it, and do +it with all your might. If you live, well and good; if you die, +well and good. Your purpose is done. . . . Well, this is OUR +thing." + +He woke the glassy water to swirling activity again, and made the +deep-blue shapes below writhe and shiver. + +"This is MY thing," said Ann Veronica, softly, with thoughtful +eyes upon him. + +Then she looked up the sweep of pine-trees to the towering +sunlit cliffs and the high heaven above and then back to his +face. She drew in a deep breath of the sweet mountain air. Her +eyes were soft and grave, and there was the faintest of smiles +upon her resolute lips. + + + +Part 3 + + +Later they loitered along a winding path above the inn, and made +love to one another. Their journey had made them indolent, the +afternoon was warm, and it seemed impossible to breathe a sweeter +air. The flowers and turf, a wild strawberry, a rare butterfly, +and suchlike little intimate things had become more interesting +than mountains. Their flitting hands were always touching. Deep +silences came between them. . . . + +"I had thought to go on to Kandersteg," said Capes, "but this is +a pleasant place. There is not a soul in the inn but ourselves. +Let us stay the night here. Then we can loiter and gossip to our +heart's content." + +"Agreed," said Ann Veronica. + +"After all, it's our honeymoon." + +"All we shall get," said Ann Veronica. + +"This place is very beautiful." + +"Any place would be beautiful," said Ann Veronica, in a low +voice. + +For a time they walked in silence. + +"I wonder," she began, presently, "why I love you --and love you +so much? . . . I know now what it is to be an abandoned female. +I AM an abandoned female. I'm not ashamed--of the things I'm +doing. I want to put myself into your hands. You know--I wish I +could roll my little body up small and squeeze it into your hand +and grip your fingers upon it. Tight. I want you to hold me and +have me SO. . . . Everything. Everything. It's a pure joy of +giving--giving to YOU. I have never spoken of these things to any +human being. Just dreamed--and ran away even from my dreams. It +is as if my lips had been sealed about them. And now I break the +seals--for you. Only I wish--I wish to-day I was a thousand +times, ten thousand times more beautiful." + +Capes lifted her hand and kissed it. + +"You are a thousand times more beautiful," he said, "than +anything else could be. . . . You are you. You are all the +beauty in the world. Beauty doesn't mean, never has meant, +anything--anything at all but you. It heralded you, promised you. +. . ." + + + +Part 4 + + +They lay side by side in a shallow nest of turf and mosses among +bowlders and stunted bushes on a high rock, and watched the day +sky deepen to evening between the vast precipices overhead and +looked over the tree-tops down the widening gorge. A distant +suggestion of chalets and a glimpse of the road set them talking +for a time of the world they had left behind. + +Capes spoke casually of their plans for work. "It's a flabby, +loose-willed world we have to face. It won't even know whether +to be scandalized at us or forgiving. It will hold aloof, a +little undecided whether to pelt or not--" + +"That depends whether we carry ourselves as though we expected +pelting," said Ann Veronica. + +"We won't." + +"No fear!" + +"Then, as we succeed, it will begin to sidle back to us. It will +do its best to overlook things--" + +"If we let it, poor dear." + +"That's if we succeed. If we fail," said Capes, "then--" + +"We aren't going to fail," said Ann Veronica. + +Life seemed a very brave and glorious enterprise to Ann Veronica +that day. She was quivering with the sense of Capes at her side +and glowing with heroic love; it seemed to her that if they put +their hands jointly against the Alps and pushed they would be +able to push them aside. She lay and nibbled at a sprig of dwarf +rhododendron. + +"FAIL!" she said. + + + +Part 5 + + +Presently it occurred to Ann Veronica to ask about the journey he +had planned. He had his sections of the Siegfried map folded in +his pocket, and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an +Indian idol while she lay prone beside him and followed every +movement of his indicatory finger. + +"Here," he said, "is this Blau See, and here we rest until +to-morrow. I think we rest here until to-morrow?" + +There was a brief silence. + +"It is a very pleasant place," said Ann Veronica, biting a +rhododendron stalk through, and with that faint shadow of a smile +returning to her lips. . . . + +"And then?" said Ann Veronica. + +"Then we go on to this place, the Oeschinensee. It's a lake +among precipices, and there is a little inn where we can stay, +and sit and eat our dinner at a pleasant table that looks upon +the lake. For some days we shall be very idle there among the +trees and rocks. There are boats on the lake and shady depths +and wildernesses of pine-wood. After a day or so, perhaps, we +will go on one or two little excursions and see how good your +head is--a mild scramble or so; and then up to a hut on a pass +just here, and out upon the Blumlis-alp glacier that spreads out +so and so." + +She roused herself from some dream at the word. "Glaciers?" she +said. + +"Under the Wilde Frau--which was named after you." + +He bent and kissed her hair and paused, and then forced his +attention back to the map. "One day," he resumed, "we will start +off early and come down into Kandersteg and up these zigzags and +here and here, and so past this Daubensee to a tiny inn--it won't +be busy yet, though; we may get it all to ourselves--on the brim +of the steepest zigzag you can imagine, thousands of feet of +zigzag; and you will sit and eat lunch with me and look out +across the Rhone Valley and over blue distances beyond blue +distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa and a long regiment of +sunny, snowy mountains. And when we see them we shall at once +want to go to them--that's the way with beautiful things--and +down we shall go, like flies down a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to +Leuk Station, here, and then by train up the Rhone Valley and +this little side valley to Stalden; and there, in the cool of the +afternoon, we shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs +below us and above us, to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next +day to Saas Fee, Saas of the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People. +And there, about Saas, are ice and snows again, and sometimes we +will loiter among the rocks and trees about Saas or peep into +Samuel Butler's chapels, and sometimes we will climb up out of +the way of the other people on to the glaciers and snow. And, +for one expedition at least, we will go up this desolate valley +here to Mattmark, and so on to Monte Moro. There indeed you see +Monte Rosa. Almost the best of all." + +"Is it very beautiful?" + +"When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. +It was the crowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining +white. It towered up high above the level of the pass, thousands +of feet, still, shining, and white, and below, thousands of feet +below, was a floor of little woolly clouds. And then presently +these clouds began to wear thin and expose steep, deep slopes, +going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, down and down, +and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs, +shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of +white silk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day--it will +have to be, when first you set eyes on Italy. . . . That's as +far as we go." + +"Can't we go down into Italy?" + +"No," he said; "it won't run to that now. We must wave our hands +at the blue hills far away there and go back to London and work." + +"But Italy--" + +"Italy's for a good girl," he said, and laid his hand for a +moment on her shoulder. "She must look forward to Italy." + +"I say," she reflected, "you ARE rather the master, you know." + +The idea struck him as novel. "Of course I'm manager for this +expedition," he said, after an interval of self-examination. + +She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. "Nice +sleeve," she said, and came to his hand and kissed it. + +"I say!" he cried. "Look here! Aren't you going a little too +far? This--this is degradation--making a fuss with sleeves. You +mustn't do things like that." + +"Why not?" + +"Free woman--and equal." + +"I do it--of my own free will," said Ann Veronica, kissing his +hand again. "It's nothing to what I WILL do." + +"Oh, well!" he said, a little doubtfully, "it's just a phase," +and bent down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, +with his heart beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay +very still, with her hands clinched and her black hair tumbled +about her face, he came still closer and softly kissed the nape +of her neck. . . . + + + +Part 6 + + +Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they +climbed more than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved +rather a good climber, steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, +but quite willing to be cautious at his command. + +One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity +for blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things. + +He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he +had been there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the +straggling pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and +munch sandwiches and talk together and do things together that +were just a little difficult and dangerous. And they could talk, +they found; and never once, it seemed, did their meaning and +intention hitch. They were enormously pleased with one another; +they found each other beyond measure better than they had +expected, if only because of the want of substance in mere +expectation. Their conversation degenerated again and again into +a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked an +eavesdropper. + +"You're--I don't know," said Ann Veronica. "You're splendid." + +"It isn't that you're splendid or I," said Capes. "But we satisfy +one another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest +fitness! What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of +mind? Complexion and voice. I don't think I've got illusions, +nor you. . . . If I had never met anything of you at all but a +scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann Veronica, I know I would +have kept that somewhere near to me. . . . All your faults are +just jolly modelling to make you real and solid." + +"The faults are the best part of it," said Ann Veronica; "why, +even our little vicious strains run the same way. Even our +coarseness." + +"Coarse?" said Capes, "We're not coarse." + +"But if we were?" said Ann Veronica. + +"I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort," said +Capes; "that's the essence of it. It's made up of things as +small as the diameter of hairs and big as life and death. . . . +One always dreamed of this and never believed it. It's the +rarest luck, the wildest, most impossible accident. Most people, +every one I know else, seem to have mated with foreigners and to +talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be afraid of the +knowledge the other one has, of the other one's perpetual +misjudgment and misunderstandings. + +"Why don't they wait?" he added. + +Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight. + +"One doesn't wait," said Ann Veronica. + +She expanded that. "_I_ shouldn't have waited," she said. "I +might have muddled for a time. But it's as you say. I've had +the rarest luck and fallen on my feet." + +"We've both fallen on our feet! We're the rarest of mortals! +The real thing! There's not a compromise nor a sham nor a +concession between us. We aren't afraid; we don't bother. We +don't consider each other; we needn't. That wrappered life, as +you call it--we've burned the confounded rags! Danced out of it! +We're stark!" + +"Stark!" echoed Ann Veronica. + + + +Part 7 + + +As they came back from that day's climb--it was up the +Mittaghorn--they had to cross a shining space of wet, steep +rocks between two grass slopes that needed a little care. There +were a few loose, broken fragments of rock to reckon with upon +the ledges, and one place where hands did as much work as toes. +They used the rope--not that a rope was at all necessary, but +because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind made the fact of the +rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a joint +death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes +went first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the +strata-edges came like long, awkward steps, placing Ann +Veronica's feet. About half-way across this interval, when +everything seemed going well, Capes had a shock. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. +"My God!" and ceased to move. + +Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. "All right?" he +asked. + +"I'll have to pay it." + +"Eh?" + +"I've forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!" + +"Eh?" + +"He said I would." + +"What?" + +"That's the devil of it!" + +"Devil of what? . . . You DO use vile language!" + +"Forget about it like this." + +"Forget WHAT?" + +"And I said I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd make +shirts." + +"Shirts?" + +"Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! +Ann Veronica, you're a bilker!" + +Pause. + +"Will you tell me what all this is about?" said Capes. + +"It's about forty pounds." + +Capes waited patiently. + +"G. I'm sorry. . . . But you've got to lend me forty pounds." + +"It's some sort of delirium," said Capes. "The rarefied air? I +thought you had a better head." + +"No! I'll explain lower. It's all right. Let's go on climbing +now. It's a thing I've unaccountably overlooked. All right +really. It can wait a bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from +Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness you'll understand. That's why I +chucked Manning. . . . All right, I'm coming. But all this +business has driven it clean out of my head. . . . That's why he +was so annoyed, you know." + +"Who was annoyed?" + +"Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds." She took a step. "My +dear," she added, by way of afterthought, "you DO obliterate +things!" + + + +Part 8 + + +They found themselves next day talking love to one another high +up on some rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a +precipice on the eastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time +Capes' hair had bleached nearly white, and his skin had become a +skin of red copper shot with gold. They were now both in a state +of unprecedented physical fitness. And such skirts as Ann +Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were safely +packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose +knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine, long +lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress +could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare +wonderfully; her skin had only deepened its natural warmth a +little under the Alpine sun. She had pushed aside her azure +veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling under her hand +at the shining glories--the lit cornices, the blue shadows, the +softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places full of +quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was +cloudless, effulgent blue. + +Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising +the day and fortune and their love for each other. + +"Here we are," he said, "shining through each other like light +through a stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this +sunlight soaking us. . . . Life is so good. Can it ever be so +good again?" + +Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. "It's +very good," she said. "It's glorious good!" + +"Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue +deep beyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a +thousand feet or more below? Yes? Well, think--we've got to go +but ten steps and lie down and put our arms about each other. +See? Down we should rush in a foam--in a cloud of snow--to +flight and a dream. All the rest of our lives would be together +then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And no ill-chances." + +"If you tempt me too much ," she said, after a silence, "I shall +do it. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I'm +a desperate young woman. And then as we went down you'd try to +explain. And that would spoil it. . . . You know you don't mean +it." + +"No, I don't. But I liked to say it." + +"Rather! But I wonder why you don't mean it?" + +"Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other +reason could there be? It's more complex, but it's better. +THIS, this glissade, would be damned scoundrelism. You know +that, and I know that, though we might be put to it to find a +reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the pay of life and +then not living. And besides--We're going to live, Ann +Veronica! Oh, the things we'll do, the life we'll lead! There'll +be trouble in it at times--you and I aren't going to run without +friction. But we've got the brains to get over that, and tongues +in our heads to talk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on any +misunderstanding. Not us. And we're going to fight that old +world down there. That old world that had shoved up that silly +old hotel, and all the rest of it. . . . If we don't live it +will think we are afraid of it. . . . Die, indeed! We're going +to do work; we're going to unfold about each other; we're going +to have children." + +"Girls!" cried Ann Veronica. + +"Boys!" said Capes. + +"Both!" said Ann Veronica. "Lots of 'em!" + +Capes chuckled. "You delicate female!" + +"Who cares," said Ann Veronica, "seeing it's you? Warm, soft +little wonders! Of course I want them." + + + +Part 9 + + +"All sorts of things we're going to do," said Capes; "all sorts +of times we're going to have. Sooner or later we'll certainly do +something to clean those prisons you told me about--limewash the +underside of life. You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we +can love over a pail of whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! +Moonlight and music--pleasing, you know, but quite unnecessary. +We met dissecting dogfish. . . . Do you remember your first day +with me? . . . Do you indeed remember? The smell of decay and +cheap methylated spirit! . . . My dear! we've had so many +moments! I used to go over the times we'd had together, the +things we'd said--like a rosary of beads. But now it's beads by +the cask--like the hold of a West African trader. It feels like +too much gold-dust clutched in one's hand. One doesn't want to +lose a grain. And one must--some of it must slip through one's +fingers." + +"I don't care if it does," said Ann Veronica. "I don't care a +rap for remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn't be +better until the next moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why +should WE hoard? We aren't going out presently, like Japanese +lanterns in a gale. It's the poor dears who do, who know they +will, know they can't keep it up, who need to clutch at way-side +flowers. And put 'em in little books for remembrance. Flattened +flowers aren't for the likes of us. Moments, indeed! We like +each other fresh and fresh. It isn't illusions--for us. We two +just love each other --the real, identical other--all the time." + +"The real, identical other," said Capes, and took and bit the tip +of her little finger. + +"There's no delusions, so far as I know," said Ann Veronica. + +"I don't believe there is one. If there is, it's a mere +wrapping--there's better underneath. It's only as if I'd begun +to know you the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep +on coming truer, after you have seemed to come altogether true. +You. . . . brick!" + + + +Part 10 + + +"To think," he cried, "you are ten years younger than I! . . . +There are times when you make me feel a little thing at your +feet--a young, silly, protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, +it is all a lie about your birth certificate; a forgery--and +fooling at that. You are one of the Immortals. Immortal! You +were in the beginning, and all the men in the world who have +known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You have +converted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a +slip of a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on +your breast, when your heart has been beating close to my ears, +when I have known you for the goddess, when I have wished myself +your slave, when I have wished that you could kill me for the joy +of being killed by you. You are the High Priestess of Life. . . +." + +"Your priestess," whispered Ann Veronica, softly. "A silly little +priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you." + + + +Part 11 + + +They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous +shining globe of mutual satisfaction. + +"Well," said Capes, at length, "we've to go down, Ann Veronica. +Life waits for us." + +He stood up and waited for her to move. + +"Gods!" cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. "And to think +that it's not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel +school-girl, distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding +that this great force of love was bursting its way through me! +All those nameless discontents--they were no more than love's +birth-pangs. I felt--I felt living in a masked world. I felt as +though I had bandaged eyes. I felt--wrapped in thick cobwebs. +They blinded me. They got in my mouth. And now--Dear! Dear! +The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love. I am loved. +I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be +alive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you +are a man! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for +life and you. I thank God for His sunlight on your face. I +thank God for the beauty you love and the faults you love. I +thank God for the very skin that is peeling from your nose, for +all things great and small that make us what we are. This is +grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping of life +are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born +dragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad +as I!" + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH + +IN PERSPECTIVE + + +Part 1 + + +About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four +years and four months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon +an old Persian carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the +dining-room of their flat and surveyed a shining dinner-table set +for four people, lit by skilfully-shaded electric lights, +brightened by frequent gleams of silver, and carefully and simply +adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes had altered scarcely at +all during the interval, except for a new quality of smartness in +the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was nearly half an inch +taller; her face was at once stronger and softer, her neck firmer +and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly than it had +been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to the +tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in the +old garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a +simple evening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old +embroidery that enhanced the gentle gravity of her style, and her +black hair flowed off her open forehead to pass under the control +of a simple ribbon of silver. A silver necklace enhanced the +dusky beauty of her neck. Both husband and wife affected an +unnatural ease of manner for the benefit of the efficient +parlor-maid, who was putting the finishing touches to the +sideboard arrangements. + +"It looks all right," said Capes. + +"I think everything's right," said Ann Veronica, with the roaming +eye of a capable but not devoted house-mistress. + +"I wonder if they will seem altered," she remarked for the third +time. + +"There I can't help," said Capes. + +He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue +curtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. +Ann Veronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, +followed him, rustling, came to his side by the high brass +fender, and touched two or three ornaments on the mantel above +the cheerful fireplace. + +"It's still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven," she said, +turning. + +"My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he's very human." + +"Did you tell him of the registry office?" + +"No--o--certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play." + +"It was an inspiration--your speaking to him?" + +"I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not +been near the Royal Society since--since you disgraced me. +What's that?" + +They both stood listening. It was not the arrival of the guests, +but merely the maid moving about in the hall. + +"Wonderful man!" said Ann Veronica, reassured, and stroking his +cheek with her finger. + +Capes made a quick movement as if to bite that aggressive digit, +but it withdrew to Ann Veronica's side. + +"I was really interested in his stuff. I WAS talking to him +before I saw his name on the card beside the row of microscopes. +Then, naturally, I went on talking. He--he has rather a poor +opinion of his contemporaries. Of course, he had no idea who I +was." + +"But how did you tell him? You've never told me. Wasn't it--a +little bit of a scene?" + +"Oh! let me see. I said I hadn't been at the Royal Society +soiree for four years, and got him to tell me about some of the +fresh Mendelian work. He loves the Mendelians because he hates +all the big names of the eighties and nineties. Then I think I +remarked that science was disgracefully under-endowed, and +confessed I'd had to take to more profitable courses. 'The fact +of it is,' I said, 'I'm the new playwright, Thomas More. Perhaps +you've heard--?' Well, you know, he had." + +"Fame!" + +"Isn't it? 'I've not seen your play, Mr. More,' he said, 'but +I'm told it's the most amusing thing in London at the present +time. A friend of mine, Ogilvy'--I suppose that's Ogilvy & +Ogilvy, who do so many divorces, Vee?--'was speaking very highly +of it--very highly!' " He smiled into her eyes. + +"You are developing far too retentive a memory for praises," said +Ann Veronica. + +"I'm still new to them. But after that it was easy. I told him +instantly and shamelessly that the play was going to be worth ten +thousand pounds. He agreed it was disgraceful. Then I assumed a +rather portentous manner to prepare him." + +"How? Show me." + +"I can't be portentous, dear, when you're about. It's my other +side of the moon. But I was portentous, I can assure you. 'My +name's NOT More, Mr. Stanley,' I said. 'That's my pet name.' " + +"Yes?" + +"I think--yes, I went on in a pleasing blend of the casual and +sotto voce, 'The fact of it is, sir, I happen to be your +son-in-law, Capes. I do wish you could come and dine with us +some evening. It would make my wife very happy.' " + +"What did he say?" + +"What does any one say to an invitation to dinner point-blank? +One tries to collect one's wits. 'She is constantly thinking of +you,' I said." + +"And he accepted meekly?" + +"Practically. What else could he do? You can't kick up a scene +on the spur of the moment in the face of such conflicting values +as he had before him. With me behaving as if everything was +infinitely matter-of-fact, what could he do? And just then +Heaven sent old Manningtree--I didn't tell you before of the +fortunate intervention of Manningtree, did I? He was looking +quite infernally distinguished, with a wide crimson ribbon across +him--what IS a wide crimson ribbon? Some sort of knight, I +suppose. He is a knight. 'Well, young man,' he said, 'we +haven't seen you lately,' and something about 'Bateson & +Co.'--he's frightfully anti-Mendelian--having it all their own +way. So I introduced him to my father-in-law like a shot. I +think that WAS decision. Yes, it was Manningtree really secured +your father. He--" + +"Here they are!" said Ann Veronica as the bell sounded. + + + +Part 2 + + +They received the guests in their pretty little hall with genuine +effusion. Miss Stanley threw aside a black cloak to reveal a +discreet and dignified arrangement of brown silk, and then +embraced Ann Veronica with warmth. "So very clear and cold," she +said. "I feared we might have a fog." The housemaid's presence +acted as a useful restraint. Ann Veronica passed from her aunt +to her father, and put her arms about him and kissed his cheek. +"Dear old daddy!" she said, and was amazed to find herself +shedding tears. She veiled her emotion by taking off his +overcoat. "And this is Mr. Capes?" she heard her aunt saying. + +All four people moved a little nervously into the drawing-room, +maintaining a sort of fluttered amiability of sound and movement. + +Mr. Stanley professed a great solicitude to warm his hands. +"Quite unusually cold for the time of year," he said. +"Everything very nice, I am sure," Miss Stanley murmured to Capes +as he steered her to a place upon the little sofa before the +fire. Also she made little pussy-like sounds of a reassuring +nature. + +"And let's have a look at you, Vee!" said Mr. Stanley, standing +up with a sudden geniality and rubbing his hands together. + +Ann Veronica, who knew her dress became her, dropped a curtsy to +her father's regard. + +Happily they had no one else to wait for, and it heartened her +mightily to think that she had ordered the promptest possible +service of the dinner. Capes stood beside Miss Stanley, who was +beaming unnaturally, and Mr. Stanley, in his effort to seem at +ease, took entire possession of the hearthrug. + +"You found the flat easily?" said Capes in the pause. "The +numbers are a little difficult to see in the archway. They ought +to put a lamp." + +Her father declared there had been no difficulty. + +"Dinner is served, m'm," said the efficient parlor-maid in the +archway, and the worst was over. + +"Come, daddy," said Ann Veronica, following her husband and Miss +Stanley; and in the fulness of her heart she gave a friendly +squeeze to the parental arm. + +"Excellent fellow!" he answered a little irrelevantly. "I didn't +understand, Vee." + +"Quite charming apartments," Miss Stanley admired; "charming! +Everything is so pretty and convenient." + +The dinner was admirable as a dinner; nothing went wrong, from +the golden and excellent clear soup to the delightful iced +marrons and cream; and Miss Stanley's praises died away to an +appreciative acquiescence. A brisk talk sprang up between Capes +and Mr. Stanley, to which the two ladies subordinated themselves +intelligently. The burning topic of the Mendelian controversy +was approached on one or two occasions, but avoided dexterously; +and they talked chiefly of letters and art and the censorship of +the English stage. Mr. Stanley was inclined to think the +censorship should be extended to the supply of what he styled +latter-day fiction; good wholesome stories were being ousted, he +said, by "vicious, corrupting stuff" that "left a bad taste in +the mouth." He declared that no book could be satisfactory that +left a bad taste in the mouth, however much it seized and +interested the reader at the time. He did not like it, he said, +with a significant look, to be reminded of either his books or +his dinners after he had done with them. Capes agreed with the +utmost cordiality. + +"Life is upsetting enough, without the novels taking a share," +said Mr. Stanley. + +For a time Ann Veronica's attention was diverted by her aunt's +interest in the salted almonds. + +"Quite particularly nice," said her aunt. "Exceptionally so." + +When Ann Veronica could attend again she found the men were +discussing the ethics of the depreciation of house property +through the increasing tumult of traffic in the West End, and +agreeing with each other to a devastating extent. It came into +her head with real emotional force that this must be some +particularly fantastic sort of dream. It seemed to her that her +father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she had +supposed, and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had +demanded a struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his +first failure. Why was she noting things like this? Capes +seemed self-possessed and elaborately genial and commonplace, but +she knew him to be nervous by a little occasional clumsiness, by +the faintest shadow of vulgarity in the urgency of his +hospitality. She wished he could smoke and dull his nerves a +little. A gust of irrational impatience blew through her being. +Well, they'd got to the pheasants, and in a little while he would +smoke. What was it she had expected? Surely her moods were +getting a little out of hand. + +She wished her father and aunt would not enjoy their dinner with +such quiet determination. Her father and her husband, who had +both been a little pale at their first encounter, were growing +now just faintly flushed. It was a pity people had to eat food. + +"I suppose," said her father, "I have read at least half the +novels that have been at all successful during the last twenty +years. Three a week is my allowance, and, if I get short ones, +four. I change them in the morning at Cannon Street, and take my +book as I come down." + +It occurred to her that she had never seen her father dining out +before, never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he +was almost deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in +the old time, never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever +anticipated. It was as if she had grown right past her father +into something older and of infinitely wider outlook, as if he +had always been unsuspectedly a flattened figure, and now she had +discovered him from the other side. + +It was a great relief to arrive at last at that pause when she +could say to her aunt, "Now, dear?" and rise and hold back the +curtain through the archway. Capes and her father stood up, and +her father made a belated movement toward the curtain. She +realized that he was the sort of man one does not think much +about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that his wife was a +supremely beautiful woman. He reached a silver cigar and +cigarette box from the sideboard and put it before his +father-in-law, and for a time the preliminaries of smoking +occupied them both. Then Capes flittered to the hearthrug and +poked the fire, stood up, and turned about. "Ann Veronica is +looking very well, don't you think?" he said, a little awkwardly. + +"Very," said Mr. Stanley. "Very," and cracked a walnut +appreciatively. + +"Life--things--I don't think her prospects now--Hopeful +outlook." + +"You were in a difficult position," Mr. Stanley pronounced, and +seemed to hesitate whether he had not gone too far. He looked at +his port wine as though that tawny ruby contained the solution of +the matter. "All's well that ends well," he said; "and the less +one says about things the better." + +"Of course," said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the +fire through sheer nervousness. "Have some more port wine, sir?" + +"It's a very sound wine," said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity. + +"Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think," said +Capes, clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the +suppressed topic. + + + +Part 3 + + +At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone +down to see Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had +waved an amiable farewell from the pavement steps. + +"Great dears!" said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight. + +"Yes, aren't they?" said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. +And then, "They seem changed." + +"Come in out of the cold," said Capes, and took her arm. + +"They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller," she said. + +"You've grown out of them. . . . Your aunt liked the pheasant." + +"She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, +talking cookery?" + +They went up by the lift in silence. + +"It's odd," said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat. + +"What's odd?" + +"Oh, everything!" + +She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down +in the arm-chair beside her. + +"Life's so queer," she said, kneeling and looking into the +flames. "I wonder--I wonder if we shall ever get like that." + +She turned a firelit face to her husband. "Did you tell him?" + +Capes smiled faintly. "Yes." + +"How?" + +"Well--a little clumsily." + +"But how?" + +"I poured him out some port wine, and I said--let me see--oh, +'You are going to be a grandfather!' " + +"Yes. Was he pleased?" + +"Calmly! He said--you won't mind my telling you?" + +"Not a bit." + +"He said, 'Poor Alice has got no end!' " + +"Alice's are different," said Ann Veronica, after an interval. +"Quite different. She didn't choose her man. . . . Well, I told +aunt. . . . Husband of mine, I think we have rather overrated +the emotional capacity of those--those dears." + +"What did your aunt say?" + +"She didn't even kiss me. She said"--Ann Veronica shivered +again--" 'I hope it won't make you uncomfortable, my dear'--like +that--'and whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!' I +think--I judge from her manner--that she thought it was just a +little indelicate of us--considering everything; but she tried to +be practical and sympathetic and live down to our standards." + +Capes looked at his wife's unsmiling face. + +"Your father," he said, "remarked that all's well that ends well, +and that he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then +spoke with a certain fatherly kindliness of the past. . . ." + +"And my heart has ached for him!" + +"Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him." + +"We might even have--given it up for them!" + +"I wonder if we could." + +"I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night--I don't +know." + +"I suppose so. I'm glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. +But if we had gone under--!" + +They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of +her penetrating flashes. + +"We are not the sort that goes under," said Ann Veronica, holding +her hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. +"We settled long ago--we're hard stuff. We're hard stuff!" + +Then she went on: "To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He +stood over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me +aside from everything we have done. He was the social order; he +was law and wisdom. And they come here, and they look at our +furniture to see if it is good; and they are not glad, it does +not stir them, that at last, at last we can dare to have +children." + +She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. +"Oh, my dear!" she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, +into her husband's arms. + +"Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one +another? How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember +the light on things and the glory of things? I'm greedy, I'm +greedy! I want children like the mountains and life like the +sky. Oh! and love--love! We've had so splendid a time, and +fought our fight and won. And it's like the petals falling from +a flower. Oh, I've loved love, dear! I've loved love and you, +and the glory of you; and the great time is over, and I have to +go carefully and bear children, and--take care of my hair--and +when I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals +have fallen --the red petals we loved so. We're hedged about +with discretions--and all this furniture--and successes! We are +successful at last! Successful! But the mountains, dear! We +won't forget the mountains, dear, ever. That shining slope of +snow, and how we talked of death! We might have died! Even when +we are old, when we are rich as we may be, we won't forget the +tune when we cared nothing for anything but the joy of one +another, when we risked everything for one another, when all the +wrappings and coverings seemed to have fallen from life and left +it light and fire. Stark and stark! Do you remember it all? . . . +Say you will never forget! That these common things and secondary +things sha'n't overwhelm us. These petals! I've been wanting +to cry all the evening, cry here on your shoulder for my petals. +Petals! . . . Silly woman! . . . I've never had these crying +fits before. . . ." + +"Blood of my heart!" whispered Capes, holding her close to him. +"I know. I understand." + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ann Veronica, by H. G. Wells + diff --git a/old/anver10.zip b/old/anver10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..524d962 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/anver10.zip |