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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 |