bad fliesen modern galerie
chapter the elevenththoughts in prison part 1the first night in prison she found it impossible to sleep. the bed was hard beyond any experience ofhers, the bed-clothes coarse and insufficient, the cell at once cold andstuffy. the little grating in the door, the senseof constant inspection, worried her. she kept opening her eyes and looking atit. she was fatigued physically and mentally,and neither mind nor body could rest. she became aware that at regular intervalsa light flashed upon her face and a
bodiless eye regarded her, and this, as thenight wore on, became a torment.... capes came back into her mind. he haunted a state between hectic dreamingand mild delirium, and she found herself talking aloud to him. all through the night an entirelyimpossible and monumental capes confronted her, and she argued with him about men andwomen. she visualized him as in a policeman'suniform and quite impassive. on some insane score she fancied she had tostate her case in verse. "we are the music and you are theinstrument," she said; "we are verse and
you are prose. "for men have reason, women rhyme a manscores always, all the time." this couplet sprang into her mind fromnowhere, and immediately begot an endless series of similar couplets that she beganto compose and address to capes. they came teeming distressfully through heraching 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 forthe 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 stuffedher 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 anundertone of rational admission. "there is something to be said for thelady-like theory after all," she admitted. "women ought to be gentle and submissivepersons, 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, iadmit.
their idea of maidenly innocence was just ablank white--the sort of flat white that doesn't shine. but that doesn't alter the fact that thereis 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 gaveme 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 meanthat i'm not a good woman. my poor brain is so mixed, dear, i hardlyknow 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 thingshappen. and i get myself dirty..."it's all dirt that washes off, dear, but it's dirt.
"the white unaggressive woman who correctsand nurses and serves, and is worshipped and betrayed--the martyr-queen of men, thewhite mother.... you can't do that sort of thing unless youdo 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 flamingswords 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-ashover 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 dawninganother 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 backthat 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 butthink. 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 thoughtthings out? "are we all just seizing hold of phrasesand obeying moods? "it wasn't so with old-fashioned people,they knew right from wrong; they had a
clear-cut, religious faith that seemed toexplain everything and give a rule for everything. we haven't.i haven't, anyhow. and it's no good pretending there is onewhen there isn't.... i suppose i believe in god.... never really thought about him--peopledon't.... i suppose my creed is, 'i believe ratherindistinctly 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 ofmonologue 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'vegot 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, andfail 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'ssoul...." she knelt upon the floor of her cell andclasped her hands, and remained for a long time in silence. "oh, god!" she said at last, "how i wish ihad been taught to pray!" part 3she had some idea of putting these subtle and difficult issues to the chaplain whenshe was warned of his advent.
but she had not reckoned with the etiquetteof canongate. she got up, as she had been told to do, athis appearance, and he amazed her by sitting down, according to custom, on herstool. he still wore his hat, to show that thedays of miracles and christ being civil to sinners are over forever. she perceived that his countenance was onlycomposed 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 herplace 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 pridethe ugly investigatory note of the modern district visitor. "are you a special sort of clergyman," shesaid, after a pause, and looking down her nose at him, "or do you go to theuniversities?" "oh!" he said, profoundly. he panted for a moment with unutteredreplies, and then, with a scornful gesture,
got up and left the cell. so that ann veronica was not able to getthe expert advice she certainly needed upon her spiritual state. part 4after a day or so she thought more steadily. she found herself in a phase of violentreaction against the suffrage movement, a phase greatly promoted by one of thoseunreasonable objections people of ann veronica's temperament take at times--tothe girl in the next cell to her own. she was a large, resilient girl, with afoolish smile, a still more foolish
expression of earnestness, and a throatycontralto voice. she was noisy and hilarious andenthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably done. in the chapel she sang with an open-lungedgusto that silenced ann veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yardslouched round with carelessly dispersed feet. ann veronica decided that "hoydenishragger" was the only phrase to express her. she was always breaking rules, whisperingasides, intimating signals. she became at times an embodiment for annveronica of all that made the suffrage
movement defective and unsatisfying.she was always initiating petty breaches of discipline. her greatest exploit was the howling beforethe mid-day meal. this was an imitation of the noises made bythe carnivora at the zoological gardens at feeding-time; the idea was taken up byprisoner after prisoner until the whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican chatterings, and felineyowlings, 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 thispandemonium, and with particular reference to this young lady with the throatycontralto 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 goesunder.... "but all the rest of our case is right....yes." as the long, solitary days wore on, annveronica found a number of definite
attitudes and conclusions in her mind. one of these was a classification of womeninto 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 takewhatever he gave.... "a woman wants a proper alliance with aman, a man who is better stuff than
herself. she wants that and needs it more thananything else in the world. it may not be just, it may not be fair, butthings are so. it isn't law, nor custom, nor masculineviolence settled that. it is just how things happen to be. she wants to be free--she wants to belegally 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 placeyou tie a knot in another.... before there is any change, any realchange, 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 unmistakablepassion, "why in the name of goodness did i burn that twenty pounds?"
part 6she sat regarding her dinner. the meat was coarse and disagreeablyserved. "i suppose some one makes a bit on thefood," she said.... "one has such ridiculous ideas of thewicked common people and the beautiful machinery of order that ropes them in. and here are these places, full ofcontagion! "of course, this is the real texture oflife, this is what we refined secure people forget. we think the whole thing is straight andnoble at bottom, and it isn't.
we think if we just defy the friends wehave and go out into the world everything will become easy and splendid. one doesn't realize that even the sort ofcivilization 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 towalk about in. it's a world of dirt and skin diseases andparasites. it's a world in which the law can be astupid pig and the police-stations dirty dens.one wants helpers and protectors--and clean water.
"am i becoming reasonable or am i beingtamed? "i'm simply discovering that life is many-sided and complex and puzzling. i thought one had only to take it by thethroat. "it hasn't got a throat!" part 7one 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 askedherself, and answered, "just stark egotism, crude assertion of ann veronica, without amodest rag of religion or discipline or
respect for authority to cover me!" it seemed to her as though she had at lastfound the touchstone of conduct. she perceived she had never really thoughtof any one but herself in all her acts and plans. even capes had been for her merely anexcitant to passionate love--a mere idol at whose feet one could enjoy imaginativewallowings. she had set out to get a beautiful life, afree, untrammelled life, self-development, without counting the cost either forherself or others. "i have hurt my father," she said; "i havehurt 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 hurtsothers if one kicks loose and free, one has to submit...."broken-in people! i suppose the world is just all egotisticalchildren and broken-in people. "your little flag of pride must flutterdown with the rest of them, ann veronica.... "compromise--and kindness."compromise and kindness. "who are you that the world should lie downat your feet?
"you've got to be a decent citizen, annveronica. take your half loaf with the others. you mustn't go clawing after a man thatdoesn't belong to you--that isn't even interested in you.that's one thing clear. "you've got to take the decent reasonableway. you've got to adjust yourself to the peoplegod 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 behis restrained and dignified friend. after all, that was life. nothing was given away, and no one came sorich 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 questionsthat he dealt with.... perhaps her granddaughter might marry hisgrandson....
it grew clear to her that throughout allher wild raid for independence she had done nothing for anybody, and many people haddone things for her. she thought of her aunt and that purse thatwas 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, ofmanning'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 sinnedagainst 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 andchintz 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 along interval, "i must pay mr. ramage back his forty pounds." > chapter the twelfthann veronica puts things in order part 1ann veronica made a strenuous attempt to carry out her good resolutions. she meditated long and carefully upon herletter to her father before she wrote it, and gravely and deliberately again beforeshe despatched it. "my dear father," she wrote,--"i have beenthinking 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 tolife than i ignorantly supposed it to be, and i have been trying to get lord morley'sbook on that subject, but it does not appear to be available in the prison library, and the chaplain seems to regardhim as an undesirable writer." at this point she had perceived that shewas drifting from her subject. "i must read him when i come out. but i see very clearly that as things are adaughter is necessarily dependent on her
father and bound while she is in thatposition to live harmoniously with his ideals." "bit starchy," said ann veronica, andaltered the key abruptly. her concluding paragraph was, on the whole,perhaps, hardly starchy enough. "really, daddy, i am sorry for all i havedone to put you out. may i come home and try to be a betterdaughter to you? "ann veronica." her aunt came to meet her outsidecanongate, and, being a little confused between what was official and what wasmerely a rebellious slight upon our
national justice, found herself involved in a triumphal procession to the vindicatorvegetarian restaurant, and was specifically and personally cheered by a small, shabbycrowd outside that rendezvous. they decided quite audibly, "she's an olddear, 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 tothe prison in a dark veil, but she had pushed this up to kiss ann veronica andnever drawn it down again. eggs were procured for her, and she sat outthe subsequent emotions and eloquence with
the dignity becoming an injured lady ofgood family. the quiet encounter and home-coming annveronica 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 inthe early afternoon estranged and depressed, with headaches and the trumpetvoice of the indomitable kitty brett still ringing in their ears. "dreadful women, my dear!" said missstanley. "and some of them quite pretty and welldressed.
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-roomas 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 3when ann veronica found herself in her father's study that evening it seemed toher 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 withits work and emotions, the meetings and discussions, the rides in hansoms with ramage, were like things in a book read andclosed. the study seemed absolutely unaltered,there was still the same lamp with a little
chip out of the shade, still the same gasfire, 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 shestood just as she had stood when he told her she could not go to the fadden dance. both had dropped the rather elaboratepoliteness of the dining-room, and in their faces an impartial observer would havediscovered little lines of obstinate wilfulness in common; a certain hardness-- sharp, indeed, in the father and softlyrounded in the daughter--but hardness
nevertheless, that made every compromise abargain and every charity a discount. "and so you have been thinking?" her fatherbegan, quoting her letter and looking over his slanting glasses at her. "well, my girl, i wish you had thoughtabout 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 tomy 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 thesession." 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'sinvestigations 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 likelyto 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 youcredit?
"you see," said ann veronica, "my landladykept on my room while i was in holloway, and the fees for the college mounted uppretty considerably." she spoke rather quickly, because she foundher 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 acasual 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 mywatch."
"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 addedfoolishly, "fifteen pounds will see me clear of everything." she muttered some unlady-like comment uponherself 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 theend of these adventures. i hope you have learned your lesson now andcome to see--come to realize--how things are. people, nobody, can do as they like in thisworld. 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 otherwarily, each more than a little insecure with the other. he made a movement toward her, and thenrecalled the circumstances of their last conversation in that study.
she saw his purpose and his doubt hesitatedalso, 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, preoccupiedexpression. (fifteen pounds! and she wanted forty!) part 4 it was, perhaps, the natural consequence ofa long and tiring and exciting day that ann
veronica should pass a broken anddistressful night, a night in which the noble and self-subduing resolutions of canongate displayed themselves for thefirst time in an atmosphere of almost lurid dismay. her father's peculiar stiffness of soulpresented itself now as something altogether left out of the calculationsupon which her plans were based, and, in particular, she had not anticipated the difficulty she would find in borrowing theforty pounds she needed for ramage. that had taken her by surprise, and hertired wits had failed her.
she was to have fifteen pounds, and nomore. she knew that to expect more now was likeanticipating a gold-mine in the garden. the chance had gone. it became suddenly glaringly apparent toher that it was impossible to return fifteen pounds or any sum less than twentypounds to ramage--absolutely impossible. she realized that with a pang of disgustand horror. already she had sent him twenty pounds, andnever written to explain to him why it was she had not sent it back sharply directlyhe returned it. she ought to have written at once and toldhim exactly what had happened.
now if she sent fifteen pounds thesuggestion that she had spent a five-pound note in the meanwhile would beirresistible. no! that was impossible. she would have just to keep the fifteenpounds until she could make it twenty. that might happen on her birthday--inaugust. she turned about, and was persecuted byvisions, half memories, half dreams, of ramage.he became ugly and monstrous, dunning her, threatening her, assailing her. "confound sex from first to last!" said annveronica.
"why can't we propagate by sexless spores,as the ferns do? we restrict each other, we badger eachother, friendship is poisoned and buried under it!...i must pay off that forty pounds. i must." for a time there seemed no comfort for hereven in capes. she was to see capes to-morrow, but now, inthis state of misery she had achieved, she felt assured he would turn his back uponher, take no notice of her at all. and if he didn't, what was the good ofseeing him? "i wish he was a woman," she said, "then icould make him my friend.
i want him as my friend. i want to talk to him and go about withhim. just go about with him." she was silent for a time, with her nose onthe pillow, and that brought her to: "what's the good of pretending? "i love him," she said aloud to the dimforms of her room, and repeated it, and went on to imagine herself doing acts oftragically dog-like devotion to the biologist, who, for the purposes of the drama, remained entirely unconscious of andindifferent to her proceedings.
at last some anodyne formed itself fromthese exercises, and, with eyelashes wet with such feeble tears as only three-o'clock-in-the-morning pathos can distil, she fell asleep. pursuant to some altogether privatecalculations she did not go up to the imperial college until after mid-day, andshe found the laboratory deserted, even as she desired. she went to the table under the end windowat which she had been accustomed to work, and found it swept and garnished with fullbottles of re-agents. everything was very neat; it had evidentlybeen straightened up and kept for her.
she put down the sketch-books and apparatusshe had brought with her, pulled out her stool, and sat down. as she did so the preparation-room dooropened behind her. she heard it open, but as she felt unableto 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 thisafternoon."
"i began to be afraid you might not come atall." "afraid!" "yes. i'm glad you're back for all sorts ofreasons." he spoke a little nervously. "among other things, you know, i didn'tunderstand quite--i didn't understand that you were so keenly interested in thissuffrage question. i have it on my conscience that i offendedyou--" "offended me when?""i've been haunted by the memory of you. i was rude and stupid.
we were talking about the suffrage--and irather 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 notdisposed 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 ofher table.
"but if you weren't keen on the suffragebusiness, 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 awoman." "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 littletoo lightly. unless they remind him now and then notto.... you did." "then i didn't waste my time in prisonaltogether?" "it wasn't the prison impressed me.but i liked the things you said here. i felt suddenly i understood you--as anintelligent person. if you'll forgive my saying that, andimplying what goes with it. there's something--puppyish in a man'susual 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 hergravely. "you, anyhow, don't deserve it," he said. their colloquy was ended abruptly by theapparition of miss klegg at the further door. when she saw ann veronica she stood for amoment as if entranced, and then advanced
with outstretched hands. "veronique!" she cried with a risingintonation, though never before had she called ann veronica anything but missstanley, and seized her and squeezed her and kissed her with profound emotion. "to think that you were going to do it--andnever said a word! you are a little thin, but except for thatyou look--you look better than ever. was it very horrible? i tried to get into the police-court, butthe 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 themounted police in london--shan't keep me out." part 6capes lit things wonderfully for ann veronica all that afternoon, he was sofriendly, so palpably interested in her, and glad to have her back with him. tea in the laboratory was a sort ofsuffragette reception. miss garvice assumed a quality ofneutrality, professed herself almost won over by ann veronica's example, and thescotchman decided that if women had a
distinctive sphere it was, at any rate, an enlarging sphere, and no one who believedin the doctrine of evolution could logically deny the vote to women"ultimately," however much they might be disposed to doubt the advisability of itsimmediate concession. it was a refusal of expediency, he said,and not an absolute refusal. the youth with his hair like russellcleared his throat and said rather irrelevantly that he knew a man who knewthomas bayard simmons, who had rioted in the strangers' gallery, and then capes, finding them all distinctly pro-annveronica, if not pro-feminist, ventured to
be perverse, and started a vein ofspeculation upon the scotchman's idea--that there were still hopes of women evolvinginto something higher. he was unusually absurd and ready, and allthe time it seemed to ann veronica as a delightful possibility, as a thing notindeed to be entertained seriously, but to be half furtively felt, that he was being so agreeable because she had come backagain. she returned home through a world that wasas roseate as it had been gray overnight. but as she got out of the train atmorningside 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 thelamp-room and affected serious trouble with her shoe-lace until he was out of thestation, and then she followed slowly and with extreme discretion until the bifurcation of the avenue from the fieldway insured her escape. ramage went up the avenue, and she hurriedalong the path with a beating heart and a disagreeable sense of unsolved problems inher 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 aninsoluble perplexity. she smiled at the sight of him, and thereathis radiation increased. "i missed the hour of your release," hesaid, "but i was at the vindicator restaurant.you did not see me, i know. i was among the common herd in the placebelow, 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 ather in his fatherly way. "to the view that all women ought to havevotes whether they like it or not." he shook his head, and his eyes and themouth under the black mustache wrinkled with his smile. and as he walked by her side they began awrangle that was none the less pleasant to ann veronica because it served to banish adisagreeable preoccupation. it seemed to her in her restored genialitythat she liked manning extremely. the brightness capes had diffused over theworld glorified even his rival.
part 7the steps by which ann veronica determined to engage herself to marry manning werenever very clear to her. a medley of motives warred in her, and itwas certainly not one of the least of these that she knew herself to be passionately inlove with capes; at moments she had a giddy intimation that he was beginning to feelkeenly interested in her. she realized more and more the quality ofthe brink upon which she stood--the dreadful readiness with which in certainmoods she might plunge, the unmitigated wrongness and recklessness of such a self-abandonment. "he must never know," she would whisper toherself, "he must never know.
or else--else it will be impossible that ican be his friend." that simple statement of the case was by nomeans all that went on in ann veronica's mind. but it was the form of her rulingdetermination; it was the only form that she ever allowed to see daylight. what else was there lurked in shadows anddeep places; if in some mood of reverie it came out into the light, it was presentlyoverwhelmed and hustled back again into hiding. she would never look squarely at thesedream forms that mocked the social order in
which she lived, never admit she listenedto the soft whisperings in her ear. but manning seemed more and more clearlyindicated as a refuge, as security. certain simple purposes emerged from thedisingenuous muddle of her feelings and desires. seeing capes from day to day made a brighteventfulness 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 theimperial college the third finger of her left hand was adorned with a very fine oldring with dark blue sapphires that had once
belonged to a great-aunt of manning's. that ring manifestly occupied her thoughtsa great deal. she kept pausing in her work and regardingit, and when capes came round to her, she first put her hand in her lap and thenrather 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 amore emphatic course of action. "are these ordinary sapphires?" she said. he bent to her hand, and she slipped offthe 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, ina 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 illuminationthat this ring upon her finger was the
crowning blunder of her life. it was apparent, and then it faded into thequality 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 onthat ornament for a moment, and then travelled slowly to her wrist and the softlines of her forearm. "i suppose i ought to congratulate you," hesaid. their eyes met, and his expressedperplexity and curiosity. "the fact is--i don't know why--this takesme by surprise.
somehow i haven't connected the idea withyou. you seemed complete--without that." "did i?" she said."i don't know why. but this is like--like walking round ahouse that looks square and complete and finding an unexpected long wing running outbehind." she looked up at him, and found he waswatching her closely. for some seconds of voluminous thinkingthey looked at the ring between them, and neither spoke. then capes shifted his eyes to hermicroscope 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 unrealalacrity. "but it still misses the nucleolus." chapter the thirteenththe sapphire ring part 1for a time that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all, the satisfactorysolution of ann veronica's difficulties. it was like pouring a strong acid overdulled metal. a tarnish of constraint that had recentlyspread over her intercourse with capes
vanished again. they embarked upon an open and declaredfriendship. they even talked about friendship. they went to the zoological gardenstogether one saturday to see for themselves a point of morphological interest about thetoucan's bill--that friendly and entertaining bird--and they spent the rest of the afternoon walking about andelaborating in general terms this theme and the superiority of intellectual fellowshipto all merely passionate relationships. upon this topic capes was heavy andconscientious, 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 offriendship," he said, "when interest, i suppose, will take the place of passions. either you have had to love people or hatethem--which is a sort of love, too, in its way--to get anything out of them. now, more and more, we're going to beinterested in them, to be curious about them and--quite mildly-experimental withthem." he seemed to be elaborating ideas as hetalked.
they watched the chimpanzees in the newapes' house, and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes--"so much more humanthan human beings"--and they watched the agile gibbon in the next apartment doingwonderful 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 thestuff 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 thatafternoon. 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 whenhe explained that sugar and not buns was the talisman of popularity among the animals, she marvelled at his practicalomniscience. finally, at the exit into regent's park,they ran against miss klegg. it was the expression of miss klegg's facethat 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 2when at last she did so, the sapphire ring took on a new quality in the imagination ofcapes. it ceased to be the symbol of liberty and aremote and quite abstracted person, and became suddenly and very disagreeably thetoken of a large and portentous body visible and tangible. manning appeared just at the end of theafternoon's work, and the biologist was going through some perplexities thescotchman had created by a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of hyrax and ayoung african elephant.
he was clearing up these difficulties bytracing a partially obliterated suture the scotchman had overlooked when the door fromthe 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 hiseager advance to his fiancee, miss klegg replaced one long-cherished romance aboutann veronica by one more normal and simple. he carried a cane and a silk hat with amourning-band in one gray-gloved hand; his frock-coat and trousers were admirable; hishandsome face, his black mustache, his prominent brow conveyed an eagersolicitude.
"i want," he said, with a white handoutstretched, "to take you out to tea." "i've been clearing up," said ann veronica,brightly. "all your dreadful scientific things?" hesaid, with a smile that miss klegg thought extraordinarily kindly. "all my dreadful scientific things," saidann veronica. he stood back, smiling with an air ofproprietorship, and looking about him at the business-like equipment of the room. the low ceiling made him seem abnormallytall. ann veronica wiped a scalpel, put a cardover a watch-glass containing thin shreds
of embryonic guinea-pig swimming in mauvestain, and dismantled her microscope. "i wish i understood more of biology," saidmanning. "i'm ready," said ann veronica, closing hermicroscope-box with a click, and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory. "we have no airs and graces here, and myhat hangs from a peg in the passage." she led the way to the door, and manningpassed 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 quietacquiescence in her bearing.
after capes had finished the scotchman'stroubles 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 oftiles and chimney-pots into a sky that was blue and empty. he was not addicted to monologue, and theonly audible comment he permitted himself at first upon a universe that was evidentlyanything but satisfactory to him that afternoon, was one compact and entirelyunassigned "damn!" the word must have had some gratifyingquality, because he repeated it.
then he stood up and repeated it again. "the fool i have been!" he cried; and nowspeech 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 tocontemplate thrusting it through the window.he turned his back on that temptation. then suddenly he seized a new preparationbottle 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 thecemented floor under the bookcase; then, without either haste or pause, he swept hisarm along a shelf of re-agents and sent them to mingle with the debris on thefloor. 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 mouthpuckered to a whistle, and he went to the
door of the outer preparation-room andstood there, looking, save for the faintest intensification of his natural ruddiness,the embodiment of blond serenity. "gellett," he called, "just come and clearup a mess, will you? i've smashed some things." part 3there 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 herand his connection with her and that terrible evening--a vague, disconcertingpossibility of annoyance and exposure. she could not see any relief from thisanxiety 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, andthat, 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 herbitter cry: "oh, why did i burn those notes?" it added greatly to the annoyance of thesituation that she had twice seen ramage in the avenue since her return to the shelterof 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 mustclear 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 andhonorable explanations. but when it came to broaching them, itproved to be much more difficult than she had supposed.
they went down the great staircase of thebuilding, and, while she sought in her mind for a beginning, he broke into appreciationof her simple dress and self- congratulations upon their engagement. "it makes me feel," he said, "that nothingis impossible--to have you here beside me. i said, that day at surbiton, 'there's manygood things in life, but there's only one best, and that's the wild-haired girl who'spulling 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 saidthis, 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 tome and what you mean to me! i suppose there is something mystical andwonderful about all women." "there is something mystical and wonderfulabout all human beings. i don't see that men need bank it with thewomen." "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 thebarrow." "it astonishes me that i don't," saidmanning, in a tone of intense self- enjoyment. "i think," began ann veronica, "that youdon'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 veronicabegan 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, smilingmysteriously. "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 ofyour splendors." "i do want to tell you things,nevertheless." "we'll have, thank god! ten myriad days totell 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 darieni view uncharted sea ten thousand days, ten thousand nightsbefore my queen and me.
"and that only brings me up to about 65! "a glittering wilderness of timethat to the sunset reaches no keel as yet its waves has ploughedor gritted on its beaches. "and we will sail that splendor wide,from day to day together, from isle to isle of happinessthrough 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," saidmanning.
"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 beyour 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 aplace 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 inorder 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 maidendistrust 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 amglowing pink and gold.... it is difficult to express these things." part 4they sat with tea and strawberries and cream before them at a little table infront 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 ofinattention, her eyes on a distant game of cricket, her mind perplexed and busy. she was recalling the circumstances underwhich she had engaged herself to manning, and trying to understand a curiousdevelopment of the quality of this relationship. the particulars of her engagement were veryclear in her memory. she had taken care he should have thismomentous talk with her on a garden-seat commanded by the windows of the house. they had been playing tennis, with hismanifest intention looming over her.
"let us sit down for a moment," he hadsaid. he made his speech a little elaborately. she plucked at the knots of her racket andheard 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 bevery good indeed with his kindliness and sacrifice about her. she thought of him as always courteous andhelpful, as realizing, indeed, his ideal of
protection and service, as chivalrouslyleaving her free to live her own life, rejoicing with an infinite generosity inevery detail of her irresponsive being. she twanged the catgut under her fingers. "it seems so unfair," she said, "to takeall you offer me and give so little in return.""it is all the world to me. and we are not traders looking atequivalents." "you know, mr. manning, i do not reallywant to marry." "no." "it seems so--so unworthy"--she pickedamong 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 atime?" "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 turfthrough some moments of silence. "you are the most perfect, the mostglorious 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 winningit. 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 andin 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 quitestill. "if i sit here," he said, standing upbefore 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 stoodup. he drew her close up to him with a strong,steady pull. then suddenly, in front of all thosewindows, he folded her in his arms and
pressed her to him, and kissed herunresisting face. "don't!" cried ann veronica, strugglingfaintly, and he released her. "forgive me," he said."but i am at singing-pitch." she had a moment of sheer panic at thething she had done. "mr. manning," she said, "for a time--willyou tell no one? will you keep this--our secret? i'm doubtful--will you please not even tellmy 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 triumphanteye, and a note of approval in her father's manner, and a novel disposition in him topraise manning in a just, impartial voice had soon placed very definite qualifications upon that covenantedsecrecy. part 5at first the quality of her relationship to manning seemed moving and beautiful to annveronica. she admired and rather pitied him, and shewas unfeignedly grateful to him.
she even thought that perhaps she mightcome to love him, in spite of that faint indefinable flavor of absurdity thatpervaded his courtly bearing. she would never love him as she lovedcapes, 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 andjoyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending wife. she had been quite convinced that anengagement with him and at last a marriage had exactly that quality of compromisewhich distinguishes the ways of the wise.
it would be the wrappered world almost atits best. she saw herself building up a life uponthat--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 thatforty pounds.... then, quite insensibly, her queenliness haddeclined. she was never able to trace the changes herattitude had undergone, from the time when she believed herself to be the pamperedqueen of fortune, the crown of a good man's
love (and secretly, but nobly, worshipping some one else), to the time when sherealized she was in fact just a mannequin for her lover's imagination, and that hecared no more for the realities of her being, for the things she felt and desired, for the passions and dreams that might moveher, 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 educationaldisillusionments in ann veronica's career. but did many women get anything better?
this afternoon, when she was urgent toexplain her hampering and tainting complication with ramage, the realizationof this alien quality in her relationship with manning became acute. hitherto it had been qualified by herconception of all life as a compromise, by her new effort to be unexacting of life. but she perceived that to tell manning ofher ramage adventures as they had happened would be like tarring figures upon a water-color. they were in different key, they had adifferent timbre. how could she tell him what indeed alreadybegan to puzzle herself, why she had
borrowed that money at all? the plain fact was that she had grabbed abait. she had grabbed! she became less and less attentive to hismeditative, 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--ramagewas as a black villain, she as a white, fantastically white, maiden.... she doubted if manning would even listen tothat.
he would refuse to listen and absolve herunshriven. then it came to her with a shock, as anextraordinary 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 allgenerous illusions, the wrappered life unwrappered forever, vistas of dullresponses, crises of make-believe, years of exacting mutual disregard in a misty gardenof fine sentiments.
but did any woman get anything better froma man? perhaps every woman conceals herself from aman perforce!... she thought of capes.she could not help thinking of capes. surely capes was different. capes looked at one and not over one, spoketo 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, hadhappened 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 himlooking 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 likelong-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 butcapes was impossible. if she could not marry him, she would notmarry 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--sawfit to alter his views upon friendship.... dim possibilities that she would not seemto look at even to herself gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind. she leaped suddenly at a desperateresolution, 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 littletable. 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 serenedisbelief in any confessible thing.
ann veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and thevestiges of her strawberries and cream, and put her elbows before her on the table. "mr. manning," she said, "i have aconfession to make." "i wish you would use my christian name,"he said. she attended to that, and then dismissed itas unimportant. something in her voice and manner conveyedan effect of unwonted gravity to him. for the first time he seemed to wonder whatit 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 icywater. "but, how," he said, sitting up astonishedbeyond measure, "not go on?" "i have been thinking while you have beentalking. 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 icould; 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 toexplain.... i love some one else."
they remained looking at each other forthree or four seconds. then manning flopped back in his chair anddropped his chin like a man shot. there was a long silence between them. "my god!" he said at last, with tremendousfeeling, and then again, "my god!" now that this thing was said her mind wasclear and calm. she heard this standard expression of astrong soul wrung with a critical coldness that astonished herself. she realized dimly that there was nopersonal thing behind his cry, that countless myriads of mannings had "mygod!"-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 ofone subduing an agony, and looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, "why didyou not tell me this before?" "i didn't know--i thought i might be ableto 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 ofhis 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 thegates of paradise? oh! my god!i don't begin to feel and realize this yet. it seems to me just talk; it seems to melike 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, andlooked 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 anexpression of tremendous desolation. "my god!" he said again.... they became aware of the waitress standingover them with book and pencil ready for their bill. "never mind the bill," said manningtragically, standing up and thrusting a four-shilling piece into her hand, andturning a broad back on her astonishment.
"let us walk across the park at least," hesaid to ann veronica. "just at present my mind simply won't takehold of this at all.... i tell you--never mind the bill. keep it!keep it!" part 6they walked a long way that afternoon. they crossed the park to the westward, andthen turned back and walked round the circle about the royal botanical gardensand then southwardly toward waterloo. they trudged and talked, and manningstruggled, 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 bottomof her soul. at the same time she was wildly exultant atthe resolution she had taken, the end she had made to her blunder. she had only to get through this, to solacemanning as much as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds as werepossible, and then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fate to the test. she made a few protests, a few excuses forher action in accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them orcare for them.
then she realized that it was her businessto let manning talk and impose his own interpretations upon the situation so faras he was concerned. she did her best to do this. but about his unknown rival he was acutelycurious. he made her tell him the core of thedifficulty. "i cannot say who he is," said annveronica, "but he is a married man.... no! i do not even know that he cares forme. 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 likethat." "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, hashe dared to make love to you?"
ann veronica had a vicious moment."i wish he had," she said. "but--" the long inconsecutive conversation by thattime was getting on her nerves. "when one wants a thing more than anythingelse in the world," she said with outrageous frankness, "one naturally wishesone had it." she shocked him by that. she shattered the edifice he was buildingup of himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win her from a hopelessand consuming passion. "mr. manning," she said, "i warned you notto 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 neverheard 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 stillengaged to you, yours just the same. as for this infatuation--it's like someobsession, 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 mewishes 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 thedoor. 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, tryingin vain to soften her heart to him by the thought of how she had ill-used him, andall the time, as her feet and mind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the cost of this one interminablewalk she escaped the prospect of--what was it?--"ten thousand days, ten thousandnights" in his company. whatever happened she need never return tothat possibility. "for me," manning went on, "this isn'tfinal. in a sense it alters nothing.
i shall still wear your favor--even if itis a stolen and forbidden favor--in my casque....i shall still believe in you. trust you." he repeated several times that he wouldtrust 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 outwith me this afternoon?" ann veronica hesitated, and with a startledmind 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, andstood, a tall, grave figure, with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forwardslowly and hid him. ann veronica sat back with a sigh ofrelief.
manning might go on now idealizing her asmuch as he liked. she was no longer a confederate in that. he might go on as the devoted lover untilhe tired. she had done forever with the age ofchivalry, 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 tangledskein of life was now to be further complicated by his romantic importunity. chapter the fourteenththe collapse of the penitent
part 1spring had held back that year until the dawn of may, and then spring and summercame with a rush together. two days after this conversation betweenmanning and ann veronica, capes came into the laboratory at lunch-time and found heralone there standing by the open window, and not even pretending to be doinganything. he came in with his hands in his trouserspockets and a general air of depression in his bearing. he was engaged in detesting manning andhimself 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 staredover 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, thecoming of the light mornings, the way in which everything begins to run about andbegin new things. work becomes distasteful; one thinks ofholidays.
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 fourseconds. "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 theblind, looking out to where the tree-tops of regent's park showed distantly over thehouses. he turned round toward her and found herlooking 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 thedistant trees were a froth of hard spring green and almond blossom. she formed a wild resolution, and, lest sheshould 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 aslight catching of her breath: "it's a bother and disturbance, but you see--" shehad to go through with it now, because she could think of nothing but her preconceivedwords. 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 engagedto," she said. she met his eyes for a moment, and couldnot interpret their expression. they struck her as cold and indifferent.
her heart failed her and her resolutionbecame water. she remained standing stiffly, unable evento move. she could not look at him through aninterval that seemed to her a vast gulf of time.but she felt his lax figure become rigid. at last his voice came to release hertension. "i thought you weren't keeping up to themark. you--it's jolly of you to confide in me. still--" then, with incredible andobviously deliberate stupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, he asked, "who is theman?"
her spirit raged within her at thedumbness, 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 onone of the little stools by her table and covered her face with her hands. "can't you see how things are?" she said. part 2before capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of the laboratoryopened noisily and miss klegg appeared.
she went to her own table and sat down. at the sound of the door ann veronicauncovered a tearless face, and with one swift movement assumed a conversationalattitude. things hung for a moment in an awkwardsilence. "you see," said ann veronica, staringbefore her at the window-sash, "that's the form my question takes at the presenttime." capes had not quite the same power ofrecovery. he stood with his hands in his pocketslooking 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 andplaced it at the end of ann veronica's table, and sat down. he glanced at miss klegg again, and spokequickly and furtively, with eager eyes on ann veronica's face. "i had a faint idea once that things wereas you say they are, but the affair of the ring--of the unexpected ring--puzzled me. wish she"--he indicated miss klegg's backwith 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 socialoutrage, perhaps i might walk with you to your railway station." "i will wait," said ann veronica, still notlooking at him, "and we will go into regent's park.no--you shall come with me to waterloo." "right!" he said, and hesitated, and thengot up and went into the preparation-room. part 3for a time they walked in silence through the back streets that lead southward fromthe 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 comingand going about them, kept them both unemotional. and neither had any of that theatricalitywhich demands gestures and facial expression."i suppose you know i like you
tremendously?" he pursued. "you told me that in the zoologicalgardens." she found her muscles a-tremble. but there was nothing in her bearing that apasser-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 anotherword. "but don't you know about me?" he said atlast. "something. not much.""i'm a married man. and my wife won't live with me for reasonsthat i think most women would consider sound.... or i should have made love to you longago." 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 doyou want? what do you think we can do? don't you know what men are, and what lifeis?--to come to me and talk to me like this!""i know--something, anyhow. but i don't care; i haven't a spark ofshame. i don't see any good in life if it hasn'tgot 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 youdon't care for me." "i've told you," he said. "very well," said ann veronica, with an airof 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 offalling 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--asif you were like every other girl who works
at the schools--as something quite outsidethese possibilities. if only out of loyalty to co-education onehas to do that. apart from everything else, this meeting ofours is a breach of a good rule." "rules are for every day," said annveronica. "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 exceptionalposition, miss stanley." the note of his own voice exasperated him."oh, damn!" he said. she made no answer, and for a time hedebated some problems with himself. "no!" he said aloud at last. "the plain common-sense of the case," hesaid, "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 thisafternoon. i've been smoking cigarettes in thepreparation-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 asfriends 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 4capes made no answer for a time. "my mind is full of confused stuff," hesaid at length. "i've been thinking--all the afternoon. oh, and weeks and months of thought andfeeling 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 youbegin 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 atangent. "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 lovinga 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 ourseparation. and, in fact, all round the problem youdon'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 annveronica. "to begin with, i was--i was in the divorcecourt. 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; toknow 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, sinceyou are in love with me, you'd explain the whole business as being very fine andhonorable 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 thehigher 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 aboutyou. i'm talking to you now as though you hadall 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 thingsover before we talk again. i want you to be clear what you're reallyand 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 makemyself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my composition. i married--i married a woman whom i stillthink one of the most beautiful persons in the world. she is a year or so older than i am, andshe 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 thingthat i know of--never. i met her when we were both very young, asyoung as you are. i loved her and made love to her, and idon'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'tsupposed to happen. they leave them out of novels--theseincompatibilities. young people ignore them until they findthemselves up against them. my wife doesn't understand, doesn'tunderstand 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--thesematters--as belonging to our higher nature or our lower?" "i don't deal in higher things, i tellyou," 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 myblood. don't think it was anything better thanfever--or a bit beautiful. it wasn't. quite soon, after we were married--it wasjust within a year--i formed a friendship with the wife of a friend, a woman eightyears older than myself.... it wasn't anything splendid, you know.
it was just a shabby, stupid, furtivebusiness that began between us. like stealing.we dressed it in a little music.... i want you to understand clearly that i wasindebted 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 wouldgive no quarter. he divorced her.how do you like the story?"
"go on," said ann veronica, a littlehoarsely, "tell me all of it." "my wife was astounded--wounded beyondmeasure. 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 acutelyhumiliating. there's no logic in these things.it was." "poor you!" said ann veronica.
"my wife refused absolutely to haveanything more to do with me. she could hardly speak to me; she insistedrelentlessly upon a separation. she had money of her own--much more than ihave--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 haveevery bit of it. one doesn't go about with these passionsallayed 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 cravingroused, 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 andunromantic 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 thinkabout. 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 ithought. 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 beinglovers--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 ofdifference, except for one thing. i love you more.i've wanted you--always.
i didn't dream, not even in my wildestdreaming, that--you might have any need of me." he made a little noise in his throat as ifsomething 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," hesaid, "and talk about it to-morrow. don't, don't say anything now, notanything. 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 loveyou utterly. if i were a clean, free man--we'll have totalk of all these things. thank goodness there's plenty ofopportunity! and we two can talk. anyhow, now you've begun it, there'snothing 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 aradiant 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 beforeher compartment. he took her hand and looked into her eyesand spoke, divided against himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere. "i shall be very glad to have you for afriend," he said, "loving friend. i had never dreamed of such a friend asyou."
she smiled, sure of herself beyond anypretending, 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 5the next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour in thereasonable 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," sheanswered. "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 fromthe 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 andaspects of your voice, your eyes, the way you walk, the way your hair goes back fromthe side of your forehead. i believe i have always been in love withyou.
always.before ever i knew you." she sat motionless, with her handtightening over the edge of the table, and he, too, said no more.she began to tremble violently. he stood up abruptly and went to thewindow. "we have," he said, "to be the utmostfriends." 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 theinstincts 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 relationmeans. 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 forme. 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 imay be rotten bad; and there's something-- something living and understanding in you. something that is born anew each time wemeet, 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 givengood, straight, unselfish thought to. i'm making a mess of my life--unless youcome in and take it. i am. in you--if you can love me--there issalvation. salvation.i know what i am doing better than you do. think--think of that engagement!" their talk had come to eloquent silencesthat 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 tenderlykissed her lips. part 6 they spent the next sunday in richmondpark, and mingled the happy sensation of being together uninterruptedly through thelong sunshine of a summer's day with the ample discussion of their position. "this has all the clean freshness of springand youth," said capes; "it is love with the down on; it is like the glitter of dewin the sunlight to be lovers such as we
are, with no more than one warm kissbetween 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 abeastly 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 onmossy 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 outupon the crescent of the river. they had a universe to talk about--twouniverses. "what are we going to do?" said capes, withhis eyes on the broad distances beyond the ribbon of the river."i will do whatever you want," said ann "my first love was all blundering," saidcapes. he thought for a moment, and went on: "loveis something that has to be taken care of. one has to be so careful.... it's a beautiful plant, but a tenderone.... 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, roughhands." "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!" criedcapes. 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 haveto 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 7it was rather less than a week after that walk that capes came and sat down besideann veronica for their customary talk in the lunch hour. he took a handful of almonds and raisinsthat she held out to him--for both these young people had given up the practice ofgoing 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, andthen 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 meantall along." she stared before her, trying to keep backa rush of tears. capes kept obstinately stiff, and spokebetween his teeth. "there's endless reasons, no doubt, why weshouldn't," he said.
"endless.it's wrong in the eyes of most people. for many of them it will smirch usforever.... 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 hervoice was steady.
"you're not a man for me--not one of a sex,i mean. you're just a particular being with nothingelse 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 demonstratorsmust 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 ofmeditative restraint. "by jove!" he broke out, "one tries to takea 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 thewriting-trade. that is what i must do. i can.""of course you can." "and biology was beginning to bore me abit.
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 workhard.... what isn't a day-dream is this: that youand i are going to put an end to flummery-- and go!" "go!" said ann veronica, clenching herhands. "for better or worse.""for richer or poorer."
she could not go on, for she was laughingand crying at the same time. "we were bound to do this when you kissedme," she sobbed through her tears. "we have been all this time--only yourqueer code of honor--honor! once you begin with love you have to see itthrough."