Ann Veronica. Герберт Уэллс

Morningside Park, and here suddenly he was near to her and talking freely and intimately. He had found her in a communicative mood, and he used the accumulated skill of years in turning that to account.

      She was pleased and a little flattered by his interest and sympathy. She became eager to explain herself, to show herself in the right light. He was manifestly exerting his mind for her, and she found herself fully disposed to justify his interest.

      She, perhaps, displayed herself rather consciously as a fine person unduly limited. She even touched lightly on her father’s unreasonableness.

      “I wonder,” said Ramage, “that more girls don’t think as you do and want to strike out in the world.”

      And then he speculated. “I wonder if you will?”

      “Let me say one thing,” he said. “If ever you do and I can help you in any way, by advice or inquiry or recommendation – You see, I’m no believer in feminine incapacity, but I do perceive there is such a thing as feminine inexperience. As a sex you’re a little under-trained – in affairs. I’d take it – forgive me if I seem a little urgent – as a sort of proof of friendliness. I can imagine nothing more pleasant in life than to help you, because I know it would pay to help you. There’s something about you, a little flavor of Will, I suppose, that makes one feel – good luck about you and success…”

      And while he talked and watched her as he talked, she answered, and behind her listening watched and thought about him. She liked the animated eagerness of his manner.

      His mind seemed to be a remarkably full one; his knowledge of detailed reality came in just where her own mind was most weakly equipped. Through all he said ran one quality that pleased her – the quality of a man who feels that things can be done, that one need not wait for the world to push one before one moved. Compared with her father and Mr. Manning and the men in “fixed” positions generally that she knew, Ramage, presented by himself, had a fine suggestion of freedom, of power, of deliberate and sustained adventure…

      She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It was really very jolly to talk to a man in this way – who saw the woman in her and did not treat her as a child. She was inclined to think that perhaps for a girl the converse of his method was the case; an older man, a man beyond the range of anything “nonsensical,” was, perhaps, the most interesting sort of friend one could meet. But in that reservation it may be she went a little beyond the converse of his view…

      They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the better part of an hour, and at last walked together to the junction of highroad and the bridle-path. There, after protestations of friendliness and helpfulness that were almost ardent, he mounted a little clumsily and rode off at an amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with his riding gaiters, smiling and saluting, while Ann Veronica turned northward and so came to Micklechesil. There, in a little tea and sweet-stuff shop, she bought and consumed slowly and absent-mindedly the insufficient nourishment that is natural to her sex on such occasions.

      CHAPTER THE FOURTH

THE CRISIS

      Part 1

      We left Miss Stanley with Ann Veronica’s fancy dress in her hands and her eyes directed to Ann Veronica’s pseudo-Turkish slippers.

      When Mr. Stanley came home at a quarter to six – an earlier train by fifteen minutes than he affected – his sister met him in the hall with a hushed expression. “I’m so glad you’re here, Peter,” she said. “She means to go.”

      “Go!” he said. “Where?”

      “To that ball.”

      “What ball?” The question was rhetorical. He knew.

      “I believe she’s dressing up-stairs – now.”

      “Then tell her to undress, confound her!” The City had been thoroughly annoying that day, and he was angry from the outset.

      Miss Stanley reflected on this proposal for a moment.

      “I don’t think she will,” she said.

      “She must,” said Mr. Stanley, and went into his study. His sister followed. “She can’t go now. She’ll have to wait for dinner,” he said, uncomfortably.

      “She’s going to have some sort of meal with the Widgetts down the Avenue, and go up with them.

      “She told you that?”

      “Yes.”

      “When?”

      “At tea.”

      “But why didn’t you prohibit once for all the whole thing? How dared she tell you that?”

      “Out of defiance. She just sat and told me that was her arrangement. I’ve never seen her quite so sure of herself.”

      “What did you say?”

      “I said, ‘My dear Veronica! how can you think of such things?’”

      “And then?”

      “She had two more cups of tea and some cake, and told me of her walk.”

      “She’ll meet somebody one of these days – walking about like that.”

      “She didn’t say she’d met any one.”

      “But didn’t you say some more about that ball?”

      “I said everything I could say as soon as I realized she was trying to avoid the topic. I said, ‘It is no use your telling me about this walk and pretend I’ve been told about the ball, because you haven’t. Your father has forbidden you to go!’”

      “Well?”

      “She said, ‘I hate being horrid to you and father, but I feel it my duty to go to that ball!’”

      “Felt it her duty!”

      “‘Very well,’ I said, ‘then I wash my hands of the whole business. Your disobedience be upon your own head.’”

      “But that is flat rebellion!” said Mr. Stanley, standing on the hearthrug with his back to the unlit gas-fire. “You ought at once – you ought at once to have told her that. What duty does a girl owe to any one before her father? Obedience to him, that is surely the first law. What CAN she put before that?” His voice began to rise. “One would think I had said nothing about the matter. One would think I had agreed to her going. I suppose this is what she learns in her infernal London colleges. I suppose this is the sort of damned rubbish – ”

      “Oh! Ssh, Peter!” cried Miss Stanley.

      He stopped abruptly. In the pause a door could be heard opening and closing on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became audible, descending the staircase with a certain deliberation and a faint rustle of skirts.

      “Tell her,” said Mr. Stanley, with an imperious gesture, “to come in here.”

      Part 2

      Miss Stanley emerged from the study and stood watching Ann Veronica descend.

      The girl was flushed with excitement, bright-eyed, and braced for a struggle; her aunt had never seen her looking so fine or so pretty. Her fancy dress, save for the green-gray stockings, the pseudo-Turkish slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to a Corsair’s bride, was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood it was evident that her rebellious hair was bound up with red silk, and fastened by some device in her ears (unless she had them pierced, which was too dreadful a thing to suppose!) were long brass filigree earrings.

      “I’m just off, aunt,” said Ann Veronica.

      “Your father is in the study and wishes to speak to you.”

      Ann Veronica hesitated, and then stood in the open doorway and regarded her father’s stern presence. She spoke with an entirely false note of cheerful off-handedness. “I’m just in time to say good-bye before I go, father. I’m going up to London with the Widgetts to that ball.”

      “Now look here, Ann Veronica,” said Mr. Stanley,