H. Wells - Ann Veronica

"Exactly!" He lifted a paper-weight and dabbed it gently down

again. "What ought you to do?"

"I've hunted up all sorts of things."

"The point to note is that fundamentally you don't want

particularly to do it."

"I don't understand."

"You want to be free and so forth, yes. But you don't

particularly want to do the job that sets you free--for its own

sake. I mean that it doesn't interest you in itself."

"I suppose not."

"That's one of our differences. We men are like children. We

can get absorbed in play, in games, in the business we do.

That's really why we do them sometimes rather well and get on.

But women--women as a rule don't throw themselves into things

like that. As a matter of fact it isn't their affair. And as a

natural consequence, they don't do so well, and they don't get

on--and so the world doesn't pay them. They don't catch on to

discursive interests, you see, because they are more serious,

they are concentrated on the central reality of life, and a

little impatient of its--its outer aspects. At least that, I

think, is what makes a clever woman's independent career so much

more difficult than a clever man's."

"She doesn't develop a specialty." Ann Veronica was doing her

best to follow him.

"She has one, that's why. Her specialty is the central thing in

life, it is life itself, the warmth of life, sex--and love."

He pronounced this with an air of profound conviction and with

his eyes on Ann Veronica's face. He had an air of having told

her a deep, personal secret. She winced as he thrust the fact at

her, was about to answer, and checked herself. She colored

faintly.

"That doesn't touch the question I asked you," she said. "It may

be true, but it isn't quite what I have in mind."

"Of course not," said Ramage, as one who rouses himself from deep

preoccupations And he began to question her in a business-like

way upon the steps she had taken and the inquiries she had made.

He displayed none of the airy optimism of their previous talk

over the downland gate. He was helpful, but gravely dubious.

"You see," he said, "from my point of view you're grown

up--you're as old as all the goddesses and the contemporary of

any man alive. But from the--the economic point of view you're a

very young and altogether inexperienced person."

He returned to and developed that idea. "You're still," he said,

"in the educational years. From the point of view of most things

in the world of employment which a woman can do reasonably well

and earn a living by, you're unripe and half-educated. If you

had taken your degree, for example."

He spoke of secretarial work, but even there she would need to be

able to do typing and shorthand. He made it more and more evident

to her that her proper course was not to earn a salary but to

accumulate equipment. "You see," he said, "you are like an

inaccessible gold-mine in all this sort of matter. You're

splendid stuff, you know, but you've got nothing ready to sell.

That's the flat business situation."

He thought. Then he slapped his hand on his desk and looked up

with the air of a man struck by a brilliant idea. "Look here,"

he said, protruding his eyes; "why get anything to do at all just

yet? Why, if you must be free, why not do the sensible thing?

Make yourself worth a decent freedom. Go on with your studies at

the Imperial College, for example, get a degree, and make

yourself good value. Or become a thorough-going typist and

stenographer and secretarial expert."

"But I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"You see, if I do go home my father objects to the College, and

as for typing--"

"Don't go home."

"Yes, but you forget; how am I to live?"

"Easily. Easily. . . . Borrow. . . . From me."

"I couldn't do that," said Ann Veronica, sharply.

"I see no reason why you shouldn't."

"It's impossible."

"As one friend to another. Men are always doing it, and if you

set up to be a man--"

"No, it's absolutely out of the question, Mr. Ramage." And Ann

Veronica's face was hot.

Ramage pursed his rather loose lips and shrugged his shoulders,

with his eyes fixed steadily upon her. "Well anyhow-- I don't

see the force of your objection, you know. That's my advice to

you. Here I am. Consider you've got resources deposited with

me. Perhaps at the first blush--it strikes you as odd. People

are brought up to be so shy about money. As though it was

indelicate--it's just a sort of shyness. But here I am to

draw upon. Here I am as an alternative either to nasty work--or

going home."

"It's very kind of you--" began Ann Veronica.

"Not a bit. Just a friendly polite suggestion. I don't suggest

any philanthropy. I shall charge you five per cent., you know,

fair and square."

Ann Veronica opened her lips quickly and did not speak. But the

five per cent. certainly did seem to improve the aspect of

Ramage's suggestion.

"Well, anyhow, consider it open." He dabbed with his

paper-weight again, and spoke in an entirely indifferent tone.

"And now tell me, please, how you eloped from Morningside Park.

How did you get your luggage out of the house? Wasn't it--wasn't

it rather in some respects--rather a lark? It's one of my

regrets for my lost youth. I never ran away from anywhere with

anybody anywhen. And now--I suppose I should be considered too

old. I don't feel it. . . . Didn't you feel rather EVENTFUL--in

the train--coming up to Waterloo?"

Part 6

Before Christmas Ann Veronica had gone to Ramage again and

accepted this offer she had at first declined.

Many little things had contributed to that decision. The chief

influence was her awakening sense of the need of money. She had

been forced to buy herself that pair of boots and a

walking-skirt, and the pearl necklace at the pawnbrokers' had

yielded very disappointingly. And, also, she wanted to borrow

that money. It did seem in so many ways exactly what Ramage said

it was--the sensible thing to do. There it was--to be borrowed.

It would put the whole adventure on a broader and better footing;

it seemed, indeed, almost the only possible way in which she

might emerge from her rebellion with anything like success. If

only for the sake of her argument with her home, she wanted

success. And why, after all, should she not borrow money from

Ramage?

It was so true what he said; middle-class people WERE

ridiculously squeamish about money. Why should they be?

She and Ramage were friends, very good friends. If she was in a

position to help him she would help him; only it happened to be

the other way round. He was in a position to help her. What was

the objection?

She found it impossible to look her own diffidence in the face.

So she went to Ramage and came to the point almost at once.

"Can you spare me forty pounds?" she said.

Mr. Ramage controlled his expression and thought very quickly.

"Agreed," he said, "certainly," and drew a checkbook toward him.

"It's best," he said, "to make it a good round sum.

"I won't give you a check though-- Yes, I will. I'll give you an

uncrossed check, and then you can get it at the bank here, quite

close by. . . . You'd better not have all the money on you; you

had better open a small account in the post-office and draw it

out a fiver at a time. That won't involve references, as a bank

account would--and all that sort of thing. The money will last