H. Wells - Ann Veronica

She was flushed, and her eyes were bright and angry; her breath

came sobbing, and her hair was all abroad in wandering strands of

black. He too was flushed and ruffled; one side of his collar had

slipped from its stud and he held a hand to the corner of his

jaw.

"You vixen!" said Mr. Ramage, speaking the simplest first thought

of his heart.

"You had no right--" panted Ann Veronica.

"Why on earth," he asked, "did you hurt me like that?"

Ann Veronica did her best to think she had not deliberately

attempted to cause him pain. She ignored his question.

"I never dreamt!" she said.

"What on earth did you expect me to do, then?" he asked.

Part 4

Interpretation came pouring down upon her almost blindingly; she

understood now the room, the waiter, the whole situation. She

understood. She leaped to a world of shabby knowledge, of

furtive base realizations. She wanted to cry out upon herself for

the uttermost fool in existence.

"I thought you wanted to have a talk to me," she said.

"I wanted to make love to you.

"You knew it," he added, in her momentary silence.

"You said you were in love with me," said Ann Veronica; "I wanted

to explain--"

"I said I loved and wanted you." The brutality of his first

astonishment was evaporating. "I am in love with you. You know

I am in love with you. And then you go--and half throttle me. .

. . I believe you've crushed a gland or something. It feels

like it."

"I am sorry," said Ann Veronica. "What else was I to do?"

For some seconds she stood watching him. and both were thinking

very quickly. Her state of mind would have seemed altogether

discreditable to her grandmother. She ought to have been disposed

to faint and scream at all these happenings; she ought to have

maintained a front of outraged dignity to veil the sinking of her

heart. I would like to have to tell it so. But indeed that is

not at all a good description of her attitude. She was an

indignant queen, no doubt she was alarmed and disgusted within

limits; but she was highly excited, and there was something, some

low adventurous strain in her being, some element, subtle at

least if base, going about the rioting ways and crowded insurgent

meeting-places of her mind declaring that the whole affair was

after all--they are the only words that express it--a very great

lark indeed. At the bottom of her heart she was not a bit afraid

of Ramage. She had unaccountable gleams of sympathy with and

liking for him. And the grotesquest fact was that she did not so

much loathe, as experience with a quite critical condemnation

this strange sensation of being kissed. Never before had any

human being kissed her lips. . . .

It was only some hours after that these ambiguous elements

evaporated and vanished and loathing came, and she really began

to be thoroughly sick and ashamed of the whole disgraceful

quarrel and scuffle.

He, for his part, was trying to grasp the series of unexpected

reactions that had so wrecked their tete-a-tete. He had meant to

be master of his fate that evening and it had escaped him

altogether. It had, as it were, blown up at the concussion of

his first step. It dawned upon him that he had been abominably

used by Ann Veronica.

"Look here," he said, "I brought you here to make love to you."

"I didn't understand--your idea of making love. You had better

let me go again."

"Not yet," he said. "I do love you. I love you all the more for

the streak of sheer devil in you. . . . You are the most

beautiful, the most desirable thing I have ever met in this

world. It was good to kiss you, even at the price. But, by

Jove! you are fierce! You are like those Roman women who carry

stilettos in their hair."

"I came here to talk reasonably, Mr. Ramage. It is abominable--"

"What is the use of keeping up this note of indignation, Ann

Veronica? Here I am! I am your lover, burning for you. I mean

to have you! Don't frown me off now. Don't go back into

Victorian respectability and pretend you don't know and you can't

think and all the rest of it. One comes at last to the step from

dreams to reality. This is your moment. No one will ever love

you as I love you now. I have been dreaming of your body and you

night after night. I have been imaging--"

"Mr. Ramage, I came here-- I didn't suppose for one moment you

would dare--"

"Nonsense! That is your mistake! You are too intellectual. You

want to do everything with your mind. You are afraid of kisses.

You are afraid of the warmth in your blood. It's just because

all that side of your life hasn't fairly begun."

He made a step toward her.

"Mr. Ramage," she said, sharply, "I have to make it plain to you.

I don't think you understand. I don't love you. I don't. I

can't love you. I love some one else. It is repulsive. It

disgusts me that you should touch me."

He stared in amazement at this new aspect of the situation. "You

love some one else?" he repeated.

"I love some one else. I could not dream of loving you."

And then he flashed his whole conception of the relations of men

and women upon her in one astonishing question. His hand went

with an almost instinctive inquiry to his jawbone again. "Then

why the devil," he demanded, "do you let me stand you dinners and

the opera--and why do you come to a cabinet particulier with me?"

He became radiant with anger. "You mean to tell me" he said,

"that you have a lover? While I have been keeping you!

Yes--keeping you!"

This view of life he hurled at her as if it were an offensive

missile. It stunned her. She felt she must fly before it and

could no longer do so. She did not think for one moment what

interpretation he might put upon the word "lover."

"Mr. Ramage," she said, clinging to her one point, "I want to get

out of this horrible little room. It has all been a mistake. I

have been stupid and foolish. Will you unlock that door?"

"Never!" he said. "Confound your lover! Look here! Do you

really think I am going to run you while he makes love to you?

No fear! I never heard of anything so cool. If he wants you,

let him get you. You're mine. I've paid for you and helped you,

and I'm going to conquer you somehow--if I have to break you to

do it. Hitherto you've seen only my easy, kindly side. But now

confound it! how can you prevent it? I will kiss you."

"You won't!" said Ann Veronica; with the clearest note of

determination.

He seemed to be about to move toward her. She stepped back

quickly, and her hand knocked a wine-glass from the table to

smash noisily on the floor. She caught at the idea. "If you

come a step nearer to me," she said, "I will smash every glass on

this table."

"Then, by God!" he said, "you'll be locked up!"

Ann Veronica was disconcerted for a moment. She had a vision of

policemen, reproving magistrates, a crowded court, public

disgrace. She saw her aunt in tears, her father white-faced and

hard hit. "Don't come nearer!" she said.

There was a discreet knocking at the door, and Ramage's face

changed.

"No," she said, under her breath, "you can't face it." And she

knew that she was safe.

He went to the door. "It's all right," he said, reassuringly to

the inquirer without.

Ann Veronica glanced at the mirror to discover a flushed and

dishevelled disorder. She began at once a hasty readjustment of

her hair, while Ramage parleyed with inaudible interrogations.