H. Wells - Ann Veronica

suddenly for the earlier of the two trains he used.

"I'll come to the station," said Ann Veronica. "I may as well

come up by this train."

"I may have to run," said her father, with an appeal to his

watch.

"I'll run, too," she volunteered.

Instead of which they walked sharply. . . .

"I say, daddy," she began, and was suddenly short of breath.

"If it's about that dance project," he said, "it's no good,

Veronica. I've made up my mind."

"You'll make me look a fool before all my friends."

"You shouldn't have made an engagement until you'd consulted your

aunt."

"I thought I was old enough," she gasped, between laughter and

crying.

Her father's step quickened to a trot. "I won't have you

quarrelling and crying in the Avenue," he said. "Stop it! . . .

If you've got anything to say, you must say it to your aunt--"

"But look here, daddy!"

He flapped the Times at her with an imperious gesture.

"It's settled. You're not to go. You're NOT to go."

"But it's about other things."

"I don't care. This isn't the place."

"Then may I come to the study to-night--after dinner?"

"I'm--BUSY!"

"It's important. If I can't talk anywhere else--I DO want an

understanding."

Ahead of them walked a gentleman whom it was evident they must at

their present pace very speedily overtake. It was Ramage, the

occupant of the big house at the end of the Avenue. He had

recently made Mr. Stanley's acquaintance in the train and shown

him one or two trifling civilities. He was an outside broker and

the proprietor of a financial newspaper; he had come up very

rapidly in the last few years, and Mr. Stanley admired and

detested him in almost equal measure. It was intolerable to

think that he might overhear words and phrases. Mr. Stanley's

pace slackened.

"You've no right to badger me like this, Veronica," he said. "I

can't see what possible benefit can come of discussing things

that are settled. If you want advice, your aunt is the person.

However, if you must air your opinions--"

"To-night, then, daddy!"

He made an angry but conceivably an assenting noise, and then

Ramage glanced back and stopped, saluted elaborately, and waited

for them to come up. He was a square-faced man of nearly fifty,

with iron-gray hair a mobile, clean-shaven mouth and rather

protuberant black eyes that now scrutinized Ann Veronica. He

dressed rather after the fashion of the West End than the City,

and affected a cultured urbanity that somehow disconcerted and

always annoyed Ann Veronica's father extremely. He did not play

golf, but took his exercise on horseback, which was also

unsympathetic.

"Stuffy these trees make the Avenue," said Mr. Stanley as they

drew alongside, to account for his own ruffled and heated

expression. "They ought to have been lopped in the spring."

"There's plenty of time," said Ramage. "Is Miss Stanley coming

up with us?"

"I go second," she said, "and change at Wimbledon."

"We'll all go second," said Ramage, "if we may?"

Mr. Stanley wanted to object strongly, but as he could not

immediately think how to put it, he contented himself with a

grunt, and the motion was carried. "How's Mrs. Ramage?" he asked.

"Very much as usual," said Ramage. "She finds lying up so much

very irksome. But, you see, she HAS to lie up."

The topic of his invalid wife bored him, and he turned at once to

Ann Veronica. "And where are YOU going?" he said. "Are you

going on again this winter with that scientific work of yours?

It's an instance of heredity, I suppose." For a moment Mr.

Stanley almost liked Ramage. "You're a biologist, aren't you?"

He began to talk of his own impressions of biology as a

commonplace magazine reader who had to get what he could from the

monthly reviews, and was glad to meet with any information from

nearer the fountainhead. In a little while he and she were

talking quite easily and agreeably. They went on talking in the

train--it seemed to her father a slight want of deference to

him--and he listened and pretended to read the Times. He was

struck disagreeably by Ramage's air of gallant consideration and

Ann Veronica's self-possessed answers. These things did not

harmonize with his conception of the forthcoming (if unavoidable)

interview. After all, it came to him suddenly as a harsh

discovery that she might be in a sense regarded as grownup. He

was a man who in all things classified without nuance, and for

him there were in the matter of age just two feminine classes and

no more--girls and women. The distinction lay chiefly in the

right to pat their heads. But here was a girl--she must be a

girl, since she was his daughter and pat-able--imitating the

woman quite remarkably and cleverly. He resumed his listening.

She was discussing one of those modern advanced plays with a

remarkable, with an extraordinary, confidence.

"His love-making," she remarked, "struck me as unconvincing. He

seemed too noisy."

The full significance of her words did not instantly appear to

him. Then it dawned. Good heavens! She was discussing

love-making. For a time he heard no more, and stared with stony

eyes at a Book-War proclamation in leaded type that filled half a

column of the Times that day. Could she understand what she was

talking about? Luckily it was a second-class carriage and the

ordinary fellow-travellers were not there. Everybody, he felt,

must be listening behind their papers.

Of course, girls repeat phrases and opinions of which they cannot

possibly understand the meaning. But a middle-aged man like

Ramage ought to know better than to draw out a girl, the daughter

of a friend and neighbor. . . .

Well, after all, he seemed to be turning the subject. "Broddick

is a heavy man," he was saying, "and the main interest of the

play was the embezzlement." Thank Heaven! Mr. Stanley allowed

his paper to drop a little, and scrutinized the hats and brows of

their three fellow-travellers .

They reached Wimbledon, and Ramage whipped out to hand Miss

Stanley to the platform as though she had been a duchess, and she

descended as though such attentions from middle-aged, but still

gallant, merchants were a matter of course. Then, as Ramage

readjusted himself in a corner, he remarked: "These young people

shoot up, Stanley. It seems only yesterday that she was running

down the Avenue, all hair and legs."

Mr. Stanley regarded him through his glasses with something

approaching animosity.

"Now she's all hat and ideas," he said, with an air of humor.

"She seems an unusually clever girl," said Ramage.

Mr. Stanley regarded his neighbor's clean-shaven face almost

warily. "I'm not sure whether we don't rather overdo all this

higher education," he said, with an effect of conveying profound

meanings.

Part 6

He became quite sure, by a sort of accumulation of reflection, as

the day wore on. He found his youngest daughter intrusive in his

thoughts all through the morning, and still more so in the

afternoon. He saw her young and graceful back as she descended

from the carriage, severely ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse

he had of her face, bright and serene, as his train ran out of

Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating perplexity her clear,

matter-of-fact tone as she talked about love-making being

unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and

extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious