H. Wells - Ann Veronica

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 as friends 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 4

Capes made no answer for a time.

"My mind is full of confused stuff," he said at length. "I've

been thinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of

thought and feeling 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 you begin 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 a tangent. "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

loving a 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 our separation. And, in fact, all round the problem you

don'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 Ann Veronica.

"To begin with, I was--I was in the divorce court. 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; to know 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, since you are in love with me, you'd explain the whole

business as being very fine and honorable 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 the Higher 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 about you. I'm talking to you now as

though you had all 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 things over before we talk again. I

want you to be clear what you're really and 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 make myself clear--a streak of ardent animal in my

composition. I married--I married a woman whom I still think one

of the most beautiful persons in the world. She is a year or so

older than I am, and she 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

thing that I know of--never. I met her when we were both very

young, as young as you are. I loved her and made love to her,

and I don'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't supposed to happen.

They leave them out of novels--these incompatibilities. Young

people ignore them until they find themselves up against them.

My wife doesn't understand, doesn't understand 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--these matters--as belonging to our

Higher Nature or our Lower?"

"I don't deal in Higher Things, I tell you," 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 my blood. Don't think it was anything better than

fever--or a bit beautiful. It wasn't. Quite soon, after we were

married--it was just within a year--I formed a friendship with

the wife of a friend, a woman eight years older than myself. . .

. It wasn't anything splendid, you know. It was just a shabby,

stupid, furtive business that began between us. Like stealing.

We dressed it in a little music. . . . I want you to understand

clearly that I was indebted 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 would give no quarter. He

divorced her. How do you like the story?"

"Go on," said Ann Veronica, a little hoarsely, "tell me all of

it."

"My wife was astounded--wounded beyond measure. 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 acutely humiliating. There's no

logic in these things. It was."

"Poor you!" said Ann Veronica.

"My wife refused absolutely to have anything more to do with me.

She could hardly speak to me; she insisted relentlessly upon a

separation. She had money of her own--much more than I have--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 have every bit of it. One doesn't go about with these

passions allayed 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 craving roused, 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 and unromantic way,