H. Wells - Ann Veronica

you know, I am a vicious man. That's --that's my private life.

Until the last few months. It isn't what I have been but what I

am. I haven't taken much account of it until now. My honor has

been in my scientific work and public discussion and the things I

write. Lots of us are like that. But, you see, I'm smirched.

For the sort of love-making you think about. I've muddled all

this business. I've had my time and lost my chances. I'm

damaged goods. And you're as clean as fire. You come with those

clear eyes of yours, as valiant as an angel. . . ."

He stopped abruptly.

"Well?" she said.

"That's all."

"It's so strange to think of you--troubled by such things. I

didn't think-- I don't know what I thought. Suddenly all this

makes you human. Makes you real."

"But don't you see how I must stand to you? Don't you see how it

bars us from being lovers-- You can't --at first. You must think

it over. It's all outside the world of your experience."

"I don't think it makes a rap of difference, except for one

thing. I love you more. I've wanted you--always. I didn't

dream, not even in my wildest dreaming, that--you might have any

need of me."

He made a little noise in his throat as if something had cried

out within him, and for a time they were both too full for

speech.

They were going up the slope into Waterloo Station.

"You go home and think of all this," he said, "and talk about it

to-morrow. Don't, don't say anything now, not anything. As for

loving you, I do. I do--with all my heart. It's no good hiding

it any more. I could never have talked to you like this,

forgetting everything that parts us, forgetting even your age, if

I did not love you utterly. If I were a clean, free man--We'll

have to talk of all these things. Thank goodness there's plenty

of opportunity! And we two can talk. Anyhow, now you've begun

it, there's nothing to keep us in all this from being the best

friends in the world. And talking of every conceivable thing. Is

there?"

"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, with a radiant face.

"Before this there was a sort of restraint--a make-believe. It's

gone."

"It's gone."

"Friendship and love being separate things. And that confounded

engagement!"

"Gone!"

They came upon a platform, and stood before her compartment.

He took her hand and looked into her eyes and spoke, divided

against himself, in a voice that was forced and insincere.

"I shall be very glad to have you for a friend," he said, "loving

friend. I had never dreamed of such a friend as you."

She smiled, sure of herself beyond any pretending, into his

troubled eyes. Hadn't they settled that already?

"I want you as a friend," he persisted, almost as if he disputed something.

Part 5

The next morning she waited in the laboratory at the lunch-hour

in the reasonable certainty that he would come to her.

"Well, you have thought it over?" he said, sitting down beside her.

"I've been thinking of you all night," she answered.

"Well?"

"I don't care a rap for all these things."

He said nothing for a space.

"I don't see there's any getting away from the fact that you and

I love each other," he said, slowly. "So far you've got me and I

you. . . . You've got me. I'm like a creature just wakened up.

My eyes are open to you. I keep on thinking of you. I keep on

thinking of little details and aspects of your voice, your eyes,

the way you walk, the way your hair goes back from the side of

your forehead. I believe I have always been in love with you.

Always. Before ever I knew you."

She sat motionless, with her hand tightening over the edge of the

table, and he, too, said no more. She began to tremble

violently.

He stood up abruptly and went to the window.

"We have," he said, "to be the utmost friends."

She stood up and held her arms toward him. "I want you to kiss

me," she said.

He gripped the window-sill behind him.

"If I do," he said. . . . "No! I want to do without that. I

want to do without that for a time. I want to give you time to

think. I am a man--of a sort of experience. You are a girl with

very little. Just sit down on that stool again and let's talk of

this in cold blood. People of your sort-- I don't want the

instincts to--to rush our situation. Are you sure what it is you

want of me?"

"I want you. I want you to be my lover. I want to give myself

to you. I want to be whatever I can to you." She paused for a

moment. "Is that plain?" she asked.

"If I didn't love you better than myself," said Capes, "I

wouldn't fence like this with you.

"I am convinced you haven't thought this out," he went on. "You

do not know what such a relation means. We are in love. Our

heads swim with the thought of being together. But what can we

do? Here am I, fixed to respectability and this laboratory;

you're living at home. It means . . . just furtive meetings."

"I don't care how we meet," she said.

"It will spoil your life."

"It will make it. I want you. I am clear I want you. You are

different from all the world for me. You can think all round me.

You are the one person I can understand and feel--feel right

with. I don't idealize you. Don't imagine that. It isn't

because you're good, but because I may be rotten bad; and there's

something--something living and understanding in you. Something

that is born anew each time we meet, and pines when we are

separated. You see, I'm selfish. I'm rather scornful. I think

too much about myself. You're the only person I've really given

good, straight, unselfish thought to. I'm making a mess of my

life--unless you come in and take it. I am. In you--if you can

love me--there is salvation. Salvation. I know what I am doing

better than you do. Think--think of that engagement!"

Their talk had come to eloquent silences that contradicted all he

had to say.

She stood up before him, smiling faintly.

"I think we've exhausted this discussion," she said.

"I think we have," he answered, gravely, and took her in his

arms, and smoothed her hair from her forehead, and very tenderly

kissed her lips.

Part 6

They spent the next Sunday in Richmond Park, and mingled the

happy sensation of being together uninterruptedly through the

long sunshine of a summer's day with the ample discussion of

their position. "This has all the clean freshness of spring and

youth," said Capes; "it is love with the down on; it is like the

glitter of dew in the sunlight to be lovers such as we are, with

no more than one warm kiss between us. I love everything to-day,

and all of you, but I love this, this--this innocence upon us

most of all.

"You can't imagine," he said, "what a beastly thing a furtive

love affair can be.

"This isn't furtive," said Ann Veronica.

"Not a bit of it. And we won't make it so. . . . We mustn't

make it so."

They loitered under trees, they sat on mossy banks they gossiped

on friendly benches, they came back to lunch at the "Star and

Garter," and talked their afternoon away in the garden that looks

out upon the crescent of the river. They had a universe to talk

about--two universes.

"What are we going to do?" said Capes, with his eyes on the broad

distances beyond the ribbon of the river.

"I will do whatever you want," said Ann Veronica.

"My first love was all blundering," said Capes.

He thought for a moment, and went on: "Love is something that