H. Wells - Ann Veronica

has to be taken care of. One has to be so careful. . . . It's a

beautiful plant, but a tender one. . . . I didn't know. I've a

dread of love dropping its petals, becoming mean and ugly. How

can I tell you all I feel? I love you beyond measure. And I'm

afraid. . . . I'm anxious, joyfully anxious, like a man when he

has found a treasure."

"YOU know," said Ann Veronica. "I just came to you and put

myself in your hands."

"That's why, in a way, I'm prudish. I've--dreads. I don't want

to tear at you with hot, rough hands."

"As you will, dear lover. But for me it doesn't matter. Nothing

is wrong that you do. Nothing. I am quite clear about this. I

know exactly what I am doing. I give myself to you."

"God send you may never repent it!" cried Capes.

She put her hand in his to be squeezed.

"You see," he said, "it is doubtful if we can ever marry. Very

doubtful. I have been thinking-- I will go to my wife again. I

will do my utmost. But for a long time, anyhow, we lovers have

to be as if we were no more than friends."

He paused. She answered slowly. "That is as you will," she

said.

"Why should it matter?" he said.

And then, as she answered nothing, "Seeing that we are lovers."

Part 7

It was rather less than a week after that walk that Capes came

and sat down beside Ann Veronica for their customary talk in the

lunch hour. He took a handful of almonds and raisins that she

held out to him--for both these young people had given up the

practice of going out for luncheon--and kept her hand for a

moment to kiss her finger-tips. He did not speak for a moment.

"Well?" she said.

"I say!" he said, without any movement. "Let's go."

"Go!" She did not understand him at first, and then her heart

began to beat very rapidly.

"Stop this--this humbugging," he explained. "It's like the

Picture and the Bust. I can't stand it. Let's go. Go off and

live together--until we can marry. Dare you?"

"Do you mean NOW?"

"At the end of the session. It's the only clean way for us. Are

you prepared to do it?"

Her hands clenched. "Yes," she said, very faintly. And then:

"Of course! Always. It is what I have wanted, what I have meant

all along."

She stared before her, trying to keep back a rush of tears.

Capes kept obstinately stiff, and spoke between his teeth.

"There's endless reasons, no doubt, why we shouldn't," he said.

"Endless. It's wrong in the eyes of most people. For many of

them it will smirch us forever. . . . You DO understand?"

"Who cares for most people?" she said, not looking at him.

"I do. It means social isolation--struggle."

"If you dare--I dare," said Ann Veronica. "I was never so clear

in all my life as I have been in this business." She lifted

steadfast eyes to him. "Dare!" she said. The tears were welling

over now, but her voice was steady. "You're not a man for

me--not one of a sex, I mean. You're just a particular being

with nothing else in the world to class with you. You are just

necessary to life for me. I've never met any one like you. To

have you is all important. Nothing else weighs against it.

Morals only begin when that is settled. I sha'n't care a rap if

we can never marry. I'm not a bit afraid of anything--scandal,

difficulty, struggle. . . . I rather want them. I do want

them."

"You'll get them," he said. "This means a plunge."

"Are you afraid?"

"Only for you! Most of my income will vanish. Even unbelieving

biological demonstrators must respect decorum; and besides, you

see--you were a student. We shall have--hardly any money."

"I don't care."

"Hardship and danger."

"With you!"

"And as for your people?"

"They don't count. That is the dreadful truth. This--all this

swamps them. They don't count, and I don't care."

Capes suddenly abandoned his attitude of meditative restraint.

"By Jove!" he broke out, "one tries to take a serious, sober

view. I don't quite know why. But this is a great lark, Ann

Veronica! This turns life into a glorious adventure!"

"Ah!" she cried in triumph.

"I shall have to give up biology, anyhow. I've always had a

sneaking desire for the writing-trade. That is what I must do.

I can."

"Of course you can."

"And biology was beginning to bore me a bit. One research is

very like another. . . . Latterly I've been doing things. . . .

Creative work appeals to me wonderfully. Things seem to come

rather easily. . . . But that, and that sort of thing, is just a

day-dream. For a time I must do journalism and work hard. . . .

What isn't a day-dream is this: that you and I are going to put

an end to flummery--and go!"

"Go!" said Ann Veronica, clenching her hands.

"For better or worse."

"For richer or poorer."

She could not go on, for she was laughing and crying at the same

time. "We were bound to do this when you kissed me," she sobbed

through her tears. "We have been all this time-- Only your queer

code of honor-- Honor! Once you begin with love you have to see

it through."

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

THE LAST DAYS AT HOME

Part 1

They decided to go to Switzerland at the session's end. "We'll

clean up everything tidy," said Capes. . . .

For her pride's sake, and to save herself from long day-dreams

and an unappeasable longing for her lover, Ann Veronica worked

hard at her biology during those closing weeks. She was, as

Capes had said, a hard young woman. She was keenly resolved to

do well in the school examination, and not to be drowned in the

seas of emotion that threatened to submerge her intellectual

being.

Nevertheless, she could not prevent a rising excitement as the

dawn of the new life drew near to her--a thrilling of the nerves,

a secret and delicious exaltation above the common circumstances

of existence. Sometimes her straying mind would become

astonishingly active--embroidering bright and decorative things

that she could say to Capes; sometimes it passed into a state of

passive acquiescence, into a radiant, formless, golden joy. She

was aware of people--her aunt, her father, her fellow-students,

friends, and neighbors--moving about outside this glowing secret,

very much as an actor is aware of the dim audience beyond the

barrier of the footlights. They might applaud, or object, or

interfere, but the drama was her very own. She was going through

with that, anyhow.

The feeling of last days grew stronger with her as their number

diminished. She went about the familiar home with a clearer and

clearer sense of inevitable conclusions. She became exceptionally

considerate and affectionate with her father and aunt, and more

and more concerned about the coming catastrophe that she was

about to precipitate upon them. Her aunt had a once exasperating

habit of interrupting her work with demands for small household

services, but now Ann Veronica rendered them with a queer

readiness of anticipatory propitiation. She was greatly exercised

by the problem of confiding in the Widgetts; they were dears, and

she talked away two evenings with Constance without broaching the

topic; she made some vague intimations in letters to Miss Miniver

that Miss Miniver failed to mark. But she did not bother her

head very much about her relations with these sympathizers.

And at length her penultimate day in Morningside Park dawned for

her. She got up early, and walked about the garden in the dewy