H. Wells: Ann Veronica

"Why not?"

"Free woman--and equal."

"I do it--of my own free will," said Ann Veronica, kissing his

hand again. "It's nothing to what I WILL do."

"Oh, well!" he said, a little doubtfully, "it's just a phase,"

and bent down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment,

with his heart beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay

very still, with her hands clinched and her black hair tumbled

about her face, he came still closer and softly kissed the nape

of her neck. . . .

Part 6

Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they

climbed more than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved

rather a good climber, steady-headed and plucky, rather daring,

but quite willing to be cautious at his command.

One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity

for blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things.

He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he

had been there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the

straggling pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and

munch sandwiches and talk together and do things together that

were just a little difficult and dangerous. And they could talk,

they found; and never once, it seemed, did their meaning and

intention hitch. They were enormously pleased with one another;

they found each other beyond measure better than they had

expected, if only because of the want of substance in mere

expectation. Their conversation degenerated again and again into

a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked an

eavesdropper.

"You're--I don't know," said Ann Veronica. "You're splendid."

"It isn't that you're splendid or I," said Capes. "But we satisfy

one another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest

fitness! What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of

mind? Complexion and voice. I don't think I've got illusions,

nor you. . . . If I had never met anything of you at all but a

scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann Veronica, I know I would

have kept that somewhere near to me. . . . All your faults are

just jolly modelling to make you real and solid."

"The faults are the best part of it," said Ann Veronica; "why,

even our little vicious strains run the same way. Even our

coarseness."

"Coarse?" said Capes, "We're not coarse."

"But if we were?" said Ann Veronica.

"I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort," said

Capes; "that's the essence of it. It's made up of things as

small as the diameter of hairs and big as life and death. . . .

One always dreamed of this and never believed it. It's the

rarest luck, the wildest, most impossible accident. Most people,

every one I know else, seem to have mated with foreigners and to

talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be afraid of the

knowledge the other one has, of the other one's perpetual

misjudgment and misunderstandings.

"Why don't they wait?" he added.

Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight.

"One doesn't wait," said Ann Veronica.

She expanded that. "_I_ shouldn't have waited," she said. "I

might have muddled for a time. But it's as you say. I've had

the rarest luck and fallen on my feet."

"We've both fallen on our feet! We're the rarest of mortals!

The real thing! There's not a compromise nor a sham nor a

concession between us. We aren't afraid; we don't bother. We

don't consider each other; we needn't. That wrappered life, as

you call it--we've burned the confounded rags! Danced out of it!

We're stark!"

"Stark!" echoed Ann Veronica.

Part 7

As they came back from that day's climb--it was up the

Mittaghorn--they had to cross a shining space of wet, steep

rocks between two grass slopes that needed a little care. There

were a few loose, broken fragments of rock to reckon with upon

the ledges, and one place where hands did as much work as toes.

They used the rope--not that a rope was at all necessary, but

because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind made the fact of the

rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a joint

death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes

went first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the

strata-edges came like long, awkward steps, placing Ann

Veronica's feet. About half-way across this interval, when

everything seemed going well, Capes had a shock.

"Heavens!" exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion.

"My God!" and ceased to move.

Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. "All right?" he

asked.

"I'll have to pay it."

"Eh?"

"I've forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!"

"Eh?"

"He said I would."

"What?"

"That's the devil of it!"

"Devil of what? . . . You DO use vile language!"

"Forget about it like this."

"Forget WHAT?"

"And I said I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd make

shirts."

"Shirts?"

"Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking!

Ann Veronica, you're a bilker!"

Pause.

"Will you tell me what all this is about?" said Capes.

"It's about forty pounds."

Capes waited patiently.

"G. I'm sorry. . . . But you've got to lend me forty pounds."

"It's some sort of delirium," said Capes. "The rarefied air? I

thought you had a better head."

"No! I'll explain lower. It's all right. Let's go on climbing

now. It's a thing I've unaccountably overlooked. All right

really. It can wait a bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from

Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness you'll understand. That's why I

chucked Manning. . . . All right, I'm coming. But all this

business has driven it clean out of my head. . . . That's why he

was so annoyed, you know."

"Who was annoyed?"

"Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds." She took a step. "My

dear," she added, by way of afterthought, "you DO obliterate

things!"

Part 8

They found themselves next day talking love to one another high

up on some rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a

precipice on the eastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time

Capes' hair had bleached nearly white, and his skin had become a

skin of red copper shot with gold. They were now both in a state

of unprecedented physical fitness. And such skirts as Ann

Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were safely

packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose

knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine, long

lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress

could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare

wonderfully; her skin had only deepened its natural warmth a

little under the Alpine sun. She had pushed aside her azure

veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling under her hand

at the shining glories--the lit cornices, the blue shadows, the

softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places full of

quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was

cloudless, effulgent blue.

Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising

the day and fortune and their love for each other.

"Here we are," he said, "shining through each other like light

through a stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this

sunlight soaking us. . . . Life is so good. Can it ever be so

good again?"

Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. "It's

very good," she said. "It's glorious good!"