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Ann Veronica Chapter 3 - The morning of the crisis · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three of Anne Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: not to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
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  Speaker 1: Joy Chan Anne Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter the third,
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  Speaker 1: The Morning of the Crisis, Part one. Two days after
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  Speaker 1: came the day of the crisis, the day of the
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  Speaker 1: fad and Dance. It would have been a crisis anyhow,
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  Speaker 1: but it was complicated in Anne Veronica's mind by the
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  Speaker 1: fact that a letter lay on the breakfast table for
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  Speaker 1: mister Manning, and that her aunt focused a brightly tactful
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  Speaker 1: disregard upon this throughout the meal. Anne Veronica had come
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  Speaker 1: down thinking of nothing in the world but her inflexible
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  Speaker 1: resolution to go to the dance in the teeth of
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  Speaker 1: all opposition. She did not know mister Manning's handwriting, and
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  Speaker 1: opened his letter and read some lines before its import appeared.
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  Speaker 1: Then for a time she forgot the fat an affair altogether.
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  Speaker 1: With a well simulated unconcern and a heightened color, she
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  Speaker 1: finished her breakfast. She was not obliged to go to
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  Speaker 1: the Treadchcolt College, because as yet the college had not
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  Speaker 1: settled down for the session she was supposed to be
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  Speaker 1: reading at home, and after breakfast she strolled into the
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  Speaker 1: vegetable garden, and, having taken up a position upon the
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  Speaker 1: staging of a disused greenhouse that had the double advantage
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  Speaker 1: of being hidden from the windows of the house and
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  Speaker 1: secure from the sudden appearance of anyone, she resumed the
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  Speaker 1: reading of mister Manning's letter. Mister Manning's handwriting had an
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  Speaker 1: air of being clear without being easily legible. It was
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  Speaker 1: large and rather roundish, with a lack of definition about
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  Speaker 1: the letters, and a disposition to treat the large ones
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  Speaker 1: as liberal minded people nowadays treat opinions as all amounted
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  Speaker 1: to the same thing, really a year's smooth boyish rather
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  Speaker 1: than an adult hair. And it filled seven sheets of notepaper,
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  Speaker 1: each written only on one side, My dear Miss Stanley,
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  Speaker 1: it began. I hope you will forgive my bothering you
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  Speaker 1: with the letter. But I have been thinking very much
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  Speaker 1: over our conversation at Lady Polesworthy's, and I feel there
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  Speaker 1: are things I want to say to you so much
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  Speaker 1: that I cannot wait until we meet again. It is
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  Speaker 1: the worst of talk under such social circumstances that it
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  Speaker 1: is always getting cut off so soon as it is beginning.
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  Speaker 1: And I went home that afternoon feeling I had said nothing,
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  Speaker 1: literally nothing of the things I had meant to say
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  Speaker 1: to you, and that were coursing through my head. They
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  Speaker 1: were things I had meant very much to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you about, So that I went home vexed and disappointed,
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  Speaker 1: and only relieved myself a little by writing a few verses.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder if you will mind very much when I
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  Speaker 1: tell you they were suggested by you. You must forgive
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  Speaker 1: the poet's license I take. Here is one verse, the
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  Speaker 1: metrical irregularities intention, because I want, as it were, to
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  Speaker 1: put you apart, to change the lilt and the mood altogether.
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  Speaker 1: When I speak of you, A song of ladies, and
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  Speaker 1: my lady saintely white, and a lily is Mary Margaret's violets,
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  Speaker 1: sweet and shy, green and dewy is Nelly bud fairy.
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  Speaker 1: Forget me not to live in Gwendolen's eye. Annabel shines
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  Speaker 1: like a star in the darkness Rosamond Queen's at a
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  Speaker 1: rose deep rose. But the lady I love is like
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  Speaker 1: sunshine in april weather. She gleams and gladdens she warms
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  Speaker 1: and goes crude, I admit, but let that verse tell
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  Speaker 1: my secret. All bad verse originally the epigram's langs, I believe,
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  Speaker 1: is written in a state of emotion. My dear miss Stanley.
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  Speaker 1: When I talk to you the other afternoon of work
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  Speaker 1: and politics and such like things, my mind was all
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  Speaker 1: the time resenting it beyond measure. There we were discussing
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  Speaker 1: whether the you should have a vote, and I remembered
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  Speaker 1: the last occasion we met. It was about your prospects
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  Speaker 1: of success in the medical profession or as a government official,
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  Speaker 1: such as a number of women now are. And all
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  Speaker 1: the time my heart was crying out within me. Here
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  Speaker 1: is the queen of your career. I wanted, as I
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  Speaker 1: have never wanted before, to take you up, to make
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  Speaker 1: you mine, to carry you off and set you apart
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  Speaker 1: from all the strain and turmoil of life. For nothing
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  Speaker 1: will ever convince me that it is not the man's
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  Speaker 1: share in life to shield, to protect, to lead, and
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  Speaker 1: toil and watch and battle with the world at large.
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  Speaker 1: I want to be your knight, your servant, your protector,
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  Speaker 1: your I dare scarcely write the word your husband. So
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  Speaker 1: I come suppliant. I am five and thirty, and I
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  Speaker 1: have knocked about in the world and tasted the quality
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  Speaker 1: of life. I had a hard fight to begin with
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  Speaker 1: to win my way into the upper division. I was
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  Speaker 1: third on a list of forty seven, and since then
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  Speaker 1: I have found myself promoted almost yearly in a widening
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  Speaker 1: sphere of social service. Before I met you, I never
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  Speaker 1: met any one whom I felt I could love. But
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  Speaker 1: you have discovered depths in my own nature I had
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  Speaker 1: scarcely suspected, except for a few early ebulitions of passion
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  Speaker 1: natural to a warm and romantic disposition and leaving no
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  Speaker 1: harmful after effects, ebulitions that, by the standards of the
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  Speaker 1: higher truth, I feel no one can justly cast a
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  Speaker 1: stone at and of which I, for one, am by
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  Speaker 1: no means ashamed. I come to you a pure and
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  Speaker 1: unencumbered man. I love you. In addition to my public salary,
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  Speaker 1: I have a certain private property and further expectations through
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  Speaker 1: my aunt, so that I can offer you a life
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  Speaker 1: of wide and generous refinement, travel, books, discussion, and easy
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  Speaker 1: relations with a circle of clever and brilliant and thoughtful
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  Speaker 1: people with whom my literary work has brought me to
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  Speaker 1: contact and of which, seeing me only as you have
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  Speaker 1: done alone in Morningside Park, you can have no idea.
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  Speaker 1: I have a certain standing, not only as a singer,
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  Speaker 1: but as a critic, and I belong to one of
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  Speaker 1: the most brilliant causery dinner clubs of the day, in
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  Speaker 1: which successful bohemianism, politicians, men of affairs, artists, sculptors, and
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  Speaker 1: cultivated noblemen generally mingle together in the easiest and most
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  Speaker 1: delightful intercourse. That is my real MILLIAU, and one that
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  Speaker 1: I am convinced you will not only adorn but delight in.
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  Speaker 1: I find it very hard to write this letter. There
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  Speaker 1: are so many things I want to tell you, and
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  Speaker 1: they stand on such different levels that the effect is
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  Speaker 1: necessarily confusing and discordant. And I find myself doubting if
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  Speaker 1: I am really giving you the thread of emotion that
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  Speaker 1: should run through all this letter, For although I must
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  Speaker 1: confess it reads very much like an application, or a testimonial,
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  Speaker 1: or some such thing as that I can assure you,
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  Speaker 1: I am writing this in fear and trembling with a
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  Speaker 1: sinking heart. My mind it is full of ideas and
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  Speaker 1: images that have been cherishing and accumulating dreams of traveling
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  Speaker 1: side by side, of lunching quietly together in some jolly restaurant,
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  Speaker 1: of moonlight and music, and all that side of life,
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  Speaker 1: of seeing you dressed like a queen and shining in
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  Speaker 1: some brilliant throng mine, of your looking at flowers in
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  Speaker 1: some old world garden, our garden. There are splendid places
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  Speaker 1: to be got down in Surrey, and a little run
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  Speaker 1: about motives quite within my means, you know, they say,
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  Speaker 1: as indeed I have just quoted already that all bad
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  Speaker 1: poetry is written in a state of emotion. But I
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  Speaker 1: have no doubt that this is true of bad offers
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  Speaker 1: of marriage. I have often felt before that it is
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  Speaker 1: only when one has nothing to say that one can
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  Speaker 1: write easy poetry. Witness Browning. And how can I get
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  Speaker 1: into one brief letter the complex accumulated desires of what
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  Speaker 1: is now I find on reference to my diary, nearly
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  Speaker 1: sixteen months of letting my mind run you ever since
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  Speaker 1: that jolly party at Surbiton where we raced and beat
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  Speaker 1: the other boat. You steered an I rowed stroke. My
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  Speaker 1: very sentences stumble and give way. But I do not
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  Speaker 1: even care if I am absurd. I am a resolute man,
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  Speaker 1: and hitherto. When I have wanted a thing, I have
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  Speaker 1: got it. But I have never yet wanted anything in
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  Speaker 1: my life as I have wanted you. It isn't the
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  Speaker 1: same thing. I am afraid because I love you so
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  Speaker 1: that the mere thought of failure hurts. If I did
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  Speaker 1: not love you so much, I believe I could win
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  Speaker 1: you by sheer force of character. For people tell me
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  Speaker 1: I am naturally of the dominating type. Most of my
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  Speaker 1: successes in life have been made with a sort of
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  Speaker 1: reckless vigor. Well, I have said what I had to
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  Speaker 1: say stumblingly, and badly and boldly. But I am sick
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  Speaker 1: of tearing up letters and hopeless of getting what I
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  Speaker 1: have to say better said. It would be easy enough
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  Speaker 1: for me to write an eloquent letter about something else,
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  Speaker 1: only I do not care to write about anything else.
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  Speaker 1: Let me put the main question to you now that
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  Speaker 1: I could not put the other afternoon, will you marry me?
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  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica? Very sincerely, yours, Hubert Manning. Anne Veronica read
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  Speaker 1: this letter through with grave, attentive eyes. Her interest grew
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  Speaker 1: as she read. A certain distaste disappeared. Twice. She smiled,
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  Speaker 1: but not unkindly. Then she went back and mixed up
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  Speaker 1: the sheets in a search for particular passages. Finally, she
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  Speaker 1: fell into reflection. Odd she said, I suppose I shall
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  Speaker 1: have to write an answer. It's so different from what
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  Speaker 1: one has been led to expect. She became aware of
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  Speaker 1: her aunt through the panes of the greenhouse, advancing with
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  Speaker 1: an air of serene unconsciousness from among the raspberry canes.
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  Speaker 1: No you don't, said Anne Veronica, and walked out at
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  Speaker 1: a brisk and business like pace toward the house. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going for a long trap, Auntie, she said alone. Dear, yes, Aunt,
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  Speaker 1: I've got a lot of things to think about. Miss
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  Speaker 1: Stanley reflected as Anne Veronica went toward the house. She
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  Speaker 1: thought her niece very hard and very self possessed and
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  Speaker 1: self confident. She ought to be softened and tender and confidential.
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  Speaker 1: At this phase of her life. She seemed to have
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  Speaker 1: no idea whatever of the emotional states that were becoming
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  Speaker 1: to her age and position. Miss Stanley walked round the
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  Speaker 1: garden thinking, and presently house and garden reverberated to Anne
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  Speaker 1: Veronica's slamming of the front door. I wonder, said Miss Stanley.
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  Speaker 1: For a long time. She surveyed a row of towering hollyhocks,
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  Speaker 1: as though they offered an explanation. Then she went in
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  Speaker 1: and upstairs, hesitated on the landing, and finally, a little
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  Speaker 1: breathless and with an air of great dignity, opened the
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  Speaker 1: door and walked into Anne Veronica's room. It was a neat,
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  Speaker 1: efficient looking room, with a writing table placed with a
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  Speaker 1: businesslike regard to the window, and a bookcase surmounted by
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  Speaker 1: a pig skull, a dissected frog in a sealed bottle,
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  Speaker 1: and a pile of shiny, black covered note books. In
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  Speaker 1: the corner of the room were two hockey sticks and
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  Speaker 1: a tennis racket, and upon the walls, and Veronica, by
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  Speaker 1: means of autotypes, had indicated her proclivities in art, but
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  Speaker 1: Miss Stanley took no notice of these things. She walked
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  Speaker 1: straight across to the wardrobe and opened it. There, Hanging
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  Speaker 1: among a Veronica's more normal clothing was a skimpy dress
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  Speaker 1: of red canvas, trimmed with cheap and hawdery breed, and
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  Speaker 1: short it could hardly reach below the knee. On the
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  Speaker 1: same peg and evidently belonging to it was a black
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  Speaker 1: velvet zooav jacket, and then a garment that was conceivably
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  Speaker 1: a secondary skirt. Miss Stanley hesitated and took first one
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  Speaker 1: and then another of the constituents of this costume off
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  Speaker 1: its peg and surveyed it. The third item she took
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  Speaker 1: with a trembling hand by its waist belt. As she
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  Speaker 1: raised it, its lower portion fell apart into two baggy
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  Speaker 1: crimson masses trousers. She whispered. Her eyes traveled about the room,
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  Speaker 1: as if in appeal to the very chairs tucked under
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  Speaker 1: the writing table. A pair of yellow and gold Turkish
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  Speaker 1: slippers of a highly meretricious quality caught her eye. She
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  Speaker 1: walked over to them, still carrying the trousers in her hands,
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  Speaker 1: and stooped to examine them. They were ingenious disguises of
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  Speaker 1: gilt paper, destructively gummed. It would seem to Anne Veronica's
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  Speaker 1: best dancing slippers. Then she reverted to the trousers. How
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  Speaker 1: can I tell him? Whispered Miss Stanley. Part two. Anne
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  Speaker 1: Veronica carried a light but business like walking stick. She
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  Speaker 1: walked with an easy quickness down the avenue and through
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  Speaker 1: the proletarian portion of Morningside Park, and crossing these fields,
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  Speaker 1: came into a city overhung lane that led toward Caddington
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  Speaker 1: and the Downs and then her pace slackened. She tucked
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  Speaker 1: her stick under her arm and re read Manning's letter.
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  Speaker 1: Let me think, said Anne Veronica. I wish this hadn't
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  Speaker 1: turned up to day. Of all days, she found it
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  Speaker 1: difficult to begin thinking, and indeed she was anything but
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  Speaker 1: clear what it was she had to think about. Practically,
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  Speaker 1: it was most of the chief interests in life that
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  Speaker 1: she proposed to settle in this pedestrian meditation. Primarily it
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  Speaker 1: was her own problem, and in particular the answer she
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  Speaker 1: had to give to mister Manning's letter. But in order
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  Speaker 1: to get data for that, she found that she, having
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  Speaker 1: a logical and ordered mind, had to decide upon the
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  Speaker 1: general relations of men to women, the objects and conditions
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  Speaker 1: of marriage and its bearing upon the welfare of the race,
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  Speaker 1: the purpose of the race, the purpose of any of everything. Frightful,
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  Speaker 1: lot of things aren't settled, said Anne Veronica. In addition,
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  Speaker 1: the fad and dance business, all out of proportion, occupied
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  Speaker 1: the whole foreground of her thoughts, and threw a color
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  Speaker 1: of rebellion over everything. She kept thinking. She was thinking
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  Speaker 1: about mister Manning's proposal of marriage, and finding she was
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  Speaker 1: thinking of the dance for a time her efforts to
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  Speaker 1: achieve a comprehensive concentration were dispersed by the passage of
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  Speaker 1: the village street of Caddington, the passing of a goggled
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  Speaker 1: car load of motorists, and the struggles of a stable
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  Speaker 1: lad mounted on one reconsterrant horse and leading another. When
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  Speaker 1: she got back to her questions again, in the monotonous
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  Speaker 1: high road that led up the hill, she found the
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  Speaker 1: image of mister Manning's central in her mind. He stood there,
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  Speaker 1: large and dark enunciating in his clear voice from beneath
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  Speaker 1: his large mustache, clear flat sentences, deliberately, kindly, he proposed
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to possess her. He loved her. And Veronica
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  Speaker 1: felt no repulsion at the prospect that mister Manning loved
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  Speaker 1: her presented itself to her, bloodlessly still from any imaginative
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  Speaker 1: quiver or thrill of passion or disgust, the relationship seemed
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  Speaker 1: to have almost as much to do with blood and
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  Speaker 1: body as a mortgage. It was something that would create
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  Speaker 1: a mutual claim. A relationship. It was in another world
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  Speaker 1: from that in which men will die for a kiss,
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  Speaker 1: and touching hands lights fires that burn up lives. The
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  Speaker 1: world of romance, the world of passionately beautiful things. But
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  Speaker 1: that other world, in spite of a resolute exclusion of it,
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  Speaker 1: was always looking round corners and peeping through chinks and crannies,
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  Speaker 1: and rustling and raiding into the order in which she
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  Speaker 1: chose to live, Shining out of pictures at her, echoing
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  Speaker 1: in lyrics and music. It invaded her dreams. It wrote
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  Speaker 1: up broken and enigmatical sentences upon the passage walls of
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  Speaker 1: her mind. She was aware of it now, as if
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  Speaker 1: it were a voice shouting outside a house, shouting passionate
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  Speaker 1: verities in a hot sunlight, a voice that cries while
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: people talking since in a darkened room, and pretend not
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  Speaker 1: to hear its shouting. Now did, in some occult manner,
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  Speaker 1: convey a protest that mister Manning would on no account do,
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  Speaker 1: though he was tall and dark and handsome and kind
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  Speaker 1: and thirty five and adequately prosperous, and all that a
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  Speaker 1: husband should be. But there was it insisted, no mobility
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  Speaker 1: in his face, no movement, nothing about him that warmed.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: If Anne Veronica could have put words to that song,
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  Speaker 1: they would have been hot blooded marriage or none. But
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  Speaker 1: she was far too indistinct in this matter to frame
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  Speaker 1: any words at all. I don't love him, said Anne Veronica,
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  Speaker 1: getting a gleam. I don't see that his being a
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  Speaker 1: good sort matters. That really settles about that, But it
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: means no end of a row. For a time she
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: sat on a rail before leaving the road for the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: downland turf. But I wish, she said, I had some
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  Speaker 1: idea what I was really up to. Her thought went
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  Speaker 1: into solution for a time while she listened to her
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  Speaker 1: lark singing, marriage and mothering, said Anne Veronica, with her
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  Speaker 1: mind crystallizing out again as the lap dropped to the
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  Speaker 1: nest in the turf, and all the rest of it
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  Speaker 1: perhaps is a song Part three, Her mind got back
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  Speaker 1: to the Fadden ball. She meant to go. She meant
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  Speaker 1: to go. She meant to go. Nothing would stop her.
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  Speaker 1: She was prepared to face the consequences suppose her father
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  Speaker 1: turned her out of doors. She did not care. She
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: meant to go. She would just walk out of the
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  Speaker 1: house and go. She thought of a costume in some
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: detail and with considerable satisfaction, and particularly of a very
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: jolly property dagger with large glass jewels in the handle,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: that reposed in a drawer in her room. She was
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  Speaker 1: to be a Corsair's bride. Fancy stabbing a man for jealousy,
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  Speaker 1: She thought, you'd have to think how to get in
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  Speaker 1: between his bones. She thought of her father, and with
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  Speaker 1: an effort dismissed him from her mind. She tried to
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  Speaker 1: imagine the collective effect of the Fadden ball. She had
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  Speaker 1: never seen a fancy dress gathering in her life. Mister
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Manning came into her thoughts again, an unexpected, tall, dark,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: self contained presence at the Faden. One might suppose him
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  Speaker 1: turning up. He knew a lot of clever people, and
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  Speaker 1: some of them might belong to the class. But would
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  Speaker 1: he come as presently? She roused herself with a guilty
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: start from the task of dressing and redressing mister Manning
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: in fancy costume as though he was a doll. She
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: had tried him as a crusader, in which guise he
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: seemed plausible but heavy. There is something heavy about him,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's his mustache, And as a hussar,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: which made him preposterous, And as a black brunswicker, which
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  Speaker 1: was better. And as an Arab sheikh also. She had
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: tried him as a dragon man and as a gendarme,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: which seemed the most suitable of all. To his severely handsome,
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  Speaker 1: immobile profile. She felt he would tell people the way,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: control traffic and refuse admission to public buildings with invincible
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  Speaker 1: correctness and the very finest explicit feelings possible. For each costume,
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  Speaker 1: she had devised a suitable form of matrimonial refusal. Oh lord,
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  Speaker 1: she said, discovering what she was up to, and dropped
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  Speaker 1: lightly from the fence upon the turf and went on
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: her way toward the crest. I shall never marry, said
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica resolutely. I'm not the sort. That's why it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: so important. I should take my own line now. Part four.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Anne Veronica's ideas of marriage were limited and unsystematic. Her
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: teachers and mistresses had done their best to stamp her
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: mind with an ineradicable persuasion that it was tremendously important
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and on no account to be thought about. Her first
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: intimations of marriage as a fact of extreme significance in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a woman's life had come with the men marriage of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Alice and the elopement of her second sister Gwen. These
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: convulsions occurred when Anne Veronica was about twelve. There was
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a gulf of eight years between her and the youngest
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of her brace of sisters, an impassable golf inhabited chaotically
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: by two noisy brothers. These sisters moved in a grown
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: up world, inaccessible to Anne Veronica's sympathies and to a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: large extent, remote from her curiosity. She got into Rowse
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: through meddling with their shoes and tennis rackets, and had
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: moments of carefully concealed admiration when she was privileged to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: see them just before her bedtime, rather radiantly dressed in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: white or pink or amber, and prepared to go out
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: with her mother. She thought Alice a bit of a
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: sneak and opinion her brother's shared, and Gwen rather a
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: snatch at meals. She saw nothing of their love making,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and came home from her boarding school in a state
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: of decently suppressed curiosity for Alice's wedding. Her impressions of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: this cardinal ceremony were rich and confus used, complicated by
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a quite transitory passion that awakened no reciprocal fire. For
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a fat, curly headed cousin in black velveteen and a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: lace collar who assisted as a page. She followed him
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: about persistently and succeeded after a brisk, unschivalrous struggle in
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: which he pinched and asked her to chease it in
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: kissing him among the raspberries behind the greenhouse. Afterward, her
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: brother Roddy, also strange in velveteen feeling rather than knowing
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of this relationship, punched this Adonis's head. A marriage in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the house proved to be exciting but extremely disorganizing. Everything
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: seemed designed to unhinge the mind and make the cat wretched.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: All the furniture was moved, all the meals were disarranged,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and everybody, and Veronica included, appeared in new bright costumes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: She had to wear a cream and a brown sash
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: and a short frock on her hair down, and Gwen
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: cream and a brown sash and a long skirt and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: her hair up. Her mother, looking unusually alert and hectic,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: wore cream and brown, also made up in a more
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: complicated manner, and Veronica was much impressed by a mighty
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: trying on and altering and fussing about Alice's things. Alice
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: was being re costumed from garret to cellar, with a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: walking dress and walking boots to measure, and a bride's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: costume of the most ravishing description and stockings and such like,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: beyond the dreams of Avarice, and a constant and increasing
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: dripping into the house of irrelevant remarkable objects such as
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: real lace, bedspread, guilt, traveling clock, ornamental pewter, plaque, salad bowl,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: silver mounted and servers, Maget's English poets, twelve volumes, bound
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: purple Morocco, et cetera, et cetera. Through all this flut
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: off novelty, they came in when a solicitous, preoccupied, almost
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: depressed figure. It was doctor Ralph, formerly the partner of
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: doctor Stickle in the Avenue, and now with a thriving
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: press act of his own in Womblesmith. He had shaved
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: his side whiskers and come over in flannels, but he
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: was still indisputably the same person who had attended Anne
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Veronica for the measles and when she swallowed the fishbone.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But his role was altered and he was now playing
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the bridegroom in this remarkable drama. Alice was going to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: be missus Ralph. He came in apologetically, all the old
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: well and how are we note gone? And once he
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: asked Anne Veronica, almost furtively, how's Alice? Getting on v Finally,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: on the day he appeared like his old professional self,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: transfigured in the most beautiful light gray trousers and Veronica
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: had ever seen, and a new shiny silk hat with
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a most becoming role. It was not simply that all
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the rooms were rearranged, and everybody dressed in unusual fashions,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and all the routines of life abolished and put away.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: People's emperors and emotions also seemed strangely disturbed and shifted about.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Her father was distinctly irascible, and disposed more than ever
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to hide away among the petrological things. The study was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: turned out at table. He carved in a gloomy but
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: resolute manner. On the day he had trumpet like outbreaks
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: of cordiality, varied by a watchful preoccupation. Gwen and Alice
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: were fantastically friendly, which seemed to annoy him, and missus
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Stanley was throughout enigmatical, with an anxious eye on her
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: husband and Alice. There was a confused impression of livery
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: carriages and whips with white favors, people fussily wanting other
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: people to get in before them, And then the church
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: people sat in unusual pews and a wide margin of
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Hussecki emptiness intervened between the ceremony and the walls, and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Veronica had a number of fragmentary impressions of Alice, strangely
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: transfigured in bridal raiment. It seemed to make her sister
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: downcast beyond any precedent. The bride'smaids and pages got rather
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: jumbled in the aisle, as she had an effect of
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Alice's white back and sloping shoulders and veiled head receding
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: toward the altar in some incomprehensible way. That back view
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: made her feel sorry for Alice. Also, she remembered very
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: vividly the smell of orange blossom and alice drooping and spiritless,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: mumbling responses facing Doctor Ralph, while the Reverend Edward Bribble
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: kind and large and listened to Alice's responses as though
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: he was listening to Simpson's, and thought that on the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: whole she was progressing favorably. And afterward, her mother and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Alice kissed long and clung to each other, and Doctor
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Ralph stood by, looking considerate. He and her father shook
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: hands manfully, and Veronica had got quite interested in mister
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Bribble's rendering of the service. He had the sort of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: voice that bing out things, and were still teeming with
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: ideas about it, when finally a wild outburst from the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: organ made it clear that whatever sniveling there might be
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: down in the chancel, that excellent wind instrument was in
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: its Mendelcinian way, as glad as ever it could be. Pump, pump, perump, pump,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: pump pump. The wedding breakfast was for Anne Veronica a
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: spectacle of the unreal consuming the real. She liked that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: part very well until she was carelessly served against her
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: expressed wishes with mayonnaise. She was caught by an uncle
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: whose opinion she valued, making faces at Roddy because he
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: had exalted at this of the vast mass of these impressions,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: anne Veronica could make nothing at the time. There they were, fact,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: she stored them away in a mind naturally retentive, as
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a squirrel stores away nuts for further diggestion. Only one
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: thing emerged with any reasonable clarity in her mind at once,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and that was that unless you was saved from drowning
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: by an unmarried man, in which case the ceremony is
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: unavoidable or totally destitute of underclothing, and so driven to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: get a trousseau in which hardship a trousseau would certainly
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: be ripping. Marriage was in experience to be strenuously evaded.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: When they were going home, she asked her mother why
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: she and Gwen and Alice had cried. Sh said her mother,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and then added a little natural feeling dear, but didn't
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Alice want to marry doctor Ralph oh Shvi, said her mother,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: with an evasion as patent as an advertisement board. I
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: am sure she'll be very happy indeed with doctor Ralph.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: But Anne Veronica was by no means sure of that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: until she went over to Womblesmith and saw her sister,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: very remote and domestic and authoritative in a becoming tea
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: gown in command of doctor Ralph's home. Doctor Ralph came
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: in to tea and put his arm round Alice and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: kissed her, and Alice got him squiggles and stood in
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the shelter of his arms for a moment, with an
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: expression of satisfied proprietorship. She had cried. Anne Veronica knew
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: there had been fusses and scenes dimly apprehended through half
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: open doors. She had heard Alice talking and crying at
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the same time, a painful noise. Perhaps marriage hurt, but
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: now it was all over and Alice was getting on well.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: It reminded Anne Veronica of having a tooth stopped. And
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: after that Alice became remoter than ever, and after a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: time ill. Then she had a baby and became as
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: old as any really grown up person, or older, and
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: very dull. Then she and her husband went off to
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a Yorkshire practice and had four more babies, none of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: him photographed well, and so she passed beyond the sphere
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of Anne Veronica's sympathies altogether. Part five. The Gwenafere happened
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: when she was away at school at Man to come
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: on sea a turn before she went to the high school,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and was never very clear to her. Her mother missed
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: writing for a week, and then she wrote in an
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: unusual key, my dear the letter ran, I have to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: tell you that your sister Gwen has offended your father
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: very much. I hope you will always love her, but
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I want you to remember she has offended your father
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and married without his consent. Your father is very angry
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and will not have her name mentioned in his hearing.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: She has married some one he could not approve of,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and gone right away. When the next holidays came, Anne
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Veronica's mother was ill and Green was in the sick room.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: When Anne Veronica returned home, she was in one of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: her old walking dresses. Her hair was done in an
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar manner. She wore a redding ring, and she looked
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: as if she had been crying. Hullo, Gwen, said Anne Veronica,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: trying to put every one at their ease. Been unmarried.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: What's the name of the happy man? Gwen owned to Fortesque,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: got a photograph of him or anything, said Ann Veronica.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: After kissing her mother, Gwen made an inquiry, and, directed
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: by missus Stanley, produced a portrait from its hiding place
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in the jewel drawer under the mirror. It presented a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: clean shaven face with a large Corinthian nose, hair tremendously
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: waving off the forehead, and more chin and neck than
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: is good for a man. Looks all right, said Anne Veronica,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: regarding him with her head first on one side and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: then on the other, and trying to be agreeable. What's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the objection? I suppose you ought to know, said Gwen
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to her mother, trying to alter the key of the conversation.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You see thee, said missus Stanley. Mister Fortesque is an actor,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and your father does not approve of the profession. Oh,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. I thought they made knights of actors.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: They may have howl some day, said Gwen. But it's
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a long business. I suppose this makes you an actress,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. I don't know whether I shall go on,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: said Gwen, a novel note of languorous professionalism creeping into
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: her voice. The other women don't much like it if
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: husband and wife work together, and I don't think Hal
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: would like me to act away from him. Anne Veronica
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: regarded her sister with a new respect. But the traditions
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of family life are strong. I don't suppose you'll be
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: able to do it much, said Anne Veronica. Later, Gwyn's
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: trouble weighed so heavily on Missus Stanley in her illness
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: that her husband consented to receive mister Fortesque in the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: drawing room and actually shake hands with him in an
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: entirely hopeless manner and hope everything would turn out for
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the best. The forgiveness and reconciliation was a cold and
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: formal affair, and afterwards her father went off gloomily to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: his study, and mister Fortesque rambled round the garden with
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: soft propitiatory steps, the Corinthian nose upraised and his hands
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: behind his back, pausing to look long and hard at
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the fruit trees against the wall. Anne Veronica watched him
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: from the dining room window, and after some moments of
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: maidenly hesitation, rambled out into the garden in a reverse
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: direction to mister Fortesque's steps, and encountered him with an
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: air of artless surprise. Hello, said Anne Veronica, with arms
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: akimbo in a careless, breathless manner. You, mister Fortesque, at
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: your service, you, Ae Veronica, Rather, I say, did you
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: marry Gwen? Yes? Why? Mister Fortesque raised his eyebrows and
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: assumed a light comedy expression. I suppose I fell in
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: love with her, Anne Veronica, rum said, Anne Veronica, have
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you got to keep her now? To the best of
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: my ability, said mister Fortesque with a bow. Have you
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: much ability, asked Anne Veronica. Mister Fotesque tried to act
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: embarrassment in order to conceal its reality, and Anne Veronica
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: went on to ask a string of questions about acting,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and whether her sister would act, and was she beautiful
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: enough for it? And who would make her dresses and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: so on. As a matter of fact, mister Fotesque had
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: not much ability to keep her sister, and a little
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: while after her mother's death, Anne Veronica met Gwen suddenly
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: on the staircase, coming from her father's study, shockingly dingy
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and dusty morning and tearful and resentful. And after that
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Gwen receded from the Morning Side Park world. And not
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: even the begging letters and distressful communications that her father
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and aunt received, but only a vague intimation of dreadfulness,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a leakage of incidental comment, flashes of paternal anger at
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that blackguard came to Anne Veronica's ears. Part six. These
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: were Anne Veronica's leading cases in the question of matter marriage.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: They were the only real marriages she had seen clearly
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: for the rest. She derived her ideas of the married
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: state from the observed behavior of married women, which impressed
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: her in Morning Side Park as being tired and dull
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and inelastic in comparison with the life of the young,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: and from a remarkably various reading among books. As a
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: net result, she had come to think of all married
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: people much as one thinks of insects that have lost
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: their wings, and of her sisters as new hatched creatures
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: who had scarcely for a moment had wings. She evolved
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: a dim image of herself, cooped up in her house
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: under the benevolent shadow of mister Manning, who knows on
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the analogy of squiggles. She might come to call him mangles.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think I can ever marry any one, she said,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and fell suddenly into another set of considerations that perplexed
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: her for a time. Had Romance to be banished from life,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: it was hard to part with Romance. But she had
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: never thirsted so keenly to go on with her union
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: adversity work in her life as she did that day.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: She had never felt so acutely the desire for free initiative,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: for a life unhampered by others at any cost. Her
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: brothers had it practically, at least, they had it far
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: more than it seemed likely she would, unless she exerted
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: herself with quite exceptional vigor. Between her and the fair
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: far prospect of freedom and self development maneuvered mister manning
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: her aunt and father, neighbors, customs, traditions, forces. They seemed
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to her that morning to be all armed with nets
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and prepared to throw them over her directly. Her movements became,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: in any manner truly free. She had a feeling as
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: though something had dropped from her eyes, as though she
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: had just discovered herself for the first time, discovered herself
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: as a sleep walker might do abruptly among dangers, hindrances,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and perplexities on the verge of a cardinal crisis, the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: life of a girl presented itself to her, something happy
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: and heedless and unthinking, yet really guided and caned by others,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and going on amidst unsuspected screens and concealments, and in
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: its way it was very well. Then suddenly, with a
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: rush came reality came growing up, a hasty imperative appeal
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: for seriousness, for supreme seriousness. The Ralphs and Mannings and
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Fortesques came down upon the raw inexperience, upon the blinking
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: ignorance of the newcomer, and before her eyes were fairly open,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: before she knew what had happened, A new set of
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: guides and controls, a new set of obligations and responsibilities
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: and limitations had replaced the old I want to be
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: a person, said Anne Veronica to the downs in the
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: open sky. I will not have this happen to me,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: whatever else may happen in its place. Anne Veronica had
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: three things very definitely settled by the time when a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: little after midday she found herself perched up on a
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: gate between a bridle path and a field that commanded
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the whole wide stretch of country between Talking and Waldersham. Firstly,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: she did not intend to marry at all, and particularly
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: she did not mean to marry mister Manning. Secondly, by
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: some measure or other, she meant to go on with
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: her studies, not at the trench called schools, but at
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: the Imperial College. And Thirdly, she was, as an immediate
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and decisive act, a symbol of just exactly where she stood,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a declaration of free and adult initiative going that night
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: to the faden Ball. But the possible attitude of her
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: father she had still to face. So far she had
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: the utmost difficulty in getting on to that vitally important matter.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: The whole of that relationship persisted in remaining obscure. What
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: would happen when next morning she returned to Morningside Park.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: He couldn't turn her out of doors, but what he
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: could do or might do, she could not imagine. She
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was not afraid of violence, but she was afraid of
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: something mean, some secondary kind of force. Suppose he stopped
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: all her allowance, made it imperative that she should either
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: stay in effectually resentful at home or earn a living
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: for herself. At once, it appeared highly probable to her
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: that he would stop her allowance. What can a girl do? Somewhere?
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: At this point, and Veronica's speculations were interrupted and turned
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: aside by the approach of a horse and rider. Mister Rammage,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that iron gray man of the world appeared, dressed in
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: a bowler hat and a suit of hard gray astride
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: of a black horse. He pulled rein at the sight
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: of her, saluted, and regarded her with his rather too
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: protuberant eyes. The girl's gaze met his in an interested inquiry.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: You've got my view, he said, after a pensive second.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I always get off here and lean over that rail
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: for a bit. May I do so to day? It's
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: your gait, she said, amiably. You got it first. It's
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: for you to say, if I may sit on it,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: He slipped off the horse. Let me introduce you to Caesar,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he said, as she patted Caesar's neck and remarked how
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: soft his nose was, and secretly deplored the ugliness of
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: ecquine teeth. Rammage tethered the horse to the farther gate post,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and Caesar blew heavily and began to investigate the hedge.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Rammage leaned over the gate at Ann Veronica's side, and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: for a moment there was silence. He made some obvious
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: comments on the wide view, warming toward its autumnal blaze
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that spread itself in hill and valley, wood and village below.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: It's as broad as life, said mister Rammage, regarding it,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and putting a well booted foot up on the bottom rail.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Part seven. And what are you doing here, young lady,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: he said, looking up at her face, wandering alone so
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: far from home. I like long walks, said Anne Veronica,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: looking down on him, Solitary walks. That's the point of them.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I think over all sorts of things, problems, sometimes quite
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: difficult problems. You're lucky to live in an age when
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you can do so. Your mother, for instance, couldn't she
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: had to do her thinking at home under inspection. She
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: looked down on him thoughtfully, and he let his admiration
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: of her free, young poise show in his face. I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: suppose things have changed, she said, Never was such an
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: age of transition. She wondered, what, too, mister Ramage did
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: not know sufficient unto me? Is the change thereof? He said,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: with all the effect of an epigram. I must confess,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: he said. The new woman and the new girl intrigued
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: me profoundly. I'm one of those people who are interested
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: in women, more interested than I am in anything else.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I don't conceal it. And the change, the change of attitude,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the way all the old cleanness has been through aside,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: is amazing, and all the old, the old trick of
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: shrinking up like a snail at a touch. If you
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: had lived twenty years ago, you would have been called
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: a young person, and it would have been your chief
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: duty in life not to know, never to have heard of,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and never to understand. That's quite enough still, said Anne Veronica, smiling,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that one doesn't understand quiet. But your role would have
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: been to go about saying I beg your pardon in
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: a reproving tone to things you understood quite well in
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: your heart and saw no harmone. That terrible young person,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: she's vanished, lost, stolen, or strayed. The young person. I
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: hope we may never find her again. He rejoiced over
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: this emancipation. While that lamb was about every man of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: any spirit who was regarded as a dangerous wolf. We
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: wore invisible chains and invisible blinkers. Now you and I
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: can gossip at a gate and only saw it, cumiy ponce.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: The change has given man one good thing he never
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: had before, he said, girl friends. And I am coming
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to believe the best as well as the most beautiful
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: friends a man can have, are girl friends. He paused
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: and went on, after a keen look at her, I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: had rather gossip to a really intelligent girl than to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: any man alive. I suppose we are more free than
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: we were, said Ann Veronica, keeping the question general. Oh,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: there's no doubt of it. Since the girls of the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: eighties broke bounds and sailed away on bicycles, My young
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: days go back to the very beginnings of that. It's
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: been one triumphant relaxation. Relaxation perhaps, But are we any
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: more free? Well? I mean, we've long strings to tether us,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: but we are bound all the same. A woman isn't
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: much freer in reality, mister Ramish demurred. One runs about,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: said Anne Veronica. Yes, but it's on condition one doesn't
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: do anything? Do what? Oh? Anything? He looked interrogation with
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a faint smile. It seems to me it comes to
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: earning one's living in the long run, said Anne Veronica,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: coloring faintly. Until a girl can go away as a
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: sun does and earn her independent income, She's still on
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: a string. It may be a long string, long enough
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: if you like to tangle up all sorts of people,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: but there it is. If the paymaster pulls home, she
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: must go. That's what I mean. Mister Rummage admitted the
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: force of that. He was a little impressed by Anne
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Veronica's metaphor of the string, which indeed she owed to
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Hetty Widget. You wouldn't like to be independent, he asked abruptly.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, really independent on your own. It isn't such
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: fun as it seems. Every One wants to be independent,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: said am Veronica, everyone man or woman, and you rather,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I wonder why there's no why it's just to feel
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: one owns one's self. Nobody does that, said Rammage, and
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: kept silence for a moment. But a boy, a boy
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: goes out into the world and presently stands on his
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: makes his own way of living. You'd like to do that? Exactly?
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Would you like to be a boy? I wonder it's
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: out of the question anyway, Rammage reflected. Why don't you? Well?
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: It might mean rather a row, I know, said Rammage
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: with sympathy. And besides, said Anne Veronica, sweeping that aspect aside.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: What could I do? A boy sails out into a
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: trade or profession. But it's one of the things I've
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: been thinking over. Suppose suppose a girl did want to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: start in life, start in life for herself. She looked
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: him frankly in the eyes. What ought she to do?
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Suppose you? Yes? Suppose I He felt that his advice
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: was being asked. He became a little more personal and intimate.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I wonder what you could do? He said, I should
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: think you could do all sorts of things. What ought
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you to do? He began to produce his knowledge of
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the world for her benefit. Jerkily and elusively and with
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: a strong rank flavor of savoir faire. He took an
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: optimist view of her chances, and Veronica listened thoughtfully, with
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: her eyes on the turf, and now and then she
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: asked a question or looked up to discuss a point
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: in the Meanwhile, as he talked, he scrutinized her face,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: ran his eyes over her careless, gracious poise, wandered hard
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: about her. He described her privately to himself as a
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: splendid girl. It was clear she wanted to get away
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: from home, that she was impatient to get away from home.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Why While the front of his mind was busy warning
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: her not to fall into the hopeless miseries of underpaid
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: teaching and explaining his idea that for women of initiative,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: quite as much as for men, the world of business
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: had by far the best chances, the back chambers of
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: his brain were busy with the problem of that why
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: His first idea as a man of the world was
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: to explain her unrest by a lover, some secret or
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: forbidden or impossible lover. But he dismissed that, because then
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: she would ask her lover not hear all these things?
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Restlessness then was the trouble simple restlessness home bored her?
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: He could quite understand the daughter of mister Stanley being
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: bored and feeling limited, But was that enough dim formless
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: suspicions of something more vital wanted about his mind? Was
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the young lady impatient for experience? Was she adventuress as
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: a man of the world. He did not think it
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: becoming to accept maidenly calm as anything more than a mask.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Warm life was behind that always, even if it slept,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: If it was not an actual personal lover, it still
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: might be the lover not yet incarnate, not yet perhaps
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: suspected he had diverged only a little from the truth
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: when he said that his chief interest in life was women.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: It wasn't so much women as woman that engaged his mind.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: His was the Latin turn of thinking. He had fallen
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: in love at thirteen, and he was still capable. He
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: prided himself of falling in love. His invalid wife and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: her money had been only the thin thread that held
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: his life together. Bearded on that permanent relation had been
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: an interweaving series of other feminine experiences, disturbing, absorbing, interesting,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: memorable affairs. Each one had been different from the others.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Each had had a quality all its own, a distinctive freshness,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: a distinctive path. He could not understand how men could
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful research into
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: personality and the possibilities of pleasing, these complex, fascinating expeditions
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: that began in interest and mounted to the supremest, most
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: passionate intimacy. All the rest of his existence was subordinate
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: to this pursuit. He lived for it, worked for it,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: kept himself in training for it. So while he talked
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to this girl of work and freedom, his slightly protuberant
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: eyes were noting the gracious balance of her limbs and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: body across the gate, the fine lines of her chin
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and neck, her grave, fine face, her warm, clear complexion
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: had already aroused his curiosity as he had gone to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and fro in Morningside Park, And here suddenly he was
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: near to her and talking freely and intimately. He had
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: found her in her communicative mood, and he used the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: accumulated skill of years in turning that to account. She
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: was pleased and a little flatter by his interest and sympathy.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: She became eager to explain herself, to show herself in
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the right light. He was manifestly exerting his mind for her.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: She found herself fully disposed to justify his interest. She
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: perhaps displayed herself rather consciously as a fine person unduly limited.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: She even touched lightly on her father's unreasonableness. I wonder,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: said Rammage, that more girls don't think as you do
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: and want to strike out in the world. And then
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: he speculated, I wonder if you will let me say
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: one thing, he said, if ever you do, and I
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: can help you in any way by advice or inquiry
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: or recommendation. You see, I'm no believer in feminine incapacity,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: but I do perceive there is such a thing as
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: feminine inexperience. As a sex. You're a little undertrained in affairs,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I'd take it forgive me if I seem a little urgent,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: as a sort of proof of friendliness. I can imagine
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: nothing more pleasant in life than to help you, because
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I know pay to help you. There's something about you,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: a little flavor of will I suppose that makes one
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: feel good luck about you and success. And while he
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: talked and watched her. As he talked, she answered, and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: behind her listening watched and thought about him. She liked
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the animated eagerness of his manner. His mind seemed to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: be a remarkably full one. His knowledge of detailed reality
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: came in just where her own mind was most weakly equipped.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Through all he said, ran one quality that pleased her,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the quality of a man who feels that things can
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: be done, that one need not wait for the world
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: to push one before one moved. Compared with her father
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and mister Manning, and the men in fixed positions generally
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: that she knew, Rammage, presented by himself, had a fine
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: suggestion of freedom, of power, of deliberate and sustained adventure.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: She was particularly charmed by his theory of friendship. It
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: was really very jolly to talk to a man in
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: this way who saw the woman in her, did not
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: treat her as a child. She was to think that,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: perhaps for a girl, the converse of his method was
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the case an older man, a man beyond the range
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of anything nonsensical, was perhaps the most interesting sort of
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: friend one could meet. But in that reservation, it may
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: be she went a little beyond the converse of his view.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: They got on wonderfully well together. They talked for the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: better part of an hour, and at last walked together
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: to the junction of high road and the bridle Path.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: There after protestations of friendliness and helpfulness that were almost ardent.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: He mounted a little clumsily and rode off at an
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: amiable pace, looking his best, making a leg with his
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: riding gaiters, smiling and saluting, while Anne Veronica turned northward
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: and so came to Michelschisel. There, in a little tea
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and sweet stuff shop, she bought and consumed slowly and
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: absent mindedly the insufficient nourishment that is natural to her
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: sex on such occasions. End of Chapter three