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Ann Veronica Chapter 13 - The sapphire ring · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of Ann Veronica. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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Speaker 1: by Joy Chan and Veronica by H. G. Wells, Chapter
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Speaker 1: the thirteenth, The Sapphire Ring, Part one. For a time,
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Speaker 1: that ring set with sapphires seemed to be, after all,
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Speaker 1: the satisfactory solution of Anne Veronica's difficulties. It was like
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Speaker 1: pouring a strong acid over dulled metal. A tarnish of
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Speaker 1: constraint that had recently spread over her intercourse with Capes
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Speaker 1: vanished again. They embarked upon an open and declared friendship.
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Speaker 1: They even talked about friendship. They went to the zoological
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Speaker 1: gardens together on Saturday to see for themselves a point
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Speaker 1: of morphological interest about the two Ken's bill, that friendly
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Speaker 1: entertaining bird, and they spent the rest of the afternoon
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Speaker 1: walking about and elaborating in general terms this theme and
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Speaker 1: the superiority of intellectual fellowship to all merely passionate relationships.
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Speaker 1: Upon this topic, Capes was heavy and conscientious, but that
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Speaker 1: seemed to her to be just exactly what he ought
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Speaker 1: to be. He was also had she known it more
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Speaker 1: than a little insincere. We are only in the dawn
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Speaker 1: of the age of friendship, he said, when interest, I suppose,
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Speaker 1: will take the place of passions. Either you have had
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Speaker 1: to love people or hate them, which is a sort
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Speaker 1: of love too in its way to get anything out
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Speaker 1: of them. Now, more and more we're going to be
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Speaker 1: interested in them, to be curious about them, and quite
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Speaker 1: mildly experimental with them. He seemed to be elaborating ideas
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Speaker 1: as he talked. They watched the chimpanzees in the new
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Speaker 1: Apes house and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes,
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Speaker 1: so much more human than human beings. And they watched
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Speaker 1: the agilegument in the next apartment, doing wonderful leaps and
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Speaker 1: aerial susualts. I wonder which of us enjoys that the most,
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Speaker 1: said Capes, Does he or do we? He seems to
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Speaker 1: get a zest. He does it and forgets it. We
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Speaker 1: remember it. These joyful bounds just lasen to the stuff
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Speaker 1: of my memories and stay there forever. Living's just material.
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Speaker 1: It's very good to be alive. It's better to know
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Speaker 1: life than be life. One may do both, said Anne Veronica.
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Speaker 1: She was in a very uncritical state that afternoon. When
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Speaker 1: he said let's go and see the wart hog, she
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Speaker 1: thought no one ever had had so quick a flow
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Speaker 1: of good ideas as he. And when he explained that
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Speaker 1: sugar and not buns was the talisman of popularity among
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Speaker 1: the animals, she marveled at his practical omniscience. Finally, at
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Speaker 1: the exit to Regent's Park, they ran against Miss Clagg.
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Speaker 1: It was the expression of Miss Claig's face that put
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Speaker 1: the idea into Anne Veronica's head of showing Manning at
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Speaker 1: the college one day, an idea which she didn't, for
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Speaker 1: some reason or other, carry out for a fortnight Part two.
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Speaker 1: When at last she did so, the sapphire ring took
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Speaker 1: on a new quality in the imagination of cakes. It
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Speaker 1: ceased to be the symbol of liberty and a remote
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Speaker 1: and quite abstracted person, and became suddenly, and very disagreeably,
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Speaker 1: the token of a large and portentous body, visible and tangible.
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Speaker 1: Manning appeared just at the end of the afternoon's work,
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Speaker 1: and the biologist was going through some perplexities the Scotchman
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Speaker 1: had created by a metaphysical treatment of the skulls of
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Speaker 1: Hirax and a young African elephant. He was clearing up
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Speaker 1: these difficulties by tracing a partially obliterated suture the Scotchman
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Speaker 1: had overlooked. When the door from the passage opened and
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Speaker 1: Manning came into his universe. Seen down the length of
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Speaker 1: the laboratory, Manning looked a very handsome and shapely gentleman. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: and at the sight of his eager advance to his fiancee,
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Speaker 1: Miss Clak replaced one long, cherished romance about Anne Veronica
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Speaker 1: by one more normal and simple. He carried a cane
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Speaker 1: and a silk hat with a mourning band in one
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Speaker 1: gray gloved hand. His frock coat and trousers were admirable.
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Speaker 1: His handsome face, his black mustache, his prominent brow conveyed
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Speaker 1: an eager solicitude. I want, he said, with a white
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Speaker 1: hand outstretched, to take you out to tea. I've been
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Speaker 1: clearing up, said Anne Veronica brightly. All your dreadful scientific things,
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Speaker 1: he said, with a smile that Miss Clak thought extraordinarily kindly,
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Speaker 1: All my dreadful scientific things, said Anne Veronica. He stood back,
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Speaker 1: smiling with an air of propriet ship, and looking about
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Speaker 1: him at the businesslike equipment of the room. The low
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Speaker 1: ceiling made him seem abnormally tall. Anne Veronica wiped a scalpel,
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Speaker 1: put a card over a watch glass containing thin shreds
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Speaker 1: of embryonic guinea pig swimming in mauve stain, and dismantled
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Speaker 1: her microscope. I wish I understood more of biology, said Manning.
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Speaker 1: I'm ready, said Anne Veronica, closing her microscope box with
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Speaker 1: a click and looking for one brief instant up the laboratory.
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Speaker 1: We have no airs and graces here, and my hat
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Speaker 1: hangs from a peg in the passage. She led the
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Speaker 1: way to the door, and Manning passed behind her and
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Speaker 1: round her, and opened the door for her. When Capes
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Speaker 1: glanced up at them for a moment, Manning seemed to
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Speaker 1: be holding his arms all about her, and there was
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Speaker 1: nothing but quiet acquiescence in her bearing. After Capes had
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Speaker 1: finished the Scotchman's troubles, he went back into the preparation room.
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Speaker 1: He sat down on the sill of the open window,
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Speaker 1: folded his arms and stared straight before him for a
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Speaker 1: long time, over the wilderness of tiles and chimney pots,
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Speaker 1: into a sky that was blue and empty. He was
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Speaker 1: not addicted to monologue, and the only audible comet he
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Speaker 1: permitted himself at first upon an universe that was evidently
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Speaker 1: anything but satisfactory to him. That afternoon was one compact
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Speaker 1: and entirely unassigned. Damn, the word must have had some
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Speaker 1: gratifying quality, because he repeated it. Then he stood up
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Speaker 1: and repeated it again. The fool I have been, he cried,
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Speaker 1: and now speech was coming to him. He tried this
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Speaker 1: sentence with expletives as he went on, still warming muck
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Speaker 1: headed moral ass. I ought to have done anything, I
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Speaker 1: ought to have done anything. What's a man for friendship?
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Speaker 1: He doubled up his fist and seemed to contemplate thrusting
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Speaker 1: it through the window. He turned his back on that temptation.
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Speaker 1: Then suddenly he seized a new preparation bottle that stood
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Speaker 1: upon his table and contained the better part of a
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Speaker 1: week's work, a displayed dissection of a snail beautifully done,
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Speaker 1: and hurled it across the room to smash resoundingly upon
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Speaker 1: the cemented floor under the bookcase. Then, without either haste
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Speaker 1: or pause, he swept his arm along a shelf of
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Speaker 1: reagents and sent them to mingle with the debris on
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Speaker 1: the floor. They fell in a diapason of smashes. Hum,
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Speaker 1: he said, regarding the wreckage with a calmer visage. Silly,
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Speaker 1: he remarked, after a pause. One hardly knows all the time.
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Speaker 1: He put his hands in his pockets, his mouth pocket
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Speaker 1: to a whistle, and he went to the door of
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Speaker 1: the outer preparation room and stood there looking, save for
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Speaker 1: the faintest intensification of his natural readiness, the embodiment of
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Speaker 1: blonde serenity jelat, he called, Just come and clear up
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Speaker 1: a mess, will you. I've smashed some things. Part three.
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Speaker 1: There was one serious flow in Anne Veronica's arrangements for
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Speaker 1: self rehabilitation, and that was Rammage. He hung over her,
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Speaker 1: he and his loan to her, and his connection with her,
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Speaker 1: and that terrible evening a vague, disconcerting possibility of annoyance
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Speaker 1: and exposure. She could not see any relief from this
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Speaker 1: anxiety except repayment, and repayment seemed impossible. The raising of
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Speaker 1: twenty five pounds was a task altogether beyond her powers.
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Speaker 1: Her birthday was four months away, and that at its
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Speaker 1: extremest point, might give her another five pounds. The thing
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Speaker 1: wrangled in her mind night and day she would waken
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Speaker 1: the night to repeat her bitter cry, Oh why did
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Speaker 1: I burn those notes? It added greatly to the annoy
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Speaker 1: of the situation that she had twice seen Rammage in
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Speaker 1: the avenue since her return to the shelter of her
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Speaker 1: father's roof. He had saluted her with elaborate civility, his
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Speaker 1: eyes distended with indecipherable meanings. She felt she was bound
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Speaker 1: in honor to tell the whole affair to Manning sooner
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Speaker 1: or later. Indeed, it seemed inevitable that she must clear
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Speaker 1: it up with his assistance or not at all. And
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Speaker 1: when Manning was not about the thing seemed simple enough,
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Speaker 1: she would compose extremely lucid and honorable explanations. But when
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Speaker 1: it came to broaching them, it proved to be much
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Speaker 1: more difficult than she had supposed. They went down the
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Speaker 1: great staircase of the building, and while she sought in
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Speaker 1: her mind for a beginning, he broke into appreciation of
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Speaker 1: her simple dress and self congratulations upon their engagement. It
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Speaker 1: makes me feel, he said, that nothing is impossible to
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Speaker 1: have you here beside me. I said that day at Surbiton.
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Speaker 1: There's many good things in life, but there's only one
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Speaker 1: best and that's the wild haired girl who's pulling away
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Speaker 1: at that oar. I will make her my grail, and
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Speaker 1: some day, perhaps, if God wills, she shall become my wife.
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Speaker 1: He looked very hard before him as he said this,
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Speaker 1: and his voice was full of deep feeling. Grail, said
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. And then, oh, yes, of course, anything but
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Speaker 1: a holy one. I'm afraid altogether holy, Anne Veronica. Ah,
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Speaker 1: but you can't imagine what you are to me and
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Speaker 1: what you mean to me. I suppose there is something
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Speaker 1: mystical and wonderful about all women. There is something mystical
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Speaker 1: and wonderful about all human beings. I don't see that
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Speaker 1: men need banquet with the women a man does, said Manny,
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Speaker 1: A true man anyhow, And for me there is only
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Speaker 1: one treasure house. By Jove, when I think of it,
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Speaker 1: I want to leap and shout. It would astonish that
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Speaker 1: man with the barrow. It astonishes me that I don't,
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Speaker 1: said Manning, in a tone of intense self enjoyment. I think,
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Speaker 1: began Anne Veronica, that you don't realize he disregarded her entirely.
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Speaker 1: He waved an arm and spoke with peculiar resonance. I
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Speaker 1: feel like a giant. I believe now I shall do
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Speaker 1: great things. God's what it must be, to pour out strong,
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Speaker 1: splendid verse, mighty lines, mighty lines. If I do, Anne Veronica,
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Speaker 1: it will be you, it will be altogether you. I
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Speaker 1: will dedicate my books to you. I will lay them
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Speaker 1: all at your feet. He beamed upon her. I don't
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Speaker 1: think you realize, Anne Veronica, began again, that I am
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Speaker 1: rather a defective human being. I don't want to, said Manning.
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Speaker 1: They say there are spots on the sun. Not for me.
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Speaker 1: It warms me and lights me and fills my world
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Speaker 1: with flowers. Why should I peep at it through smoked
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Speaker 1: glass to see things that don't affect me? He smiled
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Speaker 1: his delight at his companion. I've got bad faults, he
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Speaker 1: shook his head slowly, smiling mysteriously. But perhaps I want
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Speaker 1: to confess them. I grant you absolution. I don't want absolution.
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Speaker 1: I want to make myself visible to you. I wish
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Speaker 1: I could make you visible to yourself. I don't believe
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Speaker 1: in the faults. They're just a joyous softening of the outline,
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Speaker 1: more beautiful than perfection, like the flows of an old marble.
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Speaker 1: If you talk of your faults. I shall talk of
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Speaker 1: your splendors. I do want to tell you things. Nevertheless,
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Speaker 1: we'll have, thank God ten myriad days to tell each
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Speaker 1: other things when I think of it. But these are
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Speaker 1: things I want to tell you now. I made a
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Speaker 1: little song of it. Let me say it to you.
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Speaker 1: I've no name for it yet, Epithalamy might do like
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Speaker 1: him who stood on Darien. I view on charted sea
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Speaker 1: ten thousand days, ten thousand nights before my queen and me,
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Speaker 1: and that only brings me up to about sixty five,
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Speaker 1: A gritting wilderness of time that to the sunset reaches
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Speaker 1: no keel as yet its waves has plowed or gritted
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Speaker 1: on its beaches. And we will sail that splendor wide
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Speaker 1: from day to day together, from all to aarl of
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Speaker 1: happiness through years of God's own weather. Yes, said his
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Speaker 1: prospective fellow sailor. That's very pretty, She stopped short, full
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Speaker 1: of things, unsaid pretty. Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights.
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Speaker 1: You shall tell me your faults, said Manning. If they
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Speaker 1: matter to you, they matter. It isn't precisely faults, said
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Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. It's something that bothers me ten thousand. Put
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Speaker 1: that way, it seems so different, then, assuredly, said Manning.
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Speaker 1: She found a little difficulty in beginning. She was glad
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Speaker 1: when he went on, I want to be your city
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Speaker 1: of refuge from every sort of bother. I want to
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Speaker 1: stand between you and all the force and voulness of
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Speaker 1: the world. I want to make you feel that here
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Speaker 1: is a place where the crowd does not clamor nor
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Speaker 1: ill winds blow. That is all very well, said Anne Veronica, unheeded.
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Speaker 1: That is my dream of you, said Manning, warming. I
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Speaker 1: want my life to be beaten gold, just in order
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Speaker 1: to make it a fitting setting for yours. There you
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Speaker 1: will be in an inner temple. I want to enrich
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Speaker 1: it with hangings and gladden it with verses. I want
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Speaker 1: to fill it with fine and precious things. And by degrees,
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Speaker 1: perhaps that made in distrust of yours, that makes you
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Speaker 1: shrink from my kisses will vanish. Forgive me for certain
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Speaker 1: warmth creeps into my words. The park is green and
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Speaker 1: gray today, but I am glowing pink and gold. It
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Speaker 1: is difficult to express these things. Part four. They sat
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Speaker 1: with tea and strawberries and creamed before them at a
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Speaker 1: little table in front of the pavilion in Regents Park.
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Speaker 1: Her confession was still unmade. Manning leaned forward on the table,
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Speaker 1: talking discursively on the probable brilliance of their married life,
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Speaker 1: and Veronica sat back in an attitude of inattention, her
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Speaker 1: eyes on a distant game of cricket, her mind perplexed
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Speaker 1: and busy. She was recalling the circumstances under which she
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Speaker 1: had engaged herself to Manning and trying to understand a
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Speaker 1: curious development of the quality of this relationship. The particulars
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Speaker 1: of her engagement were very clear in her memory. She
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Speaker 1: had taken care he should have this momentous talk with
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Speaker 1: her on a garden seat commanded by the windows of
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Speaker 1: the house. They had been playing tennis, with his manifest
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Speaker 1: intention looming over her. Let us sit down for a moment,
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Speaker 1: he had said. He made his speech a little elaborately.
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Speaker 1: She plucked at the knots of her racket and heard
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Speaker 1: him to the end. Then spoke, in a restrained undertone.
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Speaker 1: You ask me to be engaged to you, mister Manning,
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Speaker 1: she began. I want to lay all my life at
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Speaker 1: your feet. Mister Manning. I do not think I love you.
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Speaker 1: I want to be very plain with you. I have nothing,
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Speaker 1: nothing that can possibly be passioned for you. I am
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Speaker 1: sure nothing at all. He was silent for some moments.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps that is only sleeping, he said, How can you know?
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Speaker 1: I think perhaps I am rather a cold blooded purse.
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Speaker 1: She stopped. He remained listening attentively. You have been very
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Speaker 1: kind to me, she said, I would give my life
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Speaker 1: for you. Her heart had warmed toward him. It had
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Speaker 1: seemed to her that life might be very good. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: with his kindliness and sacrifice about her, she thought of
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Speaker 1: him as always courteous and helpful, as realizing indeed his
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Speaker 1: ideal of protection and service as chivalrously leaving her free
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Speaker 1: to live her own life. Rejoicing with an infinite generosity
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Speaker 1: in every detail of her irresponsive being, She twanged the
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Speaker 1: catgut under her fingers. It seems so unfair, she said,
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Speaker 1: to take all you offer me and give so little
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Speaker 1: in return. It is all the world to me, and
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Speaker 1: we are not traders looking at equivalents. You know, mister Manning,
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Speaker 1: I do not really want to marry. No, it seems
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Speaker 1: so so unworthy, she piqued, among her phrases of the
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Speaker 1: noble love ye give. She stopped. Through the difficulty she
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Speaker 1: found in expressing herself. But I am judge of that,
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Speaker 1: said Manning. Would you wait for me? Manning was silent
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Speaker 1: for a space, as my lady wills. Would you let
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Speaker 1: me go on studying for a time if you order patience,
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Speaker 1: I think, mister Manning, I do not know. It is
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Speaker 1: so difficult when I think of the love ye give me,
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Speaker 1: what ought to give you back? Love you like me? Yes,
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Speaker 1: and I am grateful to you. Manning tapped with his
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Speaker 1: racket on the turf through some moments of silence. You
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Speaker 1: are the most perfect, the most glorious of creating things, tender, frank, intellectual, brave, beautiful.
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Speaker 1: I am your servitor. I am ready to wait for you,
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Speaker 1: to wait your pleasure, to give all my life to
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Speaker 1: winning it. Let me only wear your livery, give me
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Speaker 1: but leave to try. You want to think for a time,
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Speaker 1: to be free for a time. That is so like you, Diana, Palliserthene.
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Speaker 1: Palliserthene is better. You are all the slender goddesses. I understand.
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Speaker 1: Let me engage myself, that is all I ask. She
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Speaker 1: looked at him, His face downcast and in profile, was
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Speaker 1: handsome and strong. Her gratitude swelled within her. You are
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Speaker 1: too good for me, she said, in a low voice.
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Speaker 1: Then you you will a long pause. It isn't fair,
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Speaker 1: but will you yes? For some seconds he had remained
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Speaker 1: quite still. If I sit here, he said, standing up
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Speaker 1: before her abruptly, I shall have to shout. Let us
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Speaker 1: walk about Tom tom duruy tom tan tom todm that
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Speaker 1: thing of Mendelssohn's. If making one human being absolutely happy
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Speaker 1: is any satisfaction to you? He held out his hands,
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Speaker 1: and she also stood up. He drew her close up
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Speaker 1: to him with a strong, steady pall. Then suddenly, in
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Speaker 1: front of all those windows, he folded her in his
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Speaker 1: arms and pressed her to him and kissed her unresisting face. Don't,
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Speaker 1: cried Anne Veronica, struggling faintly, and he released her. Forgive me,
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Speaker 1: he said, but I am at singing pitch. She had
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Speaker 1: a moment of sheer panic at the thing she had done.
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Speaker 1: Mister Manning, she said, for a time, will you tell
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Speaker 1: no one? Will you keep this our secret? I'm doubtful.
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Speaker 1: Will you please not even tell my aunt? As you
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Speaker 1: will he said, But if my manner tells, I cannot
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Speaker 1: help it of that shows you only mean a secret
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Speaker 1: for a little time. Just for a little time, she
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Speaker 1: said yes. But the ring and her aunt's triumphant eye,
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Speaker 1: and a note of approval in her father's manner, and
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Speaker 1: a novel disposition in him to praise Manning in a just,
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Speaker 1: impartial voice had soon placed very definite qualifications upon that
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Speaker 1: covenanted secrecy Part five. At first, the quality of her
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Speaker 1: relationship to Manning seemed moving and beautiful to Anne Veronica.
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Speaker 1: She admired and rather pitied him, and she was unfeignedly
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Speaker 1: grateful to him. She even thought that perhaps she might
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Speaker 1: come to love him in spite of that faint, indefinable
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Speaker 1: flavor of absurdity that pervaded his courtly bearing. She would
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Speaker 1: never love him as she loved Capes, of course, but
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Speaker 1: there are grades and qualities of love. For Manning. It
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Speaker 1: would be a more temperate love, altogether, much more temperate
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Speaker 1: the discreet and joyless love of a virtuous, reluctant, condescending wife.
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Speaker 1: She had been quite convinced that an engagement with him,
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Speaker 1: and at last a marriage, had exactly that quality of
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Speaker 1: compromise which distinguishes the ways of the wives. It would
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Speaker 1: be the rapid world almost at its best. She saw
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Speaker 1: herself building up a life upon that, a life restrained, kindly, beautiful,
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Speaker 1: a little pathetic, and altogether dignified, a life of great
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Speaker 1: disciplines and suppressions and extensive reserves. But the Rammage affair
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Speaker 1: needed clearing up. Of course, it was a flaw upon
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Speaker 1: that project. She had to explain about and pay off
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Speaker 1: that forty pounds. Then, quite insensibly, her queenliness had declined.
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Speaker 1: She was never able to trace the changes her attitude
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Speaker 1: had undergone from the time when she believed herself to
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Speaker 1: be the pampered queen of fortune, the crown of a
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Speaker 1: good man's love, and secretly but nobly worshiping some one else,
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Speaker 1: to the time when she realized she was in fact
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Speaker 1: just a mannikin for her lover's imagination, and that he
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Speaker 1: cared no more for the realities of her being, for
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Speaker 1: the things she felt and desired, for the passions and
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Speaker 1: dreams that might move her, than a child cares for
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Speaker 1: the sawdust in its doll. She was the actress his
23:43
Speaker 1: whim had chosen to play a passive part. It was
23:47
Speaker 1: one of the most educational disillusionments in Anne Veronica's career.
23:53
Speaker 1: But did many women get anything better? This afternoon, when
23:58
Speaker 1: she was urged to explain her hamper and tainting complication
24:01
Speaker 1: with Rammage. The realization of this alien quality in her
24:04
Speaker 1: relationship with Manning became acute. Hitherto it had been qualified
24:09
Speaker 1: by her conception of all life as a compromise, by
24:12
Speaker 1: her new effort to be unexacting of life. But she
24:15
Speaker 1: perceived that to tell Manning of her Rammage adventures as
24:18
Speaker 1: they had happened would be like towering figures upon a
24:21
Speaker 1: water color. They were in different key, they had a
24:24
Speaker 1: different timbre. How could she tell him what? Indeed, already
24:28
Speaker 1: began to puzzle herself why she had borrowed that money
24:31
Speaker 1: at all. The plain fact was that she had grabbed
24:35
Speaker 1: a bait. She had grabbed. She became less and less
24:39
Speaker 1: attentive to his meditative, self complacent fragments of talk. As
24:42
Speaker 1: she told herself this, her secret thoughts made some hasty,
24:46
Speaker 1: half hearted excursions into the possibility of telling the thing
24:50
Speaker 1: in romantic tones. Rammage was as a black villain, she
24:54
Speaker 1: as a white, fantastically white maiden. She doubted if Manning
24:59
Speaker 1: would even listen to that, he would refuse to listen
25:02
Speaker 1: and absolve her untriven. Then it came to her with
25:06
Speaker 1: a shock as an extraordinary oversight that she could never
25:10
Speaker 1: tell Manning about Rammage. Never she dismissed the idea of
25:15
Speaker 1: doing so, But that still left the forty pounds. Her
25:20
Speaker 1: mind went on generalizing, so it would always be between
25:24
Speaker 1: herself and Manning. She saw her life before her, robbed
25:27
Speaker 1: of all generous illusions, the rapid life, unrapid, forever, vistas
25:32
Speaker 1: of dull responses, crises of make believe, years of exacting
25:37
Speaker 1: mutual disregard in a misty garden of fine sentiments. But
25:42
Speaker 1: did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps
25:45
Speaker 1: every woman conceals herself from a man perforce. She thought
25:50
Speaker 1: of capes. She could not help thinking of capes. Surely
25:54
Speaker 1: capes was different. Capes looked at one and not over one,
25:58
Speaker 1: spoke to one, treated one as a visible, concrete fact.
26:03
Speaker 1: Cape saw her, felt for her, cared for her greatly,
26:07
Speaker 1: even if he did not love her anyhow, He did
26:10
Speaker 1: not sentimentalize her, And she had been doubting since that
26:14
Speaker 1: walk in the zoological gardens whether indeed he did simply
26:17
Speaker 1: care for her. Little things almost impalpable had happened to
26:22
Speaker 1: justify that doubt. Something in his manner had belied his words,
26:27
Speaker 1: did he not look for her in the morning when
26:29
Speaker 1: she entered, come very quickly to her? She thought of
26:33
Speaker 1: him as she had last seen him, looking down the
26:35
Speaker 1: length of the laboratory to see her go. Why had
26:38
Speaker 1: he glanced up quite in that way? The thought of
26:43
Speaker 1: Cape's flooded her being, like long veiled sunlight breaking again
26:47
Speaker 1: through clouds. It came to her, like a dear thing rediscovered,
26:51
Speaker 1: that she loved Capes. It came to her that to
26:54
Speaker 1: marry any one but Cape's was impossible. If she could
26:58
Speaker 1: not marry him, she would not marry any one. She
27:02
Speaker 1: would end this sham with Manning. It ought never to
27:05
Speaker 1: have begun. It was cheating, pitiful cheating. And then if
27:10
Speaker 1: some day Capes wanted her saw fit to alter his
27:13
Speaker 1: views upon friendship, dim possibilities that she would not seem
27:19
Speaker 1: to look at, even to herself, gesticulated in the twilight
27:22
Speaker 1: background of her mind. She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution,
27:28
Speaker 1: and in one moment had made it into a new self.
27:32
Speaker 1: She flung aside every plan she had in life, every discretion.
27:37
Speaker 1: Of course, why not, she would be honest anyhow, She
27:42
Speaker 1: turned her eyes to Manning. He was sitting back from
27:45
Speaker 1: the table now, with one arm over the back of
27:48
Speaker 1: his green chair and the other resting on the little table.
27:52
Speaker 1: He was smiling under his heavy mustache, and his head
27:55
Speaker 1: was a little on one side as he looked at her.
27:59
Speaker 1: And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?
28:02
Speaker 1: He was saying. His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene
28:07
Speaker 1: disbelief in any confessable thing. Anne Veronica pushed aside a
28:12
Speaker 1: teacup and the vestiges of her strawberries and cream, and
28:15
Speaker 1: put her elbows before her on the table. Mister Manning,
28:20
Speaker 1: she said, I have a confession to make. I wish
28:26
Speaker 1: you would use my Christian name, he said. She attended
28:31
Speaker 1: to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant. Something in
28:34
Speaker 1: her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted gravity
28:38
Speaker 1: to him. For the first time, he seemed to wonder
28:41
Speaker 1: what it might be that she had to confess. His
28:44
Speaker 1: smile faded. I don't think our engagement can go on.
28:49
Speaker 1: She plunged and felt exactly that loss of breath that
28:53
Speaker 1: comes with a dive into icy water. But how he said,
29:00
Speaker 1: sitting up, astonished beyond measure, not go on. I have
29:05
Speaker 1: been thinking while you have been talking. You see, I
29:09
Speaker 1: didn't understand. She stared hard at her finger nails. It
29:15
Speaker 1: is hard to express one's self, but I do want
29:18
Speaker 1: to be honest with you. What I promised to marry you,
29:21
Speaker 1: I thought I could. I thought it was a possible arrangement.
29:25
Speaker 1: I did think it could be done. I admired your chivalry.
29:29
Speaker 1: I was grateful, she paused. Go on, he said. She
29:36
Speaker 1: moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a
29:39
Speaker 1: still lower tone. I told you I did not love you,
29:45
Speaker 1: I know, said Manning, nodding gravely. It was fine and
29:49
Speaker 1: brave of you. But there is something more. She paused again.
29:56
Speaker 1: I am sorry. I didn't explain. These things are difficult.
30:03
Speaker 1: It wasn't clear to me that I had to explain
30:06
Speaker 1: I love some one else. They remained looking at each
30:11
Speaker 1: other for three or four seconds. Then Manning flopped back
30:14
Speaker 1: in his chair and dropped his chin like a man shot.
30:17
Speaker 1: There was a long silence between them. My god, he said,
30:24
Speaker 1: at last, with tremendous feeling, And then again, my God.
30:31
Speaker 1: Now that this thing was said, her mind was clear
30:34
Speaker 1: and calm. She heard this standard expression of a strong
30:37
Speaker 1: soul wrung with a critical coldness that astonished herself. She
30:42
Speaker 1: realized dimly that there was no personal thing behind his cry,
30:46
Speaker 1: that countless myriads of Manning's had my God with an
30:49
Speaker 1: equal gusto at situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated her
30:54
Speaker 1: remorse enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and
30:58
Speaker 1: conveyed magnificent tragedy by his pose. But why, he said
31:04
Speaker 1: in the gasping voice of one subduing in agony, and
31:07
Speaker 1: looked at her from under a pain wrinkled brow. Why
31:11
Speaker 1: did you not tell me this before? I didn't know.
31:17
Speaker 1: I thought I might be able to control myself, and
31:21
Speaker 1: you can't. I don't think I ought to control myself,
31:26
Speaker 1: and I have been dreaming and thinking. I am frightfully sorry.
31:33
Speaker 1: But this bolt from the blue, my God, and Veronica,
31:38
Speaker 1: you don't understand this. This shatters a world. She tried
31:44
Speaker 1: to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism
31:47
Speaker 1: was strong and clear. He went on with intense urgency.
31:53
Speaker 1: Why did you ever let me love you? Why did
31:56
Speaker 1: you ever let me peep through the gates of paradise?
31:59
Speaker 1: Oh my God, I don't begin to feel and realize
32:02
Speaker 1: this yet it seems to me just talk. It seems
32:06
Speaker 1: to me like the fancy of a dream. Tell me
32:09
Speaker 1: I haven't heard this is a joke of yours. He
32:13
Speaker 1: made his voice very low and full, and looked closely
32:16
Speaker 1: into her face. She twisted her fingers tightly. It isn't
32:22
Speaker 1: a joke, she said. I feel shabby and disgraced. I
32:27
Speaker 1: ought never to have thought of it, of you, I mean.
32:32
Speaker 1: He fell back in his chair with an expression of
32:35
Speaker 1: tremendous desolation. My god, he said again. They became away
32:42
Speaker 1: of the waitress standing over them with book and pencil,
32:45
Speaker 1: ready for their bill. Never mind the bill, said Manning, tragically,
32:50
Speaker 1: standing up and thrusting a four shilling piece into her
32:53
Speaker 1: hand and turning a broad back on her astonishment. Let
32:57
Speaker 1: us walk across the park at least, he said to
33:00
Speaker 1: Anne Veronica. Just at present, my mind simply won't take
33:04
Speaker 1: hold of this at all. I tell you, never mind
33:07
Speaker 1: the bill, keep it, keep it. Part six. They walked
33:16
Speaker 1: a long way that afternoon. They crossed the park to
33:19
Speaker 1: the westward, and then turned back and walked round the
33:22
Speaker 1: circle about the Royal Botanical Gardens, and then southwardly toward Waterloo.
33:28
Speaker 1: They trudged and talked, and Manning struggled, as he said,
33:31
Speaker 1: to get the hang of it all. It was a long,
33:34
Speaker 1: meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and unavoidable. Anne Veronica was apologetic
33:41
Speaker 1: to the bottom of her soul. At the same time,
33:44
Speaker 1: she was wildly exultant at the resolution she had taken,
33:48
Speaker 1: the end she had made to her blunder. She had
33:51
Speaker 1: only to get through this, to solace Manning as much
33:54
Speaker 1: as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his
33:57
Speaker 1: wounds as were possible, and then anyhow she would be free,
34:01
Speaker 1: free to put her fate to the test. She made
34:04
Speaker 1: a few protests, a few excuses for her action in
34:07
Speaker 1: accepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not
34:11
Speaker 1: heed them or care for them. Then she realized that
34:15
Speaker 1: it was her business to let Manning talk and impose
34:18
Speaker 1: his own interpretations upon the situations, so far as he
34:21
Speaker 1: was concerned. She did her best to do this. But
34:25
Speaker 1: about his unknown rival, he was acutely curious. He made
34:30
Speaker 1: her tell him the core of the difficulty. I cannot
34:34
Speaker 1: say who he is, said Anne Veronica. But he is
34:38
Speaker 1: a married man. No, I do not even know that
34:41
Speaker 1: he cares for me. It is no good going into that.
34:45
Speaker 1: Only I just want him. I just want him, and
34:48
Speaker 1: no one else will do. It is no good arguing
34:51
Speaker 1: about a thing like that. But you thought you could
34:55
Speaker 1: forget him. I suppose I must have thought so. I
35:00
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. Now I do, by God, said Manning,
35:06
Speaker 1: making the most of the word. I suppose it's fate. Fate.
35:12
Speaker 1: You are so frank, so splendid. I'm taking this calmly now,
35:18
Speaker 1: he said, almost as if he apologized, because I'm a
35:21
Speaker 1: little stunned. Then he asked, tell me, has this man
35:28
Speaker 1: has he dared to make love to you? And Veronica
35:32
Speaker 1: had a vicious moment. I wish he had, she said,
35:38
Speaker 1: but the long and consecutive conversation by that time was
35:43
Speaker 1: getting on her nerves. When one wants a thing more
35:46
Speaker 1: than anything else in the world, she said, with outrageous frankness,
35:51
Speaker 1: one naturally wishes one had it. She shocked him by that.
35:57
Speaker 1: She shattered the edifice he was building up of himself
35:59
Speaker 1: as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win
36:02
Speaker 1: her from a hopeless and consuming passion. Mister Manning, she said,
36:09
Speaker 1: I warn you not to idealize me. Men ought not
36:12
Speaker 1: to idealize any woman. We aren't worth it. We've done
36:16
Speaker 1: nothing to deserve it, and it hampers us. You don't
36:20
Speaker 1: know the thoughts we have, the things we can do
36:23
Speaker 1: and say. You are a sisterless man. You have never
36:26
Speaker 1: heard the ordinary talk that goes on at a girl's
36:29
Speaker 1: boarding school. Oh but you are splendid and open and fearless.
36:35
Speaker 1: As if I couldn't allow. What are all these little things? Nothing? Nothing?
36:41
Speaker 1: You can't sully yourself. You can't. I tell you, frankly,
36:45
Speaker 1: you may break off your engagement to me. I shall
36:47
Speaker 1: hold myself still engaged to you yours Just the same
36:51
Speaker 1: as for this infatuation, it's like some obsession, some magic
36:56
Speaker 1: thing laid upon you. It's not you, not a bit.
37:00
Speaker 1: It's a thing that's happened to you. It is like
37:03
Speaker 1: some accident. I don't care. In a sense, I don't care.
37:07
Speaker 1: It makes no difference. All the same, I wish I
37:11
Speaker 1: had that fellow by the throat. Just the virile, unregenerate
37:14
Speaker 1: man in me wishes that. I suppose I should let
37:18
Speaker 1: go if I had, You know, he went on. This
37:23
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to me to end anything. I'm rather a
37:27
Speaker 1: persistent person. I'm the sort of dog if you turn
37:31
Speaker 1: it out of the room. It lies down on the
37:32
Speaker 1: mat at the door. I'm not a love sick boy.
37:36
Speaker 1: I'm a man, and I know what I mean. It's
37:38
Speaker 1: a tremendous blow, of course, but it doesn't kill me
37:42
Speaker 1: and the situation it makes, the situation that's Manning egotistical
37:49
Speaker 1: inconsecutive unreal and Anne Veronica walked beside him, trying in
37:55
Speaker 1: vain to soften her heart to him by the thought
37:57
Speaker 1: of how she had ill used him, and all the
38:00
Speaker 1: time as her feet and mind grew weary, together rejoicing
38:04
Speaker 1: more and more that at the cost of this one
38:06
Speaker 1: interminable walk she escaped the prospect of what was it,
38:12
Speaker 1: ten thousand days, ten thousand nights in his company. Whatever happened,
38:17
Speaker 1: she died, never return to that possibility for me. Manning
38:22
Speaker 1: went on, This isn't final in a sense, it alters nothing.
38:27
Speaker 1: I shall still wear your favor, even if it is
38:30
Speaker 1: a stolen and forbidden favor in my cask. I shall
38:34
Speaker 1: still believe in you. Trust you. He repeated several times
38:40
Speaker 1: that he would trust her, though it remained obscure just
38:43
Speaker 1: exactly where the trust came in. Look here, he cried
38:48
Speaker 1: out of a silence, with a sudden flash of understanding.
38:51
Speaker 1: Did you mean to throw me over when you came
38:53
Speaker 1: out with me this afternoon? And Veronica hesitated, and with
38:59
Speaker 1: a startled mind realized the truth. No, she answered reluctantly.
39:07
Speaker 1: Very well, said Manning. Then I don't take this as final.
39:11
Speaker 1: That's all I've bored you or something. You think you
39:15
Speaker 1: love this other man, No doubt you do love him
39:18
Speaker 1: before you have lived. He became darkly prophetic. He thrust
39:24
Speaker 1: out a rhetorical hand. I will make you love me
39:28
Speaker 1: until he has faded, faded into a memory. He saw
39:34
Speaker 1: her into the train at Waterloo and stood a tall,
39:38
Speaker 1: grave figure with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward
39:42
Speaker 1: slowly and hid him, and Veronica sat back with a
39:46
Speaker 1: sigh of relief. Manning might go on now idealizing her
39:50
Speaker 1: as much as he liked. She was no longer confederate
39:53
Speaker 1: in that he might go on as the devoted lover
39:56
Speaker 1: until he tired. She had done forever with the Age
40:00
Speaker 1: of Chivalry and her own base adaptations of its traditions
40:03
Speaker 1: to the compromising life. She was honest again. But when
40:09
Speaker 1: she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park, she perceived the
40:12
Speaker 1: tangled skein of life was now to be further complicated
40:15
Speaker 1: by his romantic importunity. End of Chapter thirteen,