Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story

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ncy dress in her hands and her eyes directe

n minutes than he affected-his sister met him in the hall with a hushed e

e said.

hat b

question was rh

e's dressing

The City had been thoroughly annoying th

ected on this pro

ink she wil

udy. His sister followed. "She can't go now. She'l

of meal with the Widgetts down

old yo

es

he

te

once for all the whole thing?

d me that was her arrangement. I've ne

did yo

onica! how can you th

d t

of tea and some cake, a

one of these days-wa

say she'd

say some more

topic. I said, 'It is no use your telling me about this walk and pretend I've bee

el

to you and father, but I feel

it her

y hands of the whole business. Your

does a girl owe to any one before her father? Obedience to him, that is surely the first law. What CAN she put before that?" His voice began to rise. "One would think I had said n

ter!" cried

ng on the landing up-stairs. Then light footsteps became audible, descend

ley, with an imperious ge

rt

the study and stood watc

the pseudo-Turkish slippers, and baggy silk trousered ends natural to a Corsair's bride, was hidden in a large black-silk-hooded opera-cloak. Beneath the hood it was evident that her reb

, aunt," said

the study and wishe

resence. She spoke with an entirely false note of cheerful off-handedness. "I'm just in time

aid Mr. Stanley, "just a moment.

a less genial, mo

had discussed

all! You are not going out o

er due of masculine respect. "You see," she said, very gently, "I AM going. I am sorry to seem to disobey

he was beside her. "I don't think you can have heard me, Vee," he said,

ords, moved toward the door. Her father intercepted her, and for a moment she and he struggled with thei

Miss Stanley, warn

een these two since long ago he had, in spite of her mother's protest in the background, carried her kicking and sq

other, Ann Veronica and her father began an absurdly desperate struggle, the one to open the door, the other to keep it fastened. She seized the key, and he grasped

Her spirit awoke in dismay to an affection in ruins, to

, recoiled, and turne

went. She gained her room, and slammed her door and

ime walked about the room-a Corsair's bride at a crisis of emotion. "Why ca

rt

which she said: "I WON'T stand i

she had not done for five long years of adolescence-upon the leaded space above the built-out ba

just as she was coming unaided to an adequate realization of this, she discovered Mr. Pragmar, the wholesale druggist, who lived three gardens away, and

tude into her return through the window, and when she was safely in

t describe the affair to him, she cried "Oh!" with renewed vexation, a

rt

ss Stanley tapped at Ann

u up some dinner

ing. She reflected before answering. She was frightfully hungry. She had

and unlocke

njoying their meals. It was her distinctive test of an emotional state, its interference with a kindly normal digestion. Any one very badly moved choked down a few mouthfuls; the symptom of supreme distress was not to be able to touch a bit. So that the thought of Ann Veronica up-stairs had been extrem

in human experience, the kindliness of people you believe to be thorough

happily to the tho

nd on Ann Veronica's shoulder, "I do SO wish

the tray upset, sending a puff of pepper into the air and i

ars on her cheeks, and her brows knitting, "h

y with a concussion

nk! He is your

ronica, speaking through her ha

ocket-handkerchiefs with watery but antagonistic eyes, each

nd turned doorward with features in civil wa

the sense of disaster. She had made her first fight for dignity and freedom as a grown-up and independent Person, and this was how the universe had treated her. It h

for the first time in her