by H. G. Wells
"But why," he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, andlooked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, "why did you not tell methis before?"
"I didn't know--I thought I might be able to control myself."
"And you can't?"
"I don't think I ought to control myself."
"And I have been dreaming and thinking--"
"I am frightfully sorry...."
"But--This bolt from the blue! My God! Ann Veronica, you don'tunderstand. This--this shatters a world!"
She tried to feel sorry, but her sense of his immense egotism was strongand clear.
He went on with intense urgency.
"Why did you ever let me love you? Why did you ever let me peep throughthe gates of Paradise? Oh! my God! I don't begin to feel and realizethis yet. It seems to me just talk; it seems to me like the fancy of adream. Tell me I haven't heard. This is a joke of yours." He made hisvoice very low and full, and looked closely into her face.
She twisted her fingers tightly. "It isn't a joke," she said. "I feelshabby and disgraced.... I ought never to have thought of it. Of you,I mean...."
He fell back in his chair with an expression of tremendous desolation."My God!" he said again....
They became aware of the waitress standing over them with book andpencil ready for their bill. "Never mind the bill," said Manningtragically, standing up and thrusting a four-shilling piece into herhand, and turning a broad back on her astonishment. "Let us walk acrossthe Park at least," he said to Ann Veronica. "Just at present my mindsimply won't take hold of this at all.... I tell you--never mind thebill. Keep it! Keep it!"
Part 6
They walked a long way that afternoon. They crossed the Park to thewestward, and then turned back and walked round the circle about theRoyal Botanical Gardens and then southwardly toward Waterloo. Theytrudged and talked, and Manning struggled, as he said, to "get the hangof it all."
It was a long, meandering talk, stupid, shameful, and unavoidable. AnnVeronica was apologetic to the bottom of her soul. At the same time shewas wildly exultant at the resolution she had taken, the end she hadmade to her blunder. She had only to get through this, to solace Manningas much as she could, to put such clumsy plasterings on his wounds aswere possible, and then, anyhow, she would be free--free to put her fateto the test. She made a few protests, a few excuses for her action inaccepting him, a few lame explanations, but he did not heed them or carefor them. Then she realized that it was her business to let Manning talkand impose his own interpretations upon the situation so far as he wasconcerned. She did her best to do this. But about his unknown rival hewas acutely curious.
He made her tell him the core of the difficulty.
"I cannot say who he is," said Ann Veronica, "but he is a marriedman.... No! I do not even know that he cares for me. It is no good goinginto that. Only I just want him. I just want him, and no one else willdo. It is no good arguing about a thing like that."
"But you thought you could forget him."
"I suppose I must have thought so. I didn't understand. Now I do."
"By God!" said Manning, making the most of the word, "I suppose it'sfate. Fate! You are so frank so splendid!
"I'm taking this calmly now," he said, almost as if he apologized,"because I'm a little stunned."
Then he asked, "Tell me! has this man, has he DARED to make love toyou?"
Ann Veronica had a vicious moment. "I wish he had," she said.
"But--"
The long inconsecutive conversation by that time was getting on hernerves. "When one wants a thing more than anything else in the world,"she said with outrageous frankness, "one naturally wishes one had it."
She shocked him by that. She shattered the edifice he was building upof himself as a devoted lover, waiting only his chance to win her from ahopeless and consuming passion.
"Mr. Manning," she said, "I warned you not to idealize me. Men ought notto idealize any woman. We aren't worth it. We've done nothing to deserveit. And it hampers us. You don't know the thoughts we have; the thingswe can do and say. You are a sisterless man; you have never heard theordinary talk that goes on at a girls' boarding-school."
"Oh! but you ARE splendid and open and fearless! As if I couldn't allow!What are all these little things? Nothing! Nothing! You can't sullyyourself. You can't! I tell you frankly you may break off yourengagement to me--I shall hold myself still engaged to you, yours justthe same. As for this infatuation--it's like some obsession, somemagic thing laid upon you. It's not you--not a bit. It's a thing that'shappened to you. It is like some accident. I don't care. In a sense Idon't care. It makes no difference.... All the same, I wish I hadthat fellow by the throat! Just the virile, unregenerate man in mewishes that....
"I suppose I should let go if I had.
"You know," he went on, "this doesn't seem to me to end anything.
"I'm rather a persistent person. I'm the sort of dog, if you turn it outof the room it lies down on the mat at the door. I'm not a lovesickboy. I'm a man, and I know what I mean. It's a tremendous blow, ofcourse--but it doesn't kill me. And the situation it makes!--thesituation!"
Thus Manning, egotistical, inconsecutive, unreal. And Ann Veronicawalked beside him, trying in vain to soften her heart to him by thethought of how she had ill-used him, and all the time, as her feet andmind grew weary together, rejoicing more and more that at the costof this one interminable walk she escaped the prospect of--what wasit?--"Ten thousand days, ten thousand nights" in his company. Whateverhappened she need never return to that possibility.
"For me," Manning went on, "this isn't final. In a sense it altersnothing. I shall still wear your favor--even if it is a stolen andforbidden favor--in my casque.... I shall still believe in you. Trustyou."
He repeated several times that he would trust her, though it remainedobscure just exactly where the trust came in.
"Look here," he cried out of a silence, with a sudden flash ofunderstanding, "did you mean to throw me over when you came out with methis afternoon?"
Ann Veronica hesitated, and with a startled mind realized the truth."No," she answered, reluctantly.
"Very well," said Manning. "Then I don't take this as final. That's all.I've bored you or something.... You think you love this other man! Nodoubt you do love him. Before you have lived--"
He became darkly prophetic. He thrust out a rhetorical hand.
"I will MAKE you love me! Until he has faded--faded into a memory..."
He saw her into the train at Waterloo, and stood, a tall, grave figure,with hat upraised, as the carriage moved forward slowly and hid him.Ann Veronica sat back with a sigh of relief. Manning might go on nowidealizing her as much as he liked. She was no longer a confederate inthat. He might go on as the devoted lover until he tired. She had doneforever with the Age of Chivalry, and her own base adaptations of itstraditions to the compromising life. She was honest again.
But when she turned her thoughts to Morningside Park she perceived thetangled skein of life was now to be further complicated by his romanticimportunity.
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENITENT
Part 1
Spring had held back that year until the dawn of May, and then springand summer came with a rush together. Two days after this conversationbetween Manning and Ann Veronica, Capes came into the laboratory atlunch-time and found her alone there standing by the open window, andnot even pretending to be doing anything.
He came in with his hands in his trousers pockets and a general airof depression in his bearing. He was engaged in detesting Manning andhimself in almost equal measure. His face brightened at the sight ofher, and he came toward her.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Nothing," said Ann Veronica, and stared over her shoulder out of thewindow.
"So am I.... Lassitude?"
"I suppose so."
"_I_ can't work."
"Nor I," said Ann Veronica.
Pause.
; "It's the spring," he said. "It's the warming up of the year, the comingof the light mornings, the way in which everything begins to run aboutand begin new things. Work becomes distasteful; one thinks of holidays.This year--I've got it badly. I want to get away. I've never wanted toget away so much."
"Where do you go?"
"Oh!--Alps."
"Climbing?"
"Yes."
"That's rather a fine sort of holiday!"
He made no answer for three or four seconds.
"Yes," he said, "I want to get away. I feel at moments as though I couldbolt for it.... Silly, isn't it? Undisciplined."
He went to the window and fidgeted with the blind, looking out to wherethe tree-tops of Regent's Park showed distantly over the houses. Heturned round toward her and found her looking at him and standing verystill.
"It's the stir of spring," he said.
"I believe it is."
She glanced out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth ofhard spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild resolution,and, lest she should waver from it, she set about at once to realize it."I've broken off my engagement," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, andfound her heart thumping in her neck. He moved slightly, and shewent on, with a slight catching of her breath: "It's a bother anddisturbance, but you see--" She had to go through with it now, becauseshe could think of nothing but her preconceived words. Her voice wasweak and flat.
"I've fallen in love."
He never helped her by a sound.
"I--I didn't love the man I was engaged to," she said. She met his eyesfor a moment, and could not interpret their expression. They struck heras cold and indifferent.
Her heart failed her and her resolution became water. She remainedstanding stiffly, unable even to move. She could not look at him throughan interval that seemed to her a vast gulf of time. But she felt his laxfigure become rigid.
At last his voice came to release her tension.
"I thought you weren't keeping up to the mark. You--It's jolly of you toconfide in me. Still--" Then, with incredible and obviously deliberatestupidity, and a voice as flat as her own, he asked, "Who is the man?"
Her spirit raged within her at the dumbness, the paralysis that hadfallen upon her. Grace, confidence, the power of movement even, seemedgone from her. A fever of shame ran through her being. Horrible doubtsassailed her. She sat down awkwardly and helplessly on one of the littlestools by her table and covered her face with her hands.
"Can't you SEE how things are?" she said.
Part 2
Before Capes could answer her in any way the door at the end of thelaboratory opened noisily and Miss Klegg appeared. She went to her owntable and sat down. At the sound of the door Ann Veronica uncovereda tearless face, and with one swift movement assumed a conversationalattitude. Things hung for a moment in an awkward silence.
"You see," said Ann Veronica, staring before her at the window-sash,"that's the form my question takes at the present time."
Capes had not quite the same power of recovery. He stood with hishands in his pockets looking at Miss Klegg's back. His face was white."It's--it's a difficult question." He appeared to be paralyzed byabstruse acoustic calculations. Then, very awkwardly, he took a stooland placed it at the end of Ann Veronica's table, and sat down. Heglanced at Miss Klegg again, and spoke quickly and furtively, with eagereyes on Ann Veronica's face.
"I had a faint idea once that things were as you say they are, but theaffair of the ring--of the unexpected ring--puzzled me. Wish SHE"--heindicated Miss Klegg's back with a nod--"was at the bottom of thesea.... I would like to talk to you about this--soon. If you don't thinkit would be a social outrage, perhaps I might walk with you to yourrailway station."
"I will wait," said Ann Veronica, still not looking at him, "and we willgo into Regent's Park. No--you shall come with me to Waterloo."
"Right!" he said, and hesitated, and then got up and went into thepreparation-room.
Part 3
For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that leadsouthward from the College. Capes bore a face of infinite perplexity.
"The thing I feel most disposed to say, Miss Stanley," he began at last,"is that this is very sudden."
"It's been coming on since first I came into the laboratory."
"What do you want?" he asked, bluntly.
"You!" said Ann Veronica.
The sense of publicity, of people coming and going about them, keptthem both unemotional. And neither had any of that theatricality whichdemands gestures and facial expression.
"I suppose you know I like you tremendously?" he pursued.
"You told me that in the Zoological Gardens."
She found her muscles a-tremble. But there was nothing in her bearingthat a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the excitement thatpossessed her.
"I"--he seemed to have a difficulty with the word--"I love you. I'vetold you that practically already. But I can give it its name now. Youneedn't be in any doubt about it. I tell you that because it puts us ona footing...."
They went on for a time without another word.
"But don't you know about me?" he said at last.
"Something. Not much."
"I'm a married man. And my wife won't live with me for reasons that Ithink most women would consider sound.... Or I should have made loveto you long ago."
There came a silence again.
"I don't care," said Ann Veronica.
"But if you knew anything of that--"
"I did. It doesn't matter."
"Why did you tell me? I thought--I thought we were going to be friends."
He was suddenly resentful. He seemed to charge her with the ruin oftheir situation. "Why on earth did you TELL me?" he cried.
"I couldn't help it. It was an impulse. I HAD to."
"But it changes things. I thought you understood."
"I had to," she repeated. "I was sick of the make-believe. I don't care!I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did."
"Look here!" said Capes, "what on earth do you want? What do you thinkwe can do? Don't you know what men are, and what life is?--to come to meand talk to me like this!"
"I know--something, anyhow. But I don't care; I haven't a spark ofshame. I don't see any good in life if it hasn't got you in it. I wantedyou to know. And now you know. And the fences are down for good. Youcan't look me in the eyes and say you don't care for me."
"I've told you," he said.
"Very well," said Ann Veronica, with an air of concluding thediscussion.
They walked side by side for a time.
"In that laboratory one gets to disregard these passions," began Capes."Men are curious animals, with a trick of falling in love readilywith girls about your age. One has to train one's self not to. I'veaccustomed myself to think of you--as if you were like every othergirl who works at the schools--as something quite outside thesepossibilities. If only out of loyalty to co-education one has to dothat. Apart from everything else, this meeting of ours is a breach of agood rule."
"Rules are for every day," said Ann Veronica. "This is not every day.This is something above all rules."
"For you."
"Not for you?"
"No. No; I'm going to stick to the rules.... It's odd, but nothingbut cliche seems to meet this case. You've placed me in a veryexceptional position, Miss Stanley." The note of his own voiceexasperated him. "Oh, damn!" he said.
She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems withhimself.
"No!" he said aloud at last.
"The plain common-sense of the case," he said, "is that we can'tpossibly be lovers in the ordinary sense. That, I think, is manifest.You know, I've done no work at all this afternoon. I've been smokingcigarettes in the preparation-room and thinking this out. We can't belovers in the ordinary sense, but we can be great and intimate friends."
"We are," said Ann Veronica.
"You've interested me enormously...."
He paused with a sense of
ineptitude. "I want to be your friend," hesaid. "I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let us be friends--as nearand close as friends can be."
Ann Veronica gave him a pallid profile.
"What is the good of pretending?" she said.
"We don't pretend."
"We do. Love is one thing and friendship quite another. Because I'myounger than you.... I've got imagination.... I know what I amtalking about. Mr. Capes, do you think... do you think I don't knowthe meaning of love?"
Part 4
Capes made no answer for a time.
"My mind is full of confused stuff," he said at length. "I've beenthinking--all the afternoon. Oh, and weeks and months of thought andfeeling there are bottled up too.... I feel a mixture of beast anduncle. I feel like a fraudulent trustee. Every rule is against me--Whydid I let you begin this? I might have told--"
"I don't see that you could help--"
"I might have helped--"
"You couldn't."
"I ought to have--all the same.
"I wonder," he said, and went off at a tangent. "You know about myscandalous past?"
"Very little. It doesn't seem to matter. Does it?"