Ann Veronica Read Online Free PDF Page A

imaginations. And in that
respect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think
we ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other.
They're too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom.
That's my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? The
apple-tart's been very good lately—very good!"
Part 7
    At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!"
    Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave
deliberation; "If there is anything you want to say to me," he said,
"you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and
then I shall go to the study. I don't see what you can have to say. I
should have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers
I have to look through to-night—important papers."
    "I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica.
    "I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on
the table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee shouldn't
discuss this little affair—whatever it is—without bothering me."
    It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all
three of them were shy by habit.
    He stopped in mid-sentence, and Ann Veronica opened the door for her
aunt. The air was thick with feelings. Her aunt went out of the room
with dignity and a rustle, and up-stairs to the fastness of her own
room. She agreed entirely with her brother. It distressed and confused
her that the girl should not come to her.
    It seemed to show a want of affection, to be a deliberate and unmerited
disregard, to justify the reprisal of being hurt.
    When Ann Veronica came into the study she found every evidence of a
carefully foreseen grouping about the gas fire. Both arm-chairs had been
moved a little so as to face each other on either side of the
fender, and in the circular glow of the green-shaded lamp there lay,
conspicuously waiting, a thick bundle of blue and white papers tied
with pink tape. Her father held some printed document in his hand,
and appeared not to observe her entry. "Sit down," he said, and
perused—"perused" is the word for it—for some moments. Then he put
the paper by. "And what is it all about, Veronica?" he asked, with a
deliberate note of irony, looking at her a little quizzically over his
glasses.
    Ann Veronica looked bright and a little elated, and she disregarded
her father's invitation to be seated. She stood on the mat instead, and
looked down on him. "Look here, daddy," she said, in a tone of great
reasonableness, "I MUST go to that dance, you know."
    Her father's irony deepened. "Why?" he asked, suavely.
    Her answer was not quite ready. "Well, because I don't see any reason
why I shouldn't."
    "You see I do."
    "Why shouldn't I go?"
    "It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering."
    "But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?"
    "And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't correct;
it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London—the idea is
preposterous. I can't imagine what possessed you, Veronica."
    He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and
looked at her over his glasses.
    "But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a
pipe on the mantel.
    "Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal.
    "You see, daddy, I don't think it IS preposterous. That's really what
I want to discuss. It comes to this—am I to be trusted to take care of
myself, or am I not?"
    "To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not."
    "I think I am."
    "As long as you remain under my roof—" he began, and paused.
    "You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't think
that's fair."
    "Your ideas of fairness—" he remarked, and discontinued that sentence.
"My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, "you are a
mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of
its possibilities. You think