Part 4
The next day her aunt came again and expostulated, and was just
saying it was "an unheard-of thing" for a girl to leave her home
as Ann Veronica had done, when her father arrived, and was shown
in by the pleasant-faced landlady.
Her father had determined on a new line. He put down his hat and
umbrella, rested his hands on his hips, and regarded Ann Veronica
firmly.
"Now," he said, quietly, "it's time we stopped this nonsense."
Ann Veronica was about to reply, when he went on, with a still
more deadly quiet: "I am not here to bandy words with you. Let
us have no more of this humbug. You are to come home."
"I thought I explained--"
"I don't think you can have heard me," said her father; "I have
told you to come home."
"I thought I explained--"
"Come home!"
Ann Veronica shrugged her shoulders.
"Very well," said her father.
"I think this ends the business," he said, turning to his sister.
"It's not for us to supplicate any more. She must learn
wisdom--as God pleases."
"But, my dear Peter!" said Miss Stanley.
"No," said her brother, conclusively, "it's not for a parent to
go on persuading a child."
Miss Stanley rose and regarded Ann Veronica fixedly. The girl
stood with her hands behind her back, sulky, resolute, and
intelligent, a strand of her black hair over one eye and looking
more than usually delicate-featured, and more than ever like an
obdurate child.
"She doesn't know."
"She does."
"I can't imagine what makes you fly out against everything like
this," said Miss Stanley to her niece.
"What is the good of talking?" said her brother. "She must go her
own way. A man's children nowadays are not his own. That's the
fact of the matter. Their minds are turned against him. . . .
Rubbishy novels and pernicious rascals. We can't even protect
them from themselves."
An immense gulf seemed to open between father and daughter as he
said these words.
"I don't see," gasped Ann Veronica, "why parents and children . .
. shouldn't be friends."
"Friends!" said her father. "When we see you going through
disobedience to the devil! Come, Molly, she must go her own way.
I've tried to use my authority. And she defies me. What more is
there to be said? She defies me!"
It was extraordinary. Ann Veronica felt suddenly an effect of
tremendous pathos; she would have given anything to have been
able to frame and make some appeal, some utterance that should
bridge this bottomless chasm that had opened between her and her
father, and she could find nothing whatever to say that was in
the least sincere and appealing.
"Father," she cried, "I have to live!"
He misunderstood her. "That," he said, grimly, with his hand on
the door-handle, "must be your own affair, unless you choose to
live at Morningside Park."
Miss Stanley turned to her. "Vee," she said, "come home. Before
it is too late."
"Come, Molly," said Mr. Stanley, at the door.
"Vee!" said Miss Stanley, "you hear what your father says!"
Miss Stanley struggled with emotion. She made a curious movement
toward her niece, then suddenly, convulsively, she dabbed down
something lumpy on the table and turned to follow her brother.
Ann Veronica stared for a moment in amazement at this dark-green
object that clashed as it was put down. It was a purse. She made
a step forward. "Aunt!" she said, "I can't--"
Then she caught a wild appeal in her aunt's blue eye, halted, and
the door clicked upon them.
There was a pause, and then the front door slammed. . . .
Ann Veronica realized that she was alone with the world. And
this time the departure had a tremendous effect of finality. She
had to resist an impulse of sheer terror, to run out after them
and give in.
"Gods," she said, at last, "I've done it this time!"
"Well!" She took up the neat morocco purse, opened it, and
examined the contents.
It contained three sovereigns, six and fourpence, two postage
stamps, a small key, and her aunt's return half ticket to
Morningside Park.
