Part 4
It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in
Ann Veronica's thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and,
at last, strides to something more and more like predominance.
She began by being interested in his demonstrations and his
biological theory, then she was attracted by his character, and
then, in a manner, she fell in love with his mind.
One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion
sprang up about the question of women's suffrage. The movement
was then in its earlier militant phases, and one of the women
only, Miss Garvice, opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed
to be lukewarm. But a man's opposition always inclined her to
the suffrage side; she had a curious feeling of loyalty in seeing
the more aggressive women through. Capes was irritatingly
judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in which case
one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but tepidly
sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous
attack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost
something infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of
life. The discussion wandered, and was punctuated with bread and
butter. Capes was inclined to support Miss Klegg until Miss
Garvice cornered him by quoting him against himself, and citing a
recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in which, following
Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack on Lester
Ward's case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant
importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom.
Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher;
she had a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice's advantage.
Afterwards she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed
to her quite delightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift
of easy, unaffected writing, coupled with very clear and logical
thinking, and to follow his written thought gave her the
sensation of cutting things with a perfectly new, perfectly sharp
knife. She found herself anxious to read more of him, and the
next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and hunted first
among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then through
various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The
ordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing,
is apt to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was
delighted to find the same easy and confident luminosity that
distinguished his work for the general reader. She returned to
these latter, and at the back of her mind, as she looked them
over again, was a very distinct resolve to quote them after the
manner of Miss Garvice at the very first opportunity.
When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with
something like surprise upon her half-day's employment, and
decided that it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was
a really very interesting person indeed.
And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he
was so distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to
her for some time that this might be because she was falling in
love with him.
