Part 3
For a time they walked in silence through the back streets that
lead southward 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,
kept them both unemotional. And neither had any of that
theatricality which demands 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
bearing that a passer-by would have noted, to tell of the
excitement that possessed her.
"I"--he seemed to have a difficulty with the word--"I love you.
I've told you that practically already. But I can give it its
name now. You needn't be in any doubt about it. I tell you that
because it puts us on a 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 I think most women would consider sound. . . . Or I should
have made love to 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
of their 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
think we can do? Don't you know what men are, and what life
is?--to come to me and talk to me like this!"
"I know--something, anyhow. But I don't care; I haven't a spark
of shame. I don't see any good in life if it hasn't got you in
it. I wanted you to know. And now you know. And the fences are
down for good. You can'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 the
discussion.
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
readily with girls about your age. One has to train one's self
not to. I've accustomed myself to think of you--as if you were
like every other girl who works at the schools--as something
quite outside these possibilities. If only out of loyalty to co-
education one has to do that. Apart from everything else, this
meeting of ours is a breach of a good 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
nothing but cliche seems to meet this case. You've placed me in a
very exceptional position, Miss Stanley." The note of his own
voice exasperated him. "Oh, damn!" he said.
She made no answer, and for a time he debated some problems with
himself.
"No!" he said aloud at last.
"The plain common-sense of the case," he said, "is that we can't
possibly 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 smoking cigarettes in the preparation-room and thinking
this out. We can't be lovers 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," he said. "I said that at the Zoo, and I mean it. Let
us be friends--as near and 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'm younger than you. . . . I've got imagination. . . . I know
what I am talking about. Mr. Capes, do you think . . . do you
think I don't know the meaning of love?"
