Ann Veronica Read Free Page B

there
is any harm in you; there is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil
but by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do
her as serious an injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please
believe that in this matter I am acting for the best."
    He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door and
called "Mollie!" and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the
hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire.
    His sister appeared.
    She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all lace
and work and confused patternings of black and purple and cream about
the body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine version of the
same theme as himself. She had the same sharp nose—which, indeed, only
Ann Veronica, of all the family, had escaped. She carried herself well,
whereas her brother slouched, and there was a certain aristocratic
dignity about her that she had acquired through her long engagement to
a curate of family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died
before they married, and when her brother became a widower she had
come to his assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest
daughter. But from the first her rather old-fashioned conception of life
had jarred with the suburban atmosphere, the High School spirit and the
memories of the light and little Mrs. Stanley, whose family had been by
any reckoning inconsiderable—to use the kindliest term. Miss Stanley
had determined from the outset to have the warmest affection for her
youngest niece and to be a second mother in her life—a second and a
better one; but she had found much to battle with, and there was much in
herself that Ann Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an
air of reserved solicitude.
    Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from his
jacket pocket. "What do you think of that?" he asked.
    She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. He
filled his pipe slowly.
    "Yes," she said at last, "it is firm and affectionate."
    "I could have said more."
    "You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me exactly
what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair."
    She paused, and he waited for her to speak.
    "I don't think she quite sees the harm of those people or the sort of
life to which they would draw her," she said. "They would spoil every
chance."
    "She has chances?" he said, helping her out.
    "She is an extremely attractive girl," she said; and added, "to some
people. Of course, one doesn't like to talk about things until there are
things to talk about."
    "All the more reason why she shouldn't get herself talked about."
    "That is exactly what I feel."
    Mr. Stanley took the letter and stood with it in his hand thoughtfully
for a time. "I'd give anything," he remarked, "to see our little Vee
happily and comfortably married."
    He gave the note to the parlormaid the next morning in an inadvertent,
casual manner just as he was leaving the house to catch his London
train. When Ann Veronica got it she had at first a wild, fantastic idea
that it contained a tip.
Part 5
    Ann Veronica's resolve to have things out with her father was not
accomplished without difficulty.
    He was not due from the City until about six, and so she went and played
Badminton with the Widgett girls until dinner-time. The atmosphere at
dinner was not propitious. Her aunt was blandly amiable above a certain
tremulous undertow, and talked as if to a caller about the alarming
spread of marigolds that summer at the end of the garden, a sort of
Yellow Peril to all the smaller hardy annuals, while her father brought
some papers to table and presented himself as preoccupied with them. "It
really seems as if we shall have to put down marigolds altogether next
year," Aunt Molly repeated three times, "and do away with marguerites.
They seed beyond all reason." Elizabeth, the parlormaid, kept coming in
to hand vegetables whenever there