Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells Read Free Book Online Page B

Veronica was full of amiable
intention. "Splendid you are looking to-day, Miss Stanley," he said.
"How well and jolly you must be feeling."
    He beamed over the effect of this and shook hands with effusion, and
Lady Palsworthy suddenly appeared as his confederate and disentangled
the vicar's aunt.
    "I love this warm end of summer more than words can tell," he said.
"I've tried to make words tell it. It's no good. Mild, you know, and
boon. You want music."
    Ann Veronica agreed, and tried to make the manner of her assent cover a
possible knowledge of a probable poem.
    "Splendid it must be to be a composer. Glorious! The Pastoral.
Beethoven; he's the best of them. Don't you think? Tum, tay, tum, tay."
    Ann Veronica did.
    "What have you been doing since our last talk? Still cutting up
rabbits and probing into things? I've often thought of that talk of
ours—often."
    He did not appear to require any answer to his question.
    "Often," he repeated, a little heavily.
    "Beautiful these autumn flowers are," said Ann Veronica, in a wide,
uncomfortable pause.
    "Do come and see the Michaelmas daisies at the end of the garden," said
Mr. Manning, "they're a dream." And Ann Veronica found herself being
carried off to an isolation even remoter and more conspicuous than the
corner of the lawn, with the whole of the party aiding and abetting and
glancing at them. "Damn!" said Ann Veronica to herself, rousing herself
for a conflict.
    Mr. Manning told her he loved beauty, and extorted a similar admission
from her; he then expatiated upon his own love of beauty. He said that
for him beauty justified life, that he could not imagine a good action
that was not a beautiful one nor any beautiful thing that could be
altogether bad. Ann Veronica hazarded an opinion that as a matter of
history some very beautiful people had, to a quite considerable extent,
been bad, but Mr. Manning questioned whether when they were bad they
were really beautiful or when they were beautiful bad. Ann Veronica
found her attention wandering a little as he told her that he was not
ashamed to feel almost slavish in the presence of really beautiful
people, and then they came to the Michaelmas daisies. They were really
very fine and abundant, with a blaze of perennial sunflowers behind
them.
    "They make me want to shout," said Mr. Manning, with a sweep of the arm.
    "They're very good this year," said Ann Veronica, avoiding controversial
matter.
    "Either I want to shout," said Mr. Manning, "when I see beautiful
things, or else I want to weep." He paused and looked at her, and said,
with a sudden drop into a confidential undertone, "Or else I want to
pray."
    "When is Michaelmas Day?" said Ann Veronica, a little abruptly.
    "Heaven knows!" said Mr. Manning; and added, "the twenty-ninth."
    "I thought it was earlier," said Ann Veronica. "Wasn't Parliament to
reassemble?"
    He put out his hand and leaned against a tree and crossed his legs.
"You're not interested in politics?" he asked, almost with a note of
protest.
    "Well, rather," said Ann Veronica. "It seems—It's interesting."
    "Do you think so? I find my interest in that sort of thing decline and
decline."
    "I'm curious. Perhaps because I don't know. I suppose an intelligent
person OUGHT to be interested in political affairs. They concern us
all."
    "I wonder," said Mr. Manning, with a baffling smile.
    "I think they do. After all, they're history in the making."
    "A sort of history," said Mr. Manning; and repeated, "a sort of history.
But look at these glorious daisies!"
    "But don't you think political questions ARE important?"
    "I don't think they are this afternoon, and I don't think they are to
you."
    Ann Veronica turned her back on the Michaelmas daisies, and faced toward
the house with an air of a duty completed.
    "Just come to that seat now you are here, Miss Stanley, and look down
the other path; there's a vista of just the common sort. Better even
than these."
    Ann Veronica walked as he indicated.
    "You know I'm