s her aunt put
this aspect and that of her flight to her, as she wandered illogically
and inconsistently from one urgent consideration to another, as she
mingled assurances and aspects and emotions, it became clearer and
clearer to the girl that there could be little or no change in the
position of things if she returned. "And what will Mr. Manning think?"
said her aunt.

"I don't care what any one thinks," said Ann Veronica.

"I can't imagine what has come over you," said her aunt. "I can't
conceive what you want. You foolish girl!"

Ann Veronica took that in silence. At the back of her mind, dim and yet
disconcerting, was the perception that she herself did not know what she
wanted. And yet she knew it was not fair to call her a foolish girl.

"Don't you care for Mr. Manning?" said her aunt.

"I don't see what he has to do with my coming to London?"

"He--he worships the ground you tread on. You don't deserve it, but he
does. Or at least he did the day before yesterday. And here you are!"

Her aunt opened all the fingers of her gloved hand in a rhetorical
gesture. "It seems to me all madness--madness! Just because your
father--wouldn't let you disobey him!"

Part 3

In the afternoon the task of expostulation was taken up by Mr. Stanley
in person. Her father's ideas of expostulation were a little harsh and
forcible, and over the claret-colored table-cloth and under the gas
chandelier, with his hat and umbrella between them like the mace in
Parliament, he and his daughter contrived to have a violent quarrel. She
had intended to be quietly dignified, but he was in a smouldering rage
from the beginning, and began by assuming, which alone was more than
flesh and blood could stand, that the insurrection was over and that she
was coming home submissively. In his desire to be emphatic and to avenge
himself for his over-night distresses, he speedily became brutal, more
brutal than she had ever known him before.

"A nice time of anxiety you've given me, young lady," he said, as he
entered the room. "I hope you're satisfied."

She was frightened--his anger always did frighten her--and in her
resolve to conceal her fright she carried a queen-like dignity to what
she felt even at the time was a preposterous pitch. She said she hoped
she had not distressed him by the course she had felt obliged to take,
and he told her not to be a fool. She tried to keep her side up by
declaring that he had put her into an imposs