ty from her; at times he was threatening her
with her check and exposure; at times he was boasting of his inflexible
will, and how, in the end, he always got what he wanted. He said that
his life was boring and stupid without her. Something or other--she
did not catch what--he was damned if he could stand. He was evidently
nervous, and very anxious to be impressive; his projecting eyes sought
to dominate. The crowning aspect of the incident, for her mind, was the
discovery that he and her indiscretion with him no longer mattered very
much. Its importance had vanished with her abandonment of compromise.
Even her debt to him was a triviality now.

And of course! She had a brilliant idea. It surprised her she hadn't
thought of it before! She tried to explain that she was going to pay
him forty pounds without fail next week. She said as much to him. She
repeated this breathlessly.

"I was glad you did not send it back again," he said.

He touched a long-standing sore, and Ann Veronica found herself vainly
trying to explain--the inexplicable. "It's because I mean to send it
back altogether," she said.

He ignored her protests in order to pursue some impressive line of his
own.

"Here we are, living in the same suburb," he began. "We have to
be--modern."

Her heart leaped within her as she caught that phrase. That knot also
would be cut. Modern, indeed! She was going to be as primordial as
chipped flint.

Part 2

In the late afternoon, as Ann Veronica was gathering flowers for the
dinner-table, her father came strolling across the lawn toward her with
an affectation of great deliberation.

"I want to speak to you about a little thing, Vee," said Mr. Stanley.

Ann Veronica's tense nerves started, and she stood still with her eyes
upon him, wondering what it might be that impended.

"You were talking to that fellow Ramage to-day--in the Avenue. Walking
to the station with him."

So that was it!

"He came and talked to me."

"Ye--e--es." Mr. Stanley considered. "Well, I don't want you to talk to
him," he said, very firmly.

Ann Veronica paused before she answered. "Don't you think I ought to?"
she asked, very submissively.

"No." Mr. Stanley coughed and faced toward the house. "He is not--I
don't like him. I think it inadvisable--I don't want an intimacy to
spring up between you and a man of that type."

Ann Veronica reflected. "I HAVE--had one or two talks with him, daddy."

"Don't let there be an