f
breath, his innocent face flushed, his straw-colored hair disordered. He
was out of breath, and spoke in broken sentences.

"I say, Vee. Half a minute, Vee. It's like this: You want freedom. Look
here. You know--if you want freedom. Just an idea of mine. You know
how those Russian students do? In Russia. Just a formal marriage. Mere
formality. Liberates the girl from parental control. See? You marry me.
Simply. No further responsibility whatever. Without hindrance--present
occupation. Why not? Quite willing. Get a license--just an idea of mine.
Doesn't matter a bit to me. Do anything to please you, Vee. Anything.
Not fit to be dust on your boots. Still--there you are!"

He paused.

Ann Veronica's desire to laugh unrestrainedly was checked by the
tremendous earnestness of his expression. "Awfully good of you, Teddy."
she said.

He nodded silently, too full for words.

"But I don't see," said Ann Veronica, "just how it fits the present
situation."

"No! Well, I just suggested it. Threw it out. Of course, if at any
time--see reason--alter your opinion. Always at your service. No
offence, I hope. All right! I'm off. Due to play hockey. Jackson's.
Horrid snorters! So long, Vee! Just suggested it. See? Nothing really.
Passing thought."

"Teddy," said Ann Veronica, "you're a dear!"

"Oh, quite!" said Teddy, convulsively, and lifted an imaginary hat and
left her.

Part 3

The call Ann Veronica paid with her aunt that afternoon had at first
much the same relation to the Widgett conversation that a plaster statue
of Mr. Gladstone would have to a carelessly displayed interior on a
dissecting-room table. The Widgetts talked with a remarkable absence of
external coverings; the Palsworthys found all the meanings of life on
its surfaces. They seemed the most wrapped things in all Ann Veronica's
wrappered world. The Widgett mental furniture was perhaps worn and
shabby, but there it was before you, undisguised, fading visibly in an
almost pitiless sunlight. Lady Palsworthy was the widow of a knight
who had won his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was of good
seventeenth-century attorney blood, a county family, and distantly
related to Aunt Mollie's deceased curate. She was the social leader of
Morningside Park, and in her superficial and euphuistic way an extremely
kind and pleasant woman. With her lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of
the Morningside Park doctor, and a very active and useful member of the
Commi