Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/279

 so rich to the stall as to command all that it had to offer. Every one has to make a deal with the world.

It would be very good to be Capes' friend.

She might be able to go on with biology, possibly even work upon the same questions that he dealt with....

Perhaps her granddaughter might marry his grandson....

It grew clear to her that throughout all her wild raid for independence she had done nothing for anybody, and many people had done things for her. She thought of her aunt and that purse that was dropped on the table, and of many troublesome and ill-requited kindnesses; she thought of the help of the Widgetts, of Teddy's admiration; she thought, with a new-born charity, of her father, of Manning's conscientious unselfishness, of Miss Miniver's devotion.

"And for me it has been Pride and Pride and Pride!

"I am the prodigal daughter. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him—

"I suppose pride and self-assertion are sin? Sinned against heaven—Yes, I have sinned against heaven and before thee....

"Poor old daddy! I wonder if he'll spend much on the fatted calf?...

"The wrappered life-discipline! One comes to that at last. I begin to understand Jane Austen and chintz covers and decency and refinement and all the rest of it. One puts gloves on one's greedy fingers. One learns to sit up...

"And somehow or other," she added, after a long interval, "I must pay Mr. Ramage back his forty pounds."