Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/346



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 any more. I—In fact, I dislike him extremely."

"Suppose he comes and talks to me?"

"A girl can always keep a man at a distance if she cares to do it. She—She can snub him."

Ann Veronica picked a cornflower.

"I wouldn't make this objection," Mr. Stanley went on, "but there are things—there are stories about Ramage. He's—He lives in a world of possibilities outside your imagination. His treatment of his wife is most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. A bad man, in fact. A dissipated, loose-living man."

"I'll try not to see him again," said Ann Veronica. "I didn't know you objected to him, daddy."

"Strongly," said Mr. Stanley, "very strongly."