Page:Ann Veronica, a modern love story.djvu/41

 "Why shouldn't I go?"

"It isn't a suitable place; it isn't a suitable gathering."

"But, daddy, what do you know of the place and the gathering?"

"And it's entirely out of order; it isn't right, it isn't correct; it's impossible for you to stay in an hotel in London—the idea is preposterous. I can't imagine what possessed you, Veronica."

He put his head on one side, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and looked at her over his glasses.

"But why is it preposterous?" asked Ann Veronica, and fiddled with a pipe on the mantel.

"Surely!" he remarked, with an expression of worried appeal.

"You see, daddy, I don't think it is preposterous. That's really what I want to discuss. It comes to this—am I to be trusted to take care of myself, or am I not?"

"To judge from this proposal of yours, I should say not."

"I think I am."

"As long as you remain under my roof—" he began, and paused.

"You are going to treat me as though I wasn't. Well, I don't think that's fair."

"Your ideas of fairness—" he remarked, and discontinued that sentence. "My dear girl," he said, in a tone of patient reasonableness, "you are a mere child. You know nothing of life, nothing of its dangers, nothing of its possibilities. You think everything is harmless and simple, and so forth.  It isn't.  It isn't.  That's where you go wrong.  In some things, in many things, you must