ANN VERONICA
"It seems to me it comes to earning one's living in the long run," said Ann Veronica, coloring faintly. "Until a girl can go away as a son does and earn her independent income, she's still on a string. It may be a long string, long enough if you like to tangle up all sorts of people; but there it is! If the paymaster pulls, home she must go. That's what I mean."
Mr. Ramage admitted the force of that. He was a little impressed by Ann Veronica's metaphor of the string, which, indeed, she owed to Hetty Widgett. "You wouldn't like to be independent?" he asked, abruptly. "I mean really independent. On your own. It isn't such fun as it seems."
"Every one wants to be independent," said Ann Veronica. "Every one. Man or woman."
"And you?"
"Rather!"
"I wonder why?"
"There's no why. It's just to feel—one owns one's self."
"Nobody does that," said Ramage, and kept silence for a moment.
"But a boy—a boy goes out into the world and presently stands on his own feet. He buys his own clothes, chooses his own company, makes his own way of living."
"You'd like to do that?"
"Exactly."
"Would you like to be a boy?"
"I wonder! It's out of the question, any way."
Ramage reflected. "Why don't you?"
"Well, it might mean rather a row."
"I know—" said Ramage, with sympathy.
80
