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They were in the elder Widgett girl's bedroom; Hetty was laid up,
she said, with a sprained ankle, and a miscellaneous party was
gossiping away her tedium. It was a large, littered,
self-forgetful apartment, decorated with unframed charcoal
sketches by various incipient masters; and an open bookcase,
surmounted by plaster casts and the half of a human skull,
displayed an odd miscellany of books--Shaw and Swinburne, Tom
Jones, Fabian Essays, Pope and Dumas, cheek by jowl. Constance
Widgett's abundant copper-red hair was bent down over some dimly
remunerative work--stencilling in colors upon rough, white
material--at a kitchen table she had dragged up-stairs for the
purpose, while on her bed there was seated a slender lady of
thirty or so in a dingy green dress, whom Constance had
introduced with a wave of her hand as Miss Miniver. Miss Miniver
looked out on the world through large emotional blue eyes that
were further magnified by the glasses she wore, and her nose was
pinched and pink, and her mouth was whimsically petulant. Her
glasses moved quickly as her glance travelled from face to face.
She seemed bursting with the desire to talk, and watching for her
opportunity. On her lapel was an ivory button, bearing the words
"Votes for Women." Ann Veronica sat at the foot of the
sufferer's bed, while Teddy Widgett, being something of an
athlete, occupied the only bed-room chair--a decadent piece,
essentially a tripod and largely a formality--and smoked
cigarettes, and tried to conceal the fact that he was looking all
the time at Ann Veronica's eyebrows. Teddy was the hatless young
man who had turned Ann Veronica aside from the Avenue two days
before. He was the junior of both his sisters, co-educated and
much broken in to feminine society. A bowl of roses, just
brought by Ann Veronica, adorned the communal dressing-table, and
Ann Veronica was particularly trim in preparation for a call she
was to make with her aunt later in the afternoon.
Ann Veronica decided to be more explicit. "I've been," she said,
"forbidden to come."
"Hul-LO!" said Hetty, turning her head on the pillow; and Teddy
remarked with profound emotion, "My God!"
"Yes," said Ann Veronica, "and that complicates the situation."
"Auntie?" asked Constance, who was conversant with Ann Veronica's
affairs.
"No! My father. It's--it's a serious prohibition."
"Why?" asked Hetty.
"That's the point. I asked him why, and he hadn't a reason."
"YOU ASKED YOUR FATHER FOR A REASON!" said Miss Miniver, with
great intensity.
"Yes. I tried to have it out with him, but he wouldn't have it
out. "Ann Veronica reflected for an instant "That's why I think
I ought to come."
"You asked your father for a reason!" Miss Miniver repeated.
"We always have things out with OUR father, poor dear!" said
Hetty. "He's got almost to like it."
"Men," said Miss Miniver, "NEVER have a reason. Never! And they
don't know it! They have no idea of it. It's one of their worst
traits, one of their very worst."
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