Part 6

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Ann Veronica meditated. She had had two days of employment-seeking now. "I wonder if it is."

"It isn't," said Mr. Manning, "that I mind Courage in a Woman--I love and admire Courage. What could be more splendid than a beautiful girl facing a great, glorious tiger? Una and the Lion again, and all that! But this isn't that sort of thing; this is just a great, ugly, endless wilderness of selfish, sweating, vulgar competition!"

"That you want to keep me out of?"

"Exactly!" said Mr. Manning.

"In a sort of beautiful garden-close--wearing lovely dresses and picking beautiful flowers?"

"Ah! If one could!"

"While those other girls trudge to business and those other women let lodgings. And in reality even that magic garden-close resolves itself into a villa at Morningside Park and my father being more and more cross and overbearing at meals--and a general feeling of insecurity and futility."

Mr. Manning relinquished his cup, and looked meaningly at Ann Veronica. "There," he said, "you don't treat me fairly, Miss Stanley. My garden-close would be a better thing than that."