Part 5

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"Then I didn't waste my time in prison altogether?"

"It wasn't the prison impressed me. But I liked the things you said here. I felt suddenly I understood you--as an intelligent person. If you'll forgive my saying that, and implying what goes with it. There's something--puppyish in a man's usual attitude to women. That is what I've had on my conscience. . . . I don't think we're altogether to blame if we don't take some of your lot seriously. Some of your sex, I mean. But we smirk a little, I'm afraid, habitually when we talk to you. We smirk, and we're a bit--furtive."

He paused, with his eyes studying her gravely. "You, anyhow, don't deserve it," he said.

Their colloquy was ended abruptly by the apparition of Miss Klegg at the further door. When she saw Ann Veronica she stood for a moment as if entranced, and then advanced with outstretched hands. "Veronique!" she cried with a rising intonation, though never before had she called Ann Veronica anything but Miss Stanley, and seized her and squeezed her and kissed her with profound emotion. "To think that you were going to do it--and never said a word! You are a little thin, but except for that you look--you look better than ever. Was it VERY horrible? I tried to get into the police-court, but the crowd was ever so much too big, push as I would. . . .

"I mean to go to prison directly the session is over," said Miss Klegg. "Wild horses--not if they have all the mounted police in London--shan't keep me out."