"You see, father," she said, "it isn't only this affair of the
dance. I want to go to that because it's a new experience,
because I think it will be interesting and give me a view of
things. You say I know nothing. That's probably true. But how
am I to know of things?"
"Some things I hope you may never know," he said.
"I'm not so sure. I want to know--just as much as I can."
"Tut!" he said, fuming, and put out his hand to the papers in the
pink tape.
"Well, I do. It's just that I want to say. I want to be a human
being; I want to learn about things and know about things, and
not to be protected as something too precious for life, cooped up
in one narrow little corner."
"Cooped up!" he cried. "Did I stand in the way of your going to
college? Have I ever prevented you going about at any reasonable
hour? You've got a bicycle!"
"H'm!" said Ann Veronica, and then went on "I want to be taken
seriously. A girl--at my age--is grown-up. I want to go on with
my University work under proper conditions, now that I've done
the Intermediate. It isn't as though I haven't done well. I've
never muffed an exam. yet. Roddy muffed two. . . ."
Her father interrupted. "Now look here, Veronica, let us be
plain with each other. You are not going to that infidel
Russell's classes. You are not going anywhere but to the
Tredgold College. I've thought that out, and you must make up
your mind to it. All sorts of considerations come in. While you
live in my house you must follow my ideas. You are wrong even
about that man's scientific position and his standard of work.
There are men in the Lowndean who laugh at him--simply laugh at
him. And I have seen work by his pupils myself that struck me as
being--well, next door to shameful. There's stories, too, about
his demonstrator, Capes Something or other. The kind of man
who isn't content with his science, and writes articles in the
monthly reviews. Anyhow, there it is: YOU ARE NOT GOING THERE."
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