Part 4

It was by imperceptible degrees that Capes became important in Ann

Veronica’s thoughts. But then he began to take steps, and, at last,

strides to something more and more like predominance. She began by being

interested in his demonstrations and his biological theory, then she was

attracted by his character, and then, in a manner, she fell in love with

his mind.

One day they were at tea in the laboratory and a discussion sprang up

about the question of women’s suffrage. The movement was then in its

earlier militant phases, and one of the women only, Miss Garvice,

opposed it, though Ann Veronica was disposed to be lukewarm. But a man’s

opposition always inclined her to the suffrage side; she had a curious

feeling of loyalty in seeing the more aggressive women through. Capes

was irritatingly judicial in the matter, neither absurdly against, in

which case one might have smashed him, or hopelessly undecided, but

tepidly sceptical. Miss Klegg and the youngest girl made a vigorous

attack on Miss Garvice, who had said she thought women lost something

infinitely precious by mingling in the conflicts of life. The discussion

wandered, and was punctuated with bread and butter. Capes was inclined

to support Miss Klegg until Miss Garvice cornered him by quoting him

against himself, and citing a recent paper in the Nineteenth Century, in

which, following Atkinson, he had made a vigorous and damaging attack

on Lester Ward’s case for the primitive matriarchate and the predominant

importance of the female throughout the animal kingdom.

Ann Veronica was not aware of this literary side of her teacher; she had

a little tinge of annoyance at Miss Garvice’s advantage. Afterwards

she hunted up the article in question, and it seemed to her quite

delightfully written and argued. Capes had the gift of easy, unaffected

writing, coupled with very clear and logical thinking, and to follow

his written thought gave her the sensation of cutting things with a

perfectly new, perfectly sharp knife. She found herself anxious to read

more of him, and the next Wednesday she went to the British Museum and

hunted first among the half-crown magazines for his essays and then

through various scientific quarterlies for his research papers. The

ordinary research paper, when it is not extravagant theorizing, is apt

to be rather sawdusty in texture, and Ann Veronica was delighted to find

the same easy and confident luminosity that distinguished his work for

the general reader. She returned to these latter, and at the back of

her mind, as she looked them over again, was a very distinct resolve

to quote them after the manner of Miss Garvice at the very first

opportunity.

When she got home to her lodgings that evening she reflected with

something like surprise upon her half-day’s employment, and decided

that it showed nothing more nor less than that Capes was a really very

interesting person indeed.

And then she fell into a musing about Capes. She wondered why he was so

distinctive, so unlike other men, and it never occurred to her for some

time that this might be because she was falling in love with him.