telling the truth and the limitations of their imaginations. And in that
respect they stir up one another. Not my affair, of course, but I think
we ought to teach them more or restrain them more. One or the other.
They're too free for their innocence or too innocent for their freedom.
That's my point. Are you going to have any apple-tart, Stanley? The
apple-tart's been very good lately--very good!"



Part 7


At the end of dinner that evening Ann Veronica began: "Father!"

Her father looked at her over his glasses and spoke with grave
deliberation; "If there is anything you want to say to me," he said,
"you must say it in the study. I am going to smoke a little here, and
then I shall go to the study. I don't see what you can have to say. I
should have thought my note cleared up everything. There are some papers
I have to look through to-night--important papers."

"I won't keep you very long, daddy," said Ann Veronica.

"I don't see, Mollie," he remarked, taking a cigar from the box on
the table as his sister and daughter rose, "why you and Vee shouldn't
discuss this little affair--whatever it is--without bothering me."

It was the first time this controversy had become triangular, for all
three of them were shy by habit.