Then he went on to say:  “Well, you’ve had your little adventure, and I hope now you’ve had enough of it.  So go up-stairs and get your things together while I look out for a hansom.”

To which the only possible reply seemed to be, “I’m not coming home.”

“Not coming home!”

“No!” And, in spite of her resolve to be a Person, Ann Veronica began to weep with terror at herself.  Apparently she was always doomed to weep when she talked to her father.  But he was always forcing her to say and do such unexpectedly conclusive things.  She feared he might take her tears as a sign of weakness.  So she said:  “I won’t come home.  I’d rather starve!”

For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration.  Then Mr. Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather of a barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully through his glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, “And may I presume to inquire, then, what you mean to do?—­how do you propose to live?”

“I shall live,” sobbed Ann Veronica.  “You needn’t be anxious about that!  I shall contrive to live.”

“But I am anxious,” said Mr. Stanley, “I am anxious.  Do you think it’s nothing to me to have my daughter running about London looking for odd jobs and disgracing herself?”

“Sha’n’t get odd jobs,” said Ann Veronica, wiping her eyes.

And from that point they went on to a thoroughly embittering wrangle.  Mr. Stanley used his authority, and commanded Ann Veronica to come home, to which, of course, she said she wouldn’t; and then he warned her not to defy him, warned her very solemnly, and then commanded her again.  He then said that if she would not obey him in this course she should “never darken his doors again,” and was, indeed, frightfully abusive.  This threat terrified Ann Veronica so much that she declared with sobs and vehemence that she would never come home again, and for a time both talked at once and very wildly.  He asked her whether she understood what she was saying, and went on to say still more precisely that she should never touch a penny of his money until she came home again—­not one penny.  Ann Veronica said she didn’t care.

Then abruptly Mr. Stanley changed his key.  “You poor child!” he said; “don’t you see the infinite folly of these proceedings?  Think!  Think of the love and affection you abandon!  Think of your aunt, a second mother to you.  Think if your own mother was alive!”

He paused, deeply moved.

“If my own mother was alive,” sobbed Ann Veronica, “she would understand.”

The talk became more and more inconclusive and exhausting.  Ann Veronica found herself incompetent, undignified, and detestable, holding on desperately to a hardening antagonism to her father, quarrelling with him, wrangling with him, thinking of repartees—­almost as if he was a brother.  It was horrible, but what could she do?  She meant to live her own life, and he meant, with contempt and insults, to prevent her.  Anything else that was said she now regarded only as an aspect of or diversion from that.