She gave herself permission now to look at this squarely. She made herself a private declaration of liberty. “This is mere nonsense, mere tongue-tied fear!” she said. “This is the slavery of the veiled life. I might as well be at Morningside Park. This business of love is the supreme affair in life, it is the woman’s one event and crisis that makes up for all her other restrictions, and I cower--as we all cower--with a blushing and paralyzed mind until it overtakes me!... “I’ll be hanged if I do.” But she could not talk freely about love, she found, for all that manumission. Ramage seemed always fencing about the forbidden topic, probing for openings, and she wondered why she did not give him them. But something instinctive prevented that, and with the finest resolve not to be “silly” and prudish she found that whenever he became at all bold in this matter she became severely scientific and impersonal, almost entomological indeed, in her method; she killed every remark as he made it and pinned it out for examination. In the biological laboratory that was their invincible tone. But she disapproved more and more of her own mental austerity. Here was an experienced man of the world, her friend, who evidently took a great interest in this supreme topic and was willing to give her the benefit of his experiences! Why should not she be at her ease with him? Why should not she know things? It is hard enough anyhow for a human being to learn, she decided, but it is a dozen times more difficult than it need be because of all this locking of the lips and thoughts. She contrived to break down the barriers of shyness at last in one direction, and talked one night of love and the facts of love with Miss Miniver. But Miss Miniver was highly unsatisfactory. She repeated phrases of Mrs. Goopes’s: “Advanced people,” she said, with an air of great elucidation, “tend to GENERALIZE love. ‘He prayeth best who loveth best--all things both great and small.’ For my own part I go about loving.” “Yes, but men;” said Ann Veronica, plunging; “don’t you want the love of men?” For some seconds they remained silent, both shocked by this question. Miss Miniver looked over her glasses at her friend almost balefully. “NO!” she said, at last, with something in her voice that reminded Ann Veronica of a sprung tennis-racket. “I’ve been through all that,” she went on, after a pause. She spoke slowly. “I have never yet met a man whose intellect I could respect.” Ann Veronica looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and decided to persist on principle. “But if you had?” she said. “I can’t imagine it,” said Miss Miniver. “And think, think”--her voice sank--“of the horrible coarseness!” “What coarseness?” said Ann Veronica. “My dear Vee!” Her voice became very low. “Don’t you know?” “Oh! I know--” “Well--” Her face was an unaccustomed pink. Ann Veronica ignored her friend’s confusion.