TO THE LIGHTHOUSEone liked Mr. Ramsay all the better for thinkingthat if his little finger ached the whole world mustcome to an end. It was not that she minded. Forwho could be deceived by him? He asked you quiteopenly to flatter him, to admire him, his little dodgesdeceived nobody. What she disliked was his nar-rowness, his blindness, she said, looking after him.

"A bit of a hypocrite?" Mr. Bankes suggested,looking too at Mr. Ramsay’s back, for was he notthinking of his friendship, and of Cam refusing togive him a flower, and of all those boys and girls,and his own house, full of comfort, but, since hiswife’s death, quiet rather? Of course, he had hiswork . . . . All the same, he rather wished Lily toagree that Ramsay was, as he said, "a bit of ahypocrite."

Lily Briscoe went on putting away her brushes,looking up, looking down. Looking up, there he was—Mr. Ramsay—advancing towards them, swinging,careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of a hypocrite? sherepeated. Oh, no—the most sincere of men, thetruest (here he was), the best; but, looking down,she thought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyran-nical, he is unjust; and kept looking down, pur-posely, for only so could she keep steady, stayingwith the Ramsays. Directly one looked up and sawthem, what she called "being in love" flooded them.72

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