TO THE LIGHTHOUSETitians and we can’t all be Darwins, he said; atthe same time he doubted whether you could haveyour Darwin and your Titian if it weren’t forhumble people like ourselves. Lily would have likedto pay him a compliment; you’re not humble, Mr.Bankes, she would have liked to have said. But hedid not want compliments (most men do, shethought), and she was a little ashamed of her im-pulse and said nothing while he remarked thatperhaps what he was saying did not apply to pic-tures. Anyhow, said Lily, tossing off her little insin-cerity, she would always go on painting, because itinterested her. Yes, said Mr. Bankes, he was sureshe would, and, as they reached the end of thelawn he was asking her whether she had difficulty infinding subjects in London when they turned andsaw the Ramsays. So that is marriage, Lily thought,a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing aball. That is what Mrs. Ramsay tried to tell methe other night, she thought. For Mrs. Ramsay waswearing a green shawl, and they were standing closetogether watching Prue and Jasper throwing catches.And suddenly the meaning which, for no reason atall, as perhaps they are stepping out of the Tube orringing a doorbell, descends on people, making themsymbolical, making them representative, came uponthem, and made them in the dusk standing, looking,110
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