196 TO THE LIGHTHOUSEas she might, she could think of nothing to say likethat, fierce and loyal to the compact, yet passing onto her father, unsuspected by James, a private tokenof the love she felt for him. For she thought, dab-bling her hand (and now Macalister’s boy had caughta mackerel, and it lay kicking on the floor, with bloodon its gills), for she thought, looking at James whokept his eyes dispassionately on the sail, or glancednow and then for a second at the horizon, you’re notexposed to it, to this pressure and division of feeling,this extraordinary temptation. Her father was feel-ing in his pockets; in another second he would havefound his book. For no one attracted her more; hishands were beautiful to her and his feet, and hisvoice, and his words, and his haste, and his temper,and his oddity, and his passion, and his sayingstraight out before every one, we perish, each alone,and his remoteness. (He had opened his book.)But what remained intolerable, she thought, sittingupright, and watching Macalister’s boy tug the hookout of the gills of another fish, was that crass blind-ness and tyranny of his which had poisoned herchildhood and raised bitter storms, so that even nowshe woke in the night trembling with rage and re-membered some command of his; some insolence:‘Do this,’ ‘Do that'; his dominance: his ‘Submitto me.’

So she said nothing, but looked doggedly andsadly at the shore, wrapped in its mantle of peace;as if the people there had fallen asleep, she thought;were free like smoke, were free to come and golike ghosts. They have no suffering there, shethought.

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