THE WINDOWwrapped himself about and needed privacy into whichto regain his equilibrium, that he was outraged andanguished. She stroked James’s head; she transferredto him what she felt for her husband, and, as shewatched him chalk yellow the white dress shirt of agentleman in the Army and Navy Stores catalogue,thought what a delight it would be to her should heturn out a great artist; and why should he not? Hehad a splendid forehead. Then, looking up, as herhusband passed her once more, she was relieved tofind that the ruin was veiled; domesticity triumphed;custom crooned its soothing rhythm, so that when stop-ping deliberately, as his turn came round again, atthe window he bent quizzically and whimsically totickle James’s bare calf with a sprig of something, shetwitted him for having dispatched ‘that poor youngman’, Charles Tansley. Tansley had had to go in andwrite his dissertation, he said.

‘James will have to write his dissertation one ofthese days,’ he added ironically, flicking his sprig.

Hating his father, James brushed away the ticklingspray with which in a manner peculiar to him, com-pound of severity and humour, he teased his young-est son’s bare leg.

She was trying to get these tiresome stockings fin-ished to send to Sorley’s little boy to-morrow, saidMrs. Ramsay.

There wasn’t the slightest possible chance that theycould go to the Lighthouse to-morrow, Mr. Ramsaysnapped out irascibly.

How did he know? she asked. The wind oftenchanged.

The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the39
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