TO THE LIGHTHOUSEwater and shoot off across the bay. There he sits, shethought, and the children are quite silent still. Andshe could not reach him either. The sympathy shehad not given him weighed her down. It made it dif-ficult for her to paint.

She had always found him difficult. She had neverbeen able to praise him to his face, she remembered.And that reduced their relationship to something neu-tral, without that element of sex in it which made hismanner to Minta so gallant, almost gay. He wouldpick a flower for her, lend her his books. But could he

believe that Minta really read them? She dragged

them about the garden, sticking in leaves to mark the

place.

‘D’you remember, Mr. Carmichael?’ she was in-clined to ask, looking at the old man. But he hadpulled his hat half over his forehead; he was asleep,or he was dreaming, or he was lying there catchingwords, she supposed.

‘D’you remember?' she felt inclined to ask him asshe passed him, thinking again of Mrs. Ramsay on thebeach; the cask bobbing up and down; and the pagesflying. Why, after all these years had that survived,ringed round, lit up, visible to the last detail, with allbefore it blank and all after it blank, for miles andmiles?

‘Is it a boat? Is it a cork?’ she would say, Lily re-peated, turning back, reluctantly again, to her canvas.Heaven be praised for it, the problem of space re-mained, she thought, taking up her brush again. Itglared at her. The whole mass of the picture waspoised upon that weight. Beautiful and bright itshould be on the surface, feathery and evanescent, one198

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