TO THE LIGHTHOUSEfrom a sinking ship. But with the sea streamingthrough her fingers, a spray of seaweed vanishingbehind them, she did not want to tell herselfseriously a story; it was the sense of adventureand escape that she wanted, for she was thinking,as the boat sailed on, how her father’s anger aboutthe points of the compass, James’s obstinacy aboutthe compact, and her own anguish, all had slipped,all had passed, all had streamed away. What thencame next? Where were they going? From herhand, ice cold, held deep in the sea, there spurtedup a fountain of joy at the change, at the escape,at the adventure (that she should be alive, that sheshould be there). And the drops falling from thissudden and unthinking fountain of joy fell hereand there on the dark, the slumbrous shapes inher mind; shapes of a world not realised butturning in their darkness, catching here and there,a spark of light; Greece, Rome, Constantinople.Small as it was, and shaped something like a leafstood on its twigendwith the gold sprinkled watersflowing in and about it, it had, she supposed, aplace in the universe—even that little island?The old gentlemen in the study[∧]shethoughtcould have toldher. Sometimes she strayed in from the gardenpurposely to catch them at it. There they were(it might be Mr. Carmichael or Mr. Bankes whowas sitting with her father) sitting opposite each292
