86 TO THE LIGHTHOUSEsupposed she must go then. She did not want to go.She did not want to be drawn into it all. For asthey walked along the road to the cliff Minta kept ontaking her hand. Then she would let it go. Thenshe would take it again. What was it she wanted?Nancy asked herself. There was something, ofcourse, that people wanted; for when Minta took herhand and held it, Nancy, reluctantly, saw the wholeworld spread out beneath her, as if it were Con-stantinople seen through a mist, and then, howeverheavy-eyed one might be, one must needs ask: ‘Isthat Santa Sofia?’ ‘Is that the Golden Horn?’ SoNancy asked, when Minta took her hand: ‘What isit that she wants? Is it that?’ And what wasthat? Here and there emerged from the mist (asNancy looked down upon life spread beneath her) apinnacle, a dome; prominent things, without names.But when Minta dropped her hand, as she did whenthey ran down the hillside, all that, the dome, thepinnacle, whatever it was that had protrudedthrough the mist, sank down into it and disappeared.
Minta, Andrew observed, was rather a goodwalker. She wore more sensible clothes than mostwomen. She wore very short skirts and blackknickerbockers. She would jump straight into astream and flounder across. He liked her rashness,but he saw that it would not do—she would killherself in some idiotic way one of these days. Sheseemed to be afraid of nothing—except bulls. Atthe mere sight of a bull in a field she would throw upher arms and fly screaming, which was the verything to enrage a bull of course. But she did notmind owning up to it in the least; one must admit
