Slide to View Image: Opacity 0%
 
TO THE LIGHTHOUSEso wildly, and all her wit and her bearing andher temper came from them, and not from the slug-gish English, or the cold Scotch; but more profoundlyshe ruminated the other problem, of rich and poor,and the things she saw with her own eyes, weekly,daily, here or in London, when she visited this widow,or that struggling wife in person with a bag on herarm, and a note-book and pencil with which shewrote down in columns carefully ruled for the pur-pose wages and spendings, employment and unem-ployment, in the hope that thus she would cease tobe a private woman whose charity was half a sop toher own indignation, half a relief to her own curios-ity, and become what with her untrained mind shegreatly admired, an investigator, elucidating the so-cial problem.

Insoluble questions they were, it seemed to her,standing there, holding James by the hand. He hadfollowed her into the drawing-room, that young manthey laughed at; he was standing by the table, fidget-ing with something, awkwardly, feeling himself outof things, as she knew without looking round. Theyhad all gone — the children; Minta Doyle and PaulRayley; Augustus Carmichael; her husband — theyhad all gone. So she turned with a sigh and said,'Would it bore you to come with me, Mr. Tansley?'

She had a dull errand in the town; she had a letter or two to write; she would be ten minutes perhaps;she would put on her hat. And, with her basket andher parasol, there she was again, ten minutes later,giving out a sense of being ready, of being equippedfor a jaunt, which, however, she must interrupt fora moment, as they passed the tennis lawn, to ask14