THE WINDOWhe rather wished Lily to agree that Ramsay was, ashe said, ‘a bit of a hypocrite’.
Lily Briscoe went on putting away her brushes,looking up, looking down. Looking up, there he was
— Mr. Ramsay — advancing towards them, swing-ing, careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of a hypocrite?she repeated. Oh no — the most sincere of men, thetruest (here he was), the best; but, looking down, shethought, he is absorbed in himself, he is tyrannical,he is unjust; and kept looking down, purposely, foronly so could she keep steady, staying with the Ram-says. Directly one looked up and saw them, what shecalled ‘being in love’ flooded them. They becamepart of that unreal but penetrating and exciting uni-verse which is the world seen through the eyes of love.The sky stuck to them; the birds sang through them.And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, asshe saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating,and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the windowand the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life,from being made up of little separate incidents whichone lived one by one, became curled and whole likea wave which bore one up with it and threw one downwith it, there, with a dash on the beach.Mr. Bankes expected her to answer. And she wasabout to say something criticising Mrs. Ramsay, howshe was alarming, too, in her way, high-handed, orwords to that effect, when Mr. Bankes made it en-tirely unnecessary for her to speak by his rapture. Forsuch it was considering his age, turned sixty, and hiscleanliness and his impersonality, and the whitescientific coat which seemed to clothe him. For himto gaze as Lily saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was57
