THE WINDOWwhich had picked up Mildred’s words quite accuratelyand could now produce them, if one waited, in acolourless singsong. Shifting from foot to foot, Camrepeated the words, ‘No, they haven’t, and I’ve toldEllen to clear away tea.’Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley had not come backthen. That could only mean, Mrs. Ramsay thought,one thing. She must accept him, or she must refusehim. This going off after luncheon for a walk, eventhough Andrew was with them — what could it mean?except that she had decided, rightly, Mrs. Ramsaythought (and she was very, very fond of Minta), toaccept that good fellow, who might not be brilliant,but then, thought Mrs. Ramsay, realising that Jameswas tugging at her to make her go on reading aloudthe Fisherman and his Wife, she did in her own heartinfinitely prefer boobies to clever men who wrote dis-sertations; Charles Tansley for instance. Anyhow itmust have happened, one way or the other, by now.But she read, ‘Next morning the wife awoke first,and it was just daybreak, and from her bed she sawthe beautiful country lying before her. Her husbandwas still stretching himself. . . .'But how could Minta say now that she would nothave him? Not if she agreed to spend whole afternoonstrapesing about the country alone — for Andrewwould be off after his crabs — but possibly Nancywas with them. She tried to recall the sight of themstanding at the hall door after lunch. There theystood, looking at the sky, wondering about the weath-er, and she had said, thinking partly to cover theirshyness, partly to encourage them to be off (for hersympathies were with Paul):67