She had gone one day into a Hall and heardhim speaking during the war. He was denouncingsomething: he was condemning somebody. Hewas preaching brotherly love. And all she feltwas how could he love his kind who did not knowone picture from another, who had stood behindher smoking shag ("fivepence an ounce, MissBriscoe") and making it his business to tell herwomen can’t write, women can’t paint, not somuch that he believed it, as that for some oddreason he wished it? There he was, lean and redand raucous, preaching love from a platform(there were ants crawling about among theplantains which she disturbed with her brush—red, energetic ants, rather like Charles Tansley).She had looked at him ironically from her seat inthe half-empty hall, pumping love into that chillyspace, and suddenly, there was the old cask orwhatever it was bobbing up and down among thewaves and Mrs. Ramsay looking for her spectaclecase among the pebbles. “Oh dear! What anuisance! Lost again. Don’t bother, Mr.Tansley. I lose thousands every summer," atwhich he pressed his chin back against his collar,302