THE   WINDOW
Oh but, Lily would say, there was her father;
her home; even, had she dared to say it, her
painting. But all this seemed so little, so virginal,
against the other. Yet, as the night wore on,
and white lights parted the curtains, and even
now and then some bird chirped in the garden,
gathering a desperate courage she would urge
her own exemption from the universal law; plead
for it; she liked to be alone; she liked to be
herself; she was not made for that; and so have
to meet a serious stare from eyes of unparalleled
depth, and confront Mrs. Ramsay's simple
certainty (and she was childlike now) that her dear
Lily, her little Brisk, was a fool. Then, she re-
membered, she had laid her head on Mrs. Ramsay's
lap and laughed and laughed and laughed, laughed
almost hysterically at the thought of Mrs. Ramsay
presiding with immutable calm over destinies
which she completely failed to understand. There
she sat, simple, serious. She had recovered her
sense of her now—this was the glove's twisted
finger. But into what sanctuary had one pene-
trated? Lily Briscoe had looked up at last,
and there was Mrs. Ramsay, unwitting entirely
what had caused her laughter, still presiding,
but now with every trace of wilfulness abol-
ished, and in its stead, something clear as the
space which the clouds at last uncover—the
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