THE   WINDOW
again on a flower in the pattern in the table-cloth,
so as to remind herself to move the tree.
" It's odd that one scarcely gets anything worth
having by post, yet one always wants one's
letters," said Mr, Bankes.
What damned rot they talk, thought Charles
Tansley, laying down his spoon precisely in the
middle of his plate, which he had swept clean, as if,
Lily thought (he sat opposite to her with his back
to the window precisely in the middle of view),
he were determined to make sure of his meals.
Everything about him had that meagre fixity,
that bare unloveliness. But nevertheless, the fact
remained, it was almost impossible to dislike
anyone if one looked at them. She liked his eyes;
they were blue, deep set, frightening.
" Do you write many letters, Mr. Tansley? "
asked Mrs. Ramsay, pitying him too, Lily
supposed; for that was true of Mrs. Ramsay—
she pitied men always as if they lacked something
—women never, as if they had something. He
wrote to his mother; otherwise he did not suppose
he wrote one letter a month, said Mr. Tansley,
shortly.
For he was not going to talk the sort of rot
these people wanted him to talk. He was not
going to be condescended to by these silly women.
He had been reading in his room, and now he
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