TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

he was—Mr. Ramsay—advancing towards them,

swinging, careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of

a hypocrite? she repeated. Oh no—the most

sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best;

but, looking down, she thought, he is absorbed

in himself, he is tyrannical, he is unjust; and kept

looking down, purposely, for only so could she

keep steady, staying with the Ramsays. Directly

one looked up and saw them, what she called

" being in love " flooded them. They became

part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting

universe 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, as she saw Mr. Ramsay

bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay

sitting with James in the window and the cloud

moving and the tree bending, how life, from being

made up of little separate incidents which one

lived one by one, became curled and whole like

a wave which bore one up with it and threw one

down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.

Mr, Bankes expected her to answer. And
she was about to say something criticising Mrs.
Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in • her
way, high-handed, or words to that effect, when
Mr. Bankes made it entirely unnecessary for
her to speak by his rapture. For such it was
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