TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

straight to Mrs, Ramsay sitting reading there

with James at her knee. But now while she still

looked, Mr. Bankes had done. He had put on

his spectacles. He had stepped back. He had

raised his hand. He had slightly narrowed his

clear blue eyes, when Lily, rousing herself, saw

what he was at, and winced like a dog who sees a

hand raised to strike it. She would have snatched

her picture off the easel, but she said to herself,

One must. She braced herself to stand the awful

trial of someone looking at her picture. One

must, she said, one must. And if it must be seen,

Mr. Bankes was less alarming than another. But

that any other eyes should see the residue of her

thirty-three years, the deposit of each day's living,

mixed with something more secret than she had

ever spoken or shown in the course of all those

days was an agony. At the same time it was

immensely exciting.

Nothing could be cooler and quieter. Taking
out a penknife, Mr. Bankes tapped the canvas
with the bone handle. What did she wish to
indicate by the triangular purple shape, "just
there? " he asked. ' ^

It was Mrs. Ramsay reading to James, she
said. She knew his objection—that no one could
tell it for a human shape. But she had made no
attempt at likeness, she said. For what reason
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