the skin.) Then there’s a nice shy girl—­poor thing—­I wish one could rake her out before it’s too late.  She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course, she’ll get funny too.  We ought to start a society for broadening the minds of the young—­much more useful than missionaries, Hester!  Oh, I’d forgotten there’s a dreadful little thing called Pepper.  He’s just like his name.  He’s indescribably insignificant, and rather queer in his temper, poor dear.  It’s like sitting down to dinner with an ill-conditioned fox-terrier, only one can’t comb him out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would one’s dog.  It’s a pity, sometimes, one can’t treat people like dogs!  The great comfort is that we’re away from newspapers, so that Richard will have a real holiday this time.  Spain wasn’t a holiday. . . .

“You coward!” said Richard, almost filling the room with his sturdy figure.

“I did my duty at dinner!” cried Clarissa.

“You’ve let yourself in for the Greek alphabet, anyhow.”

“Oh, my dear!  Who is Ambrose?”

“I gather that he was a Cambridge don; lives in London now, and edits classics.”

“Did you ever see such a set of cranks?  The woman asked me if I thought her husband looked like a gentleman!”

“It was hard to keep the ball rolling at dinner, certainly,” said Richard.  “Why is it that the women, in that class, are so much queerer than the men?”

“They’re not half bad-looking, really—­only—­they’re so odd!”

They both laughed, thinking of the same things, so that there was no need to compare their impressions.

“I see I shall have quite a lot to say to Vinrace,” said Richard.  “He knows Sutton and all that set.  He can tell me a good deal about the conditions of ship-building in the North.”

“Oh, I’m glad.  The men always are so much better than the women.”

“One always has something to say to a man certainly,” said Richard.  “But I’ve no doubt you’ll chatter away fast enough about the babies, Clarice.”

“Has she got children?  She doesn’t look like it somehow.”

“Two.  A boy and girl.”

A pang of envy shot through Mrs. Dalloway’s heart.

“We must have a son, Dick,” she said.

“Good Lord, what opportunities there are now for young men!” said Dalloway, for his talk had set him thinking.  “I don’t suppose there’s been so good an opening since the days of Pitt.”

“And it’s yours!” said Clarissa.

“To be a leader of men,” Richard soliloquised.  “It’s a fine career.  My God—­what a career!”

The chest slowly curved beneath his waistcoat.

“D’you know, Dick, I can’t help thinking of England,” said his wife meditatively, leaning her head against his chest.  “Being on this ship seems to make it so much more vivid—­what it really means to be English.  One thinks of all we’ve done, and our navies, and the people in India and Africa, and how we’ve gone on century after century, sending out boys from little country villages—­and of men like you, Dick, and it makes one feel as if one couldn’t bear not to be English!  Think of the light burning over the House, Dick!  When I stood on deck just now I seemed to see it.  It’s what one means by London.”