“Was he killed?” asked Rachel.

But Clarissa at her end of the table had overheard.

“Don’t talk of it!” she cried.  “It’s a thing I can’t bear to think of to this day.”

Surely the tears stood in her eyes?

“That’s the painful thing about pets,” said Mr. Dalloway; “they die.  The first sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse.  I regret to say that I sat upon it.  Still, that didn’t make one any the less sorry.  Here lies the duck that Samuel Johnson sat on, eh?  I was big for my age.”

“Then we had canaries,” he continued, “a pair of ring-doves, a lemur, and at one time a martin.”

“Did you live in the country?” Rachel asked him.

“We lived in the country for six months of the year.  When I say ‘we’ I mean four sisters, a brother, and myself.  There’s nothing like coming of a large family.  Sisters particularly are delightful.”

“Dick, you were horribly spoilt!” cried Clarissa across the table.

“No, no.  Appreciated,” said Richard.

Rachel had other questions on the tip of her tongue; or rather one enormous question, which she did not in the least know how to put into words.  The talk appeared too airy to admit of it.

“Please tell me—­everything.”  That was what she wanted to say.  He had drawn apart one little chink and showed astonishing treasures.  It seemed to her incredible that a man like that should be willing to talk to her.  He had sisters and pets, and once lived in the country.  She stirred her tea round and round; the bubbles which swam and clustered in the cup seemed to her like the union of their minds.

The talk meanwhile raced past her, and when Richard suddenly stated in a jocular tone of voice, “I’m sure Miss Vinrace, now, has secret leanings towards Catholicism,” she had no idea what to answer, and Helen could not help laughing at the start she gave.

However, breakfast was over and Mrs. Dalloway was rising.  “I always think religion’s like collecting beetles,” she said, summing up the discussion as she went up the stairs with Helen.  “One person has a passion for black beetles; another hasn’t; it’s no good arguing about it.  What’s your black beetle now?”

“I suppose it’s my children,” said Helen.

“Ah—­that’s different,” Clarissa breathed.  “Do tell me.  You have a boy, haven’t you?  Isn’t it detestable, leaving them?”

It was as though a blue shadow had fallen across a pool.  Their eyes became deeper, and their voices more cordial.  Instead of joining them as they began to pace the deck, Rachel was indignant with the prosperous matrons, who made her feel outside their world and motherless, and turning back, she left them abruptly.  She slammed the door of her room, and pulled out her music.  It was all old music—­Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and Purcell—­the pages yellow, the engraving rough to the finger.  In three minutes she was deep in a very difficult, very