“I expect your head’s aching, isn’t it?” she asked, pouring a fresh cup.

“Well, it is,” said Richard.  “It’s humiliating to find what a slave one is to one’s body in this world.  D’you know, I can never work without a kettle on the hob.  As often as not I don’t drink tea, but I must feel that I can if I want to.”

“That’s very bad for you,” said Helen.

“It shortens one’s life; but I’m afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians must make up our minds to that at the outset.  We’ve got to burn the candle at both ends, or—­”

“You’ve cooked your goose!” said Helen brightly.

“We can’t make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose,” he protested.  “May I ask how you’ve spent your time?  Reading—­philosophy?” (He saw the black book.) “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed.  “If I had to live again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other.”  He began turning the pages.

“‘Good, then, is indefinable,’” he read out.  “How jolly to think that’s going on still!  ’So far as I know there is only one ethical writer, Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact.’  That’s just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we were boys.  I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy—­now Secretary for India—­pacing round and round those cloisters until we decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a ride instead.  Whether we ever came to any conclusion—­that’s another matter.  Still, it’s the arguing that counts.  It’s things like that that stand out in life.  Nothing’s been quite so vivid since.  It’s the philosophers, it’s the scholars,” he continued, “they’re the people who pass the torch, who keep the light burning by which we live.  Being a politician doesn’t necessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.”

“No.  Why should it?” said Helen.  “But can you remember if your wife takes sugar?”

She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.

Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up on deck.  His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room, tingled all over in the fresh air.  He felt himself a man undoubtedly in the prime of life.  Pride glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet him and stood firm.  With his head slightly lowered he sheered round corners, strode uphill, and met the blast.  There was a collision.  For a second he could not see what the body was he had run into.  “Sorry.”  “Sorry.”  It was Rachel who apologised.  They both laughed, too much blown about to speak.  She drove open the door of her room and stepped into its calm.  In order to speak to her, it was necessary that Richard should follow.  They stood in a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying round in circles, the door crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into chairs.  Richard sat upon Bach.

“My word!  What a tempest!” he exclaimed.

“Fine, isn’t it?” said Rachel.  Certainly the struggle and wind had given her a decision she lacked; red was in her cheeks, and her hair was down.