Rachel seemed to be inattentive to these remarks.

“Tell me,” she said suddenly, “what are those women in Piccadilly?”

“In Picadilly?  They are prostituted,” said Helen.

“It is terrifying—­it is disgusting,” Rachel asserted, as if she included Helen in the hatred.

“It is,” said Helen.  “But—­”

“I did like him,” Rachel mused, as if speaking to herself.  “I wanted to talk to him; I wanted to know what he’d done.  The women in Lancashire—­”

It seemed to her as she recalled their talk that there was something lovable about Richard, good in their attempted friendship, and strangely piteous in the way they had parted.

The softening of her mood was apparent to Helen.

“You see,” she said, “you must take things as they are; and if you want friendship with men you must run risks.  Personally,” she continued, breaking into a smile, “I think it’s worth it; I don’t mind being kissed; I’m rather jealous, I believe, that Mr. Dalloway kissed you and didn’t kiss me.  Though,” she added, “he bored me considerably.”

But Rachel did not return the smile or dismiss the whole affair, as Helen meant her to.  Her mind was working very quickly, inconsistently and painfully.  Helen’s words hewed down great blocks which had stood there always, and the light which came in was cold.  After sitting for a time with fixed eyes, she burst out: 

“So that’s why I can’t walk alone!”

By this new light she saw her life for the first time a creeping hedged-in thing, driven cautiously between high walls, here turned aside, there plunged in darkness, made dull and crippled for ever—­her life that was the only chance she had—­a thousand words and actions became plain to her.

“Because men are brutes!  I hate men!” she exclaimed.

“I thought you said you liked him?” said Helen.

“I liked him, and I liked being kissed,” she answered, as if that only added more difficulties to her problem.

Helen was surprised to see how genuine both shock and problem were, but she could think of no way of easing the difficulty except by going on talking.  She wanted to make her niece talk, and so to understand why this rather dull, kindly, plausible politician had made so deep an impression on her, for surely at the age of twenty-four this was not natural.

“And did you like Mrs. Dalloway too?” she asked.

As she spoke she saw Rachel redden; for she remembered silly things she had said, and also, it occurred to her that she treated this exquisite woman rather badly, for Mrs. Dalloway had said that she loved her husband.

“She was quite nice, but a thimble-pated creature,” Helen continued.  “I never heard such nonsense!  Chitter-chatter-chitter-chatter—­fish and the Greek alphabet—­never listened to a word any one said—­chock-full of idiotic theories about the way to bring up children—­I’d far rather talk to him any day.  He was pompous, but he did at least understand what was said to him.”