The glamour insensibly faded a little both from Richard and Clarissa.  They had not been so wonderful after all, then, in the eyes of a mature person.

“It’s very difficult to know what people are like,” Rachel remarked, and Helen saw with pleasure that she spoke more naturally.  “I suppose I was taken in.”

There was little doubt about that according to Helen, but she restrained herself and said aloud: 

“One has to make experiments.”

“And they were nice,” said Rachel.  “They were extraordinarily interesting.”  She tried to recall the image of the world as a live thing that Richard had given her, with drains like nerves, and bad houses like patches of diseased skin.  She recalled his watch-words—­Unity—­Imagination, and saw again the bubbles meeting in her tea-cup as he spoke of sisters and canaries, boyhood and his father, her small world becoming wonderfully enlarged.

“But all people don’t seem to you equally interesting, do they?” asked Mrs. Ambrose.

Rachel explained that most people had hitherto been symbols; but that when they talked to one they ceased to be symbols, and became—­“I could listen to them for ever!” she exclaimed.  She then jumped up, disappeared downstairs for a minute, and came back with a fat red book.

“Who’s Who,” she said, laying it upon Helen’s knee and turning the pages.  “It gives short lives of people—­for instance:  ’Sir Roland Beal; born 1852; parents from Moffatt; educated at Rugby; passed first into R.E.; married 1878 the daughter of T. Fishwick; served in the Bechuanaland Expedition 1884-85 (honourably mentioned).  Clubs:  United Service, Naval and Military.  Recreations:  an enthusiastic curler.’”

Sitting on the deck at Helen’s feet she went on turning the pages and reading biographies of bankers, writers, clergymen, sailors, surgeons, judges, professors, statesmen, editors, philanthropists, merchants, and actresses; what clubs they belonged to, where they lived, what games they played, and how many acres they owned.

She became absorbed in the book.

Helen meanwhile stitched at her embroidery and thought over the things they had said.  Her conclusion was that she would very much like to show her niece, if it were possible, how to live, or as she put it, how to be a reasonable person.  She thought that there must be something wrong in this confusion between politics and kissing politicians, and that an elder person ought to be able to help.

“I quite agree,” she said, “that people are very interesting; only—­” Rachel, putting her finger between the pages, looked up enquiringly.

“Only I think you ought to discriminate,” she ended.  “It’s a pity to be intimate with people who are—­well, rather second-rate, like the Dalloways, and to find it out later.”

“But how does one know?” Rachel asked.

“I really can’t tell you,” replied Helen candidly, after a moment’s thought.  “You’ll have to find out for yourself.  But try and—­Why don’t you call me Helen?” she added. “‘Aunt’s’ a horrid name.  I never liked my Aunts.”