"One of
the things that can't be said," she would have put it. She could find no
answer, but a laugh.
"Well, anyhow," she said, turning to Rachel, "I shall insist upon your
playing to me to-morrow."
There was that in her manner that made Rachel love her.
Mrs. Dalloway hid a tiny yawn, a mere dilation of the nostrils.
"D'you know," she said, "I'm extraordinarily sleepy. It's the sea air. I
think I shall escape."
A man's voice, which she took to be that of Mr. Pepper, strident in
discussion, and advancing upon the saloon, gave her the alarm.
"Good-night--good-night!" she said. "Oh, I know my way--do pray for
calm! Good-night!"
Her yawn must have been the image of a yawn. Instead of letting her
mouth droop, dropping all her clothes in a bunch as though they depended
on one string, and stretching her limbs to the utmost end of her berth,
she merely changed her dress for a dressing-gown, with innumerable
frills, and wrapping her feet in a rug, sat down with a writing-pad on
her knee. Already this cramped little cabin was the dressing room of
a lady of quality. There were bottles containing liquids; there were
trays, boxes, brushes, pins. Evidently not an inch of her person lacked
its proper instrument. The scent which had intoxicated Rachel pervaded
the air. Thus established, Mrs. Dalloway began to write. A pen in her
hands became a thing one caressed paper with, and she might have been
stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote:
Picture us, my dear, afloat in the very oddest ship you can imagine.
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