"How many
people in London d'you think have that?"
"And now you've spoilt it," she complained. "Now we've got to think of
the horrors." She looked grudgingly at the novel which had once caused
her perhaps an hour's discomfort, so that she had never opened it
again, but kept it on her table, and looked at it occasionally, as some
medieval monk kept a skull, or a crucifix to remind him of the frailty
of the body.
"Is it true, Terence," she demanded, "that women die with bugs crawling
across their faces?"
"I think it's very probable," he said. "But you must admit, Rachel, that
we so seldom think of anything but ourselves that an occasional twinge
is really rather pleasant."
Accusing him of an affection of cynicism which was just as bad as
sentimentality itself, she left her position by his side and knelt upon
the window sill, twisting the curtain tassels between her fingers. A
vague sense of dissatisfaction filled her.
"What's so detestable in this country," she exclaimed, "is the
blue--always blue sky and blue sea. It's like a curtain--all the things
one wants are on the other side of that. I want to know what's going on
behind it. I hate these divisions, don't you, Terence? One person all
in the dark about another person. Now I liked the Dalloways," she
continued, "and they're gone. I shall never see them again. Just by
going on a ship we cut ourselves off entirely from the rest of
the world.
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