There's the manager of the line--called Vinrace--a nice big Englishman, doesn't say much--you know the sort. As for the rest--they might have come trailing out of an old number of _Punch_. They're like people playing croquet in the 'sixties. How long they've all been shut up in this ship I don't know--years and years I should say-- but one feels as though one had boarded a little separate world, and they'd never been on shore, or done ordinary things in their lives. It's what I've always said about literary people-- they're far the hardest of any to get on with. The worst of it is, these people--a man and his wife and a niece--might have been, one feels, just like everybody else, if they hadn't got swallowed up by Oxford or Cambridge or some such place, and been made cranks of.
The man's really delightful (if he'd cut his nails), and the woman has quite a fine face, only she dresses, of course, in a potato sack, and wears her hair like a Liberty shopgirl's. They talk about art, and think us such poops for dressing in the evening. However, I can't help that; I'd rather die than come in to dinner without changing-- wouldn't you? It matters ever so much more than the soup.
(It's odd how things like that _do_ matter so much more than what's generally supposed to matter. I'd rather have my head cut off than wear flannel next the skin.) Then there's a nice shy girl-- poor thing--I wish one could rake her out before it's too late.
She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course, she'll get funny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the minds of the young--much more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh, I'd forgotten there's a dreadful little thing called Pepper.
He's just like his name. He's indescribably insignificant, and rather queer in his temper, poor dear. It's like sitting down to dinner with an ill-conditioned fox-terrier, only one can't comb him out, and sprinkle him with powder, as one would one's dog.
It's a pity, sometimes, one can't treat people like dogs!
The great comfort is that we're away from newspapers, so that Richard will have a real holiday this time. Spain wasn't a holiday. . .
.
"You coward!" said Richard, almost filling the room with his sturdy figure.
"I did my duty at dinner!" cried Clarissa.
"You've let yourself in for the Greek alphabet, anyhow."
"Oh, my dear! Who _is_ Ambrose?"
"I gather that he was a Cambridge don; lives in London now, and edits classics."
"Did you ever see such a set of cranks? The woman asked me if I thought her husband looked like a gentleman!"
"It was hard to keep the ball rolling at dinner, certainly," said Richard. "Why is it that the women, in that class, are so much queerer than the men?"
"They're not half bad-looking, really--only--they're so odd!"
They both laughed, thinking of the same things, so that there was no need to compare their impressions.
"I see I shall have quite a lot to say to Vinrace," said Richard.
"He knows Sutton and all that set. He can tell me a good deal about the conditions of ship-building in the North."
"Oh, I'm glad. The men always _are_ so much better than the women."
"One always has something to say to a man certainly," said Richard.
"But I've no doubt you'll chatter away fast enough about the babies, Clarice."
"Has she got children? She doesn't look like it somehow."
"Two. A boy and girl."
A pang of envy shot through Mrs. Dalloway's heart.
"We _must_ have a son, Dick," she said.
"Good Lord, what opportunities there are now for young men!" said Dalloway, for his talk had set him thinking. "I don't suppose there's been so good an opening since the days of Pitt."
"And it's yours!" said Clarissa.
"To be a leader of men," Richard soliloquised. "It's a fine career.
My God--what a career!"
The chest slowly curved beneath his waistcoat.
