the good behaviour even of the waves.

"I'm dreadfully bad; and my husband's not very good," sighed Clarissa.

"I am never sick," Richard explained. "At least, I have only been
actually sick once," he corrected himself. "That was crossing the
Channel. But a choppy sea, I confess, or still worse, a swell, makes me
distinctly uncomfortable. The great thing is never to miss a meal. You
look at the food, and you say, 'I can't'; you take a mouthful, and
Lord knows how you're going to swallow it; but persevere, and you often
settle the attack for good. My wife's a coward."

They were pushing back their chairs. The ladies were hesitating at the
doorway.

"I'd better show the way," said Helen, advancing.

Rachel followed. She had taken no part in the talk; no one had spoken
to her; but she had listened to every word that was said. She had looked
from Mrs. Dalloway to Mr. Dalloway, and from Mr. Dalloway back again.
Clarissa, indeed, was a fascinating spectacle. She wore a white dress
and a long glittering necklace. What with her clothes, and her arch
delicate face, which showed exquisitely pink beneath hair turning grey,
she was astonishingly like an eighteenth-century masterpiece--a Reynolds
or a Romney. She made Helen and the others look coarse and slovenly
beside her. Sitting lightly upright she seemed to be dealing with the
world as she chose; the enormous solid globe spun round this way and
that beneath her fingers. And her husband! Mr. Dalloway rolling that
rich deliberate voice was even more impressive. He seemed to come from
the humming oily centre of the machine where the polished rods are