"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.

"D'you know, Dick, I can't help thinking of England," said his wife
meditatively, leaning her head against his chest. "Being on this ship
seems to make it so much more vivid--what it really means to be English.
One thinks of all we've done, and our navies, and the people in India
and Africa, and how we've gone on century after century, sending out
boys from little country villages--and of men like you, Dick, and it
makes one feel as if one couldn't bear _not_ to be English! Think of
the light burning over the House, Dick! When I stood on deck just now I
seemed to see it. It's what one means by London."

"It's the continuity," said Richard sententiously. A vision of English
history, King following King, Prime Minister Prime Minister, and Law Law
had come over him while his wife spoke. He ran his mind along the line