ss the table.

"No, no. Appreciated," said Richard.

Rachel had other questions on the tip of her tongue; or rather one
enormous question, which she did not in the least know how to put into
words. The talk appeared too airy to admit of it.

"Please tell me--everything." That was what she wanted to say. He had
drawn apart one little chink and showed astonishing treasures. It seemed
to her incredible that a man like that should be willing to talk to her.
He had sisters and pets, and once lived in the country. She stirred her
tea round and round; the bubbles which swam and clustered in the cup
seemed to her like the union of their minds.

The talk meanwhile raced past her, and when Richard suddenly stated in a
jocular tone of voice, "I'm sure Miss Vinrace, now, has secret leanings
towards Catholicism," she had no idea what to answer, and Helen could
not help laughing at the start she gave.

However, breakfast was over and Mrs. Dalloway was rising. "I always
think religion's like collecting beetles," she said, summing up the
discussion as she went up the stairs with Helen. "One person has a
passion for black beetles; another hasn't; it's no good arguing about
it. What's _your_ black beetle now?"

"I suppose it's my children," said Helen.

"Ah--that's different," Clarissa breathed. "Do tell me. You have a boy,
haven't you? Isn't it detestable, leaving them?"

It was as though a blue shadow had fallen across a pool. Their eyes
became deeper, and their voices more cordial. Instead of joining them
as they began to pace the deck, Rachel was indignant with the prosperous
matrons, who made her feel outside their world and motherless, and
turning back, she left them abruptly. She slammed the door of her room,
and pulled out her music. It was all old music--Bach and Beethoven,
Mozart and Purcell--the pages yellow, the engraving rough to the finger.
In three minutes she was deep in a very difficult, very classical fugue
in A, and over her face came a queer remote impersonal expression of
complete absorption and anxious satisfaction. Now she stumbled; now she
faltered and had to play the same bar twice over; but an invisible
line seemed to string the notes together, from which rose a shape,
a building. She was so far absorbed in this work, for it was really
difficult to find how all these sounds should stand together, and drew
upon the whole of her faculties, that she never heard a knock at the
door. It was burst impulsively