MRS. DALLOWAY 
way, but still not a positive imbecile as Peter made out; 
not a mere barber’s block. When his old mother 
wanted him to give up shooting or to take her to Bath 
he did it, without a word; he was really unselfish, and 
as for saying, as Peter did, that he had no heart, no 
brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an 
English gentleman, that was only her dear Peter at his 
worst; and he could be intolerable; he could be im- 
possible; but adorable to walk with on a morning like 
this. 
(June had drawn out every leaf on the trees. The 
mothers of Pimlico gave suck to their young. Messages 
were passing from the Fleet to the Admiralty. Arling- 
ton Strect and Piccadilly seemed to chafe the very air in 
the Park and lift its leaves hotly, brilliantly, on waves of 
that divine vitality which Clarissa loved. To dance, to 
ride, she had adored all that.) 
For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she 
and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry 
sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, if he 
were with me now what would he say P—some days, 
some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without 
the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of 
having cared for people; they came back in the middle 
of St. James's Park on a fine morning—indeed they did. 
But Peter—however beautiful the day might be, and 
the trees and the grass, and the little girl in pink— 
Peter never saw a thing of all that. He would put on 
his spectacles, if she told him to; he would look. It was 
the state of the world that interested him; Wagner, 
Pope’s poetry, people’s characters eternally, and the 
defects of her own soul. How he scolded her! How 
they argued! She would marry a Prime Minister and 
stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he 
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