“N-no, not exactly. What a wonderful place it is!”

“Isn’t it? Funnily enough, Stephen’s father took me there on my honeymoon. I don’t remember where we stayed, but I know that George lost his stud one night and had all the staff into our room to help him find it. So trying for me; I was dressing, you see, and at that time I hadn’t grown accustomed to George’s ways.”

Elizabeth laughed, and there fell a silence. Mrs. Ramsay started off again.

“As usual I began at the wrong end of the stick. I didn’t come to talk about George’s stud—no one ever found it, by the way. I don’t think George ever really got over it— Where was I? Oh, yes! What I wanted to say was, how lovely it is to see you both home again! Stephen’s very happy, my dear. I’d like to thank you for making him so, but I know that’s quite out of place. Cynny’s coming to call soon, but she said she wasn’t going to inflict herself on you at once. I expect you’re pretty tired, aren’t you?”

“Oh—not really,” Elizabeth replied.

Mrs. Ramsay cast her a fleeting glance.

“Well, you look it, darling. I shall speak severely to Stephen. He mustn’t let you overdo it. He’s a strenuous boy, you know. Always was. Never would lie still in his perambulator. Dear me, it’s awfully hard to realize that he’s married!”

“Yes, I expect it must be. I—I find it hard to realise that I’m married sometimes!”

Then Stephen came in, and Elizabeth was able to sit quiet while he talked. It was strange that she could not be bright and conversational with Mrs. Ramsay when she had been so talkative to her own relations. You couldn’t get rid of the feeling that, in spite of her inconsequence, Mrs. Ramsay was clever, far cleverer than you were yourself. That tied your tongue; you were afraid to advance an opinion because your opinions were always so different from those of the Ramsays. You felt too that the Ramsays thought privately that you were very ordinary. Not Stephen, of course.

Mrs. Ramsay went to have tea with Cynthia that afternoon, and Cynthia curled her lip, and said, Well?

“Oh, Cynny, I don’t know!” Mrs. Ramsay sighed. “She’s—a dear little thing, but I can’t get any further with her! I’ve tried and tried, but she makes me nervous, and I can’t say what I want to. I talk the most arrant nonsense, and she smiles, and says, Yes, I know. So very uninspiring. I wish I could get beneath her—her perfect manners.”

“Probably you wouldn’t find anything,” Cynthia said.

“Darling, that’s horribly ill-natured. I won’t believe that it’s true. Poor child! I can’t help feeling sorry for her.”