Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

13. CHAPTER XIII (continued)

Mary made no answer to this remark, but frowned.

She leant back on the seat and looked about her at the great houses breaking the soft gray-blue sky with their chimneys.

"Ah, well," she said, "London's a fine place to live in. I believe I could sit and watch people all day long. I like my fellow-creatures. . . ."

Ralph sighed impatiently.

"Yes, I think so, when you come to know them," she added, as if his disagreement had been spoken.

"That's just when I don't like them," he replied. "Still, I don't see why you shouldn't cherish that illusion, if it pleases you." He spoke without much vehemence of agreement or disagreement. He seemed chilled.

"Wake up, Ralph! You're half asleep!" Mary cried, turning and pinching his sleeve. "What have you been doing with yourself? Moping? Working? Despising the world, as usual?"

As he merely shook his head, and filled his pipe, she went on:

"It's a bit of a pose, isn't it?"

"Not more than most things," he said.

"Well," Mary remarked, "I've a great deal to say to you, but I must go on--we have a committee." She rose, but hesitated, looking down upon him rather gravely. "You don't look happy, Ralph," she said. "Is it anything, or is it nothing?"

He did not immediately answer her, but rose, too, and walked with her towards the gate. As usual, he did not speak to her without considering whether what he was about to say was the sort of thing that he could say to her.

"I've been bothered," he said at length. "Partly by work, and partly by family troubles. Charles has been behaving like a fool. He wants to go out to Canada as a farmer--"