brother-in-law.

"I expect your head's aching, isn't it?" she asked, pouring a fresh cup.

"Well, it is," said Richard. "It's humiliating to find what a slave one
is to one's body in this world. D'you know, I can never work without a
kettle on the hob. As often as not I don't drink tea, but I must feel
that I can if I want to."

"That's very bad for you," said Helen.

"It shortens one's life; but I'm afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians
must make up our minds to that at the outset. We've got to burn the
candle at both ends, or--"

"You've cooked your goose!" said Helen brightly.

"We can't make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose," he protested. "May
I ask how you've spent your time? Reading--philosophy?" (He saw the
black book.) "Metaphysics and fishing!" he exclaimed. "If I had to live
again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other." He began
turning the pages.

"'Good, then, is indefinable,'" he read out. "How jolly to think that's
going on still! 'So far as I know there is only one ethical writer,
Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this
fact.' That's just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we were
boys. I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy--now
Secretary for India--pacing round and round those cloisters until we
decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a ride instead.
Whether we ever came to any conclusion--that's another matter. Still,
it's the arguing that counts. It's things like that that stand out in
life. Nothing's been quite so vivid since. It's the philosophers, it's
the scholars," he continued, "they're the people who pass the torch,
who keep the light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn't
necessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose."

"No. Why should it?" said Helen. "But can you remember if your wife
takes sugar?"

She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.

Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up on
deck. His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room, tingled
all over in the fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedly in the
prime of life. Pride glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet him
and stood firm. With his head slightly lowered he sheered round corners,
strode uphill, and met the blast. There was a collision. For a second
he could not see what the body was he had run into. "Sorry." "Sorry."
It was Rachel who apologised. They b