THE WINDOWmust refuse him. This going off after luncheonfor a walk, even though Andrew was with them—what could it mean? except that she had decided,rightly, Mrs. Ramsay thought (and she was very,very fond of Minta), to accept that good fellow,who might not be brilliant, but then, thoughtMrs. Ramsay, realising that James was tuggingat her to make her go on reading aloud theFisherman and his Wife, she did in her ownheart infinitely prefer boobies to clever men whowrote dissertations; Charles Tansley for instance.Anyhow it must have happened, one way or theother, by now.

But she read, "Next morning the wife awokefirst, and it was just daybreak, and from her bedshe saw the beautiful country lying before her.Her husband was still stretching himself. . . ."

But how could Minta say now that she wouldnot have him? Not if she agreed to spend wholeafternoons trapesing about the country alone—for Andrew would be off after his crabs—butpossibly Nancy was with them. She tried to recallthe sight of them standing at the hall door afterlunch. There they stood, looking at the sky,wondering about the weather, and she had said,thinking partly to cover their shyness, partly toencourage them to be off (for her sympathies werewith Paul),

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