THE LIGHTHOUSEthat she should be there). And the drops fallingfrom this sudden and unthinking fountain of joy fellhere and there on the dark, the slumbrous shapes inher mind; shapes of a world not realised but turn-ing in their darkness, catching here and there, aspark of light; Greece, Rome, Constantinople. Smallas it was, and shaped something like a leaf stoodon its end with the gold-sprinkled waters flowing inand about it, it had, she supposed, a place in theuniverse—even that little island? The old gentlemenin the study she thought could have told her. Some-times she strayed in from the garden purposely tocatch them at it. There they were (it might be Mr.Carmichael or Mr. Bankes who was sitting withher father) sitting opposite each other in their lowarm-chairs. They were crackling in front of themthe pages of The Times, when she came in from thegarden, all in a muddle, about something some onehad said about Christ, or hearing that a mammothhad been dug up in a London street, or wonderingwhat Napoleon was like. Then they took all thiswith their clean hands (they wore grey-colouredclothes; they smelt of heather) and they brushedthe scraps together, turning the paper, crossing theirknees, and said something now and then very brief.Just to please herself she would take a book fromthe shelf and stand there, watching her father write,281
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