TO THE LIGHTHOUSEgether, turning the paper, crossing their knees, andsaid something now and then very brief. In a kind oftrance she would take a book from the shelf andstand there, watching her father write, so equally, soneatly from one side of the page to another, with alittle cough now and then, or something said briefly tothe other old gentleman opposite. And she thought,standing there with her book open, here one couldlet whatever one thought expand like a leaf in water;and if it did well here, among the old gentlemensmoking and The Times crackling, then it was right.And watching her father as he wrote in his study,she thought (now sitting in the boat) he was mostlovable, he was most wise; he was not vain nor atyrant. Indeed, if he saw she was there, reading abook, he would ask her, as gently as any one could,Was there nothing he could give her?

Lest this should be wrong, she looked at him read-ing the little book with the shiny cover mottled like aplover’s egg. No; it was right. Look at him now, shewanted to say aloud to James. (But James had his eyeon the sail.) He is a sarcastic brute, James would say.He brings the talk round to himself and his books,James would say. He is intolerably egotistical. Worstof all, he is a tyrant. But look! she said, looking athim. Look at him now. She looked at him readingthe little book with his legs curled; the little bookwhose yellowish pages she knew, without knowingwhat was written on them. It was small; it was closelyprinted; on the fly-leaf, she knew, he had writtenthat he had spent fifteen francs on dinner; the winehad been so much; he had given so much to thewaiter; all was added up neatly at the bottom of the220
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