‘Well, of course, mother,’ said Virginia, impatiently this time.
‘I suppose there isn’t,’ said Catherine pensively. ‘But still——’
‘There isn’t any “but still” either.’
Before this splendid inexperience, this magnificent unawareness, Catherine could only be mute; and presently she held up her face to be kissed, and murmured that she thought she would now go to bed.
Virginia fidgeted. She didn’t seem to want to leave the fire. She raked out the ashes for quite a long time, and then pushed the chairs back into their proper places and shook up the cushions.
‘I hate going to bed,’ she said suddenly.
Catherine, who had been watching her sleepily, was surprised awake again—Virginia had sounded so natural.
‘Do you, darling?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
Virginia looked at her mother a moment, and then fetched the bedroom candles from the table they had been put ready on, the electric light being now cut off by Stephen’s wish at half-past ten each night.
She gave Catherine her candle. ‘Didn’t you——’ she began.