“That’s a very sad story,” said Richard, lowering his voice and peeling an apple. “He followed my wife in the car one day and got run over by a brute of a cyclist.”
“Was he killed?” asked Rachel.
But Clarissa at her end of the table had overheard.
“Don’t talk of it!” she cried. “It’s a thing I can’t bear to think of to this day.”
Surely the tears stood in her eyes?
“That’s the painful thing about pets,” said Mr. Dalloway; “they die. The first sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse. I regret to say that I sat upon it. Still, that didn’t make one any the less sorry. Here lies the duck that Samuel Johnson sat on, eh? I was big for my age.”
“Then we had canaries,” he continued, “a pair of ring-doves, a lemur, and at one time a martin.”
“Did you live in the country?” Rachel asked him.
“We lived in the country for six months of the year. When I say ‘we’ I mean four sisters, a brother, and myself. There’s nothing like coming of a large family. Sisters particularly are delightful.”
“Dick, you were horribly spoilt!” cried Clarissa across the table.