‘You wouldn’t care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea there?’ he asked.

‘No thanks,’ said Gudrun coldly.

‘You don’t care for the water?’

‘For the water? Yes, I like it very much.’

He looked at her, his eyes searching.

‘You don’t care for going on a launch, then?’

She was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t say that I do.’ Her colour was high, she seemed angry about something.

‘Un peu trop de monde,’ said Ursula, explaining.

‘Eh? TROP DE MONDE!’ He laughed shortly. ‘Yes there’s a fair number of ‘em.’

Gudrun turned on him brilliantly.

‘Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of the Thames steamers?’ she cried.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t say I have.’

‘Well, it’s one of the most VILE experiences I’ve ever had.’ She spoke rapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. ‘There was absolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep” the WHOLE way; he was blind and he had a small organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so you can imagine what THAT was like; there came a constant smell of luncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took hours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful boys ran with us on the shore, in that AWFUL Thames mud, going in UP TO THE WAIST—they had their trousers turned back, and they went up to their hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned to us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming “‘Ere y’are sir, ‘ere y’are sir, ‘ere y’are sir,” exactly like some foul carrion objects, perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board, laughing when the boys went right down in that awful mud, occasionally throwing them a ha’penny. And if you’d seen the intent look on the faces of these boys, and the way they darted in the filth when a coin was flung—really, no vulture or jackal could dream of approaching them, for foulness. I NEVER would go on a pleasure boat again—never.’

Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with faint rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself who roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘every civilised body is bound to have its vermin.’

‘Why?’ cried Ursula. ‘I don’t have vermin.’

‘And it’s not that—it’s the QUALITY of the whole thing—paterfamilias laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha’pennies, and materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually eating—’ replied Gudrun.

‘Yes,’ said Ursula. ‘It isn’t the boys so much who are vermin; it’s the people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.’