The Voyage Out

Susan gets her family’s approval for her engagement to Arthur Venning. The guests of the hotel decide to throw a dance to celebrate the engagement. Rachel and Helen arrive at the dance together, with Rachel feeling diffident because Helen starts dancing with Hewet. Hirst invites Rachel to dance, but neither of them is a good dancer, and they dance so awkwardly together that they soon decide to stop. Hirst and Rachel take a seat to watch the dancing and talk. Their conversation is as awkward and halting as their dance, but Hirst is determined to try, mainly because Hewet has told him that he is no good with women and he wants to prove his friend wrong. He offers to lend Rachel some books by the historian Edward Gibbon, meanwhile claiming that she won’t understand them and letting her know that he intends the books as a test. While Hirst talks at Rachel about the literature he is certain she won’t understand, he can’t stop looking at Helen, whom he finds very beautiful. Offended by how Hirst spoke to her, Rachel goes out to the garden to cry. Hewet joins her and tries to explain that Hirst can be difficult, but whatever he said, he likely meant it as a compliment.