Abruptly Virginia Woolf moves us into Daisy's mind. We see Peter through Daisy's eyes and he becomes different from the man we know as Peter Walsh. Daisy sees Peter as having reserves, as being a bookish gentleman, and as being the best judge of cooking in India. Again Virginia Woolf is showing us the variety of selves that inhabit a human being under the guise of a single name. It would seem that Peter does not toy with his pocketknife when he is with Daisy, as he does with Clarissa; nor does he sob uncontrollably with Daisy. The man Daisy describes sounds more like Richard or Hugh. Daisy evokes certain attitudes and responses from Peter; Clarissa evokes entirely different facets of Peter's personality.
And what kind of a marriage will Peter and Daisy have? More than likely, paradoxically, Peter's thoughts lead us to believe that it might become a marriage very much like Clarissa and Richard's. With Clarissa, Peter, although in his fifties, is like a young boy responding to the young girl in Clarissa that he knew and will always remember. With Daisy, Peter is fiftyish. Note how conservative he is about this marriage, compared to the one he had hoped for with Clarissa. He considers the quiet of being alone, and of being "sufficient to himself." These attitudes are foreign to his relationship with Clarissa, yet they are what he is contemplating after he marries the 24-year-old Daisy.
Peter is lonely as the scene ends. This theme pervades the novel. The strangers whom Peter meets at dinner do their best to establish a satisfying link, through small talk, with Peter. Peter has tried to re-establish a link with Clarissa; he has thought about the links he is forging with Daisy. People go to parties to link together, to not be lonely. People give parties to offer the opportunity for other people, for a moment, to link; for a moment, not to be lonely.
