This mood of loneliness is used as a transition. Septimus and Lucrezia Smith come into our focus. They are with Peter in the park and both of them, like Clarissa and Peter, feel isolated from one another. Like Clarissa's being unable to understand Peter's social ineptness, Lucrezia cannot understand Septimus. It seems to Lucrezia that her husband should not "act like that." Clarissa disapproved of Peter's actions; Lucrezia disapproves of Septimus' actions — but the contrast is enormous: Septimus is insane and losing his hold on life; eventually he will toss it away. Peter has never abandoned life.
Peter of course never guesses what we know about Rezia and Septimus. And Rezia never guesses at the multitude of confusing thoughts simmering inside that "kind-looking man," as she describes him. Peter sees Rezia and Septimus and thinks that young people are freer than he was as a youth. But Peter and Sally Seton, although they were not in love with one another, were very free and candid with one another. And Rezia and Septimus are not young lovers and their quarrel is far more serious than a simple lovers' quarrel.
The sun is lulling Peter; he is basking in a brief, lazy luxury of blaming the times for his troubles. It has been a long interior monologue; Peter has tried, and failed, to fit all the pieces of the past into the empty spaces of the present.
