The final scene, the terrible scene which he believed had mattered more than anything in the whole of his life (it might be an exaggeration--but still so it did seem now) happened at three o'clock in the afternoon of a very hot day. It was a trifle that led up to it--Sally at lunch saying something about Dalloway, and calling him "My name is Dalloway"; whereupon Clarissa suddenly stiffened, coloured, in a way she had, and rapped out sharply, "We've had enough of that feeble joke." That was all; but for him it was precisely as if she had said, "I'm only amusing myself with you; I've an understanding with Richard Dalloway." So he took it. He had not slept for nights. "It's got to be finished one way or the other," he said to himself. He sent a note to her by Sally asking her to meet him by the fountain at three.