She was reassured.

But she thought it necessary to apologise again; she had been talking too much.
"You can't conceive how it interests me," he said.

Indeed, his cigarette had gone out, and he had to light another.
"Why does it interest you ?" she asked.
"Partly because you're a woman," he replied.

When he said this, Rachel, who had become oblivious of anything, and had reverted to a childlike state of interest and pleasure, lost her freedom and became self-conscious.

She felt herself at once singular and under observation, as she felt with St.John Hirst.