She seemed to be protecting Terence from the approach of the others.
"Yes," said Mr.Flushing.

"And in my opinion," he continued, "the absence of population to which Hirst objects is precisely the significant touch.

You must admit, Hirst, that a little Italian town even would vulgarise the whole scene, would detract from the vastness--the sense of elemental grandeur." He swept his hands towards the forest, and paused for a moment, looking at the great green mass, which was now falling silent.

"I own it makes us seem pretty small--us, not them." He nodded his head at a sailor who leant over the side spitting into the river.

"And that, I think, is what my wife feels, the essential superiority of the peasant--" Under cover of Mr.Flushing's words, which continued now gently reasoning with St.John and persuading him, Terence drew Rachel to the side, pointing ostensibly to a great gnarled tree-trunk which had fallen and lay half in the water.