Let it be a dark horse for once,' she said: 'if anything can be a dark horse to you,' she added satirically.
They stood aside, forgetful.

As if a little stunned, they both were motionless, barely conscious.

The little conflict into which they had fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal forces, there in contact.
He became aware of the lapse.

He wanted to say something, to get on to a new more ordinary footing.
'You know,' he said, 'that I am having rooms here at the mill?
Don't you think we can have some good times ?' 'Oh are you ?' she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted intimacy.
He adjusted himself at once, became normally distant.
'If I find I can live sufficiently by myself,' he continued, 'I shall give up my work altogether.

It has become dead to me.