And for a long while neither spoke.
With her the spell endured until conscience began to stir.

Then she awoke, uneasy as always, under the shadow of restraint or pressure, until her eyes fell on him and lingered.
A subtle change had come into his face; its leanness struck her for the first time; that, and an utter detachment from his surroundings, a sombre oblivion to everything--and to her.
How curiously had his face altered, how shadowy it had grown, effacing the charm of youth, in it.
The slight amusement with which she had become conscious of her own personal exclusion grew to an interest tinged with curiosity.
The interest continued, but when his silence became irksome to her she said so very frankly.

His absent eyes, still clouded, met hers, unsmiling.
"I hate the sea," he said.
"You--hate it!" she repeated, too incredulous to be disappointed.
"There's no rest in it; it tires.

A man who plays with it must be on his guard every second.

To spend a lifetime on it is ridiculous--a whole life of intelligent effort, against perpetual, brutal, inanimate resistance--one endless uninterrupted fight--a ceaseless human manoeuvre against senseless menace; and then the counter attack of the lifeless monster, the bellowing advance, the shock--and no battle won--nothing final, nothing settled, no! only the same eternal nightmare of surveillance, the same sleepless watch for stupid treachery." "But--you don't have to fight it!" she said, astonished.
"No; but it is no secret--what it does to those who do.