At first this communication was purely in the region of the mind, without so much as the movement of an eyelid on either side, and that made it all the more intimate and intense.

But to sit there Sunday evening after Sunday evening, when the other boarders were at church, both looking at the same plane-tree opposite, or the same tail-end of a sunset flung across the chimney pots, without uttering a syllable or a sound, was at last seen by both in its true light, as a thing not only painful but absurd.

So one evening the deep, full-hearted silence burst and flowered into speech.

In common courtesy Mr.Rickman had to open his lips to ask her whether she objected to his smoking (she did not).

Then it came to acknowledging each other in the streets; after that, to Poppy's coming out and looking over the balcony about the time when Mr.Rickman would be coming home from the shop, and to Mr.Rickman's looking to see if Poppy was looking; and so on, to that wonderful night when he saw her home from the Jubilee Theatre.