As Denham spoke, she followed his words and considered their bearing with an easy vigor which spoke of a capacity long hoarded and unspent.

The very trees and the green merging into the blue distance became symbols of the vast external world which recks so little of the happiness, of the marriages or deaths of individuals.

In order to give her examples of what he was saying, Denham led the way, first to the Rock Garden, and then to the Orchid House.
For him there was safety in the direction which the talk had taken.
His emphasis might come from feelings more personal than those science roused in him, but it was disguised, and naturally he found it easy to expound and explain.

Nevertheless, when he saw Katharine among the orchids, her beauty strangely emphasized by the fantastic plants, which seemed to peer and gape at her from striped hoods and fleshy throats, his ardor for botany waned, and a more complex feeling replaced it.

She fell silent.