The conversation began, paradoxically, with a silence.

Otherwise, it would have begun with platitudes.

Since neither Von Rosen nor Annie Eustace were given usually to platitudes, the silence was unavoidable.

Both instinctively dreaded with a pleasurable dread the shock of speech.

In a way this was the first time the two had been alone with any chance of a seclusion protracted beyond a very few minutes.