Nothing had passed for half an hour--nothing at least, to be exact, but that each of the companions occasionally and covertly intermitted her pursuit in such a manner as to ascertain the degree of absorption of the other without turning round.
What their silence was charged with therefore was not only a sense of the weather, but a sense, so to speak, of its own nature.

Maud Blessingbourne, when she lowered her book into her lap, closed her eyes with a conscious patience that seemed to say she waited; but it was nevertheless she who at last made the movement representing a snap of their tension.

She got up and stood by the fire, into which she looked a minute; then came round and approached the window as if to see what was really going on.

At this Mrs.Dyott wrote with refreshed intensity.

Her little pile of letters had grown, and if a look of determination was compatible with her fair and slightly faded beauty, the habit of attending to her business could always keep pace with any excursion of her thought.