Then she perceived that they had arrived at a desultory pause in their exchange of ideas and were musing, face to face, with the freedom of old friends who sometimes exchange ideas without uttering them.

There was nothing to shock in this; they were old friends in fact.

But the thing made an image, lasting only a moment, like a sudden flicker of light.

Their relative positions, their absorbed mutual gaze, struck her as something detected.

But it was all over by the time she had fairly seen it.