"No, my dear, stay."
She went to the window. The blind was up, and she could see the quiet, lamplit street.
"Houses and houses, and people in all of them, and they all have relatives, and friends, and troubles. And they all care so much more about themselves than about anything else. I can't get used to that. And when I see people crowding into tramcars, it's the same. Sometimes I like it; it's exciting"—she caught her lip over the word and laughed secretly—"and then sometimes the thought's too big—worrying. I like the other side of the house best. I feel that I can get out—to the sea."
He was enchanted by her unusual readiness to talk.
"Do you want to get to the sea?"
"On windy nights, when the ships call me. Do you hear them in your room?"
"Oh, yes!" he said.
"Does it make you want to go?"
He hesitated. "No, I'm a chilly person, but I admit it stirs me to think of others facing cold and danger. The sea—I'm afraid the sea frightens me a little."
Like a child who is too shy to speak of what it loves, she forced him to name it for her.