"From the first moment I set eyes on you. . . ."
He said:
"And I . . . from the first moment . . . I'll tell you . . . If I looked out of a door . . . It was all like sand. . . . But to the half left a little bubbling up of water. That could be trusted. To keep on for ever. . . . You, perhaps, won't understand."
She said:
"Yes! I know!"
"They were seeing landscapes. . . . Sand dunes; close-cropped. . . . Some negligible shipping; a stump-masted brig from Archangel. . . ."
"From the first moment," he repeated.
She said:
"If we could wash out . . ."
He said, and for the first moment felt grand, tender, protective: