Lorna Sinnet, for all his admiration of her, had established no claim upon his confidence, yet now, with this young girl, whom he had known but a few weeks, a new need developed--a need to talk of himself! A primitive need indeed, but, like all primitive needs, compelling.
We need not follow the history.

Perhaps, reported, it would not seem very lucid.

There were blanks, unsaid things, twists of phrase, eloquent nothings which, wonderfully understandable in themselves, do not report well.

Somehow he must have made it plain, for Esther understood it and understood him, too, in a way which we, who have never sailed with him under the moon, cannot hope to do.

Faults of expression are no hindrance to this kind of understanding.