it must have been audible.

As she found herself still on the dark country road, cloaked and
protected by the blackness of the starless night, she was struck with
wonder, as though she had never thought of it before, at the human body,
its opaque, inscrutable mystery, the locked, sealed strong-box of
unimaginable secrets which it is. There they were, the three of them,
stepping side by side, brushing each other as they moved; and as remote
from each other as though they were on different stars. What were the
thoughts, powerful, complex, under perfect control, which were being
marshaled in that round, dark head? She felt a little afraid to think;
and turned from the idea to the other man with relief. She knew (she
told herself) as though she saw inside, the tired, gentle, simple,
wistful thoughts that filled the white head on her other side.

With this, they were again at the house, where the children and Touclé
had preceded them. Paul was laughing and saying, "Elly's the looniest
kid! She's just been saying that Father is like . . ." Elly, in a panic,
sprang up at him, clapping her hand over his mouth, crying out, "No,
Paul, you shan't tell! _Don't!_"

The older, stronger child pulled himself away and, holding her at arm's
length, continued, "She said Father was like the end of her hair that's
fastened into her head, and Mother was the end that flaps in the wind,
and Mr. Marsh was like the Eagle Rock brook, swirly and hurrying the way
it is in the spring."

Elly, half crying, came to her mother. "Mother, it's nasty-horrid in
Paul to tell when I didn't want him to."