he now had a companion, an audible companion

[esteven]

There were plenty of people on the little quarter-deck- the master at the con, the quartermaster at the wheel, the marine sergeant and his small-arms party, the signal midshipman, part of the afterguard, the gun-crews, James Dillon, the clerk, and still others - but Jack and Stephen paced up and down as though they were alone, Jack enveloped in the Olympian majesty of a captain and Stephen caught up within his aura. It was natural enough to Jack, who had known this state of affairs since he was a child, but it was the first time that Stephen had met with it, and it gave him a not altogether disagreeable sensation of waking death: either the absorbed, attentive men on the other side of the glass wall were dead, mere phantasmata, or he was - though in that case it was a strange little death, for although he was used to this sense of isolation, of being a colourless shade in a silent private underworld, he now had a companion, an audible companion.

(chapter four)

I always felt this was the first time that showed how together Jack and Stephen are, even this early on.
*smiles*

Comments

[derien]

"An audible companion" implies that very often previously Stephen has been so lonely that he's talking to ghosts of his own memory, yet it's wonderfully subtle about that touch of angst.

[esteven]

Oh, I had not made that connection. Thank you for pointing it out.

I remember someone saying that if Stephen had not met Jack when he did, he might have committed suicide soon. He was that close.