On Friendship

When he came back he found Jack arranging the score of their next duet on their music stands. Like many other heavy men Jack could be as sensitive as a cat on occasion: he knew that he had touched on some painful area—that in any case Stephen hated questions—and he was particularly attentive in laying out the sheets, pouring Stephen another glass of wine, and when they began, in so playing that his violin helped the 'cello, yielding to it in those minute ways perceptible to those who are deep in their music if to few others.

(Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea)