Marathe & Steeply, the outcropping (pp. 90–91)
Their speaking without looking at one another, facing both the same direction—this gave their conversing an air of careless intimacy, as of old friends at the cartridge-viewer together, or a long-married couple.
Context
Tradecraft manufactures intimacy. The field protocol — meet covertly, face outward over the vista, never square up — is defensive posture, but its by-product is the exact body-language of long marriage: two enemies who cannot look at each other produce "careless intimacy." It is the book's quiet thesis about the interview form, that watching and closeness are made indistinguishable by design; the posture that keeps each man safe from the other is the same posture lovers share. Every Marathe/Steeply meeting runs on this blur, and 035 will name the interview underneath it.