“The change in my existence was two-fold; I was now busy instead of idle, and in my thoughts I was unhappy instead of happy. At moments, indeed, I was so acutely unhappy that I welcomed desperately the preparations of our expedition, which gave me plenty to do. I looked back to my months at Sampiero as one of the best periods of my life. One of my new companions asked me what I had been doing since the end of the war. I replied,— “‘I’ve been on a honeymoon with a thought,’ and he stared at me as though I were mad, and never quite trusted me for the rest of the expedition. “I was busy before we started, and that took my mind off my own affairs, but on the ship I was again unoccupied; I used to lean my arms on the rail and stare down into the churning water, and feel my heart being eaten out as though by scores of rats with pointed teeth. I longed, I longed madly, for Ruth. In those days I used to think of her as a person, not as an abstraction; I wondered whether she was unhappy or fairly contented; I tried to draw up in my own mind a scheme of her relations with Westmacott. But I couldn’t; I couldn’t face that just then, I put it off. I knew that sooner or later I must think the whole thing out, but when one has a score or more years in front of one, one can afford to delay. “Apart from this, I enjoyed my African experience; the men I was with were all good, dull fellows; I didn’t make friends with any of them, beyond the comradeship of every day. What I enjoyed were the days of hunting, and the nights of waiting under such stars as I’d never seen; well, I suppose it is all lying there now as I write, just as I used to think of the untroubled Weald lying there spread under an English sky. It’s funny to think of places you’ve been to, existing just the same when you aren’t there. Yes, I liked Africa, and I tried to live in the present, but when the expedition was over, and I found myself landed alone at Naples, I realised with a shock that I had only succeeded in putting ten months of my life away behind me, and that an unknown quantity of years stretched out in front. “I was sitting outside my hotel after luncheon, smoking, and looking over that most obvious and panoramic of bays. I hated Naples, I hated Italy; I thought it a blatant, superficial country, with no mystery, therefore no charm. I had almost made up my mind to take ship for Gibraltar, when a voice beside me said,— “‘You look pretty blue.’ “I turned round and saw a long, leggy creature stretched out on a deck-chair beside me; he was squinting up at me from under a straw hat. “‘I feel it,’ I replied; ‘about as blue as that sea.’ “‘What are you going to do?’ he went on. “I told him that I had just been thinking of going to Gibraltar. “‘And what’ll you do when you get there?’ “‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ I answered. “‘On a holiday?’ he inquired. “‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t work; I lead an aimless sort of life.’ “‘Great mistake,’ said he. “I agreed.