I worked frightfully hard at it for a bit, drinking only distilled water and living on vegetables--you CAN do that in Switzerland: you simply CAN'T in civilised society--And then came Rome and the Willoughby Maule episode.
Episode! Has it come to that! Ah Joan, I have a horrible suspicion that however much I may try to persuade myself I'm concentrating upon some abstract theme, I've really all the time been thinking of him.
Yesterday I took Friendship for my study in concentration.

You, dear thing, came up, naturally, and your image actually kept Will away for a clear five seconds.

I thought what a help it would be to be with you, and afterwards I made the suggestion of an Australian trip on literary business to Aunt Eliza, but it was no good.

She is deeply engaged just now in driving batches of stuffy relatives in a stuffy brougham--luckily there's no room for me in it--to still stuffier garden parties.

And, besides, I don't feel that I can take any desperate step of that kind until the Irrevocable has been written in Destiny's Book.
Will Maule is not married yet.
Well, anyhow, the meditation on Friendship was comparatively successful.