"I enjoyed myself all the time," he said. "It was splendid!"
"That was good. And did you learn anything?"
"Nothing much from our talking. But I think I understand about the mystery."
"I thought Paris might drive it home; it used to smell so in August. Does it still?"
"In places." The scent of fir-trees came to him on the summer breeze. "I do see really," he added, almost pleadingly.
"I'm glad for your own sake. It's as well to look at the future. You may have to go to India. That may mean the end of books and talking and ideas. But you'll get reasonable pay and occasional leave and then you won't feel like anything but shooting and fishing. And perhaps when you're fifty or so you'll struggle back to this kind of existence. I assure you there's something in it all. And once you've dropped your philosophy of this and art of that for thirty years they won't come back. Ham and Eggs will be your only deity. But it isn't merely carnal."
"I see that," Martin replied.
Somehow the future did not seem so ugly to Martin as he stood watching the young moon hanging lightly over the dark shoulder of the moor. It would be good to come back and worship the goddess in Devonshire.
"Thanks for the initiation," he said as they turned back to the house.