Men like this
are a little restless in the company of others and though in the smoking-room
of a ship or at the club bar they may be talkative and convivial, telling
their story with the rest, joking and glad sometimes to narrate their
unusual experiences, they seem always to hold something back.
They have a life in themselves that they keep apart, and there is a
look in their eyes, as it were turned inwards, that informs you that
this hidden life is the only one that signifies to them. And now
and then their eyes betray their weariness with the social round into
which hazard or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced them.
They seem then to long for the monotonous solitude of some place of
their predilection where they can be once more alone with the reality
they have found.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, "Masterson"