I watched Edmund, wondering what was the new expression in his face that somehow dissatisfied me.
His experiences, whatever they were, had made little change in him. His charm was undiminished, perhaps increased. But there was some change that would have eluded anyone less intimate than myself.
“A portrait painter would catch it,” I thought, seeking for the word to clarify my impression.
As he nodded over his glass to Bates, it came to me.
“Surrender!” I almost spoke it.
What could he have surrendered? Something that had been precious I was certain.
All our talk was of trivial things at home as though by mutual avoidance of any discussion of his adventures; we were dominated by the fencing shyness that comes over men, however intimate, when a discussion of importance is inevitable between them.
There was a silence as we tasted the first glass of the precious port, I wondering if he would say that it had passed its prime.
Then, as though from beneath the table, came a sound, to me familiar and somehow pleasant in its way, but puzzling, even disconcerting to strangers: the distant, muffled ring of iron upon iron. It was the unmistakable thud of a blacksmith’s hammer on soft red iron followed by the clear taps on the cold resonant anvil, repeated in regular rhythm.
“What the deuce is that?” asked Edmund, listening.