"D'you mind if I turn in, old man?" he said.
I asked him if his wound was hurting him.
He stooped and caressed it pensively.
"No," he said. "Not a bit. I like my wound. It—it makes me feel manly."
Presently he said good night and left me.
I thought—yes, I certainly thought—that he exaggerated his limp a little as he crossed the room, and for a moment I wondered, "Is he playing up to the correspondents?"
Then I saw that Viola stood in the doorway waiting for him and that she gave him her arm.
And then through the glass screen I saw them going together up the stair. And I remembered the tale that he had told me nine years ago, how he had seen her standing there and looking down at him—half frightened—through the glass screen, and how he had said to me, "I couldn't. She was so helpless somehow—and so pretty—that for the life of me I couldn't."
It was the same room and the same glass screen and the same stair. And it was the same man. I knew him. I knew him. I had always known him. (Was there ever any risk he hadn't taken?) I had never, really, for one moment misunderstood.
I certainly knew why he "liked" his wound.