She shrank back against him in a palsy of repugnance at about an inch of moving fuzz on a rhododendron. He held her with one hand, and with the other broke off the twig and cast the vermin into space. She put his arm away, and said:
"You are brave!"
"St. George and the dragon," he smiled.
"In those battles of yours," she resumed, "were you ever by any chance wounded or killed or anything?"
"I was never killed entirely," he answered, "but I stopped a few bits of lead."
She shuddered and caught his arm with a rush of sympathy none the less fierce for being belated.
"Wounded! You were wounded?"
He put his hand on hers where it lay on his sleeve. "Yes, you blessed thing. Does it make any difference to you?"
She drew her hand away gently. "I hate to think of—of anybody getting hurt. Did it hurt—to be wounded?"
"Afterward. I didn't notice it much at the time—except when I was shot in the mouth."