The new restlessness, which he had come so far to quiet, broke over him in miserable, taunting waves.
Why was he here on the sofa instead of out there in the rain?
The war?
But he was too inherently honest to blame the war.

It was, perhaps, responsible for the present state of his sciatic nerve but not for the selling of his birthright of sturdy youth.

The causes of that lay far behind the war.

Had he not refused himself to youth when youth had called?
Had he not shut himself behind study doors while Spring crept in at the window?
The war had come and dragged him out.

Across his quiet, ordered path its red trail had stretched and to go forward it had been necessary to go through.