Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/114

Rh has known how to help. Others, even the well-meaning, say things—ask things that are like alcohol on an open wound. But you—I want to thank you. I want to tell you how I appreciate what you've done for me."

Elizabeth jerked her hand away.

"Oh, nonsense," she said. "Come on, let's have another chapter of our novel."

She would still spare him, Vincent thought.

"Not now—not now," he replied. "I didn't think when I left France," he went on, "I should ever want to tell anybody about the croix de guerre. But I do. I want to tell you!"

"I don't want to hear about your old croix de guerre," she flung back airily.

"There was no heroism connected with it," Vincent persisted. "That's why it turns me almost sick when people say soft, idiotic things about it's being a sign of courage. Courage! Not in my case. Desperation, pure and simple. I was ready to run any sort of risk, to put any sort of end to my existence, living as I was—in filth, covered with vermin, seeing my comrades die, one by one, wondering when my turn would come. When I had the chance to crawl forward to a small shell-hole, and try to put out of commission a machine-gun nest, hidden there, I jumped at it, as a man imprisoned for life might