Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/124

Rh In the picture Elizabeth Oliver appeared the absolute antithesis of the fragile creature Vincent had met in the fragile evening gown, and played with afterward, dressed in her smart, well-cut golf-suit. In the picture she wore a boxey, shapeless, multipocketed affair, which disregarded all her lovely lines. Her hair was tucked entirely out of sight, beneath the brim of a service hat. On the sleeve of her left arm Vincent saw insignia of some sort.

"It means," Alice replied, "that for the last two years and more, Elizabeth has been serving in France—near the front, under fire some of the time—with a hospital unit. She broke down last Spring, went to pieces terribly, had to come home. Shell-shock perhaps you'd call it. The doctors told her that she had got to let somebody else fight the war for awhile—ignore it—shut her eyes to it absolutely. It was impossible for her to do that where she was known. Everybody expected her to talk about the horrors she'd seen, and she couldn't even hear others talk about horrors without breaking down, once she was alone. So she has to go to places where she isn't known. That's why she came here."

"Where does Elizabeth Oliver live?" asked Vincent in a voice that for the life of him he couldn't keep steady.