And Mrs. Crowe, though dutifully rebuking her for her flippant treatment
of a brother's pain, agreed with the sense of her remarks, if not with the
wording. It had taken a good deal of quiet obstinacy on the part of the
whole family to get Oliver to accept Peter Piper's invitation--Mrs. Crowe,
who was understanding, knew at what cost--the cost of a man who has lost a
hand's first appearance in company with the stump unbandaged--but anything
would be better than the mopey Oliver of the last two weeks and a half,
and Mrs. Crowe had been taught by a good deal of living the aseptic powers
of having to go through the motions of ordinary life in front of a casual
audience, even when it seemed that those motions were no longer of any
account. So Oliver took clean flannels and a bitter mind to Southampton on
the last day of August, and, as soon as he got off the train, was swung
into a reel of consecutive amusements that, fortunately, allowed him
little time to think.
When he did, it was only to wonder rather frigidly if this fellow with
glasses who played tennis and danced and swam and watched and commented
athletically on the Davis Cup finals, sitting between Elinor Piper and
Juliet Bellamy whom he had taken to dances off and on ever since he had
had his first pair of pumps, could really be he.
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