“An accident?”
“Yes, no, not exactly. She has been knocked down and trampled on.”
“Who? Let me come! Can’t I help? Could Rosamond?”
“No, no. It is a poor woman, brutally treated. No, I say, I’ll manage. It is a dreadful scene, don’t.”
But there was something in his tone which impelled Rosamond to open the carriage door and spring out.
“Rose, I say it is no place for a lady. I can’t answer for it to Julius.”
“I’ll do that. Take me.”
There was no withstanding her, and, after all, Raymond’s tone betrayed that he was thankful for her help, and knew that there was no danger for her.
He had not many yards to lead her. The regions of thoughtless gaiety were scarcely separated from the regions of undisguised evil, and Raymond, on his way back from his friend, had fallen on a horrible row, in which a toy-selling woman had been set upon, thrown down and trodden on, and then dragged out by the police, bleeding and senseless. When he brought Rosamond to the spot, she was lying propped against a bundle, moaning a little, and guarded by a young policeman, who looked perplexed and only equal to keeping back the crowd, who otherwise, with better or worse purposes, would have rushed back in the few minutes during which Mr. Poynsett had been absent.
They fell back, staring and uttering expressions of rough wonder at the advance of the lady in her glistening silk, but as she knelt down by the poor creature, held her on her arm, bathed her face with scent on her own handkerchief, and held to her lips the champagne that Raymond poured out, there was a kind of hoarse cheer.