He murmured some absent-minded commonplace and straightened her up, but her weight was still heavy on his hand. When he let her go she swayed towards him and clung onto his arm.
"I'm sorry," she repeated stupidly.
His first thought was that she was drunk, but her breath was innocent of the smell of liquor. Then he thought the accident might be only the excuse for a more mercenary kind of introduction, but he saw that her face was not made up as he would have expected it to be in that case. It was a pretty face, but so pale that it looked ghostly in the semidarkness between the far-spaced street lamps; and he saw that she had dark circles under her eyes and that her mouth was without lipstick.
"Is anything the matter?" he asked.
"No — it's nothing. I'll be all right in a minute. I just want to rest."
"Let's go inside somewhere and sit down."
There was a drugstore on the corner and he look her into it. It seemed to be a great effort for her to walk and another explanation of her unsteadiness flashed into his mind. He sat her down at the counter and ordered two cups of coffee.
"Would you like something to eat with it?"
Her eyes lighted up and she bit her lip.
"Yes. I would. But — I haven't any money."