He pressed her down into a chair.
"You had better sit quiet there, my young miss, and get yourself together. One eighth of an inch nearer that bicycle trapeze in the wings and that smooth head of yours might not be so smooth right now."
"I'm so ashamed."
"I'll call a cab and take you home."
"I'd rather you didn't trouble."
"But I'd rather I did."
She smiled through an impulse to dig her nails into her palms and weep her sense of ignominy.
While he procured the cab she hurriedly changed from the pink into the coffee-colored linen, and, frightened at her pallor with the rouge removed, tried to pinch her cheeks back to pinkness.
In the hansom and behind the wooden apron his hand crept over to hers, soothing it.
"Poor little sick girl!" he said.