"Damn!" exclaimed Miss Buttermish.
"Oh, those modern girls!" thought the shocked Eloquent as he ran forward to assist. He pulled the bicycle off Miss Buttermish, and stood it against the wall. She sat up, her hat very much on one side.
"Do you know," she said rather huskily, "I do believe I've broken my confounded arm."
She held out her left hand to Eloquent, who pulled her to her feet. Her right arm hung helpless, and even through her bespattered veil he could see that she was very white.
"Pray come in and rest for a little," he said concernedly, "and we can see what has happened."
"I'm sure it's broken, I heard the beastly thing snap——" the girl stumbled blindly, Eloquent caught her in his arms, and saw that she had fainted from pain.
He carried her into the house and laid her on the horsehair sofa, put a cushion under her arm, and seizing the large scissors that his orderly aunt kept hanging on a hook at the side of the fire, cut her jacket carefully along the seam from wrist to shoulder. She wore a very mannish, coloured flannel shirt. This sleeve, too, he cut, and disclosed a thin arm, extremely brown nearly to the elbow, and very fair and white above, but the elbow was distorted and discoloured; a bad break, Eloquent decided, with mischief at the joint as well probably. He had studied first-aid at classes, and he shook his head. It did not occur to him to call the little servant to assist him. With his head turned shyly away he removed the young lady's hat and loosened her heavy furs. Then he flew for water and a sponge, thinking the while of her curious Christian name "Elsmaria." She looked pathetically young and helpless lying there. Eloquent forgot her militancy and her shocking language in his sorrow over her pain. As he knelt down by the sofa to sponge her face he started so violently that he upset a great deal of the water he had brought.
It was already growing dark, but even in the dim light as he looked closely at Miss Buttermish without her hat, her likeness to Mary Ffolliot was striking. She wore her hair cropped close. "Could she have been in prison?" thought Eloquent, remembering how light she was when he carried her in.
With hands that trembled somewhat he pushed the wet curly hair back from the forehead so like Mary's. There were the same wide brow, the same white eyelids with the sweeping arch and thick dark lashes, the delicate high-bridged nose and well-cut, kindly mouth; the same pure oval in the line of cheek and chin.
Certainly an extraordinary resemblance. She must at least be a cousin; and, in spite of his sincere commiseration of the young lady's suffering, he felt a jubilant thrill in the reflection that this accident must bring him into further contact with the Ffolliots.