“Ah!” sighed the wearer of the armor, as she released her pent-up lungs and thought she would fly from sheer lightness. Then she recollected where she was. This reminded her that she must divert the laughter from herself to others, so she instantly pretended to faint—to rouse sympathy in place of ridicule. And she was an adept at fainting.
“Oh, I say! Mah deah Mrs. Alex.! Do try to sit up,” cried Algy, plaintively, when he saw her head roll back and her eyes close.
But his partner seemingly was dead to his supplications. He managed to stand up, and then he gazed helplessly around for some one to come and advise him what to do. His eyes, in their roving, found the despised valet watching him with ill-concealed amusement.
“Oh, I say theah! Come heah, and lift this lady from the floah.” But Jack turned and gave his attention to the girls. Mrs. Courtney seemed to be urging them to do something against which they rebelled.
Algy felt angry at a common valet’s treatment of him, and now he cried aloud shrilly: “I say! Mr. Dalken’s valet—you, Baxtah! Come heah directly, and lift this lady to a chaih!”
Several men sprang over at the call, believing the poor woman to be injured; and finally Dodo had to go with Mrs. Courtney to see that her mother was not hurt. Dodo had declared the truth—that she knew her mother too well to fear that anything worse than chagrin could be the matter with her.
Even while Mrs. Alexander was planning what to do, should they try to carry her to an alcove to revive, an unexpected turn was given events, by the presence of a physician. He kneeled upon the floor beside the prostrate woman and took her wrist between his practised fingers. As he counted the strong, regular beats, he began to smile.
Evidently the doctor had no patience with women who played upon the sympathy of their friends. He must have seen other cases similar to Mrs. Alexander’s, because he applied a drastic remedy.
“Here, gentlemen—lend me a pocket-knife, will you? I must slash this gown up and down to give the patient plenty of room to breathe. And you, my good woman, remove her jeweled dog-collar so her neck muscles can act. Hold it till she revives—it’s only paste, I suppose.”
The very idea of slashing that wonderful gown was bad enough to bring consciousness back to a dying woman, but add to that the awful fact that a ten-thousand-dollar collar would be handled as though the stones were paste, was too much! Suddenly Mrs. Alexander sat up!