She staggered wildly, and in another instant would have fallen had not someone, swift as a shadow, glided suddenly abreast of her and, slipping a supporting arm round her waist, skated smoothly beside her, little by little slackening their mutual pace until Jean, on one blade all this time, could stop without danger of falling.
As they glided to a standstill, she turned to offer her thanks and found herself looking straight into the lean, dark face of the Englishman who had passed her when she had been watching the skaters.
He lifted his cap, and as he stood for a moment bare-headed beside her, she noticed with a curious little shock—half surprised, half appreciative—that on the left temple his dark brown hair was streaked with a single pure white lock, as though a finger had been laid upon the hair and bleached it where it lay. It conferred a certain air of distinction—an added value of contrast—just as the sharp black shadow in a neutral-tinted picture gives sudden significance to the whole conception.
The stranger was regarding Jean with a flicker of amusement in his grey eyes.
“That was a near thing!” he observed.
Evidently he judged her to be a Frenchwoman, for he spoke in French—very fluently, but with an unmistakable English accent. Instinctively Jean, who all her life had been as frequently called upon to converse in French as English, responded in the same language.
She was breathing rather quickly, a little shaken by the suddenness of the incident, and his face took on a shade of concern.
“You’re not hurt, I hope? Did you twist your ankle?”
“No—oh, no,” she smiled up at him. “I can’t have fastened my skate on properly, and when it shot off like that I’m afraid I rather lost my head. You see,” she added explanatorily, “I haven’t skated for some years. And I was never very proficient.”
“I see,” he said gravely. “It was a little rash of you to start again quite alone, wasn’t it?”