She saw that a few drops of blood had started from a small cut on his white temple, and guessed that in falling he had struck his head against the corner of the flower-stand, thus rendering him momentarily unconscious.
All the womanly tenderness in her started with grief at the sight, and dipping her lace handkerchief, already wet with tears, into a glass globe that held some beautiful gold fish, she began to bathe his face with the cold water, murmuring agitatedly to herself:
“I must try to revive him myself, for I should not like to call for help. The situation would be rather embarrassing. They would only say I was here flirting with him, and wonder why he fell down, and at the tears on my cheeks.”
And she dabbled his face and fair hair most energetically with the cold water, her soft hands touching him caressingly, freighted with the love that filled her heart.
And her fair face bent so close to his in her anxiety that the salty drops of pity fell on his brow and mixed with the cold water she was so copiously using as a restorative.
Then she began to get frightened.
“Why, how long he is in reviving! It must be more serious than I thought!” she cried, anxiously; adding: “I am afraid I must call help; but I will wait a minute longer.”
It was enough to frighten her, that deathly stillness and pallor of the handsome man, and she sobbed:
“Oh, what if this should be death? I have heard that a blow on the temple might cause death. And here is quite a keen little cut. I—I wish that I could kiss it and make it well, as mothers say to their little children.”
She mopped his face again with the water, she chafed his cold hands again in hers with a tenderness that was enough to call a dead man back to life, but still he lay there mute and pale, arousing her worst fears.