'And a second-rate singer,' thought Othmar. 'No, I would never have been that. The world, as it is, is cursed and suffocated with teeming mediocrity. If one cannot do greatly, let one do nothing.'
He turned with a sigh from the spectacle of the cloudless shining skies and of the windless shining waters, and went on his way over the bridge to return to his house in the Faubourg St. Germain. The clocks of Paris were striking the half-hour after twelve.
As he took out his cigar-case and lighted a fusee, a woman, held by the same guard who had lately passed him, was dragged by. She was silent and white with terror, but as she went she put out her hand to him in supplication. It seemed to him that he heard some faint bewildered words of appeal too low to be distinct. He threw his cigar aside, and followed and overtook them in three steps.
'What are you doing?' he asked the guardian of the streets. 'What is she guilty of? Touch her more gently at the least.'
To a man of his habits and temperaments, roughness to any woman seemed a horrible unmanliness and offence. At the sound of his voice the face of the captive was turned to him quickly, and the light of one of the bridge lamps fell full upon it. Her lips parted to speak, but her breathing was fast and oppressed, and her voice failed her. Yet he recognised her in unspeakable amaze.
'Damaris Bérarde!' he exclaimed involuntarily. 'Good heavens! What has happened to you? My poor child——'
'I do not know why the guard has taken me,' she said feebly. She put her hand to her forehead and staggered a little, as if from faintness.
She did not understand why they had arrested her, and of what she was suspected. It was the old story which meets all hapless, lone young creatures who are in the streets after dark. The man had thought that he did his duty; she belonged to a sad sisterhood, and had no legal warrant, so he had believed. To her the charge had been unintelligible; she had only known that they were taking her to the nearest commissary of police, accused of some unknown crime.
'Let her go at once,' said Othmar to the guard. 'I know her: I will be responsible for her. Good God, do you not see that she is ill?'
'If Count Othmar know her——' said the man with a dubious smile, unwillingly taking his hand from his victim. Losing that support she wavered a moment like a young tree that is cut to the root, and then fell in a heap upon the stones of the bridge.