'You have killed her!' said Othmar as he stooped to her. 'A country child in the brutality of Paris!'
'She is not ill: she wants food; that is all,' replied the police officer, assisting him with the respect which he felt for his riches.
'They always fall like stones in that way when they are hungry,' he added. 'I am sorry, sir, but how was I to know? She was a stranger, and she had no permit.'
'Call a fiacre,' said Othmar.
Although past midnight, a little crowd had gathered, and was fast assembling with that passion for novelty which is as strong in Paris as it was in Alkibiades' Athens. Most of them knew Othmar by sight.
'To the hospital?' asked the driver of the cab which approached.
'No, to my house,' answered Othmar, 'the Boulevard St. Germain.'
He lifted her in himself, threw his card to the guard, and drove over the bridge with the girl's inanimate form beside him.
The crowd laughed a little, cut some coarse jokes, and dispersed. It was a tame ending to its expectations. It would have preferred an assassination, or at least a suicide. The guard, sullen and aggrieved, carried Othmar's card and his own deposition to the nearest commissary. He knew that he would be censured, but whether for taking her up, or for letting her go, he was not certain.
Meantime, the vehicle rocked and jolted on over the asphalte till it reached the patrician quarter. Damaris remained insensible, but her heart beat, though slowly and faintly.