Later the ambulance came, and with its surgeon came a policeman.
Querida, lying with his head on her lap, opened his eyes again:
"I was—seated—on the window-ledge," he said with difficulty—"and overbalanced myself…. Caught the table—but it fell over…. That's all."
The eyes in his ghastly face closed wearily, then fluttered:
"Awfully sorry, Valerie—make such a mess—in your house."
"Oh-h—José," she sobbed.
After that they took him away to the Presbyterian Hospital; and nobody seemed to find very much the matter with him except that he'd been badly shocked.
But the next day all sensation ceased in his body from the neck downward.
And they told Valerie why.
For ten days he lay there, perfectly conscious, patient, good-humored, and his almond-shaped and hollow eyes rested on Valerie and Rita with a fatalistic serenity subtly tinged with irony.
John Burleson came to see him, and cried. After he left, Querida said to
Valerie: