Willie, meanwhile, had vanished over the hill like the headless horseman Ten Eyck had likened him to.
After the first automatic recovery Persis was overtaken by a wave of terror she had had no time to feel. She turned ashen about the mouth, and a queasy feeling sickened her. Her elbows gave way, and she sank to the ground.
Senator Tait came up with difficulty, forgetting that he had been, perhaps, nearer death on that green battle-field than any other of the fallen. He heard Forbes wailing, as he gathered Persis into his arms and strengthened his own weak knees:
"Persis, my darling, my angel, speak to me! Are you dead?"
Persis opened her eyes with a flash. She began to realize that she had been very conspicuous. "Of course I'm not dead. But what's worse, my hair's down. I must be a sight! And my breeches are torn. Oh, Lord, why wasn't I killed romantically? Turn your backs at once."
The two men stared all the more, but she released herself from Forbes' arms, rose to her feet with some twinges of evident pain, and put up her hair with what few hairpins remained of her store, and borrowed a pin from the Senator's lapel to mend a rip that let one exquisite knee escape to view. A caddy came running up with her hat, and she thanked him.
"Come along," she said; "I feel as if I were on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House."
The horse got clumsily to his feet, all the battle knocked out of him, and followed weakly till she handed him over to a groom.
Eager to escape the stares that met her and the sympathy and felicitations that greeted her, she walked so rapidly that the Senator dropped back. She found herself alone with Forbes, and she murmured:
"You were wonderful to try to save me as you did."