In an
instant Calvert had reached him. Monsieur de St. Aulaire was lying quite
still and unconscious, with a thin stream of blood trickling from a
scalp wound on the temple, which had struck a splinter of ice. In a few
minutes, after much chafing of his hands and head, he opened his eyes,
and Calvert and the crowd who had quickly surrounded the two were
relieved to see that the injury had not been serious. A dozen fine
handkerchiefs were torn up, and Calvert bound the wounded temple and
helped him, still half-stunned, to rise. The fresh air revived him
somewhat, and, Madame de Segur's coachman running up at this moment to
tell him that his mistress's carriage was at his disposal, he was helped
to it, and, amid the sympathetic murmurs of the crowd, was sent off to
his apartments in the Palais Royal.
"A thousand pardons for causing you so much trouble, Monsieur," he said,
turning to Calvert, with one foot on the step of the carriage. "I shall
not forget this afternoon," and he bowed with his accustomed grace,
looking incomparably handsome in spite of his pallor and weakness and
the bandage about his forehead, and Calvert could not help but admire
the courtly ease of his manner, though he saw, too, the evil smile on
his lips and the ugly look in his eye.
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