Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/156

 forehead with vinegar, but her complexion remained green, and she lay, all in a heap, at the foot of his staircase.

Then he remembered that fainting people should be laid flat and not allowed to lie about in heaps at the foot of stairs, so he very gently and gingerly picked the girl up in his arms and carried her into his sitting-room. Here he laid her on the ground—he had no sofa—and sat beside her on the floor, patiently fanning her with a copy of the Athenæum, and watching the pinched, pallid face for some sign of returning life. It came at last, in a flutter of the eyelids, a long-drawn, gasping breath. The Greek scholar rushed for whisky—brandy he esteemed as a mere adjunct of channel boats—lifted her head and held the glass to her lips. The blood had come back to her face in a rush of carnation; she drank—choked—drank—he laid her head down and her eyes opened. They were large, clear grey eyes—very bewildered-looking just now—but they and the clear red tint in cheeks and lips transformed the face.

“Good gracious,” said he, “she’s pretty! Pretty? she’s beautiful!”

She was. That such beauty should so easily have hidden itself behind a green-tinted mask,