SAVED BY A YOUNG HERO.
All unconscious of the jealous hatred Belva Platt entertained toward
her, Fair Fielding tripped along the crowded streets toward her humble
home, her thoughts full of the occurrences of the day and of the
tempting bait the embroiderer had held out.
“Can it be true that she knows a rich young man who would rather marry
a working girl than a society belle?” she mused, in wonder. “I shall
tell mother, and see what she thinks of it.”
And the pretty, giddy head immediately became full of visions of wealth
and splendor, in which, to do her justice, her mother reigned supreme,
for the dream of Fair’s life was to see her mother restored to the
position she had once occupied in society.
“Poor darling, how proud I should be to dress her in silk and lace and
diamonds, and take her away from that humble house in a grand motor
car to a beautiful mansion full of flowers and magnificent furniture,
with troops of servants to wait upon her!” she thought eagerly, and the
brown eyes filled with quick tears, she had grown so earnest over the
wish.
Perhaps those tears blinded her; perhaps she did not notice anything
in her earnest self-absorption--for if she had been more careful she
would have escaped the danger impending over her. Every one else was
very careful not to pass under the scaffolding of the new building on
the corner, loaded with bricks, as it was, that the bricklayers were
using in their work. That very morning Fair had passed on the other
side as carefully as any, but now she forgot where she was, or she
did not notice. She walked straight on, with dazed, dreamy eyes, and
was recalled to herself quite suddenly by a chorus of frenzied shouts
that came, alas! too late, for the frail shelving above gave way and
precipitated the heavy bricks to the pavement below just as she walked
under.
There was a horrified cry close behind her, and then a strong hand
clutched her arm and jerked her away, but not before the edge of a
descending brick had sharply grazed her temple and inflicted a flesh
wound from which the blood spurted in a purple stream.
The man who had caught her away from under the torrent of falling
débris had done so at the risk of his own life, for one piece of plank,
as it whirled through the air, had sharply struck his shoulder as he
flung out an arm to turn it aside from Fair, whom, but for his timely
intervention, it would have stricken to the earth.
He was a tall, fair, fine-looking young man, simply dressed in
traveling costume, and he had been descending from a handsome motor
car that had just drawn up to the curbstone when Fair’s deadly peril
attracted his attention, and he leaped forward just in time to save
her life, for in another moment she must have been crushed beneath the
fallen planks and bricks of the treacherous scaffolding. But his swift
rush to her assistance had saved her life, although for a moment, as
her limp form slipped from his arm to the pavement, and her white face,
with its closed eyes, was upturned to the light, it seemed as if she
must, indeed, be dead.
A shocked, curious crowd surrounded the pair in a moment, among
whom there was, very fortunately, a physician. He bent over Fair’s
prostrate form, and gently lifted the wet locks from her brow to
examine the wound. Some one brought water and a sponge from the store
in front of which she lay, and with deft fingers he bathed and dressed
the cut, which, he said, was an ugly one, yet not dangerous.
“See--she is recovering,” he added, for just as he finished placing
the wide strip of court-plaster on the jagged wound she drew a long
sigh, opened her beautiful brown eyes, and looked up bewilderedly. He
assisted her to rise, and said good-naturedly:
“You are not much hurt, miss, but you owe your life to this young man,
who risked his own to snatch you back from under the falling bricks
yonder.”
Fair uttered a moan of pain, and looked up into a pair of dark-blue
eyes that were gazing on her anxiously from a handsome face, now pale
and drawn with pain. At the same moment the young man said quietly:
“Doctor, I am afraid my shoulder is dislocated. I threw up my arm to
ward off a falling plank, and it struck me.”
“Oh, I am so sorry!” cried Fair involuntarily, and the dark-blue eyes
looked at her gratefully just as the doctor turned and exclaimed:
“Ah, that is too bad!” He pulled off the patient’s coat, and, after a
quick examination, said: “Yes, it is true. Come, can you bear a hard
wrench? Now, if some strong man will assist me,” and in a few moments
it was all right, and Fair’s rescuer, very pale and with compressed
lips, was assisted into his car.
“Oh, he is gone, and I have not even thanked him!” said poor, trembling
Fair, who was leaning heavily on the arm of a strange woman, who had
stopped with the crowd. But just then the young man’s grave blue eyes
looked at her over the doctor’s shoulder. He was pressing a bill into
the physician’s hand, and saying eagerly:
“My dear doctor, we are forgetting the young lady. Please assist her to
the car, and I will take her home, if she will permit me.”
“Oh, I shall be so grateful,” sighed Fair, who was so weak and
trembling that she felt unable to walk, yet knew that there was not
even a nickel in her little purse to pay her car fare home. With a
sigh of relief, she allowed the physician to place her in the elegant
automobile by the side of her rescuer, and then she was alone with him,
for the door closed, and a kind, musical voice was saying:
“Now, tell the driver your address, please, and he will take you home
at once.”
Very timidly she named a cheap lodging house in a distant, humble
street, and as she saw his start of surprise she instantly added, with
a touch of bitterness:
“If it is too far out of your way, I can get out and walk, sir, as I am
used to walking.”
She had quickly comprehended that he was rich and proud, and fancied
that he might feel himself above her, hence her resentful speech, to
which he answered, with a slight smile at her petulance:
“You may be used to walking usually, but I do not think you could do so
at present, after the shock and hurt you have received.”
“Oh, yes, I’m almost certain I could,” she began to say resentfully
again, and, observing a keen, almost quizzical, glance in the
stranger’s blue eyes, she added desperately:
“I have to walk always, whether sick or well, for I have no automobile
to ride in. I’m only a working girl--a sewing girl.”
Something had seemed to compel her to the humiliating confession, for
to her proud young nature, so badly tutored by her mother, it did seem
humiliating to own it to this aristocratic-looking man, whose liveried
chauffeur had turned up his nose--she distinctly observed it--when she
had so timidly told him her address.
But the car was rattling along smartly now over the stony streets, and
she was sitting there on the cushions, going home in magnificent style,
and with something stirring at her heart that had never thrilled it
before--something new and sweet and strange that had seemed to start
into life at the first glance of those splendid dark-blue eyes that now
turned on her with something like pitying wonder, as their owner said
gravely:
“You look very young to have to work for your living. Are you an
orphan?”
“My father is dead. My mother is living, but she is sick, and I am her
only child,” Fair said, then stopped abruptly.
He had winced and shut his eyes as if in pain.
“His poor shoulder hurts,” Fair thought, in dismay.
She sat very still, watching his pale, handsome face with an earnest
gaze until suddenly the car came to a stop, and he opened his eyes
quickly, and met the wistful glance full.
He smiled, and Fair, so pale a moment before, blushed crimson, and
hastily dropped her long-fringed lashes.
“Are you sure you are not much hurt?” he asked gently, and she answered
eagerly:
“It is not very bad, thanks; but you--you are suffering; I see it in
your face. Oh, I am so sorry, and I thank you so much for saving my
life. I--I----”
The chauffeur opened the door, and stood impatiently waiting, having
said “Home, miss!” twice while she was making her impulsive little
speech.
Again she saw her rescuer’s handsome face pale, contract with pain, and
he held out his hand and touched hers gently, saying kindly:
“I am glad I had the pleasure of saving your life, little one.
Good-by.”