his eyes closed.  The fourth, having recovered from the collision, knelt down by his side, and gazed earnestly at him.  Tommy and Audrey hurried towards the statuesque group, and Audrey was thinking:  “Why did I refuse to let him play with me?  If he had played with me there would have been no accident.”  She reproached herself because she well knew that only out of the most absurd contrariness had she repulsed Musa.  Or was it that she had repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy might say or look?

In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous piece of luck, promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity from north, south, east and west to witness the tragedy.  There were nurses with coloured streamers six feet long, lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript men, some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers as they hurried to the cynosure.  They beheld the body as though it were a corpse, and the corpse of an enemy; they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on the ground.  They were exercising the immemorial rights of unmoved curiosity; they held themselves as indifferent as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices floated soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active profiles covered him from the sparkling sunshine.  Somebody mentioned policemen, in the plural, but none came.  All remarked in turn that the ladies were English, as though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole affair.

No one said: 

“It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps in Europe.”

Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath the armpits to lift him to a sitting position.

“You’d better leave him alone,” said Tommy, with a kind of ironic warning and innuendo.

But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that she was showing initiative and firmness of character.  The fourth with fierce vigour began to aid her, and another youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise when Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.

“Drop him, you silly little thing!” adjured Miss Ingate.  “Instead of lifting his head you ought to lift his feet.”

Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let the mass subside.  Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her strength lifted both legs to the height of her waist, giving Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.

“You want to let the blood run into his head,” said Miss Ingate with a self-conscious grin at the increasing crowd.  “People only faint because the blood leaves their heads—­that’s why they go pale.”

Musa’s cheeks showed a tinge of red.  You could almost see the precious blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out of the man’s feet into his head.  In a minute he opened his eyes.  Miss Ingate lowered the legs.

“It was only the pain that made him feel queer,” she said.

The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually and reluctantly scattered, disappointed at the lack of a fatal conclusion.  Musa stood up, smiling apologetically, and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the right could not be touched.