raise himself sufficiently
for it, and it was with a little cry of horror that Calvert and the
onlookers saw the Baron essay it and fall short, catching his skates in
the arm of the chair and crashing down heavily upon the ice. 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. As he turned away he caught sight
of Madame de St. Andre, who stood looking after the carriage with an
expression of anxiety on her face, which Calvert noticed had lost its
rosy color and was now quite pale. He would have gone to her to reassure
her concerning Monsieur de St. Aulaire's safety, but when he went toward
her she pretended not to see him, and quickly joined Madame d'Azay and
the Marechal de Segur.

The company broke up soon after the accident to Monsieur de St. Aulaire,
and in a few minutes Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Morris, and Calvert were in
their carriage on the way to the Legation, where Mr. Morris was engaged
to dine that evening.

"I thought you had told me that Mr. Calvert was quite indifferent to the
fair sex," says Mr. Morris, laughing, and speaking to Mr. Jefferson, but
with a side glance at the young man. "If so, he takes a strange way of
proving it. He will be the most-talked-of, and therefore the most
envied, man in Paris to-mo