She was aware, without knowing why, that he was extremely well dressed;
she saw that the ungloved hand was long and thin--the hand of a
well-bred man--and that everything about him indicated wealth and the
gentleman.

All these observations required but a second or two--a man would only
have got at them after an hour--and, almost before they were made, he
opened his eyes with the usual dazed and puzzled expression which an
individual wears when he has been knocked out of time and is coming back
to consciousness.

As his eyes opened, Nell noticed that they were dark--darker than they
should have been to match his hair--and that they were anything but
commonplace ones. He looked up at her for an instant or two, then
muttered something under his breath--Nell was almost certain that he
swore--and aloud, in the toneless voice of the newly conscious, said: "I came off, didn't I?"

"Yes," said Nell.

She neither blushed nor looked shy. Indeed, she was too frightened, too
absorbed by her desire for his recovery to remember herself, or the fact
that this strange man's head was lying on her knee.

"I must have been unconscious," he said, almost to himself. "Yes, I've
struck my head."

Then he got to his feet and stood looking at her; and his face was, if
anything, whiter than it had been.

"I'm very sorry. Permit me to apologize, for I must have frightened you
awfully. And"--he looked at her dress, upon which was a large wet patch
where his head had rested--"and I've spoiled your dress. In short, I've
made a miserable nuisance of myself."