The Heart Line: A Drama of San FranciscoBurgess, Gelett
General
The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
Burgess, Gelett
Bohemianism -- Fiction; Fortune-tellers -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
"Oh, no, I’m all right," he insisted, "but it’s like a dream! Let me
think—I was up on Telegraph Hill, and I slipped and fell over—then I
must have been unconscious until you came.—How did you happen to come?
I don’t understand. It’s so mysterious."
"You must get up now. See if you can walk." She gently urged him.
"I’ll explain it all when you’re safe down there where we can get help."
With her assistance he raised himself slowly, but the pain in his ankle
was too great for him to support his own weight. He dropped limply down
again and smiled up at her.
"I think I might make it if I had a crutch of some kind—any stick would
do."
"Wait, I’ll see if I can find one."
She left him, to go down, slipping dangerously at times, using her hands
to save herself. Part-way down she found an old broom—the straw was
worn to a mere stub, and this she brought back.
With its aid and that of her steady arm, he hobbled down foot by foot.
He slid and fell with a suppressed groan more than once, but she was
always ready to lift him and support his weight in the steeper descents.
The lower part of the hill fanned out to a more gradual slope, where it
was easier going. They reached the sidewalk at last and he sat down
upon a large rock almost exhausted.
Just then an electric car came humming down Sansome Street. In an
instant she was out on the track signaling for it to stop.
"If you pass a cab or a policeman, please send them down here!" she
commanded. "This gentleman has met with an accident and we must have
help to take him home."
The conductor nodded, staring at her, as she stood in her disheveled
finery, splendidly bold in the moonlight, like a dismounted Valkyr. The
car plowed on and left them. Calmly she stripped off her slashed gloves
and repaired the disorder of her hair. A long double necklace of pearls
caught the moonlight, and in the front breadth of her gown, a rent
showed a pale blue silken skirt beneath. Granthope, bedraggled and
smeared with blood and dust, was as grotesque a figure. The humor of the
picture struck them at once, and they burst into laughter.
Then, "How did you know?" he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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