Helene gasped. "Am I to wear it to-night? That would be too wonderful.
This is the last great night in town."
"Why not? I shall be there to mount guard. You shall always wear it when
I am able to go out with you."
She lifted her radiant face, although it remained subtly immobile with a
new and almost formal self-possession. "I am even more delighted than I
was yesterday, for at the fete there will be so much novelty to distract
attention. You always think of the nicest possible things."
When they were in the taxi he put his arm about her.
"I wonder," he began gropingly, "if you would mind not going out when I
cannot go with you? I'll go as often as I can manage. There are
reasons--"
He felt her light body grow rigid. "Reasons? You told me only
yesterday--"
"I know. But I have been thinking it over. That is rather a fast lot you
run with. I know, of course, they are F.F.C.'s, and all the rest of it,
but if I ever drove up to the Club House in Burlingame in the morning and
saw you sitting on the veranda smoking and drinking gin fizzes--"
"You never will! I could not swallow a gin fizz, or any nasty mixed
drink. And although I have had my cigarette after meals ever since I was
fifteen, I never smoke in public."
"I confess I cannot see you in the picture that rose for some perverse
reason in my mind; but--well, you really are too young to go about so
much without your husband--"
"I am always chaperoned to the large affairs. Mrs. Gwynne takes me to the
Fairmont to-night."
"I know. But scandal is bred in the marrow of San Francisco. Its social
history is founded upon it, and it is almost a matter of principle to
replace decaying props. Do you mind so much not going about unless I can
be with you?"
"No, of course not." Her voice was sweet and submissive, but her body did
not relax. She added graciously: "After all, there are so many luncheons,
and we often dance in the afternoon."
He had not thought of that! What avail to guard her merely in the
evening? It was not her life that was in danger....
And he seemed as immeasurably far from obtaining her confidence as
before. He had always understood that the ways of matrimonial diplomacy
were strewn with pitfalls and wished that some one had opened a school
for married men before his time.