At the office where I went to buy tickets for our journey I was put to worse annoyance.  I had taken tickets for two from ’Frisco to City of Mexico when the clerk, looking suddenly from me to my childish companion, said:  “We can’t give you a section,[A] sir.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Only married couples,” he remarked tersely, and turned away.

I told Suzee to go outside, and went to another part of the office, bought my section ticket from another clerk while the first was engaged, and then joined her.  I began to realise that petty difficulties would line the path the whole way, and I must make some effort to minimise them.

We went to a cafe for lunch, and after seating ourselves at a table a little away from the staring crowd, I said:  “I expect it would be better if we got you some American clothes.”

“Very well, Treevor,” she returned docilely, and leant her pretty, round, ivory-hued cheek on her hand as she looked across at me adoringly.  Had I suggested cutting off her head, I believe she would have looked the same.

“We must try after lunch to get some,” I continued.  “And don’t be too submissive to me in public.  You see, it’s not at all the fashion with us for wives to be that way, and it makes people think you are not mine.”

Suzee laughed gaily:  the idea seemed to amuse her.

After lunch we went to one of the large stores, and Suzee, in her scarlet silk attracted of course general attention.  We found, however, a sensible saleswoman to whom I explained that I wanted a grey travelling costume, and she and Suzee disappeared from me entirely, into the fitting-room.

Left alone, I swung myself back on a chair and lapsed into thought.

When Suzee at last came back an exclamation broke from me.  She was spoilt.  Lovely as she seemed in her own picturesque clothing, in the rough grey cloth of hideous Western dress she looked simply a little guy.  Reading my face at a glance, her own clouded instantly, and in another second she would have thrown herself at my feet had I not warned her by a look and a gesture not to.  I sprang up and turned to the saleswoman.

“Is this the best, the prettiest costume you have?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.  You see it’s so difficult to fit the young lady without any corsets, and she is really so short we have only a few skirts that will do for her.”

I looked at Suzee as she stood before me.  The figure, so exquisite in its lines when unclothed, looked too soft and shapeless under the cloth coat.  She appeared absurdly short, too, beside the American assistant, who stood at least five feet eleven.  I could not bear to see my little Suzee so disfigured.  However, that she looked far more ordinary could not be disputed.  She would attract less attention now, and that might be an advantage.  Her head was still bare and had its Oriental character, but the colour of her skin against the grey cloth lost its creaminess that it had possessed above the blue silk jacket.  It now looked merely sallow.