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?"