following day we started on our journey southward.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Sleeping berth for two persons in the Pullman car.]

CHAPTER X

IN THE SHADOW OF THE VOLCANO

The journey down to the City of Mexico, in itself, was a delight to
me, and I felt how infinitely more I could have enjoyed it had Viola
been with me.

My present companion did not seem able to appreciate any but physical
beauty. If a good looking man came on board the train she glanced over
him, demurely enough, but with the eye of a connoisseur. The glorious
beauty, however, of the painted skies and magnificent stretches of
open country we were passing through affected her not at all.

For four days, on either side of the train, America unrolled before us
her vast tracts of entrancing beauty, from which I could hardly tear
my gaze, and this little almond-eyed doll sat in a lump on the seat
opposite me yawning and fidgeting, or else reading some childish book;
or spent the time at the other end of the car playing with some
American children on board the train.

I did not intend to have my journey spoilt by her, so I gave my own
attention to the scene and told her to go and play, if she wished, or
buy oranges and pictures from the train-venders, do anything she
liked, in fact, as long as she did not disturb me and prevent my
taking a pleasure in the beauty she could not see.

Suzee, annoyed at my admiration of something she could not
appreciate, was mostly sulky and pettish through the day, regaining
her good temper at night when we retired into our section.

As a toy to caress, to fondle, she was enchanting. Nature had
apparently made her for that and for nothing else. Her extreme youth,
her beauty, her joy in love, made her irresistible at such moments.
And as I was young, at the height of youth's powers and desires, our
relations in that way held a great deal of pleasure for us both.

But that was the limit. Beyond this there was nothing.

That exquisite mental companionship, that sharing of every thought and
idea, that constant conversation on all sorts of subjects that
interested us both, all this which I had had with Viola, and which
filled so perfectly those intervals when the tired senses ask for, and
can give, no more pleasure, was completely absent here.

That delight in beauty which is to an artist as much a part of his
life as another man's delight in food or wine Viola had shared with me
in an intense degree.

An