People were pushing and shoving, and he saw her face grow pale.

He realized with a pang of sympathy how helpless he would feel if he were as small as she, and at his utmost height could only see big, suffocating backs and huge shoulders pressing down from above.

He was keeping them from crowding heavily upon her with all his strength, and a royal feeling of protectiveness came over him.

She was so little.

And yet, without the remotest hint of hardness, she gave him such a distinct impression of poise and equilibrium, she seemed so able to meet anything that might come, to understand it--even to laugh at it--so Americanly capable and sure of the event, that in spite of her pale cheek he could not feel quite so protective as he wished to feel.
He managed to get her to one of the tent-poles, and placed her with her back to it.