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Fred obeyed, and at once began an earnest discussion with Willie as to the best method of getting a stout gentleman out of a third-floor window in case of fire, when Matty Merryon entered with a flushed face and said that a fireman who would not give his name wished to see Willie Willders for a minute; and she was inclined to think it was his brother. "What!
But Merryon had already burst into the bungalow; so he resumed his patient watch on the veranda, wholly undisturbed, supremely patient. The khitmutgar came forward at his master's noisy entrance. There was a trace just the shadow of a suggestion of anxiety on his dignified face under the snow-white turban. He presented him with a note on a salver with a few murmured words and a deep salaam.
But Merryon neither listened nor cared. He had turned Puck's deathly face upwards, and was covering it with burning, passionate kisses, drawing her back to life, as it were, by the fiery intensity of his worship. She came to life, weakly gasping. She opened her eyes upon him with the old, unwavering adoration in their depths. And then before his burning look hers sank.
"You'd better go yourself." Merryon glanced swiftly round. "Yes, go, go!" the colonel reiterated, irritably. "I'll relieve you for a spell. Go and satisfy yourself and me! None but an infernal fool would have kept her here," he added, in a growling undertone, as Merryon lifted a hand in brief salute and started away through the sodden mists.
It is not a pleasant one for you for either of us; but it has got to be grasped. I do not happen to know under what circumstances you met this woman; but I do know that she was my lawful wife before the meeting took place. In whatever light you may be pleased to regard that fact, you must admit that legally she is my property, not yours!" "Oh, no no no!" moaned Puck. Merryon said nothing.
"A born wheedler," the colonel called her; but his wife thought "saucy minx" a more appropriate term, and wondered how Major Merryon could put up with her shameless trifling. As a matter of fact, Merryon wondered himself sometimes; for she flirted with him more than all in that charming, provocative way of hers, coaxed him, laughed at him, brilliantly eluded him.
"Oh, someone is sure to come," responded Merryon. "They'll be getting bored directly, and come along here for coffee." "There's someone there now," said Puck, cocking her head. "I think I shall run along to bed and leave you to do the entertaining. Shall I?" She looked at him with a mischievous smile, very bright-eyed and alert.
Merryon pursued the matter no further, but he was vaguely dissatisfied. He had a feeling that she regarded his objections as the outcome of eccentric prudishness, or at the best an unreasonable fit of jealousy. She smoothed him down as though he had been a spoilt child, her own attitude supremely unabashed; and though he could not be angry with her, an uneasy sense of doubt pressed upon him.
But it left her painfully weak and thin, and the colonel became again furiously insistent that she should leave the Plains till the rains were over. Merryon, curiously enough, did not insist. Only one evening he took the little wasted body into his arms and begged her actually begged her to consent to go. "I shall be with you for the first fortnight," he said.
Merryon, on the other hand, flirted quite openly and very sweetly with every man she met. It was obviously her nature so to do. She had doubtless done it from her cradle, and would probably continue the practice to her grave.
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