to come back here. I don't think I shall get ill--really. And if I
do"--she made a little foreign gesture of the hands--"I'll nurse
myself."

As Merryon had foretold, it was useless to argue with her. She
dismissed all argument with airy unreason. But yet the colonel could not
find it in his heart to be angry with her. He was very angry with
Merryon, so angry that for a whole fortnight he scarcely spoke to him.

But when the end of the fortnight came, and with it the first break in
the rains, little Mrs. Merryon went smiling forth and returned his call.

"Are you still being cross with Billikins?" she asked him, while her
hand lay engagingly in his. "Because it's really not his fault, you
know. If he sent me to Kamchatka, I should still come back."

"You wouldn't if you belonged to me," said Colonel Davenant, with a
grudging smile.

She laughed and shook her head. "Perhaps I shouldn't--not unless I loved
you as dearly as I love Billikins. But I think you needn't be cross
about it. I'm quite well. If you don't believe me, you can look at my
tongue."

She shot it out impudently, still laughing. And the colonel suddenly and
paternally patted her cheek.

"You're a very naughty girl," he said. "But I suppose we shall have to
make the best of you. Only, for Heaven's sake, don't go and get ill on
the quiet! If you begin to feel queer, send for the doctor at the
outset!"

He abandoned his attitude of disapproval towards Merryon after that
interview, realizing possibly its injustice. He even declared in a
letter to his wife that Mrs. Merryon was an engaging chit, with a will
of her own that threatened to rule them all! Mrs. Davenant pursed her
lips somewhat over the assertion, and remarked that Major Merryon's wife
was plainly more at home with men than women. Captain Silvester was so
openly out of temper over her absence that it was evident she had been
"leading him on with utter heartlessness," and now, it seemed, she meant
to have the whole mess at her beck and call.

As a matter of fact, Puck saw much more of the mess than she desired. It
became the fashion among the younger officers to drop into the Merryons'
bungalow at the end of the evening. Amusements were scarce, and Puck was
a vigorous antidote to boredom. She always sparkled in society, and she
was too sweet-natured to snub "the boys," as she called them. The smile
of welcome was ever ready on her little, thin white face, the quick jest
on her nimble ton