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'