The Safety Curtain | Page 7

she drew,
and very suddenly he rose.
She made a spring backwards, but she was too late. He caught and held
her.
"Let me go!" she cried, her face crimson.
"But why?" Merryon's voice fell curt and direct. He held her firmly by
the shoulders.
She struggled against him fiercely for a moment, then became suddenly
still. "You're not a brute, are you?" she questioned, breathlessly.
"You--you'll be good to me? You said so!"
He surveyed her grimly. "Yes, I will be good to you," he said. "But I'm
not going to be fooled. Understand? If you marry me, you must play
the part. I don't know how old you are. I don't greatly care. All I do care
about is that you behave yourself as the wife of a man in my position
should. You're old enough to know what that means, I suppose?"
He spoke impressively, but the effect of his words was not quite what
he expected. The point of a very red tongue came suddenly from
between the red lips, and instantly disappeared.
"That all?" she said. "Oh yes; I think I can do that. I'll try, anyway. And
if you're not satisfied--well, you'll have to let me know. See?
Now let me go, there's a good man! I don't like the feel of your hands."

He let her go in answer to the pleading of her eyes, and she slipped
from his grasp like an eel, caught up the coat at her feet, and wriggled
into it.
Then, impishly, she faced him, buttoning it with nimble fingers the
while. "This is the garment of respectability," she declared. "It isn't
much of a fit, is it? But I shall grow to it in time. Do you know, I
believe I'm going to like being your wife?"
"Why?" said Merryon.
She laughed--that laugh of irrepressible gaiety that had surprised him
before.
"Oh, just because I shall so love fighting your battles for you," she said.
"It'll be grand sport."
"Think so?" said Merryon.
"Oh, you bet!" said the Dragon-Fly, with gay confidence. "Men never
know how to fight. They're poor things--men!"
He himself laughed at that--his grim, grudging laugh. "It's a world of
fools, Puck," he said.
"Or knaves," said the Dragon-Fly, wisely. And with that she stretched
up her arms above her head and laughed again. "Now I know what it
feels like," she said, "to have risen from the dead."
CHAPTER III
COMRADES
There came the flash of green wings in the cypresses and a raucous
scream of jubilation as the boldest parakeet in the compound flew off
with the choicest sweetmeat on the tiffin-table in the veranda. There
were always sweets at tiffin in the major's bungalow. Mrs. Merryon
loved sweets. She was wont to say that they were the best remedy for

homesickness she knew.
Not that she ever was homesick. At least, no one ever suspected such a
possibility, for she had a smile and a quip for all, and her laughter was
the gayest in the station. She ran out now, half-dressed, from her
bedroom, waving a towel at the marauder.
"That comes of being kind-hearted," she declared, in the deep voice
that accorded so curiously with the frothy lightness of her personality.
"Everyone takes advantage of it, sure."
Her eyes were grey and Irish, and they flashed over the scene
dramatically, albeit there was no one to see and admire. For she was
strangely captivating, and perhaps it was hardly to be expected that she
should be quite unconscious of the fact.
"Much too taking to be good, dear," had been the verdict of the
Commissioner's wife when she had first seen little Puck Merryon, the
major's bride.
But then the Commissioner's wife, Mrs. Paget, was so severely plain in
every way that perhaps she could scarcely be regarded as an impartial
judge. She had never flirted with any one, and could not know the joys
thereof.
Young Mrs. 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.
"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. She would perch
daintily on the arm of his chair when he was busy, but if he so much as

laid a hand upon her she was gone in a flash like a whirling insect, not
to return till he was too