But Mary V, he reminded himself, could not look beyond her own little desires and whims.

Because she had tried to lay down the law for him and he had failed to obey, she refused to see that he was playing for big stakes and that he could not be expected to throw everything up just because she had been worried over him for a couple of days.

The mere fact that he had not been lost on the desert, as every one supposed he was, could not affect his plans for the future, though Mary V seemed to think that it should.
"Well, since that is the way you feel toward me, I may as well drift," he made belated retort in a tone of suppressed wrath.

"I guess it would have been better if I'd stayed away, I'll remember--" "For gracious _sake_, what does make you so horrid ?" Mary V now had one arm crooked around his neck, which he stiffened stubbornly.

With her other hand she was tweaking his ears rather painfully.