They seemed to forget, all of them, that this flashing, brilliant creature was his.
She seemed to have forgotten it also.

Or was it only that deep-seated, inimitable coquetry of hers that prompted her thus to ignore him?
He could not decide; but throughout the evening the determination grew in him to make this one point clear to her.

Trifle as she might, she must be made to understand that she belonged to him, and him alone.
Comrades they might be, but he held a vested right in her, whether he chose to assert it or not.
They returned at length to their little gimcrack bungalow--the Match-box, as Puck called it--on foot under a blaze of stars.

The distance was not great, and Puck despised rickshaws.
She flitted by his side in her airy way, chatting inconsequently, not troubling about response, as elusive as a fairy and--the man felt it in the rising fever of his veins--as maddeningly attractive.
They reached the bungalow.

She went up the steps to the rose-twined veranda as though she floated on wings of gossamer.