Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/246

 they've let me come to see you," he amended awkwardly.

The girl's vigilant wits were not to be hoodwinked.

"That's not what you meant to say, Captain Gray," she reproached him.

"It's true—" he was more successful this time—"that your coming probably earned me a respite."

"A respite?"

When is a woman deceived by a man's clumsy assurance? Or when does she fail to understand when something is kept back?

"Captain Gray, you know something you won't tell me! Did the Wusun threaten you?"

"No. They shielded me"

"Then you were in danger. I thought so. Now what did you mean by—respite?"

Instead, Gray told her how he had found his way into Sungan, omitting the details of the fighting, or his own achievement. Mary considered him gravely, chin on hand.

"I prayed that you would follow our caravan," she said. "I wished for you when every one was fighting so. Somehow, I was sure that you would reach Sungan. You see, you made me feel you were the kind of man who went where he wanted to go."

Gray looked up, and she shook her head reproachfully.

"You're just like Uncle Singh. You won't tell