Gods of the Jungle by Nelson S. Bond

Many sensations unfamiliar to a man whose work was purely a man's work had Ramey Winters experienced in regard to Sheila Aiken. From that hour long ago when she had dragged him from the wreckage of his burning Curtis on the plain beside Angkor Vat, he had admired her. Then, beneath the mellow moon of Chitrakuta, he had learned to love her. Now as they fled, side by side, through the avenues of Lanka, he discovered that admiration and love were not the only emotions she roused within him. There was another and stranger bond between them -- a bond of fellowship! Sheila Aiken was no soft, comfortable creature to be fondled and amused. No clinging-vine, demanding lavish attention. She was a man's woman -- a fighting man's woman -- giving as well as receiving, daring the same risks that confronted her mate. Ready as he to fight -- and if need be, to die -- for the cause they had made their own.

And realizing this, noting the cool, earnest haste with which she directed their passage out of danger, seeing in her white hand the automatic she had taken from the now helpless Lake O'Brien, Ramey Winters felt surging through him a sharp, bright glory that this woman should be his!