The Lamp in the Desert | Page 8

as she spoke the strain went out
of her attitude and she drooped against the wood-work of the window
as if spent. "Yes; but I know--too late."
The words reached him though he scarcely felt that they were intended
to do so. He suffered them to go into silence; the time for speech was
past.
The seconds throbbed away between them. Stella did not move or
speak again, and at last Monck turned from her. He picked up the
broken fan, and with a curious reverence he laid it out of sight among
some books on the table.
Then he stood immovable as granite and waited.
There came the sound of Tommy's footsteps, and in a moment the door
was flung open. Tommy advanced with all a host's solicitude.
"Oh, I say, I'm awfully sorry to have kept you waiting so long. That
silly ass of a khit had cleared off and left us nothing to drink. Stella, we
shall miss all the fun if we don't hurry up. Come on, Monck, old chap,
say when!"
He stopped at the table, and Stella turned from the window and moved
forward. Her face was pale, but she was smiling.
"Captain Monck is coming with us, Tommy," she said.
"What?" Tommy looked up sharply. "Really? I say, Monck, I'm pleased.
It'll do you good."
Monck was smiling also, faintly, grimly. "Don't mix any strong waters
for me, Tommy!" he said. "And you had better not be too generous to
yourself! Remember, you will have to dance with Lady Harriet!"
Tommy grimaced above the glasses. "All right. Have some lime-juice!

You will have to dance with her too. That's some consolation!"
"I?" said Monck. He took the glass and handed it to Stella, then as she
shook her head he put it to his own lips and drank as a man drinks to a
memory. "No," he said then. "I am dancing only one dance to-night,
and that will not be with Lady Harriet Mansfield."
"Who then?" questioned Tommy.
It was Stella who answered him, in her voice a note that sounded
half-reckless, half-defiant. "It isn't given to every woman to dance at
her own funeral," she said: "Captain Monck has kindly consented to
assist at the orgy of mine."
"Stella!" protested Tommy, flushing. "I hate to hear you talking like
that!"
Stella laughed a little, softly, as though at the vagaries of a child. "Poor
Tommy!" she said. "What it is to be so young!"
"I'd sooner be a babe in arms than a cynic," said Tommy bluntly.

CHAPTER III
THE TRIUMPH
Lady Harriet's lorgnettes were brought piercingly to bear upon the
bride-elect that night, and her thin, refined features never relaxed
during the operation. She was looking upon such youth and loveliness
as seldom came her way; but the sight gave her no pleasure. She
deemed it extremely unsuitable that Stella should dance at all on the
eve of her wedding, and when she realized that nearly every man in the
room was having his turn, her disapproval by no means diminished.
She wondered audibly to one after another of her followers what
Captain Dacre was about to permit such a thing. And when
Monck--Everard Monck of all people who usually avoided all
gatherings at the Club and had never been known to dance if he could

find any legitimate means of excusing himself--waltzed Stella through
the throng, her indignation amounted almost to anger. The mess had
yielded to the last man.
"I call it almost brazen," she said to Mrs. Burton, the Major's wife. "She
flaunts her unconventionality in our faces."
"A grave mistake," agreed Mrs. Burton. "It will not make us think any
the more highly of her when she is married."
"I am in two minds about calling on her," declared Lady Harriet. "I am
very doubtful as to the advisability of inviting any one so obviously
unsuitable into our inner circle. Of course Mrs. Ralston," she raised her
long pointed chin upon the name, "will please herself in the matter. She
will probably be the first to try and draw her in, but what Mrs. Ralston
does and what I do are two very different things. She is not particular as
to the society she keeps, and the result is that her opinion is very justly
regarded as worthless."
"Oh, quite," agreed Mrs. Burton, sending an obviously false smile in
the direction of the lady last named who was approaching them in the
company of Mrs. Ermsted, the Adjutant's wife, a little smart woman
whom Tommy had long since surnamed "The Lizard."
Mrs. Ralston, the surgeon's wife, had once been a pretty girl, and there
were occasions still on which her prettiness lingered like the gleams of
a fading sunset. She had a diffident manner in society, but