“I don’t think I can claim to be anything else,” he said.  “But that fact scarcely makes me in any sense one of a community.  I think I prefer to stand alone.”

Her blue eyes sparkled a little.  “Strangely, I have the same preference,” she said.  “It has never appealed to me to be one of a crowd.  I like independence—­whatever the crowd may say.  But I am quite aware that in a woman that is considered a dangerous taste.  A woman should always conform to rule.”

“I have never studied the subject,” said Monck.

He spoke briefly.  Tommy’s confidences had stirred within him that which could not be expressed.  The whole soul of him shrank with an almost angry repugnance from discussing the matter with her.  No discussion could make any difference at this stage.

Again for a second he saw her slight frown.  Then she leaned back in her chair, stretching up her arms as if weary of the matter.  “In fact you avoid all things feminine,” she said.  “How discreet of you!”

A large white moth floated suddenly in and began to beat itself against the lamp-shade.  Monck’s eyes watched it with a grim concentration.  Stella’s were half-closed.  She seemed to have dismissed him from her mind as an unimportant detail.  The silence widened between them.

Suddenly there was a movement.  The fluttering creature had found the flame and fallen dazed upon the table.  Almost in the same second Monck stooped forward swiftly and silently, and crushed the thing with his closed fist.

Stella drew a quick breath.  Her eyes were wide open again.  She sat up.

“Why did you do that?”

He looked at her again, a smouldering gleam in his eyes.  “It was on its way to destruction,” he said.

“And so you helped it!”

He nodded.  “Yes.  Long-drawn-out agonies don’t attract me.”

Stella laughed softly, yet with a touch of mockery.  “Oh, it was an act of mercy, was it?  You didn’t look particularly merciful.  In fact, that is about the last quality I should have attributed to you.”

“I don’t think,” Monck said very quietly, “that you are in a position to judge me.”  She leaned forward.  He saw that her bosom was heaving.  “That is your prerogative, isn’t it?” she said.  “I—­I am just the prisoner at the bar, and—­like the moth—­I have been condemned—­without mercy.”

He raised his brows sharply.  For a second he had the look of a man who has been stabbed in the back.  Then with a swift effort he pulled himself together.

In the same moment Stella rose.  She was smiling, and there was a red flush in her cheeks.  She took her fan from the table.

“And now,” she said, “I am going to dance—­all night long.  Every officer in the mess—­save one—­has asked me for a dance.”

He was on his feet in an instant.  He had checked one impulse, but even to his endurance there were limits.  He spoke as one goaded.