“I will risk that,” he said.

“No.  I don’t want you to take any risks.  If you set up an idol, and it falls, you may be—­I think you are—­the kind of man to be ruined by it.”

She spoke very earnestly, but his faint smile told her that her words had failed to convince.

“Are you really afraid of all that?” he asked curiously.

She caught her breath.  “Yes, I am afraid.  I don’t think you know yourself, your strength, or your weakness.  You haven’t the least idea what you would say or do—­or even feel—­if you thought me unkind or unjust to you.”

“I should probably sulk,” he said.

She shook her head.  “Oh, no!  You would explode—­sooner or later.  And it would be a very violent explosion.  I wonder if you have ever been really furious with any one you cared about—­with Tommy for instance.”

“I have,” said Monck.  “But I don’t fancy you will get him to relate his experiences.  He survived it anyway.”

“You tell me!” she said.

He hesitated.  “It’s rather a shame to give the boy away.  But there is nothing very extraordinary in it.  When Tommy first came out, he felt the heat—­like lots of others.  He was thirsty, and he drank.  He doesn’t do it now.  I don’t mind wagering that he never will again.  I stopped him.”

“Everard, how?” Stella was looking at him with the keenest interest.

“Do you really want to know how?” he still spoke with slight hesitation.

“Of course I do.  I suppose you were very angry with him?”

“I was—­very angry.  I had reason to be.  He fell foul of me one night at the Club.  It doesn’t matter how he did it.  He wasn’t responsible in any case.  But I had to act to keep him out of hot water.  I took him back to my quarters.  Dacre was away that night and I had him to myself.  I kept my temper with him at first—­till he showed fight and tried to kick me.  Then I let him have it.  I gave him a licking—­such a licking as he never got at school.  It sobered him quite effectually, poor little beggar.”  An odd note of tenderness crept through the grimness of Monck’s speech.  “But I didn’t stop then.  He had to have his lesson and he had it.  When I had done with him, there was no kick left in him.  He was as limp as a wet rag.  But he was quite sober.  And to the best of my belief he has never been anything else from that day to this.  Of course it was all highly irregular, but it saved a worse row in the end.”  Monck’s faint smile appeared.  “He realized that.  In fact he was game enough to thank me for it in the morning, and apologized like a gentleman for giving so much trouble.”

“Oh, I’m glad he did that!” Stella said, with shining eyes.  “And that was the beginning of your friendship?”

“Well, I had always liked him,” Monck admitted.  “But he didn’t like me for a long time after.  That thrashing stuck in his mind.  It was a pretty stiff one certainly.  He was always very polite to me, but he avoided me like the plague.  I think he was ashamed.  I left him alone till one day he got ill, and then I went round to see if I could do anything.  He was pretty bad, and I stayed with him.  We got friendly afterwards.”