under that heading, am I not?"

He heard the challenge in her tone, delicately though she presented it,
and something in him that was fierce and unrestrained sprang up to meet
it. But he forced it back. His expression remained wholly inscrutable.

"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 hav