"I didn't say anything." Stella still spoke wearily, albeit she was
faintly smiling. "I was only wondering."

"Wondering what?" Tommy's voice had a hint of sharpness; he looked
momentarily aggressive.

"Just wondering how much you knew of him, that's all," she made answer.

"I know as much as any one," asserted Tommy quickly. "He's a man to be
honoured. I'd stake my life on that. He is incapable of anything mean or
underhand."

Stella was silent. The boy's faith was genuine, she knew, but,
remembering what Ralph Dacre had told her on their last night together,
she could not stifle the wonder as to whether Tommy had ever grasped the
actual quality of his friend's character. It seemed to her that Tommy's
worship was of too humble a species to afford him a very comprehensive
view of the object thereof. She was sure that unlike herself--he would
never presume to criticize, would never so much as question any action
of Monck's. Her own conception of the man, she was aware, had altered
somewhat since that night. She regarded him now with a wholly
dispassionate interest. She had attracted him, but she much doubted if
the attraction had survived her marriage. For herself, that chapter in
her life was closed and could never, she now believed, be reopened.
Monck had gone his way, she hers, and they had drifted apart. Only by
the accident of circumstance would they meet again, and she was
determined that when this meeting took place their relations should be
of so impersonal a character that he should find it well-nigh impossible
to recall the fact that any hint of romance had ever hovered even for a
fleeting moment between them. He had his career before him. He followed