not hold him for ever. So, after the first, he knew that he would find
consolation. Certainly he would not break his heart for her or for any
woman, nor did he flatter himself that she would break hers for him.

Meantime--he prepared to shrug his shoulders over the inevitable. Things
might have been much worse. And perhaps on the whole it was safer to
obey Monck's command and go. An open scandal would really be a good deal
worse for him than for Stella, who had little to lose, and there was no
knowing what might happen if he took the risk and remained. Emphatically
he had no desire to face a personal reckoning at some future date with
the she-devil who had been the bane of his existence. It was an unlikely
contingency but undoubtedly it existed, and he hated unpleasantness of
all kinds. So, philosophically, he resolved to adjust himself to this
burden. There was something of the adventurer in his blood and he had a
vast belief in his own ultimate good luck. Fortune might frown for
awhile, but he knew that he was Fortune's favourite notwithstanding. And
very soon she would smile again.

But for Monck he had only the bitter hate of the conquered. He cast a
malevolent look upon him with eyes that were oddly narrowed--a
measuring, speculative look that comprehended his strength and
registered the infallibility thereof with loathing. "I wonder what
happened to the serpent," he said, "when the man and woman were thrust
out of the garden."

Monck had readjusted his disguise. He looked back with baffling,
inscrutable eyes, his dark face masklike in its impenetrability. But he
spoke no word in answer. He had said his say. Like a mantle he gathered
his reserve about him again, as a man resuming a solitary journey
through the desert which all his life he had travelled alone.