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As Stella answered Lady Loring, she was smartly tapped on the shoulder by an eager guest with a fan. The guest was a very little woman, with twinkling eyes and a perpetual smile. Nature, corrected by powder and paint, was liberally displayed in her arms, her bosom, and the upper part of her back. Such clothes as she wore, defective perhaps in quantity, were in quality absolutely perfect.
Though Marjorie became accustomed to it afterward, it was not an easy matter to climb the rope ladder for the first time; but under Uncle Steve's direction she began to learn the trick of it, and safely reached the top. Agile Molly scrambled up as if she had been used to rope ladders all her life; but to timid Stella the climbing seemed an impossible feat.
Yet did man ever adore a mistress so fatal and destroying as this poor shadow of the dead which he desired? It was not until New Year's Eve that Stella came again. Once more enervated and exhausted by the waves, Morris sank into a doze whence, as before, he was awakened by the sound of heavenly music to which, on this night, was added the scent of perfume. Then he opened his eyes to behold Stella.
He turned deliberately back again to Stella. "Will you come with me? Or will you go with Tommy and the Ralstons?" There was neither anxiety nor persuasion in his voice. Tommy frowned over its utter lack of emotion. He did not think his friend was playing his cards well. But to Stella that coolness had a different meaning. It stirred her to an impulse more headlong than at the moment she realized.
Very softly Monck turned the handle of the door and passed within, leaving him alone in the moonlight. They walked on the following morning over the pine-clad hill and down into the valley beyond, a place of running streams and fresh spring verdure. Stella revelled in its sweetness. It made her think of Home.
"And you, Stella, what about your lunch?" She could have cried out on the futility of this talk of lunches. Stella shook her head. "There is food here if I want it. My mother had taken to storing dainty food for me, since I have been so much with her, as though her food was not good enough for me. I shall not starve, Lady O'Gara." "Stella, I tell you it is impossible for you to stay here alone."
Dreadful indeed, then, was it to him when he found that he was called upon to contemplate the dull obverse of his shield of faith, and not its bright and shining face, in which he had seen mirrored so clear a picture of perfect happiness. So he begged on piteously enough, till at last Stella was forced to stop him by saying as gently as she could: "Please spare us both, Mr.
'It is none of your business, said Stella, who, though she imagined she had told Vava, did not wish to be questioned on the subject. 'All the same, you might have told me, for I went to your little room as usual to fetch you, and there was Mr. Jones typing his own letters, retorted Vava with an injured air.
"You do not know what you are saying, Grace. For Heaven's sake, be silent." Mrs. Comerford pushed her away with a force that hurt. A terrible thing about her anger was that while she said appalling things her voice had hardly lifted. Stella looked at her in a bewildered way. "I do not understand," she said. "You always told me my father was a gentleman. You said little about my mother.
The blue jay laughed at the gate gleefully, uproariously, derisively. Stella shivered. "He is coming!" said Peter. She started up. Monck was returning. He came up the compound like a man who has been beaten in a race. His face was grey, his eyes terrible. Stella went swiftly to the verandah-steps to meet him. "Everard! What is it? Oh, what is it?" she said. He took her arm, turning her back.
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