The Lamp in the Desert | Page 4

some point with himself.

Finally, "All right. Just for a minute," he said. "But, look here, Tommy!
Don't you let your sister suspect that you've been making a confidant of
me! I don't fancy it would please her. Put on a grin, man! Don't look
bowed down with family cares! She is probably quite capable of
looking after herself--like the rest of 'em."
He clapped a careless hand on the lad's shoulder as they turned up the
path together towards the streaming red light.
"You're a bit of a woman-hater, aren't you?" said Tommy.
And Monck laughed again his short, rather bitter laugh; but he said no
word in answer.

CHAPTER II
THE PRISONER AT THE BAR
In the room with the crimson-shaded lamp Stella Denvers sat waiting.
The red glow compassed her warmly, striking wonderful copper gleams
in the burnished coils of her hair. Her face was bent over the long white
gloves that she was pulling over her wrists, a pale face that yet was
extraordinarily vivid, with features that were delicate and proud, and
lips that had the exquisite softness and purity of a flower.
She raised her eyes from her task at sound of the steps below the
window, and their starry brightness under her straight black brows gave
her an infinite allurement. Certainly a beautiful woman, as Monck had
said, and possessing the brilliance and the wonder of youth to an almost
dazzling degree! Perhaps it was not altogether surprising that the ladies
of the regiment had not been too enthusiastic in their welcome of this
sister of Tommy's who had come so suddenly into their midst, defying
convention. Her advent had been utterly unexpected--a total surprise
even to Tommy, who, returning one day from the polo-ground, had
found her awaiting him in the bachelor quarters which he had shared
with three other subalterns. And her arrival had set the whole station

buzzing.
Led by the Colonel's wife, Lady Harriet Mansfield, the women of the
regiment had--with the single exception of Mrs. Ralston whose opinion
was of no account--risen and condemned the splendid stranger who had
come amongst them with such supreme audacity and eclipsed the
fairest of them. Stella's own simple explanation that she had, upon
attaining her majority and fifty pounds a year, decided to quit the home
of some distant relatives who did not want her and join Tommy who
was the only near relation she had, had satisfied no one. She was an
interloper, and as such they united to treat her. As Lady Harriet said, no
nice girl would have dreamed of taking such an extraordinary step, and
she had not the smallest intention of offering her the chaperonage that
she so conspicuously lacked. If Mrs. Ralston chose to do so, that was
her own affair. Such action on the part of the surgeon's very ordinary
wife would make no difference to any one. She was glad to think that
all the other ladies were too well-bred to accept without reservation so
unconventional a type.
The fact that she was Tommy's sister was the only consideration in her
favour. Tommy was quite a nice boy, and they could not for his sake
entirely exclude her from the regimental society, but to no intimate
gathering was she ever invited, nor from the female portion of the
community was there any welcome for her at the Club.
The attitude of the officers of the regiment was of a totally different
nature. They had accepted her with enthusiasm, possibly all the more
marked on account of the aloofness of their women folk, and in a very
short time they were paying her homage as one man. The subalterns
who had shared their quarters with Tommy turned out to make room
for her, treating her like a queen suddenly come into her own, and like
a queen she entered into possession, accepting all courtesy just as she
ignored all slights with a delicate self-possession that yet knew how to
be gracious when occasion demanded.
Mrs. Ralston would have offered her harbourage had she desired it, but
there was pride in Stella--a pride that surged and rebelled very far
below her serenity. She received favours from none.

And so, unshackled and unchaperoned, she had gone her way among
her critics, and no one--not even Tommy--suspected how deep was the
wound that their barely-veiled hostility had inflicted. In bitterness of
soul she hid it from all the world, and only her brother and her brother's
grim and somewhat unapproachable captain were even vaguely aware
of its existence.
Everard Monck was one of the very few men who had not laid
themselves down before her dainty feet, and she had gradually come to
believe that this man shared the silent, side-long disapproval
manifested by the women. Very strangely that