So she schooled herself to make her plans, leaving him out of the reckoning, telling herself ever that her newly restored freedom was too dear ever to be sacrificed again. In Mrs. Ralston's company she attended some of the social gatherings of the station, but she took no keen pleasure in them. She disliked Lady Harriet, she distrusted Mrs. Burton, and more often than not she remained away. The coming Christmas festivities did not attract her. She held aloof till Tommy who was in the thick of everything suddenly and vehemently demanded her presence. "It's ridiculous to be so stand-offish," he maintained. "Don't let 'em think you're afraid of 'em! Come anyway to the moonlight picnic at Khanmulla on Christmas Eve! It's going to be no end of a game." Stella smiled a little. "Do you know, Tommy, I think I'd rather go to bed?" "Absurd!" declared Tommy. "You used to be much more sporting." "I wasn't a widow in those days," Stella said. "What rot! What damn' rot!" cried Tommy wrathfully. "There is no altering the fact," said Stella. He left her, fuming. That evening as she sat on the Club verandah with Mrs. Ralston, watching some tennis, Monck came up behind her and stood against the wall smoking a cigarette. He did not speak for some time and after a word of greeting Stella turned back to the play. But presently Mrs. Ralston got up and went away, and after an interval Monck came silently forward and took the vacant seat. Tommy was among the players. His play was always either surprisingly brilliant or amazingly bad, and on this particular evening he was winning all the honours. Stella was joining in the general applause after a particularly fine stroke when suddenly Monck's voice spoke at her side. "Why don't you take a hand sometimes instead of always looking on?" The question surprised her. She glanced at him in momentary embarrassment, met his straight look, and smiled. "Perhaps I am lazy." "That isn't the reason," he said. "Why do you lead a hermit's life? Do you follow your own inclination in so doing? Or are you merely proving yourself a slave to an unwritten law?" His voice was curt; it held mastery. But yet she could not resent it, for behind it was a masked kindness which deprived it of offence. She decided to treat the question lightly. "Perhaps a little of both," she said. "Besides, it seems scarcely worth while to try to get into the swim now when I am leaving so soon." He made an abrupt movement which seemed to denote suppressed impatience. "You are too young to say that," he said. She laughed a little. "I don't feel young. I think life moves faster in tropical countries. I have lived years since I have been here, and I am glad of a rest." He was silent for a space; then again abruptly he returned to the charge. "You're not going to waste all the best of your life over a memory, are you? The finest man in the world isn't worth that."