"Captain Monck is coming with us, Tommy," she said.
"What?" Tommy looked up sharply. "Really? I say, Monck, I'm pleased. It'll do you good."
Monck was smiling also, faintly, grimly. "Don't mix any strong waters for me, Tommy!" he said. "And you had better not be too generous to yourself! Remember, you will have to dance with Lady Harriet!"
Tommy grimaced above the glasses. "All right. Have some lime-juice! You will have to dance with her too. That's some consolation!"
"I?" said Monck. He took the glass and handed it to Stella, then as she shook her head he put it to his own lips and drank as a man drinks to a memory. "No," he said then. "I am dancing only one dance to-night, and that will not be with Lady Harriet Mansfield."
"Who then?" questioned Tommy.
It was Stella who answered him, in her voice a note that sounded half-reckless, half-defiant. "It isn't given to every woman to dance at her own funeral," she said: "Captain Monck has kindly consented to assist at the orgy of mine."
"Stella!" protested Tommy, flushing. "I hate to hear you talking like that!"
Stella laughed a little, softly, as though at the vagaries of a child. "Poor Tommy!" she said. "What it is to be so young!"
"I'd sooner be a babe in arms than a cynic," said Tommy bluntly.