Netta had become too uppish of late.

It would be amusing to see how she took her lesson.
And as for his brother-officers, even the taciturn Monck had already shown that he was not proof against Stella's charms.

He wondered what Stella thought of the man, well knowing that few women liked him, and one evening, as they sat together in the scented darkness with the roar of their mountain-stream filling the silences, he turned their fitful conversation in Monck's direction to satisfy his lazy curiosity in this respect.
"I suppose I ought to write to the fellow," he said, "but if you've written to Tommy it's almost the same thing.

Besides, I don't suppose he would be in the smallest degree interested.

He would only be bored." There was a pause before Stella answered; but she was often slow of speech in those days.