Part 17 (1/2)

”And then?”

”Lanny, you yourself, with all your information, you don't think--”

”No; though we are nearer it than ever before, it seems to me,” he said, choosing his words carefully. ”But it is likely that diplomacy will find its way out of this crisis as it has out of many others.”

”Then we'll leave that question till the evil day,” she replied. ”We have had a terrific argument, Lanny, haven't we? And you have won!”

Her fingers flew out to his arm and rested lightly there after an instant's firm pressure, as was her wont after an argument and they sheathed their blades. Their comrades.h.i.+p seemed to be restored in all its old glory of freedom from petty restraint. He was sure of one thing: that she would let her fingers remain on no other man's sleeve in this fas.h.i.+on; and he hoped that she would let them remain there a long time.

Very foolish he was about her, very foolish for a piece of human machinery driven by the dynamo of a human will.

”I have an impression that your goodness of heart has won,” he suggested gently.

”Or rather let us say that Feller has won.”

”Better still, yes, Feller has won!” he agreed. ”Oh, it is good, good, good to be here with you, Marta, away from the grind for a little while,” he was saying, in the fulness of his antic.i.p.ation of the hours they should have together before he had to go, when they heard the sound of steps. He looked around to see an orderly from the nearest military wireless station.

”I was told it was urgent, sir,” said the orderly, in excuse for his intrusion, as he pa.s.sed a telegram to Lanstron.

Immediately Lanstron felt the touch of the paper his features seemed to take on a mask that concealed his thought as he read:

”Take night express. Come direct from station to me. Partow.”

This meant that he would be expected at Partow's office at eight the next morning. He wrote his answer; the orderly saluted and departed at a rapid pace; and then, as a matter of habit of the same kind that makes some men wipe their pens when laying them down, he struck a match and set fire to one corner of the paper, which burned to his fingers' ends before he tossed the charred remains away. Marta imagined what he would be like with the havoc of war raging around him--all self-possession and mastery; but actually he was trying to rea.s.sure himself that he ought not to feel petulant over a holiday cut short.

”I shall have to go at once,” he said. ”Marta, if there were to be war very soon--within a week or two weeks--what would be your att.i.tude about Feller's remaining?”

”To carry out his plan, you mean?”

”Yes.”

There was a perceptible pause on her part.

”Let him stay,” she answered. ”I shall have time to decide even after war begins.”

”But instantly war begins you must go!” he declared urgently.

”You forget a precedent,” she reminded him. ”The Galland women have never deserted the Galland house!”

”I know the precedent. But this time the house will be in the thick of the fighting.”

”It has been in the thick of the fighting before,” she said, with a gesture of impatience.

”Not this kind of fighting, Marta,” he proceeded very soberly. ”Other wars are no criterion for this. I know about the defences of the tangent because I helped to plan them. In order to keep the enemy in ignorance we have made no permanent fortifications. But the engineers and the material will be ready, instantly the frontier is closed to intelligence, to construct defences suited to a delaying and punis.h.i.+ng action. Every human being will be subject to martial law; every resource at military command. Every hill, house, ditch, and tree will be used as cover or protection and will be subject to attack.”

Not argument this, but the marshalling of facts of the kind in which he dealt as unanswerable evidence, while she listened with a still face and dilating eyes that did not look at him until he had finished. Then a smile came, a faint, drawn smile of irony, and her eyes staring into his were chilling and greenish-black in their anger.

”And the house of a friend meant nothing! It was only fuel for the h.e.l.l you devise!” she said, making each word count like shot singing over glare ice.

”It is only fair to myself to say that when I laid the sheets of my map before Partow I had excluded your house and grounds,” he pleaded in defence. ”His thumb pounced on that telltale blank s.p.a.ce. 'A key-point!