Part 18 (1/2)
”If it ever comes,” she called, ”I'll let you know! I'll fly to you in a chariot of fire bearing my flame--I am that bold, that brazen, that reckless! For I am not an old maid yet. They've moved the age limit up to thirty. But you can't drill love into me as you drill discipline into armies--no, no more than I can argue peace into armies!”
For a while, motionless, Lanstron watched the point where she had disappeared.
”If I had only been a bridge-builder or an engine-driver,” he thought; ”anything except this beastly--”
But he was wool-gathering again. He pulled himself together and started at a rapid pace for the tower, where he found Feller sitting by the table, one leg over the other easily, engaged in the prosaic business of sewing a b.u.t.ton on his blouse. Lanstron rapped; no answer. He beat a tattoo on the casing; no answer.
”Gustave!” he called; no answer.
Now he entered and touched Feller's shoulder.
”h.e.l.lo, Lanny!” exclaimed Feller, rising and setting a chair and breaking into a stream of talk. ”That's the way they all have to do when they want to attract my attention. I heard your voice and Miss Galland's--having an argument in the garden, I should say. Then I heard your step. Since I became deaf my sense of hearing has really grown keener, just as the blind develop a keener sense of feeling. Eh? eh?” He cupped his hand over his ear in the unctuous enjoyment of his gift of acting. ”Yes, Colonel Lanstron, would you like to know what a perfect triumph we're going to pull off in irises next season--but, Lanny, you seem in a hurry!”
”Gustave, I am ordered to headquarters by the night express and I came to tell you that I think it means war.”
”War! war!” Feller shouted. ”Ye G.o.ds and little fishes!” In riotous glee he seized a chair and flung it across the room. ”Ye salty, whiskery G.o.ds and ye s.h.i.+ny-eyed little fishes! War, do you hear that, you plebeian trousers of the deaf gardener? War!” Flinging the trousers after the chair, he executed a few steps. When he had thus tempered his elation, he grasped Lanstron's arm and, looking into his eyes with feverish resolution and hope, said: ”Oh, don't fear! I'll pull it off. And then I shall have paid back--yes, paid back! I shall be a man who can look men in the face again. I need not slink to the other side of the street when I see an old friend coming for fear that he will recognize me. Yes, I could even dare to love a woman of my own world! And--and perhaps the uniform and the guns once more!”
”You may be sure of that. Partow cannot refuse,” said Lanstron, deeply affected. After a pause he added: ”But I must tell you, Gustave, that Miss Galland, though she is willing that you remain as a gardener, has not yet consented to our plan. She will make no decision until war comes. Perhaps she will refuse. It is only fair that you should know this.”
For an instant Feller was downcast; then confidence returned at high pitch.
”Trust me!” he said. ”I shall persuade her!”
”I hope you can. It is a chance that might turn the scales of victory--a chance that hangs in my mind stubbornly, as if there were some fate in it. Luck, old boy!”
”Luck to you, Lanny! Luck and promotion!”
They threw their arms about each other in a vigorous embrace.
”And you will keep watch that Mrs. Galland and Marta are in no danger?”
”Trust me for that, too!”
”Then, good-by till I hear from you over the 'phone or I return to see you after the crisis is over!” concluded Lanstron as he hurried away.
XIII
BREAKING A PAPER-KNIFE
Hedworth Westerling would have said twenty to one if he had been asked the odds against war when he was parting from Marta Galland in the hotel reception-room. Before he reached home he would have changed them to ten to one. A scare bulletin about the Bodlapoo affair compelling attention as his car halted to let the traffic of a cross street pa.s.s, he bought a newspaper thrust in at the car window that contained the answer of the government of the Browns to a despatch of the Grays about the dispute that had arisen in the distant African jungle. This he had already read two days previously, by courtesy of the premier. It was moderate in tone, as became a power that had three million soldiers against its opponent's five; nevertheless, it firmly pointed out that the territory of the Browns had been overtly invaded, on the pretext of securing a deserter who had escaped across the line, by Gray colonial troops who had raised the Gray flag in place of the Brown flag and remained defiantly in occupation of the outpost they had taken.
As yet, the Browns had not attempted to repel the aggressor by arms for fear of complications, but were relying on the Gray government to order a withdrawal of the Gray force and the repudiation of a commander who had been guilty of so grave an international affront. The surprising and illuminating thing to Westerling was the inspired statement to the press from the Gray Foreign Office, adroitly appealing to Gray chauvinism and justifying the ”intrepidity” of the Gray commander in response to so-called ”pin-p.r.i.c.king” exasperations.
At the door of his apartment, Francois, his valet and factotum, gave Westerling a letter.
”Important, sir,” said Francois.
Westerling knew by a glance that it was, for it was addressed and marked ”Personal” in the premier's own handwriting. A conference for ten that evening was requested in a manner that left no doubt of its urgency.