The Last Shot Part 51

"It was the Browns who started it!" he interjected in defence. "I had hoped that we should escape that kind of warfare." He was too intent to recall what he had said to the premier about using every known method of destruction.

"And this is only the beginning, isn't it?" she asked piteously, exhausted with her story.

"Only the beginning!" he agreed.

Again brooding wonder appeared in her eyes, while there was wonder in his eyes--wonder at her.

"And you remain with your property!" he exclaimed in a burst of admiration.

Once more she was looking away into the distance; once more he was studying her profile. He knew that she had gone through her experience without tears and without a scream. She had been subjected to his final test of all merit--war. Courage she had, feminine courage. And he had often asked himself what would happen if he, a great man, should ever meet a great woman. He was baffled by the resources of a mind that was held in detachment under her charm; baffled as to what she was thinking at that moment, only to find her smiling at him, the wonder in her eyes resolving itself into purpose.

"You see, I have been very much stirred up," she said half apologetically. "There are some questions I want to ask--quite practical, selfish questions. You might call them questions of property and mercy. The longer the war lasts the greater will be the loss of life and the misery?"

"Yes, for both sides; and the heavier the expense and the taxes."

"If you win, then we shall be under your flag and pay taxes to you?"

"Yes, naturally."

"The Browns do not increase in population; the Grays do rapidly. They are a great, powerful, civilized race. They stand for civilization!"

"Yes, facts and the world's opinion agree," he replied. Puzzled he might well be by this peculiar catechism. He could only continue to reply until he should see where she was leading.

"And your victory will mean a new frontier, a new order of international relations and a long peace, you think? Peace--a long peace!"

Was there ever a soldier who did not fight for peace? Was there ever a call for more army-corps or guns that was not made in the name of peace?

He had his ready argument, spoken with the forcible conviction of an expert.

"This war was made for peace--the only kind of peace that there can be,"

he said. "My ambition, if any glory comes to me out of this war, is to have later generations say: 'He brought peace!'"

Though the premier, could he have heard this, might have smiled, even grinned, he would have understood Westerling's unconsciousness of inconsistency. The chief of staff had set himself a task in victory which had no military connection. Without knowing why, he wanted to win ascendancy over her mind.

"The man of action!" exclaimed Marta, her eyes opening very wide, as they would to let in the light when she heard something new that pleased her or gave food for thought. "The man of action, who thinks of an ideal as a thing not of words but as the end of action!"

"Exactly!" said Westerling, sensible of another of her gifts. She could get the essence of a thing in a few words. "When we have won and set another frontier, the power of our nation will be such in the world that the Browns can never afford to attack us," he went on. "Indeed, no two of the big nations of Europe can afford to make war without our consent.

We shall be the arbiters of international dissensions. We shall command peace--yes, the peace of force, of fact! If it could be won in any other way I should not be here on this veranda in command of an army of invasion. That was my idea--for that I planned." He was making up for having overshot himself in his confession that he had brought on the war as a final step for his ambition.

"You mean that you can gain peace by propaganda and education only when human nature has so changed that we can have law and order and houses are safe from burglary and pedestrians from pickpockets without policemen? Is that it?" she asked.

"Yes, yes! You have it! You have found the wheat in the chaff."

"Perhaps because I have been seeing something of human nature--the human nature of both the Browns and the Grays at war. I have seen the Browns throwing hand-grenades and the Grays in wanton disorder in our dining-room directly they were out of touch with their officers!" she said sadly, as one who hates to accept disillusionment but must in the face of logic.

Westerling made no reply except to nod, for a movement on her part preoccupied him. She leaned forward, as she had when she had told him he would become chief of staff, her hands clasped over her knee, her eyes burning with a question. It was the att.i.tude of the prophecy. But with the prophecy she had been a little mystical; the fire in her eyes had precipitated an idea. Now it forged another question.

"And you think that you will win?" she asked. "You think that you will win?" she repeated with the slow emphasis which demands a careful answer.

The deliberateness of his reply was in keeping with her mood. He was detached; he was a referee.

"Yes, I know that we shall. Numbers make it so, though there be no choice of skill between the two sides."

His tone had the confidence of the flow of a mighty river in its destination on its way to the sea. There was nothing in it of prayer, of hope, of desperation, as there had been in Lanstron's "We shall win!"

spoken to her in the arbor at their last interview. She drew forward slightly in her chair. Her eyes seemed much larger and nearer to him.

They were sweeping him up and down as if she were seeing the slim figure of Lanstron in contrast to Westerling's st.u.r.diness; as if she were measuring the might of the five millions behind him and the three millions behind Lanstron. She let go a half-whispered "Yes!" which seemed to reflect the conclusion gained from the power of his presence.

"Then my mother's and my own interests are with you--the interests of peace are with you!" she declared.

She did not appear to see the sudden, uncontrolled gleam of victory in his eyes; for now she was looking fixedly at the point where Hugo had stood. By this time it had become a habit for Westerling to wait silently for her to come out of her abstractions. To disturb one might make it unproductive.

"Then if I want to help the cause of peace I should help the Grays!"

The exclamation was more to herself than to him. He was silent. This girl in a veranda chair desiring to aid him and his five million bayonets and four thousand guns! Quixote and the windmills--but it was amazing; it was fine! The golden glow of the sunset was running in his veins in a paean of personal triumph. The profile turned ever so little.

Now it was looking at the point where Dellarme had lain dying.

Westerling noted the smile playing on the lips. It had the quality of a smile over a task completed--Dellarme's smile. She started; she was trembling all over in the resistance of some impulse--some impulse that gradually gained headway and at last broke its bonds.

"For I can help--I can help!" she cried out, turning to him in wild indecision which seemed to plead for guidance. "It's so terrible--yet if it would hasten peace--I--I know much of the Browns' plan of defence! I know where they are strong in the first line and--and one place where they are weak there--and a place where they are weak in the main line!"

"You do!" Westerling exploded. The plans of the enemy! The plans that neither Bouchard's saturnine cunning, nor bribes, nor spies could ascertain! It was like the bugle-call to the hunter. But he controlled himself. "Yes, yes!" He was thoughtful and guarded.

"Do you think it is right to tell?" Marta gasped half inarticulately.

"Right? Yes, to hasten the inevitable--to save lives!" declared Westerling with deliberate a.s.surance.

"I--I want to see an end of the killing! I--" She sprang to her feet as if about to break away tumultuously, but paused, swaying unsteadily, and pa.s.sed her hand across her eyes.

"We intend a general attack on the first line of defence to-night!" he exclaimed, his supreme thought leaping into words.

"And you would want the information about the first line to-night if--if it is to be of service?"

"Yes, to-night!"

Marta brought her hands together in a tight clasp. Her gaze fluttered for a minute over the tea-table. When she looked up her eyes were calm.

"It is a big thing, isn't it?" she said. "A thing not to be done in an impulse. I try never to do big things in an impulse. When I see that I am in danger of it I always say: 'Go by yourself and think for half an hour!' So I must now. In a little while I will let you know my decision."

Without further formality she started across the lawn to the terrace steps. Westerling watched her sharply, pa.s.sing along the path of the second terrace, pacing slowly, head bent, until she was out of sight.

Then he stood for a time getting a grip on his own emotions before he went into the house.

x.x.xIII

IN FELLER'S PLACE

What am I? What have I done? What am I about to do? shot as forked shadows over the hot lava-flow of Malta's impulse. The vitality that Westerling had felt by suggestion from a still profile rejoiced in a quickening of pace directly she was out of sight of the veranda. All the thinking she had done that afternoon had been in pictures; some saying, some cry, some groan, or some smile went with every picture.