uld play with our cards concealed
and theirs on the table."

"The noble art of war, so sportsmanlike!" she exclaimed. "So like the
rules and ideals of the Olympic games! But the games will not serve to
keep nations virile. They must shed blood!"

"Sportsmanlike? Not in the least!" he said. "The sport and glamour of
war are past. The army becomes a business, a trade that ought to be
uniformed in blue jumpers rather than gold lace. We are in an era of
enormous forces, untried tactics, and rapidly changing conditions. This
is why the big nations hesitate to make war; why they prepare well; why
the stake is so great that the smallest detail must not be overlooked."

She could not hold back her arguments, reason was so unquestionably on
her side.

"Yes, the cunning of the fox, the brutality of Cain, using modern
science and invention! Feint and draw your enemy into a cul-de-sac;
screen your flank attacks; mask your batteries and hold their fire till
the infantry charge is ripe for decimation! Oh, I have been brought up
among soldiers! I know!"

"The rest of Feller's part you have guessed already," he concluded. "You
can see how a deaf, inoffensive old gardener would hardly seem to know a
Gray soldier from a Brown; how it might no more occur to Westerling to
send him away than the family dog or cat; how he might retain his
quarters in the tower; how he could judge the atmosphere of the staff,
whether elated or depressed, pick up scraps of conversation, and, as a
trained officer, know the value of what he heard and report it over the
'phone to Partow's headquarters."

"But what about the aeroplanes?" she asked. "I thought you were to
depend on them for scouting."

"We shall use them, but they are the least tried of all the new
resources," he said. "A Gray aeroplane may cut a Brown aeroplane down
before it returns with the news we want. At most, when the aviator may
descend low enough for accurate observation he can see only what is
actually being done. Feller would know Westerling's plans before they
were even in the first steps of execution. This"--playing the thought
happily--"this would be the ideal arrangement, while our planes and
dirigibles were kept over our lines to strike down theirs. And, Marta,
that is all," he concluded. "I've tried to make everything clear."

"You have, quite!" Marta replied decisively. "Now it is my turn to
talk."

"You have been talking a little already!" he intimated good-naturedly.