He knew what to do with his men on the knoll, but not what to do in the
present situation. "This is our home; our home is our country. Here we
remain; but, naturally, we don't propose to stick our heads out of the
windows in a shower of shrapnel bullets," she continued. "Even your
soldiers are not so zealous for death but they fight behind sand-bags.
They are not like Mohammedan fatalists who so love to die for their
illusions that they bare their breasts to bullets. We have already
arranged sleeping-quarters in the rear. Good night!"

She held out her hand with a smile of conventional pleasantry. Had it
not been for the sound of firing, which still continued, and for the
walls denuded of pictures, they might have been parting at the head of
the stairs at a house-party. She stopped half-way up in an impulse to
call back happily:

"You see, masculine firmness did calm feminine hysteria!"

"Oh, Miss Galland!" he exclaimed. "Miss Galland, you are beyond me!"

"What a pose! How foolish to break out in that way!" she thought
angrily, as she hastened up the rest of the flight and along the
corridor. "To him of all men! A pattern-plate of an officer, who never
has had anything but a military thought! But everything is pose!
Everything is abnormal! And sleep? Sleep is a pose, too. I feel as if my
eyes would remain open forever. Oh, I wish they would begin the fighting
and tear the house to pieces if they are going to! I wish--"

She was at the door of her mother's room, which was like an antique
shop. Old plates lay on top of old tables, with vases on the floor under
the tables. Surrounded by her treasures, Mrs. Galland awaited the
attack; not as a soldier awaits it, but as that venerable Roman senator
of the story faced the barbarous Gauls--neither disputing the power of
their spears nor yielding the self-respect of his own mind and soul. She
had lain down in her wrapper for the night, and the light from a single
candle--she still favored candles--revealed her features calm and
philosophical among the pillows. Yet the magic of war, reaching deep
into hidden emotions, had her also under its spell. Her voice was at
once more tender and vital.

"Marta, I see that you are all on wires!"

"Yes; jangling wires, every one, jangling every second out of tune,"
Marta acquiesced.

"Marta, my father"--her father had been a premier of the Browns--"always
said that you may enjoy the luxury of fussing over little things, for
they d