in
reaction. For twenty-four hours she had been without sleep. The interest
of her appeal for Feller had kept up her strength after the excitement
of the fight for the redoubt was over. Now there seemed nothing left to
do.

"No doctor who ever examined me for promotion has yet found that I
wasn't flesh and blood," Lanstron remarked a little plaintively.

"Then the doctor must have kept the truth from Partow," she told him
with a faint return of the teasing spirit that he knew well. "He wants
only men of steel, with nerves of copper wire run by an electric
battery, on his staff, I'm sure."

Lanstron laughed very humanly for an automaton.

"I'll suggest the battery to him. It might prove a labor saver," he
said. "Being a little old-fashioned, he has depended on clockwork, which
requires a special orderly to wind us when we fun down and nod at our
desks." Then he turned solicitous. "The Gray staff will certainly give
you an escort beyond the Gray lines, where you will find a place to
establish yourselves comfortably."

The suggestion brought her energy back with the snap of a whip.

"No!" she declared. "We stay in our home. It's ours! No one else has any
right there while our taxes are paid. Doesn't my children's oath say:
'I'll not let a burglar drive me out of my house'?"

"Isn't that coming around to my view, Marta?" he asked. "Aren't we
refusing to leave the nation's house because a burglar is trying to
enter?"

"Lanny, you, with all your intellect--when you know the oath as well as
I--you pettifog like that! The oath says to appeal to justice and reason
even after the first blow is struck. Why doesn't our premier appeal to
the people of the Grays?"

"They garbled his last despatch, as it was, to suit their purpose."

"Their government garbled it. I meant to appeal not to their premier but
to the people, as human beings to human beings. Over there they're human
beings just as much as we are. Why didn't Partow speak, too, as chief of
staff, if he is so fond of peace? He is the one--not the Fellers and the
Dellarmes and the Stranskys, who merely act up to their faith and
training as pawns--he in the security of his cabinet making war. Why
didn't he say: 'We do not want war. We will not mobilize our army. We
will do nothing to arouse the war passion?'"

"Their government would only have been convinced of an easier conquest,
and by this time they would have been up to the main line of defence.
Marta, when th