tea on the veranda."

From the fact that he took with him the papers that he had laid aside,
subordinate generals, with the gift of unspoken directions which is a
part of their profession, understood that he meant to go over the
subjects requiring special attention while he had tea.

"Everything is going well--well!" he added in a way that said that
everything must be if he said so and that he knew how to make everything
go well. "And we shall be up pretty late to-night. Any one who feels the
need had better take a nap"--the implication being that he did not.

"Well!" ran the unspoken communication of confidence through the staff.
So well that His Excellency was calmly taking tea on the veranda! For
the indefatigable Turcas the detail; for Westerling the front of Jove.

"Well!" The thrill of the word was with him in a flight of sentiment as
he stood on that veranda where a certain prophecy had been made to a
young colonel. Sight of the rippling folds of the flag of his country on
the outskirts of the town prolonged the thrill. His eyes swept the pale
horizon of the distances of plain and Mountain and lowered to the
garden. Above the second terrace he saw a crown of woman's hair--hair of
a jet abundance, radiant in the sunlight and shading a face that brought
familiar completeness to the scene.

He had told Marta only two weeks ago that he should see her again if
war came; and war had come. With the inviting prospect of a few holiday
moments in which to continue the interview that had been abruptly
concluded in a hotel reception-room, he started down the terrace steps.
Their glances met where the second terrace path ended at the second
terrace flight; hers shot with a beam of restrained and questioning good
humor that spoke at least a truce to the invader.

"You called sooner than I expected," she said in a note of equivocal
pleasantry.

"Or I," he rejoined with a shade of triumph, the politest of triumph. He
was a step above her, her head on a level with the pocket of his blouse.
His square shoulders, commanding height, and military erectness were
thus emphasized, as was her own feminine slightness.

"I want to thank you," she said. "As becomes a soldier, your forethought
was expressed in action. It was the promptness of the men you sent to
look after the garden which saved the uprooted plants before they were
past recovery."

"I wished it for your sake and somewhat for my own sake to be the same
that it was i