sunlight making her hair an aurora of flashing bronze
overtopping a brown face, the eyes holding answers to an increasing
number of unasked questions about the new forces that he had found in
her.

"Why, yes," she agreed with evident pleasure, for she was thinking of
Hugo.

Turcas now came, in answer to Westerling's ring. The orders and
suggestions on the table seemed to be the product of this lath of a man,
the vice-chief, but a lath of steel, not wood, who appeared a runner
trained for a race of intellects in the scratch class. One by one,
almost perfunctorily, Westerling gave his assent as he passed the papers
to Turcas; while Turcas's dry voice, coming from between a narrow
opening of the thin lips, gave his reasons with a rapid-firer's
precision in answer to his chief's inquiries.

With each order somewhere along that frontier some unit of a great
organism would respond. The reserves from this position would be
transferred to that; such a position would be felt out before dark by a
reconnaissance in force, however costly; the rapid-firers of the 19th
Division would be transferred to the 20th; despite the 37th Brigade's
losses, it would still form the advance; General So-and-So would be
superseded after his failure of yesterday; Colonel So-and-So would take
his place as acting major-general; more care must be exercised in
recommendations for bronze crosses, lest their value so depreciate that
officers and men would lack incentive to win them.

Marta was having a look behind the scenes at the fountainhead of great
events. Power! power! The absolute power of the soldier in the saddle,
with premier and government and all the institutions of peace only a dim
background for the processes of war! Opposite her was a man who could
make and unmake not only generals but even the destinies of peoples. By
every sign he enjoyed his power for its own sake. There must be a chief
of the five millions, which were as a moving forest of destruction, and
here was the chief, his strength reflected in the strong muscles of his
short neck as he turned his head to listen to Turcas. Marta recalled
the contrast between Westerling and Lanstron as they faced each other
after the wreck of the aeroplane ten years ago: the iron invincibility
of the elder's sturdy, mature figure and the alert, high-strung
invincibility of the slighter figure of the younger man.

"The evidence you asked for in that Mallin mutiny case," said Turcas,
indicatin