Westerling says so!"
She had to pause for breath. "And, Lanny, I want to know some position
of the Browns which is weak--not actually weak, maybe, but some position
where the Grays expect terrible resistance and will not find it--where
you will let them in!"

"In the name of--Marta! Marta, what--"

"I am going to fight for the Browns--for my home!"

In the sheer satisfaction of explaining herself to herself, of voicing
her sentiments, she sent the pictures which had wrought the change
moving across the screen before Lanstron's amazed vision. There was no
room for interruption on his part, no question or need of one. The wire
seemed to quiver with the militant tension of her spirit. It was Marta
aflame who was talking at the other end; not aflame for him, but with a
purpose that revealed all the latent strength of her personality and
daring.

"Yes, the only way is to fight for your home," she concluded.
"Otherwise, the world would be to the bully and the heads of saints and
philosophers and teachers would be egg-shells under his bludgeon."

"It seems," said Lanstron, "that this is almost like my own view."

He was sorry before the words were fairly out of his mouth that he had
taken that tack. It was asking her to back down abruptly from her old
principles, which only the weak proselyte will do readily; and she was
not a proselyte at all, to her conception.

"No, no!" She etched her reply into his mind with acid, "My profession
is peace; it is not war. I am caught with my back to the wall. If the
Browns lose, the Gray flag floats over my home. As Westerling says,
everybody must take orders from the Grays then. Oh, the mockery of his
repairing the damage done to our house and grounds! Let him repair the
damage done to fathers and mothers by bringing their sons sacrificed to
the ambition for conquest back to life! Oh, I got the whole of him
reflected in the mirror of himself this afternoon when he was
comfortably taking tea, and in no danger, and sending men to death!"

There Lanstron winced over a characterization that might apply to him.
He could think of only one thing that would ever heal the wound. Perhaps
the chance for it would come some day.

"Yes," she went on, "sitting there so comfortably and serenely and
deciding that a man who was ready to die for his convictions must be
shot for cowardice! My views are like Hugo Mallin's and my back is
against the wall. But to the work, Lanny! I have a half-hour in