eep--deep as what Lanstron said when I revolted on the march. I
say it to you with this"--he touched the cross--"on my breast. And I'm
not going to give you up. It's a big world. There's room in it for a
place for you after the war is over and I'm going to make the place.
Yes, I've found myself. I've found how to lead men. My home isn't to be
in the hedgerows any more. It's to be where you are. You and I, whom
society gave a kick, will make society give us a place!" He was eloquent
in his strength; eloquent in the fire of resolution blazing from his
eyes. "And I'll be back again," he concluded. "You can't shake me. I'll
camp on your door-step. But now I've got to look after my company.
Good-by till I'm back--back to stay! Good-by, little daughter!" he added
with a wave of his hand to Clarissa as he turned to go. "Maybe we shall
have our own automobile some day. It's no stranger than what's been
happening to me since the war began."

"If you don't marry him, Minna, I'll--I'll--" Mrs. Galland could not
find words for the fearful thing that she would do.

"Marry him! I have only met him three times for about three minutes each
time!" protested Minna. She was as rosy as a girl and in her confusion
she busied herself retying the ribbon on Clarissa Eileen's hair. "He
called you little daughter!" she said softly to the child as she
withdrew into the tower.

"I am glad we didn't send Minna away when misfortune befell her," said
Mrs. Galland. "You were right about that, Marta, with your new ideas.
What a treasure she has been!"

Marta was scarcely hearing her mother; certainly not finding any credit
for herself in the remark. She was thinking what a simple, what a
glorious thing was a love such as Stransky's and Minna's: the mating of
a man and a woman whose brains were not oversensitized by too
complicated mentality; of a man and a woman direct and sincere,
primarily and clearly a man and a woman. Such happiness could never be
for her now; for her who had let a man make love to her for his own
undoing.

The skirmishers having halted beyond the linden stumps, the reserves
were stacking their rifles and dropping to rest in the garden. The sight
of the uniforms of the deliverers, of her own people, stirred Mrs.
Galland to unwonted activity. She moved here and there among them with
smiles of mothering pride. She told them how brave they were; how her
husband had been a colonel of Hussars in the last war. They must be
tired an