“It is an old custom,” he was saying, but she had turned away.

“Picking flowers!  What mockery!  Lanny’s plan—­mow them down! mow them down! mow them down!” she went on, more to herself than to him, as she dropped the chrysanthemums on the veranda table.

In a fire of resolution she hastened back down the terrace steps.  The Grays and the Browns were fighting in their way for their causes; she must fight in her way for hers.  Stopping before Feller, she seemed taller than her usual self and quivering with impatience.

“Have you connected the wire to the telephone yet?” she asked abruptly.

“No, not yet,” he answered.

“Then please come with me to the tower!”

Whatever his fears, he held them within the serene bounds of the gardener’s personality, while his covert glimpse of her warned him against the mistake of trying to dam the current of a passion running so strong.

“Certainly, Miss Galland,” he said agreeably, quite as if there were nothing unusual in her attitude.  No word passed between them as he kept pace with her rapid gait along the path, but out of the corner of his eye he surveyed in measuring admiration and curiosity the straight line of nose and forehead under its heavy crown of hair, with a few detached and riotous tendrils.

“Bring a lantern!” she said, as they entered his sitting-room, in a way that left no excuse for refusal.

When he had brought the lantern she took it from his hand and led the way into the tunnel.

“Please make the connection so that I can speak to Lanny!” she instructed him after she had pressed the button and the panel door of the telephone recess flew open.

For an instant he hesitated; then curiosity and the unremitting authority of her tone had their way.  He dropped to his knees, ran his fingers into an aperture between two stones and made a jointure of two wire ends.

“All ready!” he said, and eagerly.  What a delightfully spirited rage she was in!  And what the devil was she going to do, anyway?

As she took the receiver from the hook she heard an electric bell at the other end of the line, but no “Hello!”

“The bell means that Lanny will be called if he is there.  No one except him is to talk over this telephone,” Feller explained softly.

Marta waited for some time before she heard a familiar, calm voice, with a faint echo of irritation over being interrupted in the midst of pressing duties.

“Well, Gustave, old boy, it can’t be that you are in touch with Westerling yet?”

“It is I—­Marta!” and she came abruptly to the flaming interrogation that had brought her there.  “I want to ask a question.  I want a clear answer—­I want everything clear!  If Feller’s plan succeeds it means that you will know where the Grays are going to attack?”

“Yes; why, yes, Marta!”

“So that you can mow them down?”