“Then the doctor must have kept the truth from Partow,” she told him with a faint return of the teasing spirit that he knew well.  “He wants only men of steel, with nerves of copper wire run by an electric battery, on his staff, I’m sure.”

Lanstron laughed very humanly for an automaton.

“I’ll suggest the battery to him.  It might prove a labor saver,” he said.  “Being a little old-fashioned, he has depended on clockwork, which requires a special orderly to wind us when we fun down and nod at our desks.”  Then he turned solicitous.  “The Gray staff will certainly give you an escort beyond the Gray lines, where you will find a place to establish yourselves comfortably.”

The suggestion brought her energy back with the snap of a whip.

“No!” she declared.  “We stay in our home.  It’s ours!  No one else has any right there while our taxes are paid.  Doesn’t my children’s oath say:  ’I’ll not let a burglar drive me out of my house’?”

“Isn’t that coming around to my view, Marta?” he asked.  “Aren’t we refusing to leave the nation’s house because a burglar is trying to enter?”

“Lanny, you, with all your intellect—­when you know the oath as well as I—­you pettifog like that!  The oath says to appeal to justice and reason even after the first blow is struck.  Why doesn’t our premier appeal to the people of the Grays?”

“They garbled his last despatch, as it was, to suit their purpose.”

“Their government garbled it.  I meant to appeal not to their premier but to the people, as human beings to human beings.  Over there they’re human beings just as much as we are.  Why didn’t Partow speak, too, as chief of staff, if he is so fond of peace?  He is the one—­not the Fellers and the Dellarmes and the Stranskys, who merely act up to their faith and training as pawns—­he in the security of his cabinet making war.  Why didn’t he say:  ’We do not want war.  We will not mobilize our army.  We will do nothing to arouse the war passion?’”

“Their government would only have been convinced of an easier conquest, and by this time they would have been up to the main line of defence.  Marta, when the diplomatic history of the war is known it will be found that the Gray government struck as a matter of cold, deliberate intention.  Bodlapoo was only an excuse to carry out a plan of conquest.”

“So Partow has taught the Browns,” she answered stubbornly.  “That is one partisan view.  What is theirs?  What is Westerling teaching the Grays?”

“Marta—­really, I—­”

“What a smashing argument really is!  You see that you really are not for peace, but for war.  But won’t you ask Partow to do one thing, if he still insists that he is for peace?  I wonder if he will chuckle or laugh at my suggestion, or will he grin or roar?  Though you know that he will do them all, ask him to send out a flag of truce to the Grays and beg them to stay their operations