The Grays were winning; this alone counted in the present.  They would continue to win; this alone counted in the future.  They had won by crowding in reserves till the positions attacked yielded to superior strength.  Thus they would continue to win until the last positions had yielded.

Five million mothers’ sons against three million mothers’ sons!  Five to three pounds of flesh!  Five to three ounces of blood!  With equal skill, superior strength must always tell.  Westerling and his staff were responsible for the skill.  If their minds would work better for it, the nation could well afford to feed them on nightingales’ tongues.

Confidence is the handmaiden of skill.  Confidence is the edge on the sword; confidence brings the final charge that wins the redoubt.  Confidence was reflected in Westerling’s bearing and in his smile of command as he passed through the staff rooms, Turcas and Bouchard in his train, with tacit approval of the arrangements.  Finally, Turcas, now vice-chief of staff, and the other chiefs awaited his pleasure in the library, which was to be his sanctum.  On the massive seventeenth-century desk lay a number of reports and suggestions.  Westerling ran through them with accustomed swiftness of sifting and then turned to his personal aide.

“Tell Francois that I will have tea on the veranda.”

From the fact that he took with him the papers that he had laid aside, subordinate generals, with the gift of unspoken directions which is a part of their profession, understood that he meant to go over the subjects requiring special attention while he had tea.

“Everything is going well—­well!” he added in a way that said that everything must be if he said so and that he knew how to make everything go well.  “And we shall be up pretty late to-night.  Any one who feels the need had better take a nap”—­the implication being that he did not.

“Well!” ran the unspoken communication of confidence through the staff.  So well that His Excellency was calmly taking tea on the veranda!  For the indefatigable Turcas the detail; for Westerling the front of Jove.

“Well!” The thrill of the word was with him in a flight of sentiment as he stood on that veranda where a certain prophecy had been made to a young colonel.  Sight of the rippling folds of the flag of his country on the outskirts of the town prolonged the thrill.  His eyes swept the pale horizon of the distances of plain and Mountain and lowered to the garden.  Above the second terrace he saw a crown of woman’s hair—­hair of a jet abundance, radiant in the sunlight and shading a face that brought familiar completeness to the scene.

He had told Marta only two weeks ago that he should see her again if war came; and war had come.  With the inviting prospect of a few holiday moments in which to continue the interview that had been abruptly concluded in a hotel reception-room, he started down the terrace steps.  Their glances met where the second terrace path ended at the second terrace flight; hers shot with a beam of restrained and questioning good humor that spoke at least a truce to the invader.