Delicious morsel, this, to a connoisseur in compliments!  He tasted it with the same self-satisfied smile that he had her first prophecy.  To her who had then voiced a secret he had shared with no one, as his chest swelled with a full breath, he bared another in the delight of the impression he had made on her.

“Yes, as you foresaw—­as I planned!” he said.  “Yes, I planned all, step by step, till I was chief of staff and ready.  I convinced the premier that it was time to strike and I chose the hour to strike; for Bodlapoo was only a convenient excuse for the last of all the steps”

The subjective enjoyment of the declaration kept him from any keen notice of the effect of his words.  Lanny was right.  It had been a war of deliberate conquest; a war to gratify personal ambition.  All her life Marta would be able to live over again the feelings of this moment.  It was as if she were frozen, all except brain and nerves, which were on fire, while the rigidity of ice kept her from springing from her chair in contempt and horror.  She would always wonder how the bonds of her purpose to save Hugo held her tongue But still another purpose came on the wings of diabolical temptation which would pit the art of woman against the power of a man who set millions against millions in slaughter to gratify personal ambition.  She was thankful that she was looking down as she spoke, for she could not bring herself to another compliment.  Her throat was too chilled for that yet.

“The one way to end the feud between the two nations was a war that would mean permanent peace,” he explained, seeing how quiet she was and realizing, with a recollection of her children’s oath, that he had gone a little too far.  He wanted to retain her admiration.  It had become as precious to him as a new delicacy to Lucullus.

“Yes, I understand,” she managed to murmur; then she was able to look up.  “It’s all so immense!” she added.  “And you have yet another paper there?” she said with a little gesture that might have been taken as the expression of a hope that she was not overstaying her welcome.

“This is very interesting,” he said, watching her narrowly now, “the case of a private, one Hugo Mallin, who refused to fight because he was against war on principle.  Four charges:  assault on a fellow soldier, cowardice, treason, and insubordination under fire.”

“Enough, I should say!” said Marta in a low tone.

“A question of which one to press—­of an example,” continued Westerling, reading the full official statement for the first time.

“What is the punishment?” she asked.

“Why, of course, death!” he replied, somewhat absently, in preoccupation.  “Extraordinary!  And they have located him, it seems He is here at headquarters!”

“Yes; certainly,” Marta said.  “We found him under a tree, deserted and wounded, labelled coward, and we cared for him.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Westerling.  “He must have appealed strongly to your sympathies.”