There was no sharpness in the words, but he had lapsed from the personal to the official manner.

“To my sense of humanity!” Her reply was made in much the same tone as his remark, where he had expected emotion, even passion.  More than ever was he certain that she had undergone some revealing experience since he had seen her in the capital.  “Yes, to any one’s sense of humanity—­a wounded, thirsty man in a fever!” There came, with a swift and mellowing charm, the look of a fervent and exalted tenderness and the pulse-arresting quiver of intensity that had swept over her at her first sight of Hugo under the tree.  “I know that he was not a coward in one sense,” she added, “for I saw him make the assault named in the first charge.”

She proceeded with the story of what she had witnessed in the dining-room.  There was no appeal on Hugo’s account.  Appraising the qualities of the Marta of the moment in contrast with the Marta of seventeen and the Marta of three weeks ago, Westerling was significantly conscious of her attitude of impartiality, free of any attempt at feminine influence, and of her evident desire to help him with the facts that she knew.

“The charge of assault is only incidental,” said Westerling.  “But Mallin was in the right about his comrades entering the house; right about the destruction of property.  It is our business to protect property, not only as a principle but as a matter of policy.  We do not desire to make the population of the country we occupy unnecessarily hostile.”

“I judged that from your kindness in repairing the damage done to ours,” she assured him, and added happily:  “Though I don’t suppose that you go so far in most cases as to set uprooted plants back in their beds.”

“No; that is a refinement, perhaps,” he answered, laughing.  She was not only more agreeable but also more sane than at the hotel.  He liked the idea of continuing to despatch his work while retaining her company.  “I must have a talk with Mallin,” he said.  “I must settle his case so that if similar cases arise subordinates will know what to do without consulting me.  Would you mind if I sent for him?” He reached for the bell to call an orderly.

“Yes, I should like to hear what he says to you and what you say to him,” she confessed with unfeigned interest, which brought a suggestion that he was to be put on trial before her at the same time as Mallin was on trial before Westerling.  His fingers paused on the bell head without pressure.  “I told him that you were a just man,” she remarked, “that any one would be certain of justice from you.”

He rang the bell; and after he had sent for Mallin, warming under the compliment of her last remark, he dared a reconnaissance along the line of inquiry which he had wanted to undertake from the first.

“Mallin’s ideas about war seem to be a great deal like your own,” he hinted casually.

“As I expressed them at the hotel, you mean!” she exclaimed.  “That seems ages ago—­ages!” The perplexity and indecision that, in a space of silence, brooded in the depths of her eyes came to the surface in wavering lights.  “Yes, ages! ages!” The wavering lights grew dim with a kind of horror and she looked away fixedly at a given point.