“And your victory will mean a new frontier, a new order of international relations and a long peace, you think?  Peace—­a long peace!”

Was there ever a soldier who did not fight for peace?  Was there ever a call for more army-corps or guns that was not made in the name of peace?  He had his ready argument, spoken with the forcible conviction of an expert.

“This war was made for peace—­the only kind of peace that there can be,” he said.  “My ambition, if any glory comes to me out of this war, is to have later generations say:  ‘He brought peace!’”

Though the premier, could he have heard this, might have smiled, even grinned, he would have understood Westerling’s unconsciousness of inconsistency.  The chief of staff had set himself a task in victory which had no military connection.  Without knowing why, he wanted to win ascendancy over her mind.

“The man of action!” exclaimed Marta, her eyes opening very wide, as they would to let in the light when she heard something new that pleased her or gave food for thought.  “The man of action, who thinks of an ideal as a thing not of words but as the end of action!”

“Exactly!” said Westerling, sensible of another of her gifts.  She could get the essence of a thing in a few words.  “When we have won and set another frontier, the power of our nation will be such in the world that the Browns can never afford to attack us,” he went on.  “Indeed, no two of the big nations of Europe can afford to make war without our consent.  We shall be the arbiters of international dissensions.  We shall command peace—­yes, the peace of force, of fact!  If it could be won in any other way I should not be here on this veranda in command of an army of invasion.  That was my idea—­for that I planned.”  He was making up for having overshot himself in his confession that he had brought on the war as a final step for his ambition.

“You mean that you can gain peace by propaganda and education only when human nature has so changed that we can have law and order and houses are safe from burglary and pedestrians from pickpockets without policemen?  Is that it?” she asked.

“Yes, yes!  You have it!  You have found the wheat in the chaff.”

“Perhaps because I have been seeing something of human nature—­the human nature of both the Browns and the Grays at war.  I have seen the Browns throwing hand-grenades and the Grays in wanton disorder in our dining-room directly they were out of touch with their officers!” she said sadly, as one who hates to accept disillusionment but must in the face of logic.

Westerling made no reply except to nod, for a movement on her part preoccupied him.  She leaned forward, as she had when she had told him he would become chief of staff, her hands clasped over her knee, her eyes burning with a question.  It was the attitude of the prophecy.  But with the prophecy she had been a little mystical; the fire in her eyes had precipitated an idea.  Now it forged another question.