“Why?” demanded Partow with one of his shrewd, piercing looks.

“She did not say, but I can guess,” explained Lanstron.  “She must put all her cards on the table; she must tell Westerling all she knows at once.  If she tells him piecemeal it might lead to the supposition that she still had some means of communication with the Browns.”

“Of course, of course!” Partow spatted the flat of his hand resoundingly on the map.  “As I decided the first time I met her, she has a head, and when a woman has a head for that sort of thing there is no beating her.  Well—­” he was looking straight into Lanstron’s eyes, “well, I think we know the point where we could draw them in on the main line, eh?”

“Up the apron of the approach from the Engadir valley.  We yield the advance redoubts on either side.”

“Meanwhile, we have massed heavily behind the redoubt.  We retake the advance redoubts in a counter-attack and—­” Partow brought his fist into his palm with a smack.

“Yes, if we could do that!  If we could get them to expend their attack there!” put in Lanstron very excitedly for him.

“We must!  She shall help!” Partow was on his feet.  He had reached across the table and seized Lanstron’s shoulders in a powerful if flesh-padded grip.  Then he turned Lanstron around toward the door of his bedroom and gave him a mighty slap of affection.  “My boy, the brightest hope of victory we have is holding the wire for you.  Tell her that a bearded old behemoth, who can kneel as gracefully as a rheumatic rhinoceros, is on both knees at her feet, kissing her hands and trying his best, in the name of mercy, to keep from breaking into verse of his own composition.”

Back at the telephone, Lanstron, in the fervor of the cheer and the enthusiasm that had transported his chief, gave Marta Partow’s message.

“You, Marta, are our brightest hope of victory!”

“Yes?” The monosyllable was detached, dismal, labored.  “A woman can be that!” she exclaimed in an uncertain tone, which grew into the distraction of clipped words and broken sentences.  “A woman play-acting—­a woman acting the most revolting hypocrisy—­influences the issue between two nations!  Her deceit deals in the lives of sons precious to fathers and mothers, the fate of frontiers, of institutions!  Think of it!  Think of machines costing countless millions—­machines of flesh and blood, with their destinies shaped by one little bit of lying information!  Think of the folly of any civilization that stakes its triumphs on such a gamble!  Am I not right?  Isn’t it true?  Isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, Marta!  But—­I—­” If she were weakening it was not his place to try to strengthen her purpose.

“I was thinking, only thinking!” she murmured reflectively.  “That’s not the thing now!” she added with sudden force.  “Partow gave you the positions?”

He described the Bordir position.  She repeated the description after him with a stoical matter-of-factness to make sure that she had it correctly.