“And I pleaded with your selfishness—­the only appeal to be made to you,” she continued, “to prevent war, which you could have done.  When you said that you brought on this war to gratify your ambition, I chose to be one of the weapons of war; I chose, when driven to the wall, to be true to that part of my children’s oath that made an exception of the burglar, the highwayman, and the invader.  In war you use deceit and treachery, under the pleasanter names of tactics and strategy, to draw men to their death in traps, in order to increase the amount of your killing.  It was strategy, tactics, manoeuvres—­give it any fine word you please—­that hideous and shameless part which I played.  With fire I fought fire.  I fought for civilization, for my home, with the only means I had against the wickedness of a victory of conquest—­the precedent of it in this age—­a victory which should glorify such trickery as you practised on your people.”

“I should like to shoot you dead!” cried Bellini.

“No doubt.  I like your honesty in saying so,” said Marta.  “Why not?  The business of war is murder; and as I have engaged in it I can claim no exception.  And why shouldn’t women engage in it?  Why should they be excepted from the sport when they pay so many of the costs?  It’s easy to die and easy to kill.  The part you force on women is much harder.  By killing me you admit me to full equality.”

“You—­you—­” But Bellini had no adequate word for her, and his anger softened into a kind of admiration of her, of envy, perhaps, that he had had no such adjutant.  It hardened again as he looked Westerling up and down, before turning to leave without a salute or even a direct word.

“And you let me make love to you!” Westerling said in a dazed, groping monotone to Marta.

Such a wreck was he of his former self that she found it amazing that she could not pity him.  Yet she might have pitied him had he plunged into the fight; had he tried to rally one of the broken regiments; had he been able to forget himself.

“Rather, you made love to yourself through me,” she answered, not harshly, not even emphatically, but merely as a statement of passionless fact.  “If you dared to endure what you ordered others to endure for the sake of your ambition; if—­”

She was interrupted by a sharp zip in the air.  Westerling dodged and looked about wildly.

“What is that?” he asked.  “What?”

Five or six zips followed like a charge of wasps flying at a speed that made them invisible.  Marta felt a brush of air past her cheek and Westerling went chalky white.  It was the first time he had been under fire.  But these bullets were only strays.  No more came.

“Come, general, let us be going!” urged the aide, touching his chief on the arm.

“Yes, yes!” said Westerling hurriedly.

Francois, who had picked up the coat that had fallen from Westerling’s shoulders with his start at the buzzing, held it while his master thrust his hands through the sleeves.