“If it ever comes,” she called, “I’ll let you know!  I’ll fly to you in a chariot of fire bearing my flame—­I am that bold, that brazen, that reckless!  For I am not an old maid yet.  They’ve moved the age limit up to thirty.  But you can’t drill love into me as you drill discipline into armies—­no, no more than I can argue peace into armies!”

For a while, motionless, Lanstron watched the point where she had disappeared.

“If I had only been a bridge-builder or an engine-driver,” he thought; “anything except this beastly—­”

But he was wool-gathering again.  He pulled himself together and started at a rapid pace for the tower, where he found Feller sitting by the table, one leg over the other easily, engaged in the prosaic business of sewing a button on his blouse.  Lanstron rapped; no answer.  He beat a tattoo on the casing; no answer.

“Gustave!” he called; no answer.

Now he entered and touched Feller’s shoulder.

“Hello, Lanny!” exclaimed Feller, rising and setting a chair and breaking into a stream of talk.  “That’s the way they all have to do when they want to attract my attention.  I heard your voice and Miss Galland’s—­having an argument in the garden, I should say.  Then I heard your step.  Since I became deaf my sense of hearing has really grown keener, just as the blind develop a keener sense of feeling.  Eh? eh?” He cupped his hand over his ear in the unctuous enjoyment of his gift of acting.  “Yes, Colonel Lanstron, would you like to know what a perfect triumph we’re going to pull off in irises next season—­but, Lanny, you seem in a hurry!”

“Gustave, I am ordered to headquarters by the night express and I came to tell you that I think it means war.”

“War! war!” Feller shouted.  “Ye gods and little fishes!” In riotous glee he seized a chair and flung it across the room.  “Ye salty, whiskery gods and ye shiny-eyed little fishes!  War, do you hear that, you plebeian trousers of the deaf gardener?  War!” Flinging the trousers after the chair, he executed a few steps.  When he had thus tempered his elation, he grasped Lanstron’s arm and, looking into his eyes with feverish resolution and hope, said:  “Oh, don’t fear!  I’ll pull it off.  And then I shall have paid back—­yes, paid back!  I shall be a man who can look men in the face again.  I need not slink to the other side of the street when I see an old friend coming for fear that he will recognize me.  Yes, I could even dare to love a woman of my own world!  And—­and perhaps the uniform and the guns once more!”

“You may be sure of that.  Partow cannot refuse,” said Lanstron, deeply affected.  After a pause he added:  “But I must tell you, Gustave, that Miss Galland, though she is willing that you remain as a gardener, has not yet consented to our plan.  She will make no decision until war comes.  Perhaps she will refuse.  It is only fair that you should know this.”

For an instant Feller was downcast; then confidence returned at high pitch.