“We are doing it all for you, for the country,” he explained.  “We are going to make them pay for every foot they take—­the invaders!”

“Yes, make them pay!” called a voice from the houses.

“Make them pay!” other voices joined in.

“It isn’t the fellows just across the border that want to take our property,” said an elderly man.  “They’re good friends enough.  It’s the Grays’ politicians and the fire-eaters in the other provinces.”

“The robbers!” piped a woman’s high-pitched note.  “I’ve got a son in the army, and if ever he leaves that mountain range and goes down the other side with the Grays chasing him, he’ll get worse from me than the Grays could give him!”

“That’s right!  That’s the way to talk!” came a chorus.

Then the major became aware of a young woman who was going in the wrong direction.  Her cheeks were flushed from her rapid walk, her lips were parted, showing firm, white teeth, and her black eyes were regarding him in a blaze of satire or amusement; an emotion, whatever it was, that thoroughly centred his attention.

“Yes,” she said, anger getting the better of her, “make them pay—­and they make you pay—­and you make them pay—­and so on!”

The major smiled.  It seemed the safe thing to do.  He did not know but the young woman might charge.

“Mademoiselle, I am sorry, but unless you live in this direction,” he said very politely, “you may not go any farther.  Until we have other orders or they attack, every one is supposed to remain in his house or his place of business.”

“This is my place of business!” Marta answered, for she was already opposite a small, disused chapel which was her schoolroom, where a half dozen of the faithful children were gathered around the masculine importance of Jacky Werther, one of the older boys.

“Then you are Miss Galland!” said the major, enlightened.  His smile had an appreciation of the irony of her occupation at that moment.  “Your children are very loyal.  They would not tell me where they lived, so we had to let them stay there.”

“Those who have homes,” she said, identifying each one of the faithful with a glance, “have so many brothers and sisters that they will hardly be missed from the flock.  Others have no homes—­at least, not much of a one”—­here her temper rose again—­“taxes being so high in order that you may organize murder and the destruction of property.”

“I—­” gasped the major under the fire of those black eyes.

But their flashes suddenly splintered into less threatening lights as she realized the fatuity of this personal allusion.

“Oh, I’m not the town scold!” she explained with a nervous little laugh that helped her to recover poise.

With the black eyes in this mood, the major was conscious only of a desire to please which conflicted with duty.

“Now, really, Miss Galland,” he began solicitously, “I have been assigned to move the civil population in case of attack.  Your children ought—­”