ast to west, shall be yours,
and shall obey your lightest wish. I have conquered the air, and
therefore the earth and sea. In two months from now I shall have an
aerial navy afloat that will command the world, and I--is it not
needless to tell you, Natasha, why I glory in the possession of that
power? Surely you must know that it is because I love you more than
all that a subject world can give me, and because it makes it
possible for me, if not to win you, at least not to be unworthy to
attempt the task?"

It was a distinctly unconventional declaration--such a one, indeed,
as no woman had ever heard since Alexander the Great had whispered in
the ears of Lais his dreams of universal empire, but there was a
straightforward earnestness about it which convinced her beyond
question that it came from no ordinary man, but from one who saw the
task before him clearly, and had made up his mind to achieve it.

For a moment her heart beat faster than it had ever yet done at the
bidding of a man's voice, and there was a bright flush on her cheeks,
and a softer light in her eyes, as she replied in a more serious tone
than Arnold had ever heard her use--

"My friend, you have forgotten something. You and I are not a man and
a woman in the relationship that exists between us. We are two
factors in a work such as has never been undertaken since the world
began; two units in a mighty problem whose solution is the happiness
or the ruin of the whole human race. It is not for us to speak of
individual love while these tremendous issues hang undecided in the
balance.

"One does not speak of love in the heat of war, and you and I and
those who are with us are at war with the powers of the earth, and
higher things than the happiness of individuals are at stake. You
know my training has been one of hate and not of love, and till the
hate is quenched I must not know what love is.

"Remember your oath--the oath which I have taken as well as you--'_As
long as I live those ends shall be my ends, and no human
considerations shall weigh with me where those ends are concerned._'
Is not this love of which you speak a human consideration that might
clash with the purposes of the Brotherhood whose ends you and I have
solemnly sworn to hold supreme above all earthly things?

"My father has told me that when love takes possession of a human
soul, reason abdicates her throne, and great aims become impossible.
No, no; that great power which you hol