"Only interruptions. That's not really talking," she answered, and broke
into a sharp little laugh. A laugh was helpful to both after such a taut
colloquy, but it seemed only to renew her energies for conflict. "If
there is war, the moment that Feller's ruse is discovered he will be
shot as a spy?" she asked.

"I warned him of that," said Lanstron. "I made the situation plain. He
refused the assignments I first suggested to him. He objected that they
did not offer any real expiation; they were not difficult or hazardous
enough. I saw that I could not trick his conscience--what a conscience
old Gustave has!--by any nominal task. When I mentioned this one he was
instantly keen. The deafness was his idea of a ruse for his purpose. He
wanted his secret kept. Thinking that his weakness for change would not
let him bear the monotony of a gardener's life as he saw himself bearing
it in imagination, I recommended him to you. And there was the
chance--the thousandth chance, Marta! He is a soldier, with a soldier's
fatalism. He sees no more danger in this than in commanding a battery in
a crisis."

"Naturally, as he is all impulse and fire. But you are the tempered
steel of self-control. You should save him from his impulses, not make
use of them."

"You put it bluntly, Marta. You--"

"My turn to talk!" she reminded him. "Did you of all her views of
Feller from his entrance to his quarters till he had gone. Her lips,
which had kept so firm in argument, were parted and trembling in
sympathy.

"I can see how he would take it!" she exclaimed. "I see his white hair,
his eyes, his fingers trembling on the edge of the table, his utter
dejection--and then impulse, headlong, irresponsible, craving the
devil's company!"

"Yes, nothing could hold him," Lanstron agreed. "What makes it worse is
that with regular living, the pleasure of the garden, and a settled
purpose I have noticed his improvement already!"

"There is something so fine about him, something that deserves to win
out against his weaknesses," she said reflectively.

"If there is no war, I hope--after a year or so, I hope and believe that
I may have him rewarded in some way that would make him feel that he had
atoned."

"And we have been talking as if war were due to-morrow!" she exclaimed.
The breaking light of a discovery, followed by a wave of happy relief,
swept over her responsive features, from relaxing brows to chin, which
gave a toss on its own account. "