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