this."

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

"Trust me!" he said. "I shall persuade her!"

"I hope you can. It is a chance that might turn the scales of victory--a
chance that hangs in my mind stubbornly, as if there were some fate in
it. Luck, old boy!"

"Luck to you, Lanny! Luck and promotion!"

They threw their arms about each other in a vigorous embrace.

"And you will keep watch that Mrs. Galland and Marta are in no danger?"

"Trust me for that, too!"

"Then, good-by till I hear from you over the 'phone or I return to see
you after the crisis is over!" concluded Lanstron as he hurried away.

XIII

BREAKING A PAPER-KNIFE

Hedworth Westerling would have said twenty to one if he had been asked
the odds against war when he was parting from Marta Galland in the hotel
reception-room. Before he reached home he would have changed them to ten
to one. A scare bulletin about the Bodlapoo affair compelling attention
as his car halted to let the traffic of a cross street pass, he bought a
newspaper thrust in at the car window that contained the answer of the
government of the Browns to a despatch of the Grays about the dispute
that had arisen in the distant African jungle. This he had already read
two days previously, by courtesy of the premier. It was moderate in
tone, as became a power that had three million soldiers against its
opponent's five; nevertheless, it firmly pointed out that the territory
of the Browns had been overtly invaded, on the pretext of securing a
deserter who had escaped across the line, by Gray colonial troops who
had raised the Gray flag in place of the Brown flag and remained
defiantly in occupation of the outpost they had taken.

As yet, the Browns had not attempted to repel the aggressor by arms for
fear of complications, but were relying on the Gray government to order
a withdrawal of the Gray force and the repudiation of a commander who
had been guilty of so grave an international affront. The surprising and
illuminating thing to Westerling was the inspired statement to the press
from the Gray Foreign Office, adroitly appealing to Gray chauvinism and
justifying the "intrepidity" of the Gray commander in response to
so-called "pin-pricking" exasperations.

At the door of his apartment, Francois, his valet and factotum, gave
Westerling a letter.

"Important, sir," said Francois.

Westerling knew by a glance that it was, for it was a