e will take its place as an auxiliary," he went on, his
mind still running on the theme of her prophecy, which the meeting with
Lanstron had quickened. "But war will, as ever, be won by the bayonet
that takes and holds a position. We shall have no miracle victories,
no--"

There he broke off. He did not accompany Mrs. Galland and Marta back to
the house, but made his adieus at the garden-gate.

"I'm sure that I shall never marry a soldier!" Marta burst out as she
and her mother were ascending the steps.

"No?" exclaimed Mrs. Galland with the rising inflection of a placid
scepticism that would not be drawn into an argument. Another of Marta's
explosions! It was not yet time to think of marriage for her. If it had
been Mrs. Galland would not have been so hospitable to Colonel
Westerling. She would hardly have been, even if the colonel had been
younger, say, of Captain Lanstron's age. Though an officer was an
officer, whether of the Browns or the Grays, and, perforce, a gentleman
to be received with the politeness of a common caste, every beat of her
heart was loyal to her race. Her daughter's hand was not for any Gray.
Young Lanstron certainly must be of the Thorbourg Lanstrons, she mused.
A most excellent family! Of course, Marta would marry an officer. It
was the natural destiny of a Galland woman. Yet she was sometimes
worried about Marta's whimsies. She, too, could wonder what Marta would
be like in five years.

II

TEN YEARS LATER

Does any man of power know whither the tendencies of his time are
leading him, or the people whom he leads whither they are being led? Had
any one of these four heroes of the Grays in their heavy gilt frames
divined what kind of a to-morrow his day was preparing? All knew the
pass of La Tir well, and if all had not won decisive battles they would
have been hung in the outer office or even in the corridors, where a
line of half-forgotten or forgotten generals crooked down the stairways
into the oblivion of the basement. That unfortunate one whom the first
Galland had driven through the pass was quite obscured in darkness. He
would soon be crowded out to an antique shop for sale as an example of
the portrait art of his period.

The privileged quartet on that Valhalla of victories, the walls of the
chief of staff's room, personified the military inheritance of a great
nation; their names shone in luminous letters out of the thickening
shadows of the past, where those of lesse