through his brows wistfully.

"Would that do you any good?" Minna asked.

"A lot--a big lot!" said Stransky. "But if it is easier for you, why,
you can give me another blow in the face. I deserve it. It would show
that you weren't quite indifferent; that you took some interest in me."

"I see your nose has been broken once. You don't want it broken a second
time. I'm stronger than you think!" Minna retorted, and held out her
hand carelessly as if it pleased her to humor him.

He was rather graceful, despite his size, as he touched his lips to her
fingers. Just as he raised his head a burst of cheering rose from the
yard.

"So you've found that we have gone, you brilliant intellects!" he
shouted, and glared at the wall of the house in the direction of the
cheers.

"Quick! You have no time to lose!" Minna warned him.

"Quick! quick!" cried Marta.

Stransky paid no attention to the urgings. He had something more to say
to Minna.

"I'm going to keep thinking of you and seeing your face--the face of a
good woman--while I fight. And when the war is over, may I come to
call?" he asked.

His feet were so resolutely planted on the flags that apparently the
only way to move them was to consent.

"Yes, yes!" said Minna. "Now, hurry!"

"Say, but you make me happy! Watch me poke it into the Grays for you!"
he cried and bolted.

"It seems to me that he is the biggest, most ridiculous man I ever saw!"
said Minna, as she watched him out of sight. "I'm tired, just tired to
death, aren't you?" she added to Marta.

"Exactly!" agreed Marta. "I feel as if I had worked my way through hell
to heaven and heaven was the chance to sleep."

Within the kitchen Mrs. Galland was already slumbering soundly in her
chair. Overhead Marta heard the exclamations of male voices and the
tread of what was literally the heel of the conqueror--guests that had
come without asking! Intruders that had entered without any process of
law! Would they overrun the house, her mother's room, her own room?

Indignation brought fresh strength as she started up the stairs. The
head of the flight gave on to a dark part of the hall. There she paused,
held by the scene that a score or more of Gray soldiers, who had
riotously crowded into the dining-room, were enacting.

XXIX

THROUGH THE VENEER

These men in the dining-room were members of Fracasse's company of the
Grays whom Marta had seen from her window the night before rushing
across the