In her constraint and detachment they realized her conscious
appreciation of the fact that in earlier times her people had been for
the Browns; but in her flashes of interest in the progress of the war,
flashes from a woman's unmilitary mind, they judged that her heart was
with the Grays. And why not? Was it not natural that a woman with more
than her share of intellectual perception should be on the right side?
From her associations it was not to be expected that she would make an
outright declaration of apostasy. This would destroy the value and the
attractiveness of her conversion Reverence for the past, for a father
who had fought for the Browns, against her own convictions, made her
attitude appear singularly and delicately correct.

Though everything was ready for them, the staff delayed coming owing to
the stubbornness of some heavy guns of the Browns, which, while they had
directed no shells against the house, had shown that they had the range
by unexpectedly playing havoc with infantry in close order on the pass
road at the foot of the garden and with transportation on the castle
road. But at last the battery was silenced and the mind of the army
might establish itself in its offices on the ground floor and its
quarters on the second floor without being in danger.

The war was a week old--a week which had developed other tangents and
traps than La Tir--on the morning that the first instalment of junior
officers came to occupy the tables and desks. Where the family portraits
had hung in the dining-room were now big maps dotted with brown and gray
flags. Portable field cabinets with sectional maps on a large scale were
arranged around the walls of the drawing-room. In what had been the
lounging room of the old days of Galland prosperity, the refrain of half
a dozen telegraph instruments made medley with the clicking of
typewriters. Cooks and helpers were busy in the kitchen; for the staff
were to live like gentlemen; they were to have their morning baths,
their comfortable beds, and regular meals. No twinge of indigestion or
of rheumatism from exposure was to interfere with the working of their
precious intellectual processes. No detail of assistance would be
lacking to save any bureaucratic head time and labor The bedrooms were
apportioned according to rank--that of the master awaited the master;
the best servant's bedroom awaited Francois, his valet.

When Bouchard, the chief of intelligence, who fought the b