For an instant he hesitated; then curiosity and the unremitting authority of her tone had their way. He dropped to his knees, ran his fingers into an aperture between two stones and made a jointure of two wire ends.
"All ready!" he said, and eagerly. What a delightfully spirited rage she was in! And what the devil was she going to do, anyway?
As she took the receiver from the hook she heard an electric bell at the other end of the line, but no "Hello!"
"The bell means that Lanny will be called if he is there. No one except him is to talk over this telephone," Feller explained softly.
Marta waited for some time before she heard a familiar, calm voice, with a faint echo of irritation over being interrupted in the midst of pressing duties.
"Well, Gustave, old boy, it can't be that you are in touch with Westerling yet?"
"It is I—Marta!" and she came abruptly to the flaming interrogation that had brought her there. "I want to ask a question. I want a clear answer—I want everything clear! If Feller's plan succeeds it means that you will know where the Grays are going to attack?"
"Yes; why, yes, Marta!"
"So that you can mow them down?"
"That is one way of putting it—yes."