"Lanstron! Lanstron! Hurrah for Lanstron!"
The soldiers in the garden did not bother with any "Your Excellency, the chief of staff" formula when word had been passed of his presence. Marta looked around to see their tempestuous enthusiasm as they tossed their caps in the air and sent up their spontaneous tribute from the depths of their lungs. Conqueror and hero to the living, but the dead could not speak, whispered some fiend in her heart.
Lanstron uncovered to the demonstration impulsively, when the conventional military acknowledgment would have been a salute. He always looked more like the real Lanny to her with his forehead bare. It completed the ensemble of his sensitive features. She saw that he was blinking almost boyishly at the compliment and noted the little deprecatory shake of his head, as much as to say that they were making a mistake.
"Thank you!" he called, and the cheeriness of his voice, she thought, expressed his real self; the delight of victory and the glowing anticipation of further victories.
"Thank you!" called a private with a big voice.
"Yes, thank you!" repeated some of the officers in quick appreciation of a compliment as real as human courage.
"We're going to put your headquarters in the Grays' capital!" cried the soldier with the big voice.
Another cheer rose at the suggestion.
"You will follow the staff?" Lanstron called in sudden intensity.
"Yes, yes, yes!" they shouted. "Yes, yes; follow you!"