"I believe his only pastime is playing with them," admitted Lanstron, stumbling on, trying to be loyal to Partow, to duty, to country, no longer calm or dispassionate, but demoralized under the lash. "He tells them that when they are grown he hopes there will be an end of war."
"Worse yet—a hypocrite!"
"But, Marta, I never knew a man more sincere. He is working to the same end as you—peace. If the Grays would play with fire he would give them such a burning that they will never try again. He would make war too horrible for practice; fix the frontier forever where by, right it belongs; make conquest by one civilized nation of another impossible hereafter. Yes, when it is stalemate, when it is proved that the science of modern defence has made the weak so strong that superior numbers cannot play the bully, then shall we have peace in practice!"
"My children's prayer and Partow in the same gallery!" she laughed stonily. "The peace of armament, not of man's superiority to the tiger and the tarantula! And you say it all so calmly. You picture the hell of your manufacture as coolly as if it were some fairies' dance!"
"Should I be enthusiastic? Should I view the prospect with an old-fashioned Hussar's hurrah?" he asked. "The right way is without illusions. Let us lose our heads, cry out for glory—and then chaos!"
"The heedless barbarism of ignorance intoxicated with primitive passion versus calculating, refined, intellectual, comprehending barbarism! I see no choice," she concluded, rising slowly in the utter weariness of spirit that calls for the end of an interview.
"Marta, you will promise not to remain at the house?" he urged.
"Isn't that my affair?" she asked. "Aren't you willing to leave even that to me after all you have been telling how you are to make a redoubt of our lawn, inviting the shells of the enemy into our drawing-room?"
What could he say in face of a hostility so resolute and armed with the conviction of its logic? Only call up from the depths the two passions of his life in an outburst, with all the force of his nature in play.
"I love this soil, my country's soil, ours by right—-and I love you! I would be true to both!"