'And Martin?' she said in a choking voice. She could not stand still, and had begun already to pace up and down again. He walked beside her.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I know nothing about him,' he said, scarcely concealing a sneer. 'The man went where he was not sent. I hope for the best, but----' He spread out his hands and shook his head.
'Oh!' she said. She was bursting with indignation. The sight of the dead lying below had stirred her nature to its depths. She felt intuitively the shallowness of his sympathy, the selfishness of his thoughts. She knew that he had it on his lips to talk to her of his triumph, and hated him for it. The horror which the day-old battlefield sometimes inspires in the veteran was on her. She was trembling all over, and only by a great effort kept herself from tears and fainting.
'The man is useful to you?' he said after a pause. He felt that he had gone wrong.
She bowed in silence.
'Almost necessary, I suppose?'
She bowed again. She could not speak. It was wonderful. Yesterday she had liked this man, to-day she almost hated him.
But he knew nothing of that, as he looked round with pride. Below, in the valley, parties of men were going to and fro with a sparkle and sheen of pikes. Now and again a trumpet spoke, giving an order. On the hill, not far from where they walked, a group of officers who had ascended with him sat round a fire watching the preparation of breakfast. And of all he was the lord. He had only to raise a finger to be obeyed. He saw before him a vista of such battles and victories, ending--God knows in what. The Emperor's throne was not above the dreams of such a man. And it moved him to speak.
The flush on his cheek was deeper when he turned to her again. 'Yes, I suppose he was necessary to you,' he said, 'but it should not be so. The Countess of Heritzburg should look elsewhere for help than to a servant. Let me speak plainly, Countess,' he continued earnestly. 'It is becoming I should so speak, for I am a plain man. I am neither Baron, Count, nor Prince, Margrave, nor Waldgrave. I have no title but my sword, and no heritage save these who follow me. Yet, if I cannot with the help of the one and the other carve out a principality as long and as wide as Heritzburg, I am not John Tzerclas!'
'Poor Germany!' the Countess said with a faint smile.