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He had a plan and a dream, this wonderful old man who made us all seem primary pupils in the art of war." Could this be that terrible Partow, a stroke of whose pencil had made the Galland house an inferno? Marta wondered as Lanstron read his message the message out of the real heart of the man, throbbing with the power of his great brain.
I didn't even realize its importance and I didn't hear much," she proceeded, her introduction giving time for improvisation. "You see, Partow was inspecting the premises with Colonel Lanstron. My mother had known Partow in her younger days when my grandfather was premier. We had them both to luncheon." "Yes?" put in Westerling, betraying his eagerness. Partow and Lanstron!
We're going to have the children from both La Tir and South La Tir!... The only trouble is that if Lanny keeps on giving Partow all the credit for the good work he will succeed in making everybody think that every time he winked after Partow's death it was according to Partow's directions for the conduct of the war!"
Those eyes would have confused Partow himself with the steady, welling intensity of their gaze. She did not see how his left hand was twitching and how he stilled its movement by pressing it against the bench. "You will take Feller with you when you go!" she said, rising. Lanstron dropped his head in a kind of shaking throb of his whole body and raised a face white with appeal. "Marta!"
She bent over him with gratitude and praise and a plea for forgiveness in her eyes, submerging the thing which he sought in them. He flushed boyishly in happy embarrassment, incapable of words for an instant; and silently the staff looked on. "And I agree with Partow," Lanstron went on, "that we cannot take the range. The Grays still have numbers equal to ours.
She saw Feller leaning against the moist wall of the dank tunnel, suffering as it had never seemed to her that man could suffer, his agony an irresistible plea. She saw Westerling, so conscious of his strength, directing his chessmen in a death struggle against Partow. And he was coming to this house as his headquarters when the final test of the strength of the Titans was made.
They're in the crater of a volcano! When our infantry is on the edge of the wreckage the guns cease. Our infantry crowd in crowd into the house that Partow built. He'll find that numbers count; that the power of modern gun-fire will open the way for infantry in masses to take and hold vital tactical positions! And no no, their fire in reply is not as strong as I expected."
In imagination Partow was there in the life Partow with the dome forehead, the pendulous cheeks, the shrewd, kindly eyes. A daring risk, this! What would Partow say? Lanstron always asked himself this in a crisis: What would Partow say? "Well, my boy, why are you hesitating?" Partow demanded.
"Marta, you are unjust!" exclaimed Lanstron, for he revered Partow as disciple reveres master. "Partow has the iron cross!" the prized iron cross given to both officers and men of the Browns for exceptional courage in action and for that alone. "He won it leading a second charge with a bullet in his arm, after he had lost thirty per cent, of his regiment. The second charge succeeded."
And hadn't the old premier, her grandfather, said: "You can afford to be fussed about little things but never about big things"? "I'll hold the wire, Lanny. Ask Partow!" she concluded. Of the two she was the steadier. "Well?" said Partow, looking up at the sound of Lanstron's step.
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