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"I think so, for the same reason," responded the premier of the Browns. "They say it is good business. It means prosperity and progress for both countries." "After all, a soldier comes out the hero of the great peace movement," concluded the premier of the Grays. "A soldier took the tricks with our own cards. Old Partow was the greatest statesman of us all."
"Yes, and I get the words," said the judge's son, who knew the language of the Browns: "'God with us, not to take what is theirs, but to keep what is ours! God with us!" "They say some private Stransky, I believe his name is composed the words from a saying of Partow, their chief of staff, and it spread," put in the very tired voice.
"It is only fair to myself to say that when I laid the sheets of my map before Partow I had excluded your house and grounds," he pleaded in defence. "His thumb pounced on that telltale blank space. 'A key-point! So this is your tendon of Achilles, eh? he said in his blunt fashion." "The blunt fashion is admired by soldiers," she replied without softening.
We cannot fail!" "Then it will be war, if the people want it!" said the premier. "I shall not resist their desire!" he added in his official manner, at peace with his conscience. Partow was a great brain set on an enormous body. Partow's eyes had the fire of youth at sixty-five, but the pendulous flesh of his cheeks was pasty.
"Yes, it is all there my life's work, my dream, my ambition, my plan!" Lanstron heard the lock slide in the door as Partow went out and he was alone with the army's secrets. As he read Partow's firm handwriting, many parts fell together, many moves on a chess-board grew clear. His breath came faster, he bent closer over the table, he turned back pages to go over them again.
It was not the first time that Lanstron had been in this vault. He had the combination of two of the sections of pigeonholes, aerostatics and intelligence. The rest belonged to other divisions. "The safe is my own, as you know. No one opens it; no one knows what is in it but me," said Partow, taking from it an envelope and a manuscript, which he laid on the table.
"I think we have practically agreed that the two individuals who were invaluable to our cause were Partow and Miss Galland," Lanstron remarked tentatively. He waited for a reply. It was apparent that he was laying a foundation before he went any further. "Certainly!" said the vice-chief. "And you!" put in another officer, which brought a chorus of assent. "No, not I only these two!"
Partow was picturesque; he was a personality with a dome forehead sweeping back nobly to scattered and contentious, short gray hairs. Jealousy and faction had endeavored for years to remove him from his position at the head of the army on account of age. New governments decided as they came in that he must go, and they went out with him still in the saddle.
Lanstron referred in unmistakable apprehension to the vice-chief of staff, whom all the army knew had no real ability or decision underneath his pleasing, confident exterior. "No, not Goerwitz," said Partow, with a shrug. "Some one who will go on with the weaving, not by knotting threads but with the same threads in a smooth fabric."
Partow spatted the flat of his hand resoundingly on the map. "As I decided the first time I met her, she has a head, and when a woman has a head for that sort of thing there is no beating her. Well " he was looking straight into Lanstron's eyes, "well, I think we know the point where we could draw them in on the main line, eh?" "Up the apron of the approach from the Engadir valley.
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