"The way he refused to give in--that was fine!" said Marta.

Westerling, who had been engrossed in his own thoughts, looked up.

"Courage is the cheapest thing an army has! You can get hundreds of
young officers who are glad to take a risk of that kind. The thing is,"
and his fingers pressed in on the palm of his hand in a pounding gesture
of the forearm, "to direct and command--head work--organization!"

"If war should come again--" Marta began. Mrs. Galland nudged her. A
Brown never mentioned war to an officer of the Grays; it was not at all
in the accepted proprieties. But Marta rushed on: "So many would be
engaged that it would be more horrible than ever."

"You cannot make omelets without breaking eggs," Westerling answered
with suave finality.

"I wonder if the baron ever said that!" Marta recollected that it was a
favorite expression of the fat, pompous little man. "It sounds like the
baron, at all events."

Westerling did not mind being likened to the baron. It was a
corroboration of her prophecy. The baron must have been a great leader
of men in his time.

"The aeroplane will take its place as an auxiliary," he went on, his
mind still running on the theme of her prophecy, which the meeting with
Lanstron had quickened. "But war will, as ever, be won by the bayonet
that takes and holds a position. We shall have no miracle victories,
no--"