There he broke off. He did not accompany Mrs. Galland and Marta back to
the house, but made his adieus at the garden-gate.

"I'm sure that I shall never marry a soldier!" Marta burst out as she
and her mother were ascending the steps.

"No?" exclaimed Mrs. Galland with the rising inflection of a placid
scepticism that would not be drawn into an argument. Another of Marta's
explosions! It was not yet time to think of marriage for her. If it had
been Mrs. Galland would not have been so hospitable to Colonel
Westerling. She would hardly have been, even if the colonel had been
younger, say, of Captain Lanstron's age. Though an officer was an
officer, whether of the Browns or the Grays, and, perforce, a gentleman
to be received with the politeness of a common caste, every beat of her
heart was loyal to her race. Her daughter's hand was not for any Gray.
Young Lanstron certainly must be of the Thorbourg Lanstrons, she mused.
A most excellent family! Of course, Marta would marry an officer. It
was the natural destiny of a Galland woman. Yet she was sometimes
worried about Marta's whimsies. She, too, could wonder what Marta would
be like in five years.




II

TEN YEARS LATER