Rather impatiently he watched the slow minute-hand on the clock. He had
risen from his desk at four-thirty, when his personal aide, a handsome,
boyish, rosy-cheeked young officer, who seemed to be moulded into his
uniform, appeared.

"Your car is waiting, sir," he said. His military correctness could not
hide the admiration and devotion in his eyes. He thought himself the
most fortunate lieutenant in the army. To him Westerling was, indeed,
great. Westerling realized this.

"This is a personal call," Westerling explained; "so you are at liberty
to make one yourself, if you like," he added, with that magnetic smile
of a genial power which he used to draw men to him and hold them.




III

OURS AND THEIRS


On the second terrace, Feller, the Gallands' gardener, a patch of blue
blouse and a patch of broad-brimmed straw hat over a fringe of white
hair, was planting bulbs. Mrs. Galland came down the path from the
veranda loiteringly, pausing to look at the flowers and again at the
sweep of hills and plain. The air was singularly still, so still that
she heard the cries of the children at play in the yards of the
factory-workers' houses which had been steadily creeping up the hill
from the town. She breathed in the peace and beauty of the surroundings