THE SECOND PROPHECY


In the reception-room, where he awaited the despatch of his card,
Hedworth Westerling caught a glimpse of his person in a panel glass so
convenient as to suggest that an adroit hotel manager might have placed
it there for the delectation of well-preserved men of forty-two. He saw
a face of health that was little lined; brown hair that did not reveal
its sprinkle of gray at that distance; shoulders, bearing the gracefully
draped gold cords of the staff, squarely set on a rigid spine in his
natural attitude. Yes, he had taken good care of himself, enjoying his
pleasures with discreet, epicurean relish as he would this meeting with
a woman whom he had not seen for ten years.

On her part, Marta, when she had received the note, had been in doubt as
to her answer. Her curiosity to see him again was not of itself
compelling. The actual making of the prophecy was rather dim to her mind
until he recalled it. She had heard of his rise and she had heard, too,
things about him which a girl of twenty-seven can better understand than
a girl of seventeen. His reason for wanting to see her he had said was
to "renew an old acquaintance." He could have little interest in her,
and her interest in him was that he was head of the Gray army. His work
had intimate relation to that which the Marta of twenty-seven, a Marta
with a mission, had set for herself.

A page came to tell Westerling that Miss Galland should be down
directly. But before she came a waiter entered with a tea-tray.

"By the lady's direction, sir," he explained as he set the tray on a