The Winslow mail., 1914-09-19

cry WAS Lldl NOBODY knew. tQdC Ic
act, therefore, was to blunder, that to
talk was to confess, and that the man
who acted slowly and steadfastly and
above all silently had the best chance
Of winning through. Meanwhile one
fed the men. Now by this same STRAIT
egy he hoped to shatter those mysteri-
GUS unknOWns of the central European
| command Delhi might talk Of a great
flank march through Holland with all
| the British submarines and hydro
! planes and torpedo craft pouring up
, the Rhine in support of it; Ward might
crave for brilliance with the motor
bicycles, aerOplanes and skinner among
| the Swiss mountains, and a sudden
! swOOp upon Vienna; the thing was to
listen, and wait for the other side to
| begin experimenting. 1t was all eX.
| perimenting. And meanwhile he re.
mained in profile, with an air of as
! surance-like a man who sits in an
! automobile after the chauffeur has had
| his directions.
And every one about him was the
stronger and surer for that quiet face.
| that air of knowledge and unrufflcd
| confidence The clustering lights threw
score of shadows of him upon the
maps, great punches of him, versions
| of commanding presence, lighter or
| darker, dominated the field and point
ed in every direction. Those shadows
| symbOized his control When mes
senger came from the wireless room
| to shift this or that piece in the game
| to replace under amended reports one
central European regiment by a score.
to draw back or thrust out or dis
| tribute this or that force of the allies,
| the marshal would turn his head and
seem not to see or look and nod slight
| ly as a master mods who approves a
pupils self correction. Yes, that's bet
ter"
How wonderful he was, thought the
woman at the window, how wonderful
it all was This was the brain of the
western world, this was Olympus with
the warning earth at it's feet And he
was guiding France, France so long
d resentful exile from imperialism,
back to her old predominance.
1t seemed to her beyond the desert Of
woman that she should be privileged
to participate.
1t is hard to be woman, full of the
stormy impulse to personal devotion,
and to have to be impersonal, abstract,
exact, punctual. She must control her
self.
She gave herself up to fantastic
dreams, dreams of the days when the
war would be over and victory en-
throned. Then perhaps this harshness,
this armor, would be put aside and
the gods might unbend. Her eyelids
dropped.
She reused herself with a start She
became aware that the night outside
was no longer still. That there was
an excitement down below on the
bridge and running in the street
and a Pickering of searchlights among
the clouds from some high place away
beyond the Trocadero, and then the
excitement came surging up past her
and invaded the hall within.
One of the sentinels from the ter
race stood at the upper end of the
room gesticulating and shouting somA
thing.
And all the world had changed-a
kind of throbbing. She couldn't un-
derstand 1t was as if all the water
pipes and concealed machinery and
cables of the ways beneath were beat
ing-as pulses beat. And about her
blew something like a wind-a wind
that was dismay.
Her eyes went to the face of the
marshal as a frightened child might
look toward it's mother.
He was still serene. He was frown-
ing slightly, she thought, but that was
natural enough, for the Earl of Delhi,
with one hand gauntly gesticulating,
had taken him by the arm and was all
too manifestly disposed to drag him
toward the great door that opened on
the terrace And Ward was hurrying
toward the huge windows and doing
50 in the strangest of attitudes, bent
forward and with eyes upturned.
Something up there?
And then it was as if thunder broke
overhead
The sound struck her like a blow.
She crouched together against the ma
sonry and looked up. She saw three
black shapes swooping down through
the torn clouds, and from a point lit
tie below two of them had already
started curling trails of red.
Everything else in her being was par
alyzed. She hung through moments
that seemed ininities watching those
red missiles whirl down toward her.
She felt torn out of the world. There
was nothing else in the world but a
crimson purple glare and sound, deaf
ening, all embracing, continuing sound
Every other light had gone out about
her, and against this glare hung slant
ing walls, pirouetting pillars. project
ing fragments of cornices and a disor-
derly flight of huge angular sheets of
glass.