Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-10-03

spire confidence in further success.
 You were right" he said to Marta easily, pleasantly. We did tive d i'd tive took Bordir with a loss of only twenty thousand men!
 Only twenty thousand! Her revul- sion at the bald statement was re- lieved by the memory of Lanny's word over the telephone after breakfast that the Browns had lost only five thou sand. Four to one was a wide ratio, she was thinking.
 Then the end-then peace is so much nearer?" she asked.
 Very much nearer!' he answered earnestly, as he dropped on the bench beside her.
 He stretched his arms out on the back of the seat and the relaxed atti- tude, unusual with him, brought into relief a new trait of which she had been hitherto oblivious. The con- dueror had become simply a compan- ionable man. Though he was not sit ting close to her, yet, as his eyes met hers. she had desire to move away which she knew would be unwise to gratify She was conscious of a cer- tain softenng charm, a magnetism that she had sometimes felt in the days when she first knew him. She realized. too, that then the charm had lot been mixed with the indescribable, intimate quality that it held now.
 'Ta the midst of congratulations after the position was taken last night" he declared, T confess that l was thinking less of success than or it's source." He bent on her look that was warm with gratitude.
 She. lowered her lashes before it.; before gratitude that made her part appear in a fresh angle of misery.
 There seems to be a kind Of fa' tality about our relations he went on. q lay awake pcndering it last night. His tone held more than gratitude. It had the elation of discovery.
 "He is going to make it harder than I ever guessed." echoed her own thought, in futter of confusion.
 "Yes, it was strange our meeting on the frontier in peace and then in war; she exclaimed at random. The sound of the remark struck her as too SUD- dued; as expectant, when her purpose was one of careless deprecation.
 "I have met a great many womerf as you may have imagined" he pro- ceeded. "They have passed in review They were simply women, witty and frail or dull and beautiful, and one meant no more to me than another Nothing meant anything to me except my profession. But never forgot you You planted something in mind: a memory of real companionship.
 "Yes, I made the prophecy that came true!" she put in. This ought to bring him back to himself and his ambitions, she thought.
 "Yes!" he exclaimed, his body stiff fening free of the back of the seat You realized what was in me. You mine. The fate that first brought us together made me look you up in the capital. Now it brings us together here on this bench after all that has passed in the last twenty.four hours. "
 She realized that he had drawn per ceptibly nearer. She wanted to rise and cry out: Don't do this! Be the chief of staff, the conqueror, crushing the earth with the tread of five against three!" It was the conqueror whom she wanted to trick, not man whose earnestness was painting her deceit blacker. Far from rising, she made no movement at all; only looked at her hands and allowed him to go on, con- scious of the force of personality that mastered men and armies now warm and appealing in the full tide of another purpose.
 "The victory that was thinking of last night was not the taking of Bor- dir. It was finer than any victory in war. It was selfsh-not for army and country, but born of human weakness triumphant; human weak ness of which my career had robbed me-" he continued "It gave me a joy that even the occupation of the Browns capital could not give. I had come as an invader and l had won your confidence"
 Tn cause!" she interrupted hur- riedly, wildly, to stop him from going further, only to find that her intona- tion was such that it was drawing him on.
 That fatality seemed to be working itself out to the soldier so much older than yourself in renewed youth, in another form of ambition. I hoped that there was more than the cause that led you to trust me. I hoped"
 Was he testing her? Was he play ing part of his own to make certain that she was not playing one? She looked up swiftly for answer. There was no gainsaying what she saw in his eyes. It was beating into hers with the power of an overwhelming masculine passion and maturity of intellect as his egoism admitted 8 com. rade to it's throne. Such is ever the way of man in the forties when the clock strikes for him. But who could know better the craft of courtship than one of Westerling's experience ? He was fighting for victory; to gratify