Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-09-15

Rather idly, now, he drew pad to-
ward him and. taking up pencil
made the figures seventeen and TWEEN
ty-seven. Then he made the figures
thirty-two and forty-two. He black
ened them with repeated tracings az
nc unused. This done, nc put seven
teen under twenty-seyen and thirty
tFo under forty-two. He made the
subtraction and studied the two tens.
A swing door opened softly and HE
executive clerk reappeared with soft
tread.
Some papers for your signature,
sir" he said as he slipped them on the
blotter in front of Westerling. And
the 132d-no order about that, sir?"
he asked.
None. 1t remains!" Westerling re-
piled.
The clerk went out impressed. His
chief taking to sums of subtraction
and totally preoccupied! The 1920 to
remain! He, too. had questionmark
in his secret mind.
Westerling proceeded with his math-
ematics. Having heavily shaded the
tens, he essayed sum in division. He
found that ten went into seventy just
seven times.
"One-seventh the allotted span of
life!" he mused Take off fifteen
years for youth and fifteen after fifty
five-nobody counts after that, though
l mean to--and you have ten into
forty, which is one-fourth. That is a
good deal. But it's more to a woman
than to a man-yes. a lot more to a
woman than to a man."
The clerk was right in thinking
Westerling preoccupied; but it was
not with the international crisis. Over
his coffee the name of Miss Marta Gal
land, In the list of arrivals at hotel,
had caught his eye in the morning pa
per. A note to her had brought an
answer, saying that her time was linn
tied, but she would be glad to have
him call at five that afternoon
Westerling realized that the Ques-
ton Of marriage as social require
ment might arise when he should be-
come officially chief of staff with the
retirement of His Excellency the field
marshal. For the present he enjoyed
his position as bachelor who was
the most favored man in the army too
much to think of marriage
1t was little surprising that the
bell that the girl of seventeen had
rung in his secret mind when he was
on one Of the first rounds of the lad
der. now lost in the mists Of lower
stratum Of existence, should ever
tinkle again. Yet he had heard it's
note in the tone Of her prophecy with
each step in his promotion; and while
the other people whom ne had known
at La Tir were the yaguest shadows of
personalities, her picture was as def
mite in detail as when she said: "You
have the will! You have the ambi-
tion!" She had recognized in him the
power that he felt; foreseen his ascent
to the very apex Of the pyramid She
was still unmarried, which was
strange; for she mad not been bad
looking and she was of fine old fam
lily. What was she like now? Com
monplace and provincial. most likely
Many of the people he had known in
his early days appeared so when he
met them again. But, at the worst, he
looked for an interesting half-hour.
The throbbing activity of the streets
or the capital, as his car proceeded on
the way to her hotel, formed an ener-
getic accompaniment to his gratifying
backward survey of how all his plans
had worked out from the very day of
the prophecy. Had he heard the re-
mark of great manufacturer to the
banker at his side in passing limous-
inc, There goes the greatest captain
of industry of us ALL" Westerling
would only have thought: Certainly.
! am chief Of staff. l am at the head
OF all your workmen at one time or
another!" Had he heard the bankers
answer. But pretty poor pay, pretty
small dividends!" he would have
thought, Splendid dividends-the divi.
dends of power!"
He had a caste contempt for the men
OF; commerce, with their mercenary
talk about credit and market prices !;
and also for the scientists. doctors, en-.
gineers, and men of other professions,
who spoke OF things in books which,
he did not understand. Reading books.
was one of the faults of Turcas, his as
slstant. No bookish soldier. he knew,
had ever been great general. He re-
scented the growing power of these
leaders of the civil world. taking dis
tinction away from the military, even
when, as a man Of parts, he had to
court their influence His was the
profession that was and ever should
be the elect. A penniless subaltern
was gentleman, while he could never
think of man in business as one.
All the faces in the street belonged
to strange, busy world outside his in
terest and thoughts. They formed
what was known as the public. often
making clatter about things which
they did not understand, when they
should obey the orders of their su-
periors. OF late, their clatter had been
about the extra taxes for the recent in
crease of the standing forces by an