Neutrality could not be better impersonated he thought, than in the even cleaving of her lips over the words. They seemed to say that a storm had come and gone and a new set of masters had taken the place of the old. As they approached the veranda François was placing the tea things. "Quite the same! That was your chair, as I remember," said Westerling after indicating to François that he might go, "and this was mine." But the teapot was not Mrs. Galland's--it belonged to the staff. "This is different," observed Marta, touching her finger-tip to the coat of arms of the Grays on the side of a cup. "Yes, my own field kit," he answered, thinking that the novelty of tea from a soldier's service had appealed to her; for she was smiling. "So, you being the host and I the guest now, why, you pour!" she said. There was a touch of brittleness in her tone--of half-teasing, half-serious brittleness. "Oh, no, no!" he protested laughingly, and found her glance flashing through her brows holding him fast in an indefinable challenge. "I shall pour when you do us the honor to come to tea at the gardener's quarters in the tower," she said. "No, no!" he objected. "The tea conditions are the same as before." He was earnest for his point. It would please his masculine fancy to watch those firm, small fingers pausing over the cup before the plunge of a lump of sugar stirred the miniature ocean in waves; to watch the firm little hand in its grip of the handle of the pot. "Conditions the same as before?" She laughed softly. "How can they be in my thoughts or yours?" she asked with a sudden show of seriousness. "We did turn you out of house and home--I understand!" he exclaimed apologetically. "And that is the symbol of it to you!" He indicated the coat of arms. "The symbol of the conqueror, isn't it?" he asked playfully, for in the company of women it pleased him to be playful. "Conqueror? It's a big word!" she mused. "I hadn't thought of it in connection with pouring tea"--which might be another way of saying that she had just been thinking of it very hard and might be trying to find whether it had a pleasant or an unpleasant side. Clearly, here was a Marta different from any yet precipitated by the alchemy of war. The resourceful variety of her! Oh, it was like the old days! It made him feel young, as young as when he had been a colonel commanding the garrison on the other side of the white posts. She had intelligence, yet was at the same time distinctly feminine, with the gift of as much talk about who should pour tea as about how to storm a redoubt. She did not carry her mental wares on her sleeve. She flashed them in a way that prompted curiosity as to the next exhibit. He had sought primarily, selfishly, to be entertained at tea, and he was being entertained. To want to win was his nature. He understood, too, that she wanted to win. He liked that quality in her the more because it heightened the valve of victory for him.