control. When a messenger 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 distribute
this or that force of the Allies, the Marshal would turn his head and
seem not to see, or look and nod slightly, as a master nods who approves
a pupil's self-correction. 'Yes, that's better.'

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 warring earth at its feet. And he was guiding France, France so long
a resentful exile from imperialism, back to her old predominance.

It seemed to her beyond the desert of a woman that she should be
privileged to participate....

It is hard to be a woman, full of the stormy impulse to personal
devotion, and to have to be impersonal, abstract, exact, punctual. She
must control herself....

She gave herself up to fantastic dreams, dreams of the days when the war
would be over and victory enthroned. Then perhaps this harshness,
this armour would be put aside and the gods might unbend. Her eyelids
drooped....

She roused 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 a running in the street and a flickering 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.