She looked at him a moment, and dropped them in silence.

"Well?" said he eagerly. "Why don't you speak?"

"I cannot," said Diana.

"Why? I can speak to you."

"I suppose people are different," said Diana. "And I am a woman."

"Well, what then?"

She turned away, with the shyest, sweetest grace of reserve; turned
away to her fruit, quite naturally; there was no shadow of affectation,
nor even of consciousness. But her eyes did not look up again; and Mr.
Knowlton's eyes had no interruption.

"Di, where do you think we shall go when we are married?"

"I don't know," she said simply; and the tone of her voice said that
she did not care. It was as quiet as the harebells when no wind is
blowing.

"And _I_ don't know!" Knowlton echoed with a half-sigh. "I don't know
where I am going myself. But I shall know in a day or two. Can you be
ready in a week, do you think, Diana?"

"Shall you have to go so soon as that?" she asked with a startled look
up.

"Pretty near. What of that? You are going with me. It may be to some
rough out-of-the-way place; we never can tell; you know we are a sort
of football for Uncle Sam to toss about as he pleases; but you are not
afraid of being a soldier's wife, Di?"

She looked at him without speaking; a look clear and quiet and glad,
like her voice when she spoke. So full of the thought of the reality he
suggested, evidently, that she never perceived the occasion for a
blush. Her eyes went through him, to the rough country or the frontier
post where she could share--and annul--all his harsh experiences.

"What sort of places are those where you might go, Evan?"

"Nearly all sorts on the face of the earth, my beauty. I might be sent
to the neighbourhood of one of the great cities; we should have a good
time then, Di! I would wait for nothing; I could come and fetch you
just as soon as I could get a furlough of a day or two. But they are
apt to send us, the young officers, to the hardest places; posts beyond
civilisation, out west to the frontier, or south to Texas, or across to
the Pacific coast."

"California!" Diana cried.

"California; or Oregon; or Arizona. Yes; why?"

"California is very far off."

"Rather," said Knowlton, with a half sigh again. "It don't make any
difference, if we were once there, Diana."

Diana looked thoughtful. It had never occurred to her, before this
time, to wish that the country were not so extended; and certainly not
to fancy that California