family resemblance to one
another in shape and feature, except those which boasted mosquito-net
draperies to keep out the flies.

Among these more luxurious soldier houses was Eagle's. His tent,
prepared for the day, consisted of a canvas wall with a wide-open space
all around, between it and the roof; and the whole internal economy was
ingenuously open to public gaze. Not that it mattered, for everything
was as neat as a model doll's house: the narrow bed, the pathetically
meagre toilet arrangements, the one chair, the small trunk which was the
sole wardrobe, and the ridiculous shaving mirror stuck up on a pole,
above a miniature arsenal.

"I should think you'd cut yourself to pieces," said I, giggling
impolitely as I stood on tiptoe, and peered into my own eyes in the tiny
looking-glass. "There isn't room to see more than half a feature at a
time. I've always been glad I wasn't a man, for two reasons: because I'd
hate to have to shave, or to marry a woman. Both are horrid
necessities."

"That depends on the razor--and the woman," laughed Eagle. "But as a
matter of fact, I value that six-inch square of glass more than any of
my other possessions. It's the thing I expressly wanted to show you.
Stand back a minute, Lady Vanity, and you'll see why."

I stood back. Eagle did something to the plain dark frame of the mirror,
which had a gold rim inside. Then he pulled out the glass from the
bottom, and there instead, framed in black and gold, was a photograph of
Diana--a lovely photograph: just a head, lips faintly smiling, eyes
gazing straight at you and saying in plain eye language, "I love you
dearly."

I had never seen the photograph before, and seeing it now gave me a
strange frightened feeling, as if I had found out something about Diana
which I wasn't supposed to know. It was such an _intimate_ portrait,
intended to be revealing, yet really concealing! I felt it was wicked of
those beautiful eyes to say what they did not mean, or, perhaps, did not
know how to mean; and for my critical stare, behind that "I love you,"
calculation hid, like the cold glint deep down in the jewel eyes of a
Persian cat, when she doesn't want a mouse to guess that she knows it is
there.

"Now you can understand why I'm glad to be a man," said Eagle, "in spite
of--no, _because_ of--well, anyway one of the two 'necessities' you
think so 'horrid,' my child. What glory to be chosen out of all the rest
who love her by such a woman! And