I hope she _is_ going to choose me. I
don't believe she's the kind of girl to have a photograph like that
taken expressly for a man, if she didn't feel a little of what the
picture seems to say she feels, do you?"

I suppose men's ignorance of what she is at heart is a Providence-given
suit of chain armour for every woman. But I wasn't myself sure enough
yet of what Di might decide to do, to try and disturb Eagle's happy
confidence in her. So, instead of answering his questions, I asked him
one: "_Did_ she have that photograph taken expressly for you?"

"Yes," Eagle answered triumphantly. "I don't think she'd mind my
repeating to her own sister that she told me so, or that there's only
this one copy, and she gave orders to have the negative destroyed."

He had hardly got these words out of his mouth when we heard footsteps,
and Major Vandyke stopped suddenly in front of the doorway. In an
instant, Eagle had unhooked the frame from the pole, and holding the
face of the portrait toward his breast, quietly slipped the mirror into
its place again, as, with _sang-froid_ apparently unruffled, he called
out: "Hullo, Vandyke! Have you come to see Lady Peggy or me?"

"I didn't know Lady Peggy was here. I was only passing by, on my way to
the colonel's," explained Vandyke. "But seeing her, I thought I might be
allowed to stop and say 'how do you do?'"

He spoke rather brusquely, but it was impossible to tell from his tone
whether it covered anger or expressed only the coolness which had grown
up between him and Captain March. As I shook hands with Major Vandyke, I
was asking myself anxiously if he could have seen the photograph in
passing? If not--and it did seem as if Eagle's head and mine ought to
have hidden it from him--our tell-tale words would have meant nothing to
his intelligence, even if he had overheard them as he came. If, however,
he had snatched a glimpse of Diana's face, and at the same time caught
what Eagle said, I was afraid there might be trouble. Provided it were
only for Di, I didn't much care, because she thoroughly deserved to have
trouble, and it would give her a lesson; but something warned my
instinct that the consequences might spread and spread until others
suffered, as a ring forever widens in smooth water when the tiniest
pebble is thrown.

CHAPTER VIII

We were still skirmishing on the outskirts of conversation--What did I
think of a soldier's out-of-door quarters? Why hadn't any one y