Diana Part 22

"So have I," said he, holding her fast; and indeed she was too pretty a possession to be easily let go. "Whole loads of talking, and no end of arrangements.--Di, I never saw you with such a charming colour. My beauty! Do you know what a beauty you are?"

"I am glad you think so!" she said.

"Think so? Wait till you are my wife, and I can dress you to please myself. I think you will be a very princess of loveliness."

"In the meantime, Mr. Knowlton, what do you think of letting me finish my berries?"

"Berries?" he said, laughing. "Tell me first, Di, what do you think of me?"

"Inconvenient," said Diana. "And I think, presuming. I must finish my berries, Mr. Knowlton."

"_Evan_," he said.

"Well; but let me do my work."

"Do your work?--My darling! How am I going to talk to you, if you are going into your work? However, in consideration of yesterday--you may."

"What made you come to this door?" Diana asked.

"I knew you were here."

"You would have been much more likely to find mother, most days."

"Ah, but I met Prince, as I came along, with Mrs. Starling behind him; and then I thought"--

"What?"

"I remembered," said Knowlton, laughing, "that the same person cannot be in two places at once!"

The comfort of this fact being upon them, the two took advantage of it.

Mr. Knowlton drew his chair close to the table over which Diana's fingers were so busy; and a talk began, which in the range and variety and arbitrary introduction of its topics, it would be in vain to try to follow. Through it all Diana's work went on, except now and then when her fingers made an involuntary pause. The berries were picked over, and weighed, and put over the fire, and watched and tended there; while the tall form of the young officer stood beside Diana as she handled her skimmer, and went back and forth as she went, helping her to carry her jars of sweetmeat.

"Have you told your mother?" Mr. Knowlton asked.

"No."

"Why not?" he asked quickly.

"I did not think it was a good time, last night or this morning."

"Does she not like me?"

"I think she wants to put some one else in your place, Evan."

"Who?" he asked instantly.

"n.o.body you need fear," said Diana, laughing. "n.o.body I like."

"Is there anybody you do like?"

"Plenty of people--that I like a little."

"How much do you like me, Diana?"

She lifted her eyes and looked at him; calm, large, grey eyes, into which there had come a new depth since yesterday and an added light.

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 and she had any interest in common. Lo, now it might be. "How soon _must_ you go, Evan?" she asked, as thoughts of longitude and lat.i.tude began to deepen the cloud shadow which had just touched her.

"A few days--a week or two more."