marry him, and give
him as much happiness as she had it in her to give. And yet, apart from
my own feelings (they didn't count, for his losing Di would not give him
to me), I couldn't believe that having her would really be for his
happiness in the end. The two hadn't one idea or taste in common. But
all I could do was to hope that, whatever happened, it would be for
_his_ best; because, you see, knowing him, and having that chevron of
black and gold as a "reward of valour," had made me a nicer, less
selfish girl than I had been before we met. Because I loved a soldier, I
wanted to be a soldier, too! Hardly anything of the pert minx remained
in me, I used to think sometimes, and comparatively little of the pig or
cat. This was fortunate, because, when toward the last he confided in
me, everything bad that was left in my composition longed to turn and
rend Diana.

The way he did this made it all the harder for me not to desert the
colours. He told me that ever since the day when I had been "such a
little trump in the air, and maybe saved both our lives," I'd been more
to him than any other female thing, except, of course, my sister.
Something in Diana's weakness had appealed to him as much as my
strength; and he loved her with a different love from the affection he
gave me. I was his little sister, his brave little friend, and because I
was so dear to him, he dared to ask me what chance he had with Diana.
Did I think she tried to keep him from telling her what he felt, because
she didn't care and wanted to save him pain, or was there just a
possibility that she was only shy?

I could have given a bitter laugh to both questions, because the
truthful, straight-out answer to one and the other was the same: "No!"
Di loved to get proposals, and counted them up as if they were scalps,
or those horrid little soft, boneless masks which head hunters collect.
The only trouble was, that among the lot, she had never had one scalp
worth the wearing, for a real live beauty, who needed only a bit of luck
to be at the top of the world. As for her shyness, it was all in the
tricks she played with her eyelashes and the way she curved her upper
lip.

But I didn't laugh. I merely said I wasn't sure how Diana felt, as she
never talked to me about such things. And I got for answer, spoken
reflectively: "I suppose not. You're too much of a child."

He knew by this time that I was sixteen, instead of thirteen as he had
thought at first; b