"We'll never do anything to give ourselves away," said Black Hair; but, bless her innocent heart, she was giving herself away all the time. Every moment was feminine.
The rum thing is that, although I had been conscious of something odd, I never thought they were girls. Directly I knew it, I knew that I had been the most unobservant ass alive; for they couldn't possibly be anything else.
"My dear young ladies," I said at last, "I think you are splendid and an example to the world; but what you ask is impossible. Have you thought for a moment what it would be like to find yourselves in barracks with the ordinary British soldier? He is a brave man and, when you meet him alone, he is nearly always a nice man; but collectively he might not do as company for you."
"But look at this," said Red Hair, showing me a newspaper-cutting about a group of Russian girls known as "The Twelve Friends," who have been through the campaign and were treated with the utmost respect by the soldiers.
"And there's a woman buried at Brighton," said Black Hair, "who fought as a man for years and lived to be a hundred."
"And think of Joan of Arc," said Red Hair.
"And Boadicea," said Black Hair.
"Well," I said, "leaving Joan of Arc and Boadicea aside, possibly those Russians and that Brighton woman looked like men, which it is certain you don't!"
"Oh!" said Black Hair, who was really rather peculiarly nice. "Then why didn't you spot us before?"
One for me.