"No, it wouldn't!" said Evan. "Not hardships for you, my beauty! They are all very well for me; in a soldier's line; but not for you!"
"A soldier's wife ought not to be altogether unworthy of him," Diana answered.
"Nor he of her. So I wouldn't take you if I could where I am going. A soldier's wife will have hardships enough, first and last, no fear; but some places are not fit for women anyhow. I wish I could have seen Mrs. Starling, though, and had it out with her."
"Had it out!" repeated Diana.
"Yes. I should have a little bit of a fight, shouldn't I? She don't like me much. I wonder why?"
"Evan," said Diana after a minute's thought, "if you are to be so long away, there is no need to speak to anybody about our affair just now. It is our affair; let it stay so. It is our secret. I should like it much better to keep it a secret. I don't want to hear people's talk. Will you?"
"But our letters, my dear; they will tell your mother."
"Mother will not see mine. And she is not likely to see yours; I shall go to the post office myself. If she did, and found it out, I could keep her quiet easily enough. She would not want to speak, any more than I."
Evan combated this resolution for some time. He wished to have Diana friends with his sisters and at home at Elmfield. But Diana had her own views, and desired so strongly to keep her secret to herself, during the first part at least of what threatened to be a long engagement, that at last he yielded. It did not matter much to him, he said, away off in the wilds.
So that subject was dismissed; and before the fantasia of the flames they sat and composed a fantasia of life for themselves; as bright, as various, as bewitching, as evanishing; the visions of which were mingled with the leaping and changing purple and flame tints, the sparkle and the flash of the fire. Diana could never stand before a fire of hickory logs and fail to see her life-story reappear as she had seen it that night.