Olwen, half in delight that he had spoken to her, half in resentment that it was in the tone he might have used to a child, raised her pointed chin on its white childish neck, looked down under her lids, and demanded, with what she considered great stateliness, "Who wants _candy_?" "All little girls, I guess," returned Captain Ross, his robin's eyes twinkling, his perfect teeth flashing in another teasing smile. Olwen, glancing under those dropped lids at this somewhat showy vision of black-and-white-and-brown-and-scarlet-and-khaki, felt that she would die for him. There was a magic about him, she thought; even if he were dictatorial or teasing, or seemed to think rather a lot of himself--a magic! At the same instant she remembered that, yes! There was a secret magic about her too, now. A magic that had proved itself unmistakably once; a Charm that she herself was wearing. Confidence seemed to rush, in a warming flood, about her heart. Quite defiantly she tilted her black head, and looking straight over Captain Ross's shoulder, she laughed, for pure joy of her secret. "_You_ don't know everything about girls!" she told the finest judge of women in Europe. And before the young Staff-Officer could retort, before he could even open his eyes over the temerity of this chit, this schoolgirl, who had said this thing to him (_Him!_), those little French boots of hers had skipped away, carrying her upstairs towards the study where she must type out the notes which she had taken down for her Uncle in shorthand that morning. Those boots fitted the chit's ankles like a coat of black paint, he noticed as he looked after her, too amused to be annoyed, of course. The piece of Impertinence----! Awfully neat.... They disappeared, the little twinkling heels. He went on to join Jack Awdas at table. Olwen, at an angle in the corridor a floor higher, ran into the young _femme-de-chambre_ for that floor, carrying over her arm a khaki tunic. They stopped to smile and to exchange "_bonjours_," these two girls much of an age and much of a race, for Marie came from Brittany, and already the Professor and his niece had amused themselves by finding out how many Welsh words the Breton maid could understand; the simple words which were the same in her own tongue. "I come from cleaning the buttons of the English monsieur, his better tunic," explained Marie, in French, smiling as she held out the khaki coat. "It is not of Monsieur de l'Audace?" asked Olwen. "No, Mademoiselle. Of the other English officer, young, young, who does not talk French too well; Lieutenant Brrrrrrown," returned Marie. "Can Mademoiselle tell me what decoration is that he has?" Olwen gave a look at it. "It is the ribbon of the Military Cross--it's like your Croix de Guerre," she said. "I didn't notice that he'd got that." "He" was the pink-faced New Army officer of whom Mrs. Cartwright had spoken to her.