"I'm sorry you can't dine with us tonight, Bryan," Lady Kent remarked on parting. "Olive and I are to be alone. Frank only visits his family now and then, because he is so busy in town. No; I did not go up to London this year for the season. I only went for a few days at a time, as I was not willing to leave the babies. Besides, you know I don't care as much for society as I should anyway." Then Captain MacDonnell said something which Olive did not hear. However, she did hear Jack's answer. "Ride with you tomorrow? I should think I will just as hard and as fast as possible and jump all the fences and ditches in this part of the country. I'm awfully glad you are back, Bryan, to help me get rid of some of my surplus American energy." That same evening, after a late dinner, Jack and Olive went into the library together. As is often the case in English homes of distinction, the library at Kent House was the pleasantest room in the entire house. The books were on low shelves encircling the four walls, except for the opening left for a huge fireplace. Above the mantel was the head of a stag. On one side hung a shield and on the other the Kent Coat of Arms with the motto "Semper Paratus" meaning "always prepared." Above the book shelves were portraits of Frank's ancestors, who had been country people in Kent county for a number of years, although the title was not an old one. In the places of honor were Frank's grandfather and grandmother--one of them a young man of about twenty in Court costume; the other a lovely girl with fair hair and dark eyes and a particularly bright expression. "Frank likes to think Vive, the baby, looks like his grandmother," Jack declared as she stretched herself on a big leather lounge not far from a pair of French windows, which opened on the veranda at the side of the house. "I hope you won't feel dull, Olive! As soon as Parliament closes, if you and Frieda like, we will have some people come to stay with us. I don't like the responsibility of visitors if Frank is not here. I have never learned to take guests so simply and easily as an English hostess does. It is one of the ways in which I am a social failure." "Nonsense," Olive announced, without paying much attention to what Jack had said. She had picked up a magazine and was reading. An hour passed and Olive believed that Jack had almost fallen asleep. Now and then she would close her eyes, although the greater part of the time she seemed in a reverie. As a matter of fact Jack was really thinking of the old ranch and the people at home, whom Olive's coming had brought to mind more vividly than usual. "I'm glad Jean and Ralph are at the ranch this year with Ruth and Jim," she said finally. "What a pleasure it must be to Jean that Ralph is such a successful engineer--one of the biggest in the United States, Jim writes. But Jim always liked Ralph better than any of the husbands. He never could altogether forgive Frank for being an Englishman."