Fortunately Ruth and Olive had still in their possession a number of lovely old silks and draperies which the Ranch girls had brought back from their trip to Italy many years before. One day, after he had been working for about a month, Olive slipped quietly into the studio without the artist's hearing her. She found him sitting before his easel smoking, but frowning and looking less happy than he had in some time. But as he caught sight of Olive his expression changed. "I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you for making me so lovely? I don't mind being handed down to posterity in such a delightfully untruthful picture," Olive remarked gayly. "Oh, it's untruthful enough," Captain MacDonnell answered. "It is well you came in just when you did, as I was thinking of making an end of it." "Then I shouldn't have forgiven you." Captain MacDonnell nodded. "That is what I was afraid of, that and that you would not be willing to sit for me again." Olive laughed. "Oh, you must get hold of someone more attractive than I am for the next portrait. After a while, as you are so much better, you'll be wanting to go back to London to work seriously. You know you have promised me that?" Captain MacDonnell shook his head. "No," he returned. "Oh, I don't mean that I did not promise, I only mean that I shall probably not keep my word. I think I shall give up and allow myself to become a kind of good for nothing, half invalid, as soon as I am separated from you." However, as she had by this time grown accustomed to her companion's swift changes of mood, so unlike her own, Olive only laughed? "Shall I pose for you again today?" Then there was silence in the room for half an hour while Bryan worked. Finally he put down his brushes. "I am no good for work today, Olive. The truth is I want to say something to you and I don't know whether I have the right. "Olive!" For an instant Olive changed color. Then she answered. "I can hardly imagine anything you haven't the right to say to me, Bryan. You often talk of your gratitude for what I have done for you. But I wonder if you know what you have done for me? I have never had so kind a friend except Jack. It is always difficult for me to think of her as Lady Kent." "But I am not your friend," Bryan returned brusquely, "and it is about that and about Lady Jack I want to talk to you. The truth is it's absurd to call a man your friend when he loves you. Of course I feel I am not all of a man these days and I have not much money and my art may never come to anything." "Any more disqualifications, Bryan?" Olive asked softly. Perhaps she was not altogether surprised at what she was at present hearing. "Oh yes, a great many," Captain MacDonnell returned, "only I think I won't tell you about them just now." "And what has Jack to do with what you wish to say to me?" Olive asked, and this time spoke more seriously.