"Oh, she has nothing at all to do with it now," Captain MacDonnell returned. "Only once upon a time before I met you, I used to think Lady Jack was the most attractive woman I had ever known. I used also to believe that as long as Frank had gotten ahead of me I never wished to marry. But I suppose the real fact was that I wanted one of what Lady Jack told me you called yourselves? The Ranch Girls, wasn't it? Only I had not seen the real one in those days." "Look here, Bryan, you need not think I ever forget you are an Irishman," Olive laughed. "Yet I think I like your flattery." However, Captain MacDonnell was waiting for another kind of answer, and after a little Olive gave him the one he desired. So began for Olive, what still remains, in spite of all the other adventures in life, the great adventure of marriage. CHAPTER XVIII "UNDER TWO FLAGS" ON an afternoon in summer nearly a year later, two flags might be seen flying from the towers of Kent House. Over the English meadows the wind blew softly, but strongly enough to whip the flags out straight so that from some distance one could see the British Lion and the Stars and Stripes. Since Olive's engagement to Captain MacDonnell, the United States had entered the war and was now one of the great Allies. Inside Kent House there was a peculiar atmosphere of excitement and expectancy. The house was filled with flowers from the big garden, a profusion of roses and the simpler flowers for which England is famous, wall flowers, daisies, sweet-peas and canterbury bells, named in honor of the great Cathedral at Canterbury. In the dining room, which opened just back of the library, the table was already laid for dinner. Evidently there was to be a gala occasion, and yet this was unusual, for since the war began there had been few entertainments at Kent House or in any great English home. Nevertheless Lady Kent herself presently came into the dining room and looked with the deepest interest at the beautiful table, touching things here and there and making slight alterations in the arrangement of the flowers. The table was in white except for a stripe of rose-colored satin through the center and a bowl of pink roses. Jack had on a house dress of some soft white material, as she was not wearing mourning and had not worn it after Vive's death. There was too much black being used in the world. She was standing still for a moment, frowning slightly, but with interest, not dissatisfaction, when another person entered and came up beside her.