There was
only one thing, one thought, which had inspired the child. It was
Jeff. It was a week that was to see honor done him, and she--she was
to join in honoring him. Jeff was the whole hub about which her
happiness revolved.
He was pained. He was angry. And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's
dark beauty haunted him. He admitted it--her beauty. And for all his
disquiet, his bitter feeling, he found it impossible to blame the man.
Yes, for all his exasperation. For all he regarded Jeff as a "fool
man," he was just enough to remember that Nan was his own little
daughter, a pretty prairie girl, with nothing of the showy attraction
of this city woman. Then Jeff's attitude toward her. It had never
been more than the sheerest friendliness. He reflected bitterly, even,
that they might have been simply brother and sister. While the dream
of his life was some day to be able to pour out the wealth he was
storing up into the out-stretched palms of their children.
Well, it was a dream. And now it had come tumbling about his feet, and
it almost looked to him as if poor little Nan's heart was to be buried
beneath the debris.
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