* * * * * *
Nan gazed upon the result of her labors and decided that it was good. Bud was observing her in his unobtrusive way. They were together in the new parlor of the home which Jeff had had reconstructed under Nan's most careful supervision.
The girl had put forth her greatest effort, greater even than she herself realized, for it had been inspired by a desire that Jeff and his wife should never realize the pain and bitter disappointment she had endured.
Now, as she surveyed each detail in her final tour of inspection, she convinced herself that nothing, nothing she could think of had been forgotten. Even the city-bred Elvine could find no fault with any detail of it.
She and Bud were standing side by side rather like two children gazing in awed wonder at some undreamed of splendor suddenly discovered in a familiar playground, every square foot of which they had believed themselves familiar with.
"I—don't think I've forgotten a thing," Nan said, in a tone subdued by her weight of responsibility.
"Not a thing," agreed Bud, with a perfect disregard for any consequences his statement might have.
He was utterly unchanged. He had made no preparation to receive the bride and bridegroom in their home. He was just the cattleman nothing could change him from. His gray flannel shirt was agape over his sunburned chest. His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious spurs clanked. Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head was innocent of all extra combing. With Nan it was different. She had striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she belonged. She was dressed with consummate care. Every jealous feeling of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were that her successful rival should be unable to sneer at or pity her.
The result was a delightful picture that filled Bud's heart with admiration. And for perhaps the thousandth time he silently anathematized the blind folly of the man who had wilfully cast his eyes in another direction.
Nan seated herself in one of the luxuriously inviting armchairs, while Bud insinuated his huge form on to the polished surface of a large central table.