She strove hard to support herself with these memories, out even as she considered them her mind passed on to the reception, and that stupid ache supervened once more. Instantly her focus narrowed down. There were only two figures in it. The rest merely provided a setting for these two. All the lights, the decorations, the beautiful costumes and smiling faces, these became an indistinct blurr, leaving the image of Mrs. Elvine van Blooren and a man standing vividly out. What a wonderful, wonderful picture of radiant womanhood Mrs. Van Blooren had made! Even in her trouble Nan was generous. The woman was beautiful in a way that poor Nan had only dreamed of. The Madonna-like features, calm, perfect. The dark hair, superb in the simplicity of its dressing. She remembered that at the first glance it had suggested to her the sheen of a cloudless summer night. And her gown, and her figure. The gown must have cost--ah, Nan could not appraise its cost. She had had insufficient experience. Her own maximum had been reached only now, and the sum seemed to her as paltry as her father had made it appear. The one certainty that remained with her, however, was that the taste displayed in Mrs. Van Blooren's gown had placed it beyond such a thing as mere material value. And then her heart had seemed to stand still. It appeared that Jeff, who was talking to some other people, and she had become aware of Mrs. Van Blooren's presence at the same moment. For when Nan glanced in his direction he was gazing fixedly at the newcomer with a look in his steady blue eyes which she had never beheld in them before. Oh, yes, there had been no mistaking that look. She knew she was not clever, but she was a woman, and no woman could ever mistake such a look in the eyes of a man. But worse was to follow. There was a respite for her in the activities of the reception. For Jeff was as busily occupied as she was. Then, too, at the banquet she had ample time to recover from the shock. But the ball came, and they were both released from their duties, and everybody was left free to dance as only the western people love to dance. It was then that her bitter cup was filled to overflowing. Jeff danced six times with Mrs. Van Blooren. Six times, and one supper extra, while she had to content herself with a miserable two dances with the one man who, to her stood out foremost among all men. It was during the long hours of that dreary ball that she had encountered her father's curious regard, and now she wondered if he had seen what she had seen. If he had understood as she understood.