He knew. Of course he knew. Had he not watched the progress of events throughout the week? Had he not seen for himself how Jeff's fancy had been caught? And she was very beautiful, this town-bred woman, beautiful with that healthy, downy complexion which Bud found did not fit with his idea of city "raised" women. He almost felt he hated her, yet he knew he had no right to his antagonism. Jeff was unpledged, he was free. No woman had any claim on him. Not even Nan. Poor Nan. He had hoped to give her seven long days of unalloyed delight. He had only given her seven days of bitter disappointment and disillusion. He set about his packing with furious zest. In a moment, it seemed, his room was in a state of chaos. And all the while, as he bundled garments together and flung them into his grips, his busy thought went on in the only direction in which it seemed capable of moving just now. His mind had gone back to the days before their visit to Calthorpe. He remembered the delighted anticipation which Nan had displayed. Her displays of happy affection for himself in the midst of her own great looking forward. The ravishing hours she had spent in choosing patterns of material, and styles of gown. He remembered the bright sparkling eyes shining, it seemed to him, at all times. That wonderful looking forward. Oh, the holiday of it had been nothing. 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.