Holiday! It had been a good deal less than holiday. She had looked forward to one all too brief succession of days of delight. Jeff, who had been honored by his fellows in the world which was theirs. Jeff, the leader in the great industry which absorbed them all. Jeff, the man by his very temperament marked out for a worldly success only bounded by the limitations of his personal ambitions. She had been so proud of him. She had been so thankful to be allowed to share in his triumphs. She had shared in them, too--up till that meeting with Elvine van Blooren at the reception. After that--ah, well, there had been very little after for Nan.

 

And the man himself. Four days had sufficed to reduce Jeff's feelings to a condition of love-sickness such as is best associated with extreme youth. Furthermore its hold upon him was deeper, more lasting by reason of the innate strength of his character.

 

As for Elvine van Blooren it would be less easy to say. Her beauty was of a darkly reticent order. Hers was the face, the eyes, the manner yielding up few secrets. She rarely imparted confidence even to her mother. And a woman who denies her mother rarely yields confidence to any other human creature.

 

Perhaps in her case, however, she had good reason. Mrs. John D. Carruthers, who possessed a simple erudite professor for a husband, a man who possessed no worldly ambitions of any sort, and who readily accepted his pension from the trustees of St. Bude's College at the earliest date, so that he might devote all his riper years to the prosecution of his passion for classical research, was a painful example of worldliness, and a woman who regarded position and wealth before all things. There was little enough sympathy between mother and daughter. Mrs. John D. Carruthers only saw in Elvine's unusual beauty an asset in her schemes of advancement. While Elvine displayed a cold disregard for the older woman's efforts, and went her own way.

 

Elvine was strong, even as Jeffrey Masters was strong. But while the man's strength lay in the single purpose of achievement, Elvine looked for the ease and luxury which life could legitimately afford her. Elvine and her mother possessed far too much in common ever to have sympathy for one another.

 

It was this very attitude which inspired an acrimonious half hour in the somewhat pretentious parlor on Maple Avenue just before Jeff was to pay his farewell call at the close of the Cattle Week.

 

Elvine was occupied with a small note-book on the| pages of which there were many figures. With a small gold pencil she was working out sums, which, apparently, were solely for her own edification. She communicated nothing to her mother, who covertly glanced over at her from the fancy work she was engaged upon at the far side of the room.

 

The room was such as might be found in any of the better middle-class houses in a western city. Its furnishing was a trifle ornate. Comfortable chairs predominated, and their woodwork shone with an extreme lustre, or were equally aggressive in their modern fictitious Mission House style. The carpet and rugs were broadly floral and bright. There was altogether a modernity about the character of it which decidedly belonged to the gray-haired showiness of the wife of John Carruthers. For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful about Elvine's surroundings. The daughter would never have permitted such a thing. It was only modern, extremely modern. That type of modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful consideration.

 

At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large pocketbook which was lying in her lap. Her fine eyes were half smiling, and a faint tinge of color deepened her perfect cheeks. She sighed.

 

"We didn't do so badly at the races, Momma," she said, more for her own satisfaction than her mother's information. "Guess I've got most all of it in and--I'm satisfied."

 

"Maybe you are, my dear," came the ungracious response.

 

Her mother was bending over her work, nor did she trouble to raise her eyes in her daughter's direction.

 

"That sounds as if somebody else wasn't."

 

Elvine raised a pair of beautifully rounded arms above her head and rested the back of her neck upon her clasped hands.

 

The gray head was lifted sharply. A pair of brilliant black eyes shot a disapproving glance across the room. Then the mother continued her work, shaking her head emphatically.

 

"What's the use of a few dollars? He's going back to his ranch to-morrow, and--nothing's happened."

 

There was something crude, almost brutal in the manner of it. There was something which on a woman's lips might well have revolted any man. But it was an attitude to which the daughter was used. Besides, it saved her any qualms she might otherwise have had in pursuing her own way under the shelter of her mother's roof.

 

"I really can't see what you've to complain of, Momma," Elvine laughed, without any display of mirth. "I guess if you wanted to marry a man you'd leave him about as much chance as he'd have with a wildcat." Then her smile died out. "Anyway it doesn't seem to be a matter for other folk to concern themselves with. I'm not a child."

 

"No. But you're going to throw away the chance of a lifetime if you don't act right now. Why, girl, Jeff Masters is the pick of the whole bunch of cattlemen around this district. He's going to be one of the cattle kings of the country, or I don't guess I know a thing. He's right here to your hand, and as tame as a lap-dog. To-morrow he's off again to the ranch, and that girl of his partner's will have him to herself for a year. Why, you're crazy to let him go. Four years you've lived here since--since----"

 

"I wish you'd stop worrying, Momma--and," the girl added with unconcealed resentment, "get on with your knitting."

 

Elvine had risen to her feet. She moved swiftly over to the window which gave on to a wide stoop, the roof of which was supported on well-built rag stone columns. She was more angry than her words admitted. Her fine eyes were sparkling, her delicately penciled brows were slightly knitted.

 

She made a handsome picture. Her wealth of dark hair was carefully dressed, but with the usual consummate simplicity. Her figure was superb, with all the ripeness of maturity, but without the smallest inclination toward any gross development. She was statuesque, with all the perfect cunning of Nature's art. She was a woman to find favor in any eyes, man's or woman's, and to perform that dual feat was a test which few women could hope to survive.

 

The mother's reply came sharply and without yielding.

 

"It's just four years since you came back to home. Five or more since you first married. Anyway, you've sat around here for four years having a good time without a thought of the future. You're spending your money, which didn't amount to----"

 

The girl flashed round.

 

"I won't tolerate it. I just won't, Momma," she cried, with an energy which brought the other's eyes swiftly to her face. "You've talked of four years wasted, but you don't say a word of the other year, the fifth. It's taken me all that time to--forget what your judgment might have saved me from. Oh, yes. You know it just as well as I do. Don't blind yourself. I was foolish then, I thought I was in love, and it was the moment when the advice of a woman worth having might have helped me. You urged me in my folly to marry then, the same as you're urging me now. You saw everything you hoped for in that marriage, and you let me plunge myself into a living hell without a single qualm. The result. Oh, I've tried to forget. But I can't I haven't forgotten. I never shall forget. But I've learned. I certainly have. I've learned to think wholly for myself--of myself. I don't need advice now. I don't need a thing. You'll never see things my way, and I don't fancy to see them yours. I shall marry. And when I marry again I promise you I'll marry right, and," she laughed bitterly, "I guess I'll hand you the rake off which you're looking for. But," she went on, with a swift, ruthless candor which stung even the worldly heart of the older woman, "I'll make no experimental practice. I'll marry the man I want to, first because I like him, and second, because he's a right man, and can hand me the life I need. Maybe that's pretty hard sounding, but I tell you, Momma, it's nothing to the hardness that makes you talk the way you do. Anyway, I want you to get it fixed in your mind right now I'm no priceless gem in a jewelry store that you're going to sell at the price you figure. I'll dispose of myself when, and to whom, I choose, and my motives will be my own. Now we'll quit it, once for all. Jeffrey Masters is coming right along down the sidewalk."

 

The mother's black eyes snapped angrily.

 

"Very well," she exclaimed sharply. "See to it you make good. Your father's pension isn't even sufficient for two, and your own money is limited. Meanwhile, don't forget the Tristram girl's just as pretty as a picture."

 

But Elvine's exasperation had passed. There was a slight softening in her eyes as they surveyed the handsome, elaborately dressed gray head and the careful toilet of her unlovely mother. She understood the bitter carping of this disappointed woman. Her spirit soared far beyond the lot of the wife of a pensioned school-teacher. She knew, too, that somewhere, lost in some dim recess of a coldly calculating nature, there was a tiny, glowing spot which burned wholly for her.

 

There was an unusual softness in her tone when she replied.

 

"But she needs framing, Momma," she said lightly. "And anyway, a girl who lives more or less on the premises with a man for five years or so, and hasn't married him--well, I guess she never will."

 

* * * * * *

 

The whole method of Jeff's life was rapidity of thought and swift execution supported by a perfect genius for clear thinking. It was these characteristics which had lifted him so rapidly in the world of cattle he had made his own. It was these which had shown him the possibilities of the now great Obar Ranch.

 

It might have been claimed for him that he lacked many of the lovable weaknesses of human nature. It might have been said that he was hard, cold. Yet such was his passionate ambition beneath a cool, deliberate exterior that it would have been foolish to believe that his outward display was the real man. He was perhaps a powerfully controlled fire, but the hot tide ran strong within him, and the right torch at the right moment might easily stir the depths of him and bring their fiery display to the surface.

 

Bud knew him. Bud understood something of the deep human tide flowing through his strong veins. Once he had seen that tide at the surface, and it had left an impression not easily forgettable. Nan, too, was not without understanding of him. But hers was the understanding of her sex for an idol she had set up in her heart. H............