Cornie was looking at her with a face as expressionless as if he
were about to say, "The bank doesn't make loans on any such security,"
yet something in his eyes drew her comfortably to him and she
mechanically put her shapely little hand on his thin yellow one.

"I want to talk to you before anything happens, Jerry," he began, and
then paused, in a confused uncertainty that threatened to end his
wanting here.

And Jerry, being a woman, divined in an instant that it was to talk to
her before anything happened that he had thrown that discus out of its
way when she and Gene had thought themselves alone in the arbor before
dinner. It was to talk to her that the thing had been rolled purposely
to her feet now. Queer Uncle Cornie!

"I'm not too old to listen to you. I appreciate what you can do for me."
Jerry was quoting her aunt's admonitions exactly, which showed how
deeply they had unconsciously impressed themselves on her mind. Her
words broke the linen bands about Uncle Cornie's glazed jaws, and he
spoke.

"Your estate is all settled now. What's left to you after that rascally
John--I mean after two years of pulling and hauling through the courts,
is a 'claim,' as they call it, in the Sage Brush Valley in Kansas. It
has never been managed well, somehow. There's not been a cent of income
from it since Jim Swaim got hold of it, but that's no fault of the man
who is looking after it--a York Macpherson. He's a gentleman you can
trust anywhere. That's all there is of your own from your father's
estate."

Jerry Swaim's dark-blue eyes opened wide and her face was lily white
under the shadow of dull-gold hair above it.

"You are dependent on your aunt for everything. Well, she's glad of
that. So am I, in a way. Only, if you go against her will you won't be
her heir any more. You mightn't be, anyhow, if she--went first. The
Darby estate isn't really Jerusha Swaim's; it's mine. But she thinks
it's hers and it's all right that way, because, in the end, I do control
it." Uncle Cornie paused.

Jerry sat motionless, and, although it was June-time, the little white
hand on the speaker's thin yellow one was very cold.

"If you are satisfied, I'm glad, but I won't let Jim Swaim's child think
she's got a fortune of her own when she hasn't got a cent and must
depend on the good-will of her relatives for everything she wants. Jim
would haunt me to my grave if I did."

Jerry stared at her uncle's face in the darkening twilight. I