gazines and the popular fiction and the recent drama it
brought up Lesa Swaim in her element to the listening young stranger. It
seemed so easy for the Macphersons to entertain gracefully, to make
everybody at home in the shadowy comfort of that big porch, to bring in
limeade and nut-cakes in cut-glass and fine china service, to forget
none of the things due to real courtesy, and yet to envelop all in the
genuine, open-hearted informality of the genial, open-hearted West.

Long after the remainder of the Macpherson household was asleep Jerry
Swaim lay wide awake, her mind threshed upon with the situation in which
she had suddenly found herself. And over and over in the aisles of her
thoughts what York Macpherson had said about unhitching from a star ran
side by side with Uncle Cornie's words, "If a man went right with
himself."

VIII

IF A MAN WENT RIGHT WITH HIMSELF

There were two of a kind of the Swaim blood, Geraldine Swaim, who had
always had her own way, and Jerusha Swaim Darby, who had always had her
own way. When the wills and the ways of these two clashed--well, Jerusha
had lived many years and knew a thing or two by experience that niece
Geraldine had yet to learn.

On the very day that Jerry Swaim left "Eden" Mrs. Darby had gone into
the city for a conference with her late husband's business associates.
Sloth in action never deprived her of any opportunities; and quick
action now meant everything in the accomplishment of the purpose she had
before her.

"Cornelius was such a quiet man, he was never very much company. He
really did not care for people, like most men," Mrs. Darby said to her
business partners, who had known her husband intimately. "Eugene
Wellington has already surpassed him in getting hold of some things he
never quite reached to, being an older man. And now that Eugene is
proving such splendid help in taking up the less important details in my
affairs he ought to do fine clerical work in the House here. There is no
telling how much ability he may have for being useful to all of us along
the lines that Cornelius has developed. He has proved that he is equal
to a lot of things besides painting. People of little brain power and
financial skill ought to paint the pictures and not rob our big affairs
of business ability."

Mrs. Darby held a controlling interest in the House, so the outcome of
the conference was that an easy berth on more than moderate pay, with
possible prospects-