"Because it isn't his grave. It belongs to Bill Belkap, who doesn't care for it. Paul Ekblad will find his solace in caring for Nell Poser's child and in knowing it was her wish that he is fulfilling. That is the real solace for the loss of loved ones."
Jerry remembered Uncle Cornie and his withered yellow hand under her plump white one as he told her of Jim Swaim's wish for his child.
"If I carry out that wish I will be true to my father—and—he will be happier," she thought, and a great load seemed lifting itself from her soul.
"Oh, father, father! You are not in the 'Eden' burial-plot. You are here with me. I shall never lose you." The girl's face was tenderly sweet with silent emotion as she turned to the man beside her.
"I'm glad you told me that story. May I come down to your office in the morning for a little conference? I can come at ten."
"Certainly. Come any time," York assured her, wishing the while that the plea of Jerusha Darby's that lay in his pocket was in the bottom of Fishing Teddy's deep hole down the Sage Brush.
The next morning Jerry Swaim came into the office of the Macpherson Mortgage Company promptly at the stroke of ten by the town clock.
"If I were only a younger man," York Macpherson thought, feeling how the presence of this girl transformed the room she entered—"if I were only younger I would fall at her shrine, without a question. Now I keep asking myself how a woman can be so charming, on the one hand, and so characterless maybe, shallow anyhow, on the other. But the test is on for sure now."
No hint of this thought, however, was in his face as he laid aside his pen and asked, in his kindly, stereotyped way:
"What can I do for you?"