Chapter 17

The longer Mr. Daney considered this situation, the more convinced did he become that mischief was brewing. Did not periods of seraphic calm always precede a tornado? In the impending social explosion, a few hard missiles would most certainly come his way, and in a sudden agony of apprehension and shame because he had told The Laird a half-truth, he sprang to his feet, resolved to seek old Hector, inform him that Mrs. McKaye had compromised the family, and thus enable him to meet the issue like a gentleman. But this decision was succeeded by the reflection that perhaps this action would merely serve to precipitate a situation that might not be evolved in the ordinary course of affairs. Furthermore, he could not afford to betray Mrs. McKaye on the mere suspicion that, sooner or later, she would betray herself, for this would savor of too much anxiety to save his own skin at her expense. "I'm a singularly unhappy old duffer," he groaned and kicked his inoffending waste-basket across the office. "The females! The mischief-making, bungling, thoughtless, crazy females! There are millions of wonderful, angelic women in this terrible world, but what I want to know is: Where the Sam Hill do they hide themselves?"

XXXV

Nan did not remain at the hospital more than fifteen minutes. She was ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand answered the pressure of hers. It appeared to be a tremendous effort for him to open his eyes and look up at her. When, however, he had satisfied his swimming senses that she was really there in the flesh, he murmured:

"You'll not--run away--again? Promise?"

"I promise, dear. The next time I leave Port Agnew, I'll say good-by."

"You must not--leave--again. Promise?"

She knew his life might be the reward of a kindly lie; so she told it, bravely and without hesitation. Was she not there for that purpose?

"Good--news! If I get--well, will you--marry me, Nan?" She choked up then; nevertheless, she nodded.

"More good--news! Wait for me--Sawdust Pile--sweetheart."

She interpreted this as a dismissal, and gratefully made her exit. From the hospital office she telephoned orders to the butcher, the baker, the grocer, and the milkman, forcibly separated little Don from the nurse, and walked down through Port Agnew to the Sawdust Pile.

The old-fashioned garden welcomed her with its fragrance; her cat, which she had been unable to give away and had not the heart to destroy at the time of her departure, came to the little white gate to meet her and rubbed against her, purring contentedly--apparently none the worse for a month of vagabondage and richer by a litter of kittens that blinked at Nan from under the kitchen stoop. From across the Bight of Tyee, the morning breeze brought her the grateful odor of the sea, while the white sea-gulls, prinking themselves on the pile-butts at the outer edge of the Sawdust Pile, raised raucous cries at her approach and hopped toward her in anticipation of the scraps she had been wont to toss them. She resurrected the key from its hiding-place under the eaves, and her hot tears fell so fast that it was with difficulty she could insert it in the door. Poor derelict on the sea of life, she had gone out with the ebb and had been swept back on the flood, to bob around for a little while in the cross-currents of human destinies before going out again with the ebb.

The air in the little house was hot and fetid; so she threw open the doors and windows. Dust had accumulated everywhere and, with a certain detachment, she noted, even in her distress, that she had gone away without closing the great square piano. She ran her fingers over the dusty keys and brought forth a few, sonorous chords; then she observed that the little, ancient, half-portion grandfather's clock had died of inanition; so she made a mental note to listen for the twelve-o'clock whistle on the Tyee mill and set the clock by it. The spigot over the kitchen sink was leaking a little, and it occurred to her, in the same curious detached way, that it needed a new gasket.

She sighed. Once more, in this silent little house so fraught with happy memories, the old burden of existence was bearing upon her--the feeling that she was in jail. For a month she had been free--free to walk the streets, to look in shop windows, to seek a livelihood and talk to other human beings without that terrible feeling that, no matter how pleasant they might appear to be, their eyes were secretly appraising her--that they were _thinking_. And now to be forced to abandon that freedom--

"Oh, well! It can't last forever," she soliloquized, and, blinking away her tears, she proceeded to change into a house dress and put her little home in order. Presently, the local expressman arrived with her baggage and was followed by sundry youths bearing sundry provisions; at twelve-thirty, when she and young Don sat down to the luncheon she had prepared, her flight to New York and return appeared singularly unreal, like the memory of a dream.

She visited the hospital next day, choosing an hour when Port Agnew was at its evening meal and too preoccupied with that important detail to note her coming and going. She returned to her home under cover of darkness.

At the hospital, she had received a favorable report of the patient's progress. His physicians were distinctly encouraged. Nan looked in on her lover for a minute, and then hurried away on the plea that her baby was locked in at the Sawdust Pile, in the absence of some one to care for him; she had the usual maternal presentiment that he was playing with matches.

As she was going out she met The Laird and Mrs. McKaye coming in. Old Hector lifted his hat and said quite heartily:

"How do you do, my dear girl. The news this evening is most encouraging--thanks to you, I'm told--so we are permitted to see Donald for five minutes. Nellie, my dear, you remember little Nan Brent, do you not?"

Mrs. McKaye's handsome mouth contracted in a small, automatic smile that did not extend to her eyes. She acknowledged Nan's "Good-evening, Mrs. McKaye," with a brief nod, and again favored the girl with another property smile, between the coming and going of which her teeth flashed with the swiftness of the opening and closing of a camera shutter.

"We are _so_ grateful to you, Miss Brent," she murmured. And then, womanlike, her alert brown eyes, starting their appraisal at Nan's shoes, roved swiftly and calmly upward, noting every item of her dress, every soft seductive curve of her healthy young body. Her glance came to a rest on the girl's face, and for the space of several seconds they looked at each other frankly while old Hector was saying:

"Aye, grateful indeed, Nan. We shall never be out of your debt. There are times when a kindness and a sacrifice are all the more welcome because unexpected, and we had no right to expect this of you. God bless you, my dear, and remember--I am always your friend."

"Yes, indeed," his wife murmured, in a voice that, lacking his enthusiasm, conveyed to Nan the information that The Laird spoke for himself. She tugged gently at her husband's arm; again the automatic smile; with a cool: "Good-night, Miss Brent. Thank you again--_so_ much," she propelled The Laird toward the hospital entrance. He obeyed promptly, glad to escape a situation that was painful to him, for he had realized that which his wife did not credit him with having sufficiently acute perception to realize--to-wit, that his wife's camouflage was somewhat frayed and poorly manufactured. _She had not played the game with him_. It would have cost her nothing to have been as kindly and sincere as he had been toward this unfortunate girl; nevertheless, while he had sensed her deficiency, his wife had carried the affair off so well that he could not advance a sound argument to convince her of it. So he merely remarked dryly as the hospital door closed behind them:

"Nellie, I'm going to propound a conundrum for you. Why did your greeting of the Brent girl remind me of that Louis Quinze tapestry for which you paid sixty thousand francs the last time you were abroad?"

"I loathe conundrums, Hector," she replied coldly. "I do not care to guess the answer."

"The answer is: Not quite genuine," he retorted mildly, and said no more about it.

After that visit, Nan went no more to the hospital. She had met Donald's mother for the first time in four years and had been greeted as "Miss Brent," although in an elder day when, as a child, Donald had brought her to The Dreamerie to visit his mother and sisters, and later when she had sung in the local Presbyterian choir, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters had been wont to greet her as "Nan." The girl did not relish the prospect of facing again that camera-shutter smile and she shrank with the utmost distress from a chance meeting at the hospital with Elizabeth or Jane McKaye. As for The Laird, while she never felt ill at ease in his presence, still she preferred to meet him as infrequently as possible. As a result of this decision, she wrote Andrew Daney, and after explaining to him what she intended doing and why, asked him if he would not send some trustworthy person to her every evening with a report of Donald's progress.

Accordingly, Dirty Dan O'Leary, hat in hand and greatly embarrassed, presented himself at the Sawdust Pile the following evening under cover of darkness, and handed her a note from Daney. Donald's condition was continuing to improve. For his services, Mr. O'Leary was duly thanked and given a bouquet from Nan's old-fashioned garden for presentation to the invalid. Tucked away in the heart of it was a tiny envelop that enclosed a message of love and cheer.

Dirty Dan was thrilled to think that he had been selected as the intermediary in this secret romance. Clasping the bouquet in his grimy left hand, he bowed low and placed his equally grimy right in the region of his umbilicus.

"Me hearrt's wit' ye, agra," he declared. "Sure 'tis to the divil an' back agin I'd be the proud man to go, if 'twould be a favor to ye, Miss Brint."

"I know you would, Dan," she agreed, tactfully setting the wild rascal at his ease when addressing him by his Christian name. "I know what you did for Mr. Donald that night. I think you're very, very wonderful. I haven't had an opportunity heretofore to tell you how grateful I am to you for saving him."

Here was a mystery! Mr. O'Leary in his Sunday clothes bound for Ireland resembled Dirty Dan O'Leary in the raiment of a lumberjack, his wild hair no longer controlled by judicious applications of pomade and his mustache now--alas--returned to its original state of neglect, as a butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Without pausing to consider this, Dirty Dan, taking the license of a more or less privileged character, queried impudently:

"An' are ye glad they sint for ye to come back?"

She decided that Mr. O'Leary was inclined to be familiar; so she merely looked at him and her cool glance chilled him.

"Becuz if ye are," he continued, embarrassed, "ye have me to thank for it. 'Tis meself that knows a thing or two wit'out bein' told. Have ye not been surprised that they knew so well where to find ye whin they wanted ye?"

She stared at him in frank amazement.

"Yes, I have been tremendously interested in learning the secret of their marvelous perspicacity."

"I supplied Misther Daney wit' your address, allanah."

"How did you know it? Did The Laird--"

"He did not. I did it all be mesel'. Ah, 'tis the romantic divil I am, Miss Brint. Sure I got a notion ye were runnin' away an' says I to meself, says I: 'I don't like this idjee at all, at all. These mysterious disappearances are always leadin' to throuble.' Sure, what if somebody should die an' lave ye a fortun'? What good would it be to ye if nobody could find ye? An' in back o' that agin," he assured her cunningly, "I realized what a popular laddy buck I'd be wit' Misther Donald if I knew what he didn't know but was wishful o' knowin'?"

"But how did you procure my address in New York?" she demanded.

"Now, I'm a wise man, but if I towld ye that, ye'd be as wise as I am. An' since 'twould break me heart to think anybody in Port Agnew could be as wise as mesel', ye'll have to excuse me from blatherin' all I know."

"Oh, but you must tell me, Dan. There are reasons why I should know, and you wouldn't refuse to set my mind at ease, would you?"

Dirty Dan grinned and played his ace.

"If ye'll sing 'The Low-backed Car' an' 'She Moved Through the Fair' I'll tell ye," he promised. "Sure I listened to ye the night o' the battle, an' so close to death was I, sure I fought 'twas an angel from glory singing'. Troth, I did."

She sat down, laughing, at the antiquated piano, and sang him the songs he loved; then, because she owed him a great debt she sang for him "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Pretty Molly Brannigan," "The Harp That Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and "Killarney." Dan stood just outside the kitchen door, not presuming to enter, and when the last song was finished, he had tears in his piggy little eyes; so he fled with the posies, nor tarried to thank her and wish her a pleasant good-night. Neither did he keep his promise by telling her how he came to know her New York address.

"Let me hear anny blackguard mintion that one's name wit' a lack o' respect," Mr. O'Leary breathed, as he crossed the vacant lots, "an' I'll break the back o' him in two halves! Whirro-o-o! Sure I'd make a mummy out o' him!"

XXXVI

A month passed, and to the Sawdust Pile one evening, instead of Dirty Dan, there came another messenger. It was Mr. Daney. To Nan's invitation to enter and be seated, he gave ready acceptance; once seated, however, he showed indubitable evidence of uneasiness, and that he was the bearer of news of more than ordinary interest was apparent by the nervous manner in which he twirled his hat and scattered over her clean floor a quantity of sawdust which had accumulated under the rim during his peregrinations round the mill that day.

"Well, Nan, he went home to The Dreamerie this afternoon," the general manager began presently. "Got up and dressed himself unaided, and insisted on walking out to the car without assistance. He's back on a solid diet now, and the way he's filling up the chinks in his superstructure is a sight to marvel at. I expect he'll be back on the job within a month."

"That is wonderful news, Mr. Daney."

"Of course," Daney continued, "his hair is falling out, and he'll soon be as bald as a Chihuahua dog. But--it'll grow in again. Yes, indeed. It'll grow in."

"Oh dear! I do hope it will grow out," she bantered, in an effort to put him at his ease. "What a pity if his illness should leave poor Don with a head like a thistle--with all the fuzzy-wuzzy inside."

He laughed.

"I'm glad to find you in such good spirits, Nan, because I've called to talk business. And, for some reason or other, I do not relish my job."

"Then, suppose I dismiss you from this particular job, Mr. Daney. Suppose I decline to discuss business."

"Oh, but business is something that has to be discussed sooner or later," he asured her, on the authority of one whose life had been dedicated to that exacting duty. "I suppose you've kept track of your expenses since you left New York. That, of course, will include the outlay for your living-expenses while here, and in order to make doubly certain that we are on the safe side, I am instructed to double this total to cover the additional expenses of your return to New York. And if you will set a value upon your lost time from the day you left New York until your return, both days inclusive, I will include that in the check also."

"Suppose I should charge you one thousand dollars a day for my lost time," she suggested curiously.

"I should pay it without the slightest quibble. The Laird would be delighted to get off so cheaply. He feels himself obligated to you for returning to Port Agnew--"

"Did The Laird send you here to adjust these financial details with me, Mr. Daney?"

"He did not. The matter is entirely in my hands. Certainly, in all justice, you should be reimbursed for the expenses of a journey voluntarily incurred for the McKaye benefit."

"Did he say so?"

"No. But I know him so well that I have little difficulty in anticipating his desires. I am acting under Mrs. McKaye's promise to you over the telephone to reimburse you."

"I am glad to know that, Mr. Daney. I have a very high regard for Donald's father, and I should not care to convict him of an attempt to settle with me on a cash basis for declining to marry his son. I wish you would inform The Laird, Mr. Daney, that what I did was done because it pleased me to do it for his sake and Donald's. They have been at some pains, throughout the years, to be kind to the Brents, but, unfortunately for the Brents, opportunities for reciprocity have always been lacking until the night Mrs. McKaye telephoned me in New York. I cannot afford the gratification of very many desires--even very simple ones, Mr. Daney--but this happens to be one of the rare occasions when I can. To quote Sir Anthony Gloster, 'Thank God I can pay for my fancies!' The Laird doesn't owe me a dollar, and I beg you, Mr. Daney, not to distress me by offering it."

"But, my dear girl, it has cost you at least five hundred dollars--"

"What a marvelous sunset we had this evening, Mr. Daney. Did you observe it? My father always maintained that those curious clouds predicated sou'west squalls."

"I didn't come here, girl, to talk about sunsets. You're foolish if you do not accept--"

The outcast of Port Agnew turned upon Mr. Daney a pair of sea-blue eyes that flashed dangerously.

"I think I have paid my debt to the McKayes," she declared, and in her calm voice there was a sibilant little note of passion. "Indeed, I have a slight credit-balance due me, and though Mrs. McKaye and her daughters cannot bring themselves to the point of acknowledging this indebtedness, I must insist upon collecting it. In view of the justice of my claim, however, I cannot stultify my womanhood by permitting the McKaye women to think they can dismiss the obligation by writing a check. I am not an abandoned woman, Mr. Daney. I have sensibilities and, strange to relate, I, too, have pride--more than the McKayes I think sometimes. It is possible to insult me, to hurt me, and cause me to suffer cruelty, and I tell you, Mr. Daney, I would rather lie down and die by the roadside than accept one penny of McKaye money."

Mr. Daney stared at her, visibly distressed.

"Why, what's happened?" he blurted.

She ignored him.

"I repeat that The Laird owes me nothing--not even his thanks. I met him one night with Mrs. McKaye on the hospital steps, and he tendered me his meed of gratitude like the splendid gentleman he is."

"Oh, I see!" A great light had suddenly dawned on Mr. Daney. "The Laird led trumps, but Nellie McKaye revoked and played a little deuce?"

"Well, Mr. Daney, it seemed to me she fumbled the ball, to employ a sporting metaphor. She bowed to me--like this--and smiled at me--like that!" Her cool, patronizing nod and the sudden contraction and relaxation of Nan's facial muscles brought a wry smile to old Daney's stolid countenance. "Even if I felt that I could afford to or was forced to accept reimbursement for my expenses and lost time," Nan resumed, "her action precluded it. Can't you realize that, Mr. Daney? And Jane and Elizabeth went her one--no, two--better. I'm going to tell you about it. I went up-town the other day to send a telegram, and in the telegraph-office I met Donald's sisters. I knew they would not care to have me speak to them in public, so, when the telegrapher wasn't looking at me and intuition told me that Elizabeth and Jane were, I glanced up and favored them with a very small but very polite smile of recognition."

"And then," quoted Mr. Daney, reaching into his ragbag of a mind and bringing up a remnant of Shakespeare, "'there came a frost--a killing frost!'"

"Two hundred and forty-five degrees below zero, and not even a stick of kindling in the wood-box," she assured him humorously. "They looked at me, through me, over me, beyond me--"

"And never batted an eye?"

"Not even the flicker of an eyelash."

His canine loyalty bade Mr. Daney defend The Laird's ewe lambs.

"Well, maybe they didn't recognize you," he protested. "A good deal of water has run under a number of bridges since the McKaye girls saw you last."

"In that event, Mr. Daney, I charge that their manners would have been extremely bad. I know town dogs that smile at me when I smile at them. However, much as I would like to assure you that they didn't know me, I must insist, Mr. Daney, that they did."

"Well, now, how do you know, Nan?"

"A little devil took possession of me, Mr. Daney, and inspired me to smoke them out. I walked up and held out my hand to Jane. 'How do you do, Jane,' I said. 'I'm Nan Brent. Have you forgotten me?'"

Mr. Daney raised both arms toward the ceiling.

"'Oh, God! cried the woodcock,--and away he flew!' What did the chit say?"

"She said, 'Why, not at all,' and turned her back on me. I then proffered Elizabeth a similar greeting and said, 'Surely, Elizabeth, _you_ haven't forgotten me!' Elizabeth is really funny. She replied: 'So sorry! I've always been absent-minded!' She looked at me steadily with such a cool mirth in her eyes--she has nice eyes, too--and I must have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent bystanders are always, getting hurt."

"Ah, do not hurt him!" Daney pleaded anxiously. "He's a good, kind, manly gentleman. Spare him! Spare him, my dear!"

"Oh, I wouldn't hurt him, Mr. Daney, if I did not know I had the power to heal his hurts."

Suddenly she commenced to laugh, albeit there was in her laugh a quality which almost caused Mr. Daney to imagine that he had hackles on his back and that they were rising. He much preferred the note of anger of a few minutes previous; with a rush all of his old apprehensions returned, and he rasped out at her irritably:

"Well, well! What's this joke, anyhow? Tell me and perhaps I may laugh, too."

"Oh, no, Mr. Daney, you'd never laugh at this one. You'd weep."

"Try me."

"Very well. You will recall, Mr. Daney, that when Mrs. McKaye rang me up in New York, she was careful, even while asking me to return, to let me know my place?"

"Yes, yes. I was listening on the line. I heard her, and I thought she was a bit raw. But no matter. Proceed."

"Well, since she asked me to return to Port Agnew, I'm wondering who is going to ask me to go away again?"