Chapter 19

"Well, dear Mr. Daney," she murmured in her melted-butter voice, "what new bugaboo have you developed for us?"

"You do not have to bother calling upon the Brent girl, Miss Elizabeth. She says now that if Donald asks her to marry him she'll accept. She has an idea she'll be mistress of The Dreamerie."

Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. "What else?" she queried amiably.

"That's all--from Nan Brent. I have a small defi to make on my own account, however, Miss Elizabeth. From this minute on I wash my hands of the private affairs of the McKaye family. My job is managing your father's financial affairs. Believe me, the next move in this comedy-drama is a wedding--if Donald asks her in all seriousness to marry him--that is, if he insists on it. He may insist and then again he may not, but if he should, I shall not attempt to stop him. He's free, white and twenty-one; he's my boss and I hope I know my place. Personally, I'm willing to wager considerable that he'll marry her, but whether he does or not--I'm through."

Elizabeth McKaye sighed. "That means we must work fast, Mr. Daney. Donald will be feeling strong: enough within two weeks to call on her; he may even motor down to the Sawdust Pile within ten days. Mother has already broached the subject of taking him away to southern California or Florida for a long rest; Dad has seconded the motion with great enthusiasm--and that stubborn Donald has told them frankly that he isn't going away for a rest."

"Gosh!" Mr. Daney gasped. "That makes it a little binding, eh?"

She met his clear glance thoughtfully and said: "If her house should burn down--accidentally--to-day or to-night, when she and her baby aren't in it, she'll have to leave Port Agnew. There isn't a house in town where she could find shelter, and you could see to it that all the rooms in the hotel are taken."

"You forget, my dear," he replied with a small smile. "I have no further interest in this affair and moreover, I'm not turning firebug--not this year."

"You refuse to help us?"

"Absolutely. What is to be will be, and I, for one, have decided not to poke my finger into the cogs of destiny."

"Well--thanks awfully for what you've already done, Mr. Daney." Again she smiled her bright, impish smile. "Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Miss Elizabeth."

As she left the office, Mr. Daney noted her débutante slouch and gritted his teeth. "Wonder if they'll call on Nan now, or make a combined attack on the boy and try bluff and threats and tears," he soliloquized.

As a matter of fact they tried the latter. The storm broke after luncheon one day when Donald declared he felt strong enough to go down to Port Agnew, and, in the presence of the entire family, ordered the butler to tell his father's chauffeur to bring the closed car around to the door. Immediately, the astute Elizabeth precipitated matters by asking her brother sharply if his projected visit to Port Agnew predicated also a visit to the Sawdust Pile.

"Why, yes, Elizabeth," he answered calmly.

The Laird scowled at her, but she ignored the scowl; so old Hector flashed a warning glance to Jane and her mother--a glance that said quite plainly: "Let there be no upbraiding of my son."

"Do you think it is quite--ah, delicate of you, Donald, to call upon any young lady at her apartments in the absence of a proper chaperon, even if the lady herself appears to have singularly free and easy views on the propriety of receiving you thus?"

He saw that she was bound to force the issue and was rather relieved than otherwise. With a mental promise to himself to keep his temper at all hazards he replied: "Well, Elizabeth, I'll admit the situation is a trifle awkward, but what cannot be cured must be endured. You see, I want to have a talk with Nan Brent and I cannot do so unless I call upon her at the Sawdust Pile. It is impossible for us to meet on neutral ground, I fear. However, if you will write her a nice friendly little note and invite her up here to visit me, the question of a chaperon will be solved and I will postpone my visit until she gets here."

"Don't be a fool," she retorted bitterly.

"As for Nan's free and easy views on the subjects, who in Port Agnew, may I ask, expects her to act differently? Why, therefore, since she is fully convinced that I possess a few of the outward appearances of a gentleman, should she fear to receive me in her home? To conform to the social standards of those who decry her virtue? Elizabeth, you expect too much, I fear."

"Hear, hear," cried The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during the discussion.

"Father," his eldest daughter reminded him. "It is your duty to forbid Donald doing anything which is certain to bring his family into disrepute and make it the target for the tongue of scandal."

"Oh, leave him alone, you pestiferous woman," old Hector cried sharply. "Had it not been for the girl he would not be living this minute, so the least he can do is to express his compliments to her. Also, since this disagreeable topic has again been aired, let me remind you that the lass isn't going to marry Donald. She came out here, Donald," he continued, turning to his son, "with the distinct understanding that her job was to humor you back to health, and for that you owe her your thanks and I'm willing you should call on her and express them. Don't flattter yourself that she'll marry you, my boy. I've had a talk with her--since you must know it, sooner or later--and she promised me she wouldn't."

The young Laird's face paled a little but he maintained his composure. "I greatly fear you misunderstood her, father," he replied gently. "She promised me she'd marry me. You see," he added looking the old man resolutely in the face, "I think she's virtuous, so I'm going to marry her."

His father smiled sadly. "Poor lad. God knows I'm sorry for you, but--well, go see her and let's have the issue settled once for all. For God's sake, lad, grant me peace of mind. End it to-day, one way or the other."

"Ah, yes, you're brave," Elizabeth flung at her father. "You're so certain that girl will keep her promise, aren't you? Well, I happen to have been informed, on very good authority, that she intends to betray you. She had made the statement that she'll marry Donald if he asks her--again."

"The girl doesn't impress me as one who would lie, Elizabeth. Who told you this?"

"Andrew Daney."

"Bear with me a moment, son, till I call Andrew on the telephone," the Laird requested, and went into the telephone booth under the stairs in the reception hall. When he emerged a few minutes later his face was pale and haggard.

"Well? What did I tell you?" Elizabeth's voice was triumphant.

Her father ignored her. Placing himself squarely before his son, he bent forward slightly and thrust his aggressive face close to Donald's. "I command you to respect the honor of my house," he cried furiously. "For the last time, Donald McKaye, ha' done wie this woman, or--" and his great arm was outflung in a swooping gesture that denoted all too forcibly the terrible sentence he shrank from speaking.

"Are you offering me an alternative?" Donald's voice was low and very calm, but his brown eyes were blazing with suppressed rage. "The Dreamerie or--" and he swung and pointed to the Brent cottage far below them on the Sawdust Pile.

"Aye," his father cried in a hard cracked voice. "Aye!"

Donald looked over at his mother with the helplessness of a child who has fallen and hurt himself. "And you, mother? What do you say to this?"

She thought she would faint. "You--you must obey your father," she quavered. Until her son should marry Nan Brent she could not force herself to the belief that he could possibly commit such an incredible offense.

"The opinions of you and Jane," Donald continued, turning to each sister in turn, "do not interest me particularly, but while the polls are open you might as well vote. If I marry Nan Brent are you each prepared to forget that I am your brother?"

Elizabeth nodded calmly. She had gone too far now to develop weakness when an assumption of invincible strength might yet win the day.

"I couldn't receive such a peculiar sister-in-law," Jane murmured, evidently close to tears. "Surely, you would not expect us to take such a woman to our hearts, Donald dear?"

"I did not build The Dreamerie for yon lass," The Laird burst forth passionately.

His son stood with bowed head. "Have you, mother, or you, my sisters, been down to the Sawdust Pile to thank Nan for inspiring me--no matter how--with a desire to live? I think you realize that until she came I was too unhappy--too disgusted with life--to care whether I got well or not? Have you absolved yourselves of an obligation which must be perfectly evident to perfect ladies?"

"We have not." Elizabeth's calm voice answered him. "What the girl did was entirely of her own volition. She did it for your sake, and since it is apparent that she plans to collect the reward of her disinterested effort we have considered that a formal expression of thanks would be superfluous."

"I see. I see. Well, perhaps you're right. I shall not quarrel with your point of view. And you're all quite certain you will never recede from your attitude of hostility toward Nan--under no circumstances, to recognize her as my wife and extend to her the hospitality of The Dreamerie?"

He challenged his father with a look and the old man slowly nodded an affirmative. His mother thought Donald was about to yield to their opposition and nodded likewise. "I have already answered that question," Jane murmured tragically, and Elizabeth again reminded him that it was not necessary for him to make a fool of himself.

"Well, I'm glad this affair has been ironed out--at last," Donald assured them. "I had cherished the hope that when you knew Nan better--" He choked up for a moment, then laid his hands on his father's shoulders. "Well, sir," he gulped, "I'm going down to the Sawdust Pile and thank Nan for saving my life. Not," he added bitterly, "that I anticipate enjoying that life to the fullest for some years to come. If I did not believe that time will solve the problem--"

The Laird's heart leaped. "Tush, tush, boy. Run along and don't do anything foolish." He slapped Donald heartily across the back while the decisive sweep of that same hand an instant later informed the women of his household that it would be unnecessary to discuss this painful matter further.

"I understand just how you feel, dad. I hold no resentment," Donald assured him, and dragged The Laird close to him in a filial embrace. He crossed the room and kissed his mother, who clung to him a moment, tearfully; seeing him so submissive, Jane and Elizabeth each came up and claimed the right to embrace him with sisterly affection.

The butler entered to announce that the car was waiting at the front door. Old Hector helped his son into a great coat and Mrs. McKaye wound a reefer around his neck and tucked the ends inside the coat. Then The Laird helped him into the car; as it rolled slowly down the cliff road, Old Hector snorted with relief.

"By Judas," he declared, "I never dreamed the boy would accept such an ultimatum."

"Well, the way to find out is to try," Elizabeth suggested. "Sorry to have been forced to disregard that optical S.O.S. of yours, Dad, but I realized that we had to strike now or never."

"Whew-w-w!" The Laird whistled again.

XL

With the license of long familiarity, Donald knocked at the front door of the Brent cottage to announce his arrival; then, without awaiting permission to enter, he opened the door and met Nan in the tiny hall hurrying to admit him.

"You--Donald!" she reproved him. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be out."

"That's why I came in," he retorted drily and kissed her. "And I'm here because I couldn't stand The Dreamerie another instant. I wanted my mother and sisters to call on you and thank you for having been so nice to me during my illness, but the idea wasn't received, very enthusiastically. So, for the sheer sake of doing the decent thing I've called myself. It might please you," he added, "to know that my father thought I should."

"He is always tactful and kind," she agreed.

She led him to her father's old easy chair in the living room.

"As Dirty Dan O'Leary once remarked in my presence," he began, "it is a long lane that hasn't got a saloon at the end of it. I will first light a cigarette, if I may, and make myself comfortable, before putting you on the witness stand and subjecting you to a severe cross-examination. Seat yourself on that little hassock before me and in such a position that I can look squarely into your face and note flush of guilt when you fib to me."

She obeyed, with some slight inward trepidation, and sat looking up at him demurely.

"Nan," he began, "did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty thing for you to do would be to run away and hide where I could never find you?"

She shook her head.

"Did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty thing for you to do would be to return to Port Agnew from your involuntary exile and inspire me with some enthusiasm for life?"

His keen perception did not fail to interpret the slight flush of embarrassment that suffused Nan's face. "I object to that question, your honor," she replied with cleverly simulated gaiety, "on the ground that to do so would necessitate the violation of a confidence."

"The objection is sustained by the court. Did my father or Andrew Daney, acting for him, ever offer you any sum of money as a bribe for disappearing out of my life?"

"No. Your father offered to be very, very kind to me the morning I was leaving. We met at the railroad station and his offer was made _after_ I informed him that I was leaving Port Agnew forever--and why. So I know he made the offer just because he wanted to be kind--because he is kind."

"Neither he nor Daney communicated with you in anyway following your departure from Port Agnew?"

"They did not."

"Before leaving New York or immediately after your return to Port Agnew, did you enter into verbal agreement with any member of my family or their representative to nurse me back to health and then jilt me?"

"I did not. The morning I appeared at the hospital your father, remembering my statement to him the morning I fled from Port Agnew, suspected that I had had a change of heart. He said to me: 'So this is your idea of playing the game, is it?' I assured him then that I had not returned to Port Agnew with the intention of marrying you, but merely to stiffen your morale, as it were. He seemed quite satisfied with my explanation, which I gave him in absolute good faith."

"Did he ever question you as to how you ascertained I was ill?"

"No. While I cannot explain my impression, I gathered at the time that he knew."

"He credited Andrew Daney with that philanthropic job, Nan. He does not know that my mother communicated with you."

"Neither do you, Donald. I have not told you she did."

"I am not such a stupid fellow as to believe you would ever tell me anything that might hurt me, Nan. One does not relish the information that one's mother has not exhibited the sort of delicacy one expects of one's mother," he added bluntly.

"It is not nice of you to say that, Donald. How do you know that Mr. Daney did not send for me?"

He smiled tolerantly. "Before Daney would dare do that he would consult with my father, and if my father had consented to it he would never have left to Daney the task of requesting such a tremendous favor of you for his account. If Daney ever consulted my father as to the advisability of such a course, my father refused to consider it."

"What makes you think so, old smarty?"

"Well, I know my father's code. He had no hesitancy in permitting you to know that you were not welcome as a prospective daughter-in-law, although he was not so rude as to tell you why. He left that to your imagination. Now, for my father to ask a favor of anybody is very unusual. He has a motto that a favor accepted is a debt incurred, and he dislikes those perennial debts. My father is a trader, my dear. If he had, directly or indirectly, been responsible for your return to Port Agnew for the purpose of saving his son's life, he would not be--well, he just wouldn't do it," he explained with some embarrassment. "He couldn't do it. He would say to you, 'My son is dying because he finds life uninteresting without you. If you return, your presence will stimulate in him a renewed interest in life and he will, in all probability, survive. If you are good enough to save my son from death you are good enough to share his life, and although this wedding is about going to kill me, nevertheless we will pull it off and make believe we like it.'"

"Nonsense," she retorted.

"Knowing how my father would act under such circumstances, I was dumfounded when he informed me this afternoon that you had agreed to perform under false pretenses. He was quite certain you would proceed to jilt me, now that I am strong enough to stand it. He said you had promised him you would."

"I did not promise him. I merely told him truthfully what my firm intention was at the time he demanded to be informed as to the nature of my intentions. I reserved my woman's right to change my mind."

"Oh!"

"Had I made your father a definite promise I would have kept it. If I were a party to such a contract with your father, Donald dear, all of your pleading to induce me to break it would be in vain."

"A contract without a consideration is void in law," he reminded her. "Dad just figured he could bank on your love for me. He did you the honor to think it was so strong and wonderful that death would be a delirious delight to you in preference to spoiling my career by marrying me--well--Elizabeth disillusioned him!"

Nan's eyebrows lifted perceptibly.

"She informed my father in my presence," Donald continued, "that you had had a change of heart; that you were now resolved to accept me should I again ask you to marry me. It appears you had told Andrew Daney this--in cold blood as it were. So Dad went to the telephone and verified this report by Daney; then we had a grand show-down and I was definitely given my choice of habitation--The Dreamerie or the Sawdust Pile. Father, Mother, Elizabeth and Jane; jointly and severally assured me that they would never receive you, so Nan, dear, it appears that I will have to pay rather a heavy price for the privilege of marrying you--"

"I have never told you I would marry you," she cried sharply.

"Yes, you did. That day in the hospital."

"That was a very necessary fib and you should not hold it against me. It was a promise absolutely not made in good faith."

"But did you tell Daney that you would accept me if I should ask you again to marry me?"

She was visibly agitated but answered him truthfully. "Yes, I did."

"You said it in anger?"

"Yes." Very softly.

"Daney had come to you with an offer of monetary reward for your invaluable services to the McKaye family, had he not? And since what you did was not done for profit, you were properly infuriated and couldn't resist giving Daney the scare of his life? That was the way of it, was it not?"

Nan nodded and some tears that trembled on her long lashes were flicked off by the vigor of the nod; some of them fell on the big gaunt hands that held hers.

"I suppose you haven't sufficient money with which to return to New York?" he continued.

Again she nodded an affirmative.

"Just what are your plans, dear?"

"I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and try to procure a position as a cook lady."

"An admirable decision," he declared enthusiastically. "I'll give you a job cooking for me, provided you'll agree to marry me and permit me to live in your house. I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ to take me in, Nan. I have no other place to lay my weary head."

She looked at him and through the blur of her tears she saw him smiling down at her, calmly, benignantly and with that little touch of whimsicality that was always in evidence and which even his heavy heart could not now subdue.

"You've--you've--chosen the Sawdust Pile?" she cried incredulously.

"How else would a man of spirit choose, old shipmate?"

"But you're not marrying me to save me from poverty, Donald? You must be certain you aren't mistaking for love the sympathy which rises so naturally in that big heart of yours. If it's only a great pity--if it's only the protective instinct--"

"Hush! It's all of that and then some. I'm a man grown beyond the puppy-love stage, my dear--and the McKayes are not an impulsive race. We count the costs carefully and take careful note of the potential profits. And while I could grant my people the right to make hash of my happiness I must, for some inexplicable reason, deny them the privilege of doing it with yours. I think I can make you happy, Nan; not so happy, perhaps, that the shadow of your sorrow will not fall across your life occasionally, but so much happier than you are at present that the experiment seems worth trying, even at the expense of sacrificing the worldly pride of my people."

"Are you entertaining a strong hope that after you marry me, dear, your people will forgive you, make the best of what they consider a bad bargain and acknowledge me after a fashion? Do you think they will let bygones be bygones and take me to their hearts--for your sake?"

"I entertain no such silly illusion. Under no circumstances will they ever acknowledge you after a fashion, for the very sufficient reason that the opportunity to be martyrs will never be accorded my mother and sisters by yours truly, Donald McKaye, late Laird apparent of Port Agnew. Bless, your sweet soul, Nan, I have some pride, you know. I wouldn't permit them to tolerate you. I prefer open warfare every time."

"Have you broken with your people, dear?"

"Yes, but they do not know it yet. I didn't have the heart to raise a scene, so I merely gave the old pater a hug, kissed mother and the girls and came away. I'm not going back."

"You will--if I refuse to marry you?"

"I do not anticipate such a refusal. However, it Hoes not enter into the matter at all in so far as my decision to quit The Dreamerie is concerned. I'm through! Listen, Nan. I could win my father to you--win him wholeheartedly and without reservation--if I should inform him that my mother asked you to come back to Port Agnew. My mother and the girls have not told him of this and I suspect they have encouraged his assumption that Andrew Daney took matters in his own hands. Father has not cared to inquire into the matter, anyhow, because he is secretly grateful to Daney (as he thinks) for disobeying him. Mother and the girls are forcing Daney to protect them; they are using his loyalty to the family as a club to keep him in line. With that club they forced him to come to you with a proposition that must have been repugnant to him, if for no other reason than that he knew my father would not countenance it. When you told him you would marry me if I should ask you again, to whom did Daney report? To Elizabeth, of course--the brains of the opposition. That proves to me that my father had nothing to do with it--why the story is as easily understood from deduction as if I had heard the details from their lips. But I cannot use my mother's peace of mind as a club to beat dad into line; I cannot tell him something that will almost make him hate mother and my sisters; I would not force him to do that which he does not desire to do because it is the kindly, sensible and humane course. So I shall sit tight and say nothing--and by the way, I love you more than ever for keeping this affair from me. So few women are true blue sports, I'm afraid."

"You must be very, very angry and hurt, Donald?"