Kindred of the Dust Part 34

From the company hospital, The Laird went straight to his general manager's office. Entering, he strode to Daney's desk and transfixed that hara.s.sed individual with an accusing finger.

"Andrew, this is your work, is it not?"

Mr. Daney's heart skipped a beat, but he remembered this was Friday morning. So he decided not to be foolish and spar for time by asking The Laird what work he referred to. Also, having read somewhere that, in battle, the offensive frequently wins--the defensive never--he glared defiantly at The Laird and growled.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" His demeanor appeared to say: "This is my work, and I'm proud of it."

To Daney's profound amazement, The Laird smiled benignantly and thrust out his hand, which Mr. Daney shook gingerly, as one might a can of nitroglycerin.

"I thank you more than you will ever realize, Andrew, for taking this matter out of my hands. I left the decision up to the Almighty and evidently he inspired you to disobey me and save the day--without compromising me."

"Pooh! That's the easiest thing I do." Mr. Daney's courage had returned with a rush. "For heaven's sake, don't talk about it, sir. I placed a call for the girl on the telephone--at your expense. Yes, sir; I talked with her clear across the continent, and before she even started from New York, it was understood that she is to jilt Donald the minute the doctors p.r.o.nounce him strong enough to stand jilting."

"She told me, practically, the same thing. Oh, Andrew, Andrew, my boy, this is bully work! Bully! Bully!"

Mr. Daney replied to this encomium with a deprecatory shrug and hoped The Laird would never ask _him who had made the bargain_. Thus far, he flattered himself, he had not strayed from the straight and narrow path of strict veracity, and he hoped he would not have to. To obviate this, he decided to get rid of The Laird immediately; so he affected embarra.s.sment; fussed with the pile of mail on his desk, and growled:

"All right, boss. If you're satisfied, I am. I haven't been able to sleep very well since I started mixing in your family affairs, and without sleep a man cannot hold up his job. I've got a lot of work to do, and I cannot have any idle, interfering fellows stampeding round my office; so I suggest that you run up to The Dreamerie to break the good news to your poor wife and the girls, and let me get something done."

"All right, Andrew; I'll go in a minute. Er--ah--you're certain, Andrew, the girl understands quite thoroughly that I haven't had a thing to do with bringing her back to Port Agnew?" The Laird smote the desk resolutely; he desired to be absolutely certain of his ground.

Mr. Daney looked up with a slight frown.

"I'll answer your question with another. Have you seen and talked with Nan Brent this morning?"

"Yes. I did--the minute she entered Donald's room."

"And you demanded a show-down then and there?"

Parenthetically it may be stated that Mr. Daney's intimate knowledge of The Laird's character prompted this question. He was certain of an affirmative reply.

"I did."

"And her answer was satisfactory?"

"Absolutely!"

"So I judged from the fact that you shook hands with me upon entering my office. I had expected nothing more nor less than instant dismissal.... Well, since you desire the girl's testimony confirmed, I repeat that she came out here on the distinct understanding that Donald's family had not receded from its original position. This is a business trip, pure and simple, in so far as the McKaye family is concerned, although I grant you there is a heap of sentiment on Nan's part--at least sufficient to persuade her to do anything for the boy's sake. She places his welfare above her own."

The Laird nodded.

"The girl is capable of doing the most unexpected things, Andrew. I really think she'll play the game. When she told me what her intentions were, I believe she stated the absolute truth."

"Well, let us hope she doesn't change them, sir. Remember, she has no more intention of marrying him this morning than she had when she fled from Port Agnew. I was certain of that when listening to her on the telephone the other night. However, sir, I want to go on record, here and now, as disclaiming responsibility for anything that may occur hereafter. I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, and neither was I born with a caul. Hence, I do not pretend to foretell future events with any degree of exact.i.tude. I simply guarantee you, sir, that the girl realizes that you have had nothing whatsoever, directly or indirectly, to do with the request for her return. Also, I give you my word of honor that I have not made her a single promise--directly or indirectly."

"Well, I am relieved. I dreaded the thought that I might be compromised--indirectly, for, as you well know, Andrew, I have a repugnance to asking favors from anybody to whom I am not prepared to grant them. My son is my chief happiness. Now, if I were to ask her to save my happiness, while at the same time reserving the right to deny the girl hers--well, thank G.o.d, I'm saved that embarra.s.sment! Thanks to you, you fox!" he added.

"Bless my wicked heart! I'm glad you've gone and that I'm out of it so easy," the general manager soliloquized, as the door closed behind The Laird.

He reached for the telephone and called Mrs. McKaye at The Dreamerie.

"Your husband is on his way home, Mrs. McKaye," he advised her. "The girl is here, The Laird has met her and talked with her and is quite happy over the situation. However, I want to warn you that you will avoid unpleasantness by keeping from him the fact that you asked the Brent girl to come back to Port Agnew. He thinks I did that, and I have not seen fit, for reasons of my own, to deny it."

"Why, I asked you not to tell him, Andrew," she replied, surprised that he should forget it.

"I know. But you had planned to tell him yourself if, after the girl had arrived, you discovered he was secretly pleased that she had come."

"Yes; that is true. However, since you say Hector is quite pleased with the situation, why should I not tell him, Andrew?"

"I have a suspicion the news will trouble him. He is quite willing to accept of the girl's services, as it were, but not at the behest of any member of his family. Better hear what he has to say on the subject before you commit yourself, Mrs. McKaye."

"Oh, I think I can be depended upon to manage Hector," she replied confidently, and hung up, for already through the window she could see The Laird's car taking the grade up Tyee Head. He arrived a few minutes later and entered smilingly, rubbing his hands as indicative of his entire satisfaction with the universe as const.i.tuted that morning.

"My dears, I have wonderful news for you!" he announced.

Elizabeth, warned by her mother of the impending announcement, and already in the latter's confidence regarding the long-distance conversation with Nan Brent, interrupted him. She was a born actress.

"Oh, do tell us quickly, daddy dear," she gushed, and flew to throw her arms round his neck. Over his shoulder she winked at Jane and her mother and grimaced knowingly.

"Donald's going to pull through. The doctors feel certain he'll take in the slack on his life-line, now that the Brent girl has suddenly turned up. In fact, the lad has been holding his own since he received a telegram from her some days back. I didn't tell you about that, my dears, not being desirous of worrying you; and since it was no doings of mine, I saw it could not be helped, and we'd have to make the best of it."

"Oh, daddy! How could you? That's perfectly dreadful news!" the artful Elizabeth cried, while her mother raised her eyes resignedly upward and clasped her hands so tightly that they trembled. The Laird thought his wife sought comfort from above; had he known that she had just delivered a sincere vote of thanks, he would not have hugged her to his heart, as he forthwith proceeded to do.

"Now, now, Nellie, my dear," he soothed her, "it's all for the best.

Don't cross your bridges before you come to them. Wait till I tell you everything. That fox, Daney, had the common sense to call the girl on the telephone and explain the situation; he induced her to come out here and tease that soft-hearted moonstruck son of ours back to life.

And when Donald's strong enough to stand alone--by Jupiter, that's exactly how he's going to stand!--We're not the slightest bit compromised, my dears. The McKaye family is absolutely in the clear.

The girl has done this solely for Donald's sake."

"Hector McKaye," Jane declared, "you've really got to do something very handsome for Andrew Daney."

"Yes, indeed," Elizabeth cooed.

"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Mrs. McKaye sighed.

"Ah, he's a canny lad, is Andrew," old Hector declared happily. "He took smart care not to compromise me, for well he knows my code. When I rejected his suggestion that I send for the la.s.s, Andrew knew why without asking foolish questions. Well, he realized that if I should ask her to come and save my son, I would not be unfair enough to tell her later that she was not a fit wife for that son. As a matter o'

manly principle, I would have had to withdraw my opposition, and Donald could wed her if he liked and with my blessing, for all the bitter cost. I did not build The Dreamerie with the thought that Donald would bring a wife like this Brent la.s.s home to live in it, but--G.o.d be thanked!--the puir bairn loves him too well to ruin him--"

He broke off, wiping his eyes, moist now with the pressure of his emotions, and while he was wiping them, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters exchanged frightened glances. Elizabeth's penchant for ill-timed humor disappeared; she stood, alert and awed, biting her lip. Jane's eyebrows went up in quick warning to her mother, who paled and flushed alternately. The latter understood now why Andrew Daney had taken the precaution to warn her against the danger of conjugal confidences in the matter of Nan Brent; devoutly she wished she had had the common sense to have left those delicate negotiations entirely in the hands of dear, capable, faithful Andrew, for, delicate as they had been, she realized now, when it was too late, that in all probability Mr. Daney, although a mere man, would have concluded them without compromising the McKaye family. Surely he would have had the good taste to a.s.sure Nan that he was acting entirely upon his own initiative.

On the instant, Mrs. McKaye hated the unfortunate general manager. She told herself that, had he been possessed of the brains of a chipmunk, he would have pointed out to her the danger of her course; that he had not done so was proof that the craven had feared to compromise himself. He had made a cat's-paw of her, that's what he had done! He had taken advantage of a momentary lack of caution--the result of her impetuous mother love. Ah, what a blockhead the man was, not to have warned her of the diplomatic dangers she was risking! At that moment, placid Nellie McKaye could have shrieked with fury; it would have been a relief to her if she could have stuck her hatpin in that monumental chucklehead, Daney. Like so many of her s.e.x, the good lady's code of sportsmans.h.i.+p was a curious one, to say the least. It had not been prudence but an instinctive desire to protect her son that had moved her to be careful when begging Nan to return to Port Agnew, to indicate that this request predicated no retirement from the resolute stand which the family had taken against the latter's alliance with Donald. In a hazy, indefinite way, she had realized the importance of nullifying any tendency on her part to compromise herself or her family by the mere act of telephoning to Nan, and with the unintentional brutality of a not very intelligent, tactless woman she had taken this means of protection.

Curiously enough, it had not occurred to her until this moment that she had done something shameful and cruel and stupid and unwomanly.

She shriveled mentally in the contemplation of it. Not until her husband had so unexpectedly revealed to her a hitherto hidden facet of his character--his masculine code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth--did she realize how dreadfully she had blundered. She realized now that, without having given the slightest thought to the commission of an act unworthy of her womanhood, she had acted because, to her, the end appeared to justify the means; never given to self-a.n.a.lysis, she had merely followed the imperative call of her mother love to the point where nothing mattered save results.

She looked up tearfully at The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his pa.s.sion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to him than his own life, his pa.s.sion for always giving value received should preclude bargaining with the girl. It was plain to her, therefore, that her husband could never love their son as his mother loved him, else, in a matter of life or death, he would not have paused to consider the effect on himself of any action that might safeguard his son's existence. She knew what he had thought when Daney first proposed the matter to him. That sort of thing wasn't "playing the game." Poor, troubled soul! She did not know that he was capable of playing any game to the finish, even though every point scored against him should burn like a branding-iron.

The Laird, noting her great distress, held her fondly in his arms and soothed her; manlike, he a.s.sumed that she wept because her heart was overflowing with joy. For half an hour he chatted with her; then, with a light step and a cheerful "Good-by, Nellie, wife," he entered his automobile and drove back to town.

His departure was the signal for Jane and Elizabeth to rally to their mother's side and inaugurate a plan of defense.