Kindred of the Dust Part 42

Again, in that impulsive way she had, she bent and kissed his hand.

"Dear King Cophetua," she murmured, "your beggar maid will never be done with adoring you." She looked up at him with a sweet and lovely wistfulness shining in her sea-blue eyes. "And the sweetest thing about it, you angelic simpleton," she added, "is that you will never, never, never know why."

XLI

The first hint of the tremendous events impending came to Mr. Daney through the medium of no less an informant than his wife. Upon returning from the mill office on the evening of Donald McKaye's marriage, Mr. Daney was met at his front door by Mrs. Daney who cried triumphantly:

"Well, what did I tell you about Donald McKaye?"

Mr. Daney twitched inwardly, but answered composedly. "Not one-tenth of one per cent, of what I have discovered without your valuable a.s.sistance my dear."

She wrinkled the end of her nose disdainfully. "He's gone motoring with Nan Brent in a hired car, and they took the baby with them. They pa.s.sed through town about half past two this afternoon and they haven't returned yet."

"How do you know all this?" he demanded coolly.

"I saw them as they pa.s.sed by on the road below; I recognized that rent limousine of the Central Garage with Ben Nicholson driving it, and a few moments ago I telephoned the Central Garage and asked for Ben. He hasn't returned yet--and it's been dark for half an hour."

"Hum-m-m! What do you suspect, my dear?"

"The worst," she replied dramatically.

"What a wonderful fall day this has been," he remarked blandly as he hung up his hat. She turned upon him a glance of fury; he met it with one so calm and impersonal that the good lady quite lost control of herself. "Why do you withhold your confidence from me?" she cried sharply.

"Because you wouldn't respect it, my dear; also, because I'm paid to keep the McKaye secrets and you're not."

"Is he going to marry her, Andrew? Answer me," she demanded.

"Unfortunately for you, Mrs. Daney, the young gentleman hasn't taken me into his confidence. Neither has the young lady. Of course I entertain an opinion, on the subject, but since I am not given to discussing the intimate personal affairs of other people, you'll excuse my reticence on this subject, I'm sure. I repeat that this has been a wonderful fall day."

She burst into tears of futile rage and went to her room. Mr. Daney partook of his dinner in solitary state and immediately after dinner strolled down town and loitered around the entrance to the Central Garage until he saw Ben Nicholson drive in about ten o'clock.

"h.e.l.lo, Ben," he hailed the driver as Ben descended from his seat. "I hear you've been pulling off a wedding."

Ben Nicholson lowered his voice and spoke out the corner of his mouth.

"What do you know about the young Laird, eh, Mr. Daney? Say I could 'a' cried to see him throwin' himself away on that Jane."

Mr. Daney shrugged. "Oh, well, boys will be boys," he declared. "The bigger they are the harder they fall. Of course, Ben, you understand I'm not in position to say anything, one way or the other," he added parenthetically, and Ben Nicholson nodded comprehension. Thereupon Mr. Daney sauntered over to the cigar stand in the hotel, loaded his cigar case and went down to his office, where he sat until midnight, smoking and thinking. The sole result of his cogitations, however, he summed up in a remark he directed at the cuspidor just before he went home:

"Well, there's blood on the moon and h.e.l.l will pop in the morning."

For the small part he had played in bringing Nan Brent back to Port Agnew, the general manager fully expected to be dismissed from the McKaye service within thirty seconds after old Hector should reach the mill office; hence with the heroism born of twelve hours of preparation he was at his desk at eight o'clock next morning. At nine o'clock The Laird came in and Mr. Daney saw by his face instantly that old Hector knew. The general manager rose at his desk and bowed with great dignity.

"Moritori salutamus, sir," he announced gravely.

"What the devil are you talking about, Daney?" The Laird demanded irritably.

"That's what the gladiators used to say to the Roman populace. It means, I believe, 'We who are about to die, salute you.' Here is my resignation, Mr. McKaye."

"Don't be an a.s.s, Andrew," The Laird commanded and threw the proffered resignation into the waste basket. "Why should you resign?"

"To spare the trouble of discharging me, sir."

"What for?"

"Bringing the Brent girl back to Port Agnew. If I hadn't gotten her address from Dirty Dan I would never have suggested to--"

"Enough. We will not discuss what might have been, Andrew. The boy has married her, and since the blow has fallen nothing that preceded it is of the slightest importance. What I have called to say to you is this: Donald McKaye is no longer connected with the Tyee Lumber Company."

"Oh, come, come, sir," Daney pleaded. "The mischief is done. You'll have to forgive the boy and make the best of a bad business. What can't be cured must be endured, you know."

"Not necessarily. And you might spare me your plat.i.tude, Andrew," The Laird replied savagely. "I'm done with the lad forever, for son of mine he is no longer. Andrew, do you remember the time he bought that red cedar stumpage up on the Wiskah and unloaded it on me at a profit of two hundred thousand dollars?"

Mr. Daney nodded. "And you, in turn, sold it at a profit of fifty thousand," he reminded the irate old man.

"Donald did not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, together with a check for all the interest collected on the coupons since they came into my possession, and tell him from me that I'll take it kindly of him to leave Port Agnew and make a start for himself elsewhere as quickly as he can. He owes it to his family not to affront it by his presence in Port Agnew, giving ground for gossip and scandal and piling needless sorrow upon us. And when the Sawdust Pile is again vacant you will remove the Brent house and put in the drying yard you've planned this many a year."

"Very well, sir. It's not a task to my liking, but--" His pause was eloquent.

"Have my old desk put in order for me. I'm back in the harness and back to stay, and at that I'm not so certain it isn't the best thing for me, under the present circ.u.mstances. I dare say," he added, with a sudden change of tone, "the news is all over Port Agnew this morning."

Mr. Daney nodded.

"You will procure Donald's resignation as President and have him endorse the stock I gave him in order to qualify as a director of the company. We'll hold a directors' meeting this afternoon and I'll step back into the presidency."

"Very well, sir."

"You will cause a notice to be prepared for my signature, to be spread on the bulletin board in each department, to the effect that Donald McKaye is no longer connected in any way with the Tyee Lumber Company."

"d.a.m.n it, man," Daney roared wrathfully, "have you no pride? Why wash your dirty linen in public?"

"You are forgetting yourself, my good Andrew. If you do not wish to obey my orders I shall have little difficulty inducing your a.s.sistant to carry out my wishes, I'm thinking." The Laird's voice was calm enough; apparently he had himself under perfect control, but--the Blue-Bonnets-coming-over-the-Border look was in his fierce gray eyes; under his bushy iron-gray brows they burned like campfires in twin caverns at night. His arms, bowed belligerently, hung tense at his side, his great hands opened and closed, a little to the fore; he licked his lips and in the brief silence that followed ere Mr. Daney got up and started fumbling with the combination to the great vault in the corner, old Hector's breath came in short snorts. He turned and, still in the same att.i.tude, watched Daney while the latter twirled and fumbled and twirled. Poor man! He knew The Laird's baleful glance was boring into his back and for the life of him he could not remember the combination he had used for thirty years.

Suddenly he abandoned all pretense and turned savagely on The Laird.

"Get out of my office," he yelled. "I work for you, Hector McKaye, but I give you value received and in this office I'm king and be d.a.m.ned to you." His voice rose to a shrill, childish treble that presaged tears of rage. "You'll be sorry for this, you hard-hearted man. Please G.o.d I'll live to see the day your dirty Scotch pride will be humbled and you'll go to that wonderful boy and his wife and plead for forgiveness. Why, you poor, pitiful, pusillanimous old pachyderm, if the boy has dishonored you he has honored himself. He's a gallant young gentleman, that's what he is. He has more guts than a bear. He's _married_ the girl, d.a.m.n you--and that's more than you would have done at his age. Ah, don't talk to me! We were young together and I know the game you played forty years ago with the girl at the Rat Portage--yes, you--you with your youth and your hot pa.s.sions--turning your big proud back on your peculiar personal G.o.d to wallow in sin and enjoy it."

"But I--I was a single man then," The Laird sputtered, almost inarticulate with fury and astonishment.

"He was a single man yesterday but he's a married man to-day. And she loves him. She adores him. You can see it in her eyes when his name is mentioned. And she had no _reason_ to behave herself, had she? She has behaved herself for three long years, but did she win anybody's approbation for doing it? I'm telling you a masterful man like him might have had her without the wedding ring, for love's sake, if he'd cared to play a waiting game and stack the cards on her. After all, she's human."

Suddenly he commenced to weep with fury, the tears cascading into his whiskers making him look singularly ridiculous in comparison with the expression on his face, which was anything but grievous. "Marriage!

Marriage!" he croaked. "I know what it is. I married a fat-head--and so did my wife. We've never known romance; never had anything but a quiet, well-ordered existence. I've dwelt in repression; never got out of life a single one of those thrills that comes of doing something daring and original and nasty. Never had an adventure; never had a woman look at me like I was a G.o.d; married at twenty and never knew the Grand Pa.s.sion." He threw up his arms. "Oh-h-h, G.o.d-d-d! If I could only be young again I'd be a devil! Praise be, I know one man with guts enough to tell 'em all to go to h.e.l.l."

With a peculiar little moving cry he started for the door.

"Andrew," The Laird cried anxiously. "Where are you going?"