"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 grat.i.tude 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 reimburs.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sure 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, G.o.d! cried the woodc.o.c.k,--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?"

"I'll be shot if I will! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And Mr. Daney threw back his head and laughed the most enjoyable laugh he had known since the night an itinerant hypnotist, entertaining the citizens of Port Agnew, had requested any adventurous gentleman in the audience who thought he couldn't be hypnotized, to walk up and prove it. Dirty Dan O'Leary had volunteered, had been mesmerized after a struggle, and, upon being told that he was d.i.c.k Whittington's cat, had proceeded to cut some feline capers that would have tickled the sensibilities of a totem-pole. Mr. Daney's honest cachinnations now were so infectious that Nan commenced to laugh with him--heartily, but no longer with that strident little note of resentment, and c.u.mulatively, as Mr.

Daney's mirth mounted until the honest fellow's tears cascaded across his ruddy cheeks.

"Egad, Nan," he declared presently, "but you have a rare sense of humor! Yes, do it. Do it! Make 'em all come down--right here to the Sawdust Pile! Make 'em remember you--all three of 'em--make 'em say please! Yes, sir! 'Please Nan, forgive me for forgetting. Please Nan, forgive me for smiling like the head of an old fiddle. Please, Nan, get out of Port Agnew, so we can sleep nights. Please, Nan, be careful not to say "Good-by." Please, Nan, knock out a couple of your front teeth and wear a black wig and a sunbonnet, so n.o.body'll recognize you when you leave, follow you, and learn your address.'" He paused to wipe his eyes. "Why, dog my cats, girl, you've got 'em where the hair is short; so make 'em toe the scratch!"

"Well, of course," Nan reminded him, "they are not likely to toe the scratch unless they receive a hint that toeing scratches is going to be fashionable in our best Port Agnew circles this winter."

Mr. Daney arched his wild eyebrows, pursed his lips, popped his eyes, and looked at Nan over the rims of his spectacles.

"Very well, my dear girl, I'll be the goat. A lesson in humility will not be wasted on certain parties. But suppose they object? Suppose they buck and pitch and sidestep and bawl and carry on? What then?"

"Why," Nan replied innocently, regarding him in friendly fashion with those wistful blue eyes, "you might hint that I'm liable to go to The Laird and tell him I regard him as a very poor sport, indeed, to expect me to give up his son, in view of the fact that his son's mother sent for me to save that son's life. Do you know, dear Mr.

Daney, I suspect that if The Laird knew his wife had compromised him so, he would be a singularly wild Scot!"

"Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war!" cried Mr. Daney, and, seizing his hat from the table, he fled into the night.

x.x.xVII

Upon reaching his home, Mr. Daney telephoned to Mrs. McKaye.

"It is important," he informed her, "that you, Miss Jane and Miss Elizabeth come down to my office to-morrow for a conference. I would come up to The Dreamerie to see you, but Donald is home now, and his father will be with him; so I would prefer to see you down-town. I have some news of interest for you."

The hint of news of interest was sufficient to secure from Mrs. McKaye a promise to call at his office with the girls at ten o'clock the following morning.

"What is this interesting news, Andrew?" Mrs. Daney asked, with well-simulated disinterestedness. She was knitting for the French War-Relief Committee a pair of those prodigious socks with which well-meaning souls all over these United States have inspired many a poor little devil of a _poilu_ with the thought that the French must be regarded by us as a Brobdingnagian race.

"We're arranging a big blowout, unknown to The Laird and Donald, to celebrate the boy's return to health. I'm planning to shut down the mill and the logging-camps for three days," he replied glibly. Of late he was finding it much easier to lie to her than to tell the truth, and he had observed with satisfaction that Mrs. Daney's bovine brain a.s.similated either with equal avidity.

"How perfectly lovely!" she cooed, and dropped a st.i.tch which later would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I wonder if the McKayes really appreciate your worth."

"Well, we'll see," he answered enigmatically and went off to bed.

It was with a feeling of alert interest that he awaited in his office, the following morning, the arrival of the ladies from The Dreamerie.

They arrived half an hour late, very well content with themselves and the world in general, and filling Mr. Daney's office with the perfume of their presence. They appeared to be in such good fettle, indeed, that Mr. Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their nonchalance.

"Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan Brent had abandoned it again--and sure enough, she hadn't." He paused exasperatingly, after the fashion of an orator who realizes that he has awakened in his audience an alert and respectful interest. "Fine kettle of fish brewing down there," he resumed darkly, and paused again, glanced at the ceiling critically as if searching for leaks, smacked his lips and murmured confidentially a single word: "Snag!"

"'Snag!'" In chorus.

"Snag! In some unaccountable manner, it appears that you three ladies have aroused in Nan Brent a spirit of antagonism--"

"Nonsense!"

"The idea!"

"Fiddlesticks!"