Part 12 (2/2)
”My 'honor!'” Nan's low, bitter laugh raked the Daney nerves like a rasp. ”I think, Mrs. Daney, that I may be depended upon to follow my own inclinations in this matter. I suspect you have been doing some talking yourself and may have gone too far, with the result that you are hastening now, by every means in your power, to undo whatever harm, real or fancied, has grown out of your lack of charity.”
”Nan, I beg of you--”
”Don't! You have no right to beg anything of me. I am not unintelligent and neither am I degraded. I think I possess a far keener conception of my duty than do you or those whom you have elected to represent; hence I regard this visit as an unwarranted impertinence. One word from me to Donald McKaye--”
Terror smote the Samaritan. She clasped her hands; her lips were pale and trembling.
”Oh, my dear, my dear,” she pleaded, ”you wouldn't breathe a word to him, would you? Promise me you'll say nothing. How could I face my husband if--if--” She began to weep.
”I shall promise nothing,” Nan replied sternly.
”But I only came for his father's sake, you cruel girl!”
”Perhaps his father's case is safer in my hands than in yours, Mrs.
Daney, and safest of all in those of his son.”
The outcast of Port Agnew rose, filled her ap.r.o.n with the driftwood she had gathered, and called to her child. As the little fellow approached, Mrs. Daney so far forgot her perturbation as to look at him keenly and decide, eventually, that he bore not the faintest resemblance to Donald McKaye.
”I'm sure, Nan, you will not be heartless enough to tell Donald McKaye of my visit to you,” she pleaded, as the girl started down the beach.
”You have all the a.s.surance of respectability, dear Mrs. Daney,” Nan answered carelessly.
”You shall not leave me until you promise to be silent!” Mary Daney cried hysterically, and rose to follow her.
”I think you had better go, Mrs. Daney. I am quite familiar with the figure of The Laird since his retirement; he walks round the bight with his dogs every afternoon for exercise, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, that is he coming down the beach.”
Mrs. Daney cast a terrified glance in the direction indicated. A few hundred yards up the beach she recognized The Laird, striding briskly along, swinging his stick, and with his two English setters romping beside him. With a final despairing ”Please Nan; please do not be cruel!” she fled, Nan Brent smiling mischievously after her stout retreating form.
”I have condemned you to the horrors of uncertainty,” the girl soliloquized. ”How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor!
Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on this uncomfortable errand.”
Nan had heretofore, out of the bitterness of her life, formed the opinion that brickbats were for the lowly, such as she, and bouquets solely for the great, such as Donald McKaye. Now, for the first time, she realized that human society is organized in three strata--high, mediocre, and low, and that when a mediocrity has climbed to the seats of the mighty, his fellows strive to drag him back, down to their own ign.o.ble level--or lower. To Nan, child of poverty, sorrow, and solitude, the world had always appeared more or less incomprehensible, but this afternoon, as she retraced her slow steps to the Sawdust Pile, the old dull pain of existence had become more complicated and acute with the knowledge that the first ray of sunlight that had entered her life in three years was about to be withdrawn; and at the thought, tears, which seemed to well from her heart rather than from her eyes, coursed down her cheeks and a sob broke through her clenched lips.
Her progress homeward, what with the heavy bundle of driftwood, in her ap.r.o.n impeding her stride, coupled with the necessity for frequent pauses to permit her child to catch up with her, was necessarily slow--so slow, in fact, that presently she heard quick footsteps behind her and, turning, beheld Hector McKaye. He smiled, lifted his hat, and greeted her pleasantly.
”Good-afternoon, Miss Nan. That is a heavy burden of driftwood you carry, my dear. Here--let me relieve you of it. I've retired, you know, and the necessity for finding something to do--Bless my soul, the girl's crying!” He paused, hat in hand, and gazed at her with frank concern. She met his look bravely.
”Thank you, Mr. McKaye. Please do not bother about it.”
”Oh, but I shall bother,” he answered. ”Remove your ap.r.o.n, girl, and I'll tie the wood up in it and carry it home for you.”
Despite her distress, she smiled.
”You're such an old-fas.h.i.+oned gentleman,” she replied. ”So very much like your son--I mean, your son is so very much like you.”
”That's better. I think I enjoy the compliment more when you put it that way,” he answered. ”Do not stand there holding the wood, my girl.
Drop it.”
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