Part 43 (2/2)
”Good morning, Mrs. McKaye. Thank you. I shall with pleasure.”
He followed her down the little hallway to the living room where Donald sat with his great thin legs stretched out toward the fire.
”Don't rise, boy, don't rise,” Mr. Daney protested. ”I merely called to kiss the bride and shake your hand, my boy. The visit is entirely friendly and unofficial.”
”Mr. Daney, you're a dear,” Nan cried, and presented her fair cheek for the tribute he claimed.
”Shake hands with a rebel, boy,” Mr. Daney cried heartily to Donald.
”G.o.d bless you and may you always be happier than you are this minute.”
Donald wrung the Daney digits with a heartiness he would not have thought possible a month before.
”I've quarreled with your father, Donald,” he announced, seating himself. ”Over you--and you,” he added, nodding brightly at both young people. ”He thinks he's fired me.” He paused, glanced around, coughed a couple of times and came out with it. ”Well, what are you going to do now to put tobacco in your old tobacco box, Donald?”
Donald smiled sadly. ”Oh, Nan still has a few dollars left from that motor-boat swindle you perpetrated, Mr. Daney. She'll take care of me for a couple of weeks until I'm myself again; then, if my father still proves recalcitrant and declines to have me connected with the Tyee Lumber Company, I'll manage to make a living for Nan and the boy somewhere else.”
Briefly Mr. Daney outlined The Laird's expressed course of action with regard to his son.
”He means it,” Donald a.s.sured the general manager. ”He never bluffs.
He gave me plenty of warning and his decision has not been arrived at in a hurry. He's through with me.”
”I fear he is, my boy. Er-ah-ahem! Harumph-h-h! Do you remember those bonds you sent me from New York once--the proceeds of your deal in that Wiskah river cedar?”
”Yes.”
”Your father desires that you accept the entire two hundred thousand dollars worth and accrued interest.”
”Why?”
”Well, I suppose he thinks they'll come in handy when you leave Port Agnew.”
”Well, I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, Andrew.”
”Your father instructed me to say to you that he would take it kindly of you to do so--for obvious reasons.”
”I appreciate his point of view, but since he has kicked me out he has no claim on my sympathies--at least not to the extent of forcing his point of view and causing me to abandon my own. Please say to my father that since I cannot have his forgiveness I do not want his bonds or his money. Tell him also, please, that I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part and lend some support to the popular a.s.sumption that my wife is not a virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not ashamed of her, you know.”
Mr. Daney gnawed his thumb nail furiously. ”'The wicked flee when no man pursueth',” he quoted. ”However, Mr. Donald, you know as well as I do that if your father should forbid it, a d.i.c.ky bird couldn't make a living in this town.”
”There are no such restrictions in Darrow, Mr. Daney. The superintendent up there will give me a job on the river.”
Mr. Daney could not forbear an expression of horror. ”Hector McKaye's son a river hog!” he cried incredulously.
”Well, Donald McKaye's father was a river hog, wasn't he?”
”Oh, but times have changed since Hector was a pup, my boy. Why, this is dreadful.”
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