Following the interview with his father, subsequent to Caleb Brent's funeral, Donald McKaye realized full well that his love-affair, hitherto indefinite as to outcome, had crystallized into a definite issue. For him, there could be no evasion or equivocation; he had to choose, promptly and for all time, between his family and Nan Brent--between respectability, honor, wealth, and approbation on one hand, and pity, contempt, censure, and poverty on the other. Confronting this
impasse, he was too racked with torment to face his people that night and run the gantlet of his mother's sad, reproachful glances, his father's silence, so eloquent of mental distress, and the studied scorn, amazement, and contempt in the very attitudes of his selfish and convention-bound sisters. So he ate his dinner at the hotel in Port Agnew, and after dinner his bruised heart took command of his feet and marched him to the Sawdust Pile.
The nurse he had sent down from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital to keep Nan company until after the funeral had returned to the hospital, and Nan, with her boy asleep in her lap, was seated in a low rocker before the driftwood fire when Donald entered, unannounced save for his old-time triple tap at the door. At first glance, it was evident to him that the brave reserve which Nan had maintained at the funeral had given way to abundant tears when she found herself alone at home, screened from the gaze of the curious.
He knelt and took both outcasts in his great strong arms, and for a long time held them in a silence more eloquent than words.
"Well, my dear," she said presently, "aren't you going to tell me all about it?"
That was the woman of it. She knew.
"I'm terribly unhappy," he replied. "Dad and I had a definite show-down after the funeral. His order--not request--is that I shall not call here again."
"Your father is thinking with his head; so he thinks clearly. You, poor dear, are thinking with your heart controlling your head. Of course you'll obey your father. You cannot consider doing anything else."
"I'm not going to give you up," he asserted doggedly.
"Yes; you are going to give me up, dear heart," she replied evenly. "Because I'm going to give you up, and you're much too fine to make it hard for me to do that."
"I'll not risk your contempt for my weakness. It
would be a weakness--a contemptible trick--if I should desert you now."
"Your family has a greater claim on you, Donald. You were born to a certain destiny--to be a leader of men, to develop your little world, and make of it a happier place for men and women to dwell in. So, dear love, you're just going to buck up and be spunky and take up your big life-task and perform it like the gentleman you are."
"But what is to become of you?" he demanded, in desperation.
"I do not know. It is a problem I am not going to consider very seriously for at least a month. Of course I shall leave Port Agnew, but before I do, I shall have to make some clothes for baby and myself."
"I told my father I would give him a definite answer regarding you in a month, Nan. I'm going up in the woods and battle this thing out by myself."
"Please go home and give him a definite answer to-night. You have not the right to make him suffer so," she pleaded.
"I'm not prepared to-night to abandon you, Nan. I must have some time to get inured to the prospect."
"Did you come over to-night to tell me good-by before going back to the woods, Donald?"
He nodded, and deliberately she kissed him with great tenderness.
"Then--good-by, sweetheart," she whispered. "In our case, the least said is soonest mended. And please do not write to me. Keep me out of your thoughts for a month, and perhaps I'll stay out."
"No hope," he answered, with a lugubrious smile. "However, I'll be as good as I can. And I'll not write. But--when I return from that month of exile, do not be surprised if I appear to claim you for good or for evil, for better or for worse."
She kissed him again--hurriedly--and pressed him gently from her, as if his persistence gave her cause for apprehension.
"Dear old booby!" she murmured. "Run along home now, won't you, please?"
So he went, wondering why he had come, and the following morning, still wrapped in a mental fog, he departed for the logging-camp, but not until his sister Jane had had her long-deferred inning. While he was in the garage at The Dreamerie, warming up his car, Jane appeared and begged him to have some respect for the family, even though, apparently, he had none for himself. Concluding a long and bitter tirade, she referred to Nan as "that abandoned girl."
Poor Jane! Hardly had she uttered the words before her father appeared in the door of the garage.
"One year, Janey," he announced composedly. "And I'd be pleased to see the photograph o' the human being that'll make me revoke that sentence. I'm fair weary having my work spoiled by women's tongues."
"I'll give you my photograph, old pepper-pot," Donald suggested. "I have great influence with you have I not?"
The Laird looked up at him with a fond grin.
"Well?" he parried.
"You will remit the sentence to one washing of the mouth with soap and water to cleanse it of those horrid words you just listened to."
"That's not a bad idea," the stern old man answered. "Janey, you may have your choice, since Donald has interceded for you."
But Jane maintained a freezing silence and swept out of the garage with a mien that proclaimed her belief that her brother and father were too vulgar and plebeian for her.
"I'm having the deil's own time managing my family," old Hector complained, "but I'll have obedience and kindness and justice in my household, or know the reason why. Aye--and a bit of charity," he added grimly. He stood beside the automobile and held up his hand up for his son's. "And you'll be gone a month, lad?" he queried.
Donald nodded.
"Too painful--this coming home week-ends," he explained. "And Nan has requested that I see no more of her. You have a stanch ally in her, dad. She's for you all the way."
Relief showed in his father's troubled face.
"I'm glad to know that," he replied. "You're the one that's bringing me worry and breaking down her good resolutions and common sense." He leaned a little closer, first having satisfied himself, by a quick, backward glance, that none of the women of the family was eavesdropping, and whispered: "I'm trying to figure out a nice way to be kind to her and give her a good start in life without insulting her. If you should have a clear thought on the subject, I'd like your advice, son. 'Twould hurt me to have her think I was trying to buy her off."
"As I view the situation, all three of us have to figure our own angles for ourselves. However, if a happy thought should dawn on me, I'll write you. Think it over a few weeks, and then do whatever seems best."
So they parted.