"Who's that?" Mr. Daney demanded, emerging from behind the Seattle _Post-Intelligencer_. "Donald McKaye." "What about him?" Mr. Daney demanded, with slight emphasis on the pronoun. "Oh, nothing; only--" "Only what?" "People say he's unduly interested in Nan Brent." "If he is, that's his business. Don't let what people say trouble you, Mrs. Daney." "Well, can I help it if people will talk?" "Yes--when they talk to you." "How do you know they've been talking to me, Andrew?" she demanded foolishly. "Because you know what they say." Andrew Daney rose from the wicker deck-chair in which he had been lounging and leveled his index-finger at the partner of his joys and sorrows. "You forget Donald McKaye and that Brent girl," he ordered. "It's none of your business. All Don has to say to me is, 'Mr. Daney, your job is vacant'--and, by Judas Priest, it'll be vacant. Remember that, my dear." "Nonsense, dear. The Laird wouldn't permit it--after all these years." "If it comes to a test of strength, I'll lose, and don't you forget it. Old sake's sake is all that saved me from a run-in with Donald before he had been in command fifteen minutes. I refer to that Sawdust Pile episode. You dissuaded me from doing my duty in that matter, Mary, and my laxity was not pleasing to Donald. I don't blame him a whit." "Did he say anything?" she demanded, a trifle alarmed. "No; but he looked it." "How did he look, Andrew?" "He looked," her husband replied, "like the Blue Bonnets coming over the border--that's what he looked like. Then he went down to the Sawdust Pile like a raging demon, cleaned it out in two twos, and put it to the torch. You be careful what you say to people, Mary. Get that boy started once, and he'll hark back to his paternal ancestors; and if The Laird has ever told you the history of that old claymore that hangs on the wall in The Dreamerie, you know that the favorite outdoor sports of the McKaye tribe were fighting and foot-racing--with the other fellow in front." "The Laird is mild enough," she defended. "Yes, he is. But when he was young, he could, and frequently did, whip twice his weight in bear-cats. Old as he is to-day, he's as sound as a man of forty; he wouldn't budge an inch for man or devil." Mrs. Daney carefully folded the _Churchman_, laid it aside, and placed her spectacles with it. "Andrew, I know it's terrible of me to breathe such a thing, but--did it ever occur to you that--perhaps--the father of Nan Brent's child might be--" "Donald?" he exploded incredulously. She nodded, and about her nod there was something of that calm self-confidence of an attorney who is winning his case and desires to impress that fact upon the jury. "By God, woman," cried Daney, "you have the most infernal ideas--" "Andrew! Remember it's the Sabbath!"