I simply looked at him, and he blushed, but went on more explicitly. "He could have married her, Mrs. Daly, any time these three years if he'd had the pluck to think so. He'd say, 'If we have a good season with the horses, I'll send for her in the fall.' We'd have our usual season, and then he'd say, 'It won't do, Cecy.' And in the spring we are always as poor as jack-rabbits, and so he'd wait till the next fall. I got so mad with his infernal coolness, and the contrast of how things were and how she must think they were! Still, I knew he'd be good to her if he had her here, and he'd save twice as much with her to provide for as he ever could alone. I used to hear all her little news, poor girl. She had lost her father, and there were tight times at home. The next word was that she was going for a governess. Then I said, 'You ought to go over and get her, or else send for her sharp. You are as ready to marry her now as ever you will be.'
"'I'm too confounded strapped,' said he. I told him I would fix all that if he would go, or write her to come. But the weeks went by, and he never made a move. And there were reasons, Mrs. Daly, why it was best that any one who cared for him should be on the ground. Then I made my kick. I don't believe in kicking, as a rule; but if you do kick, kick hard, I say. 'If you don't send for her, Micky, I'll send for her myself,' I said.
"'What for?' said he.
"'For you,' said I, 'if you'll have the manliness to step up and claim her, and treat her as you ought. If not, she can see how things are, and maybe she'll want a change. You may not think you are wronging her and deceiving her,' I said, 'but that's what you are; and if you won't make an end of this situation' (I haven't told you, and I can't tell you, the whole of it, Mrs. Daly), 'I will end it myself—for your sake and for her sake and for my own.' And I warned him that I should have a word to say to her if he didn't occupy the field of vision quite promptly after she arrived. 'One of us will meet her at the train,' said I, 'and the one who loves her will get there first.'
"Well, I'm here, and he was cooking himself a big supper when I left him at the ranch. It was a simple test, Mrs. Daly. If he scorned to abide by it, he might at least have written and put her on her guard, for he knew I was not bluffing. He pawed up the ground a bit, but he never did a thing. Then I cabled her just the question, Would she come? and she answered directly that she would. So I wired her the money. I signed myself Harshaw, and I told Micky what I'd done.
"And whether he is sulking over my interference, I can't say, but from that moment he has never opened his mouth to me on the subject. I haven't a blessed notion what he means to do; judging by what he has done, nothing, I should say. But it may be he's only waiting to give me the full strength of the situation, seeing it's one of my own contriving. There's a sort of rum justice in it; but think of his daring to insult her so, for the sake of punishing me!
"Now, what am I to say to her, Mrs. Daly? Am I to make a clean breast of it, and let her know the true and peculiar state of the case, including the fact that I'm in love with her myself? Or would you let that wait, and try to smooth things over for Micky, and get her to give him another chance? There was no sign of his moving last night; still, he may get here yet."
The young man's spirits seemed to be rising as he neared the end of his tale, perhaps because he could see that it looked pretty black for "Micky."
"If one could only know what he does mean to do, it would be simpler, wouldn't it?"
I agreed that it would. Then I made the only suggestion it occurred to me to offer in the case—that he should go to his hotel and get his luncheon or breakfast, for I doubted if he'd had any, and leave me to meet Miss Comyn, and say to her whatever a kind Providence might inspire me with. My husband would call for him and fetch him up to dinner, I said; and after dinner, if Mr. Michael Harshaw had not arrived, or sent some satisfactory message, he could cast himself into the breach.