With these words, and before Harrison, watching in bewilderment, realized what she intended to do, Daisy Nixon lifted the lid of the big kitchen gas and coal range, thrust the roll of bills into the coals, and gave it a quick stab with the poker. A fifteen-hundred dollar flame leaped up at the same moment as Harrison, with a sound like a lion's coughing roar, leaped up too. Words failed him for several seconds, as he stood above the transient fire-flicker, with its heart of worthless ashes.
"Well," he said, at length, in a level hard snarl, "now I am goin' to fix you, you low-life heifer. You could 'a stopped me before by handin' over the money, and I'd have let the matter drop. But now I'm goin' to lay information against you for stealin' that money—see? I'm a-goin to have you arrested—see? I got the pull an' the infloo'nce in this town for to do it," the contractor thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his vest, "and you—who are you? Nobody, nobody! Still, I may be easy with you yet, if—"
"Ay, ye may, if ye're canny." The answer came not from Daisy, but from Jean the Scotch cook, who came out of the door at the foot of the bedroom stair. "It's a gude thing y'r clackin' woke me up, Sir Thomas Harrison. I've been bidin' behind the door here quite a wee while, an' I've heard a grand lot o' your proposin' and so forth. Now, ye'll juist tak your crooked mouth awa' to y'r bed—that's what you'll do!"
"An' you," Harrison, at first taken aback, had recovered himself and had stood, a thick finger levelled at her, waiting for her to finish speaking, "you will take notice. So will you," pointing to Daisy. "I'll clean my kitchen o' the crowd that's runnin' things in it now, if we have to get down and do the cookin' ourselves till we get decent help. Neither of you's worth a hurra——"
"I'll tak' no notice from you," Jean rejoined, calmly, "I'll not inconvenience your good leddy that far. Na, na, Sir Thomas. We'll bide here, and do our work weel, and draw our fair pay when it's due, an' keep to our end of the hoose, and you'll just keep to yours. Come awa to y'r bed, lassie."
Harrison regarded the speaker a moment, his head down and brow thrust forward, as though appraising Jean's capacity for a "come-back." She returned his belligerent scrutiny with a flinty look in her blue Scotch eyes under their sandy lashes. He felt in his upper vest-pocket for a cigar, bit it, and stuck it between his teeth; then spun on his heel.
"I can't waste no more time arguin' with the help," he said, as he passed through the swinging door, "I'll see about this in the morning."
"Ey, ye'll see bonnier when ye sleep over the notion," Jean said, as the door swung to behind him. She put an arm, ridged with muscle like a man's, about Daisy's shoulders and propelled her through the stair-door and up the steps to the bedroom.
"He'll no trouble us, I'm thinkin'," she said, as she closed the bedroom door behind her and turned the key in the lock; "he kens weel there's folk on this street w'd be after Jean McTavish like a fair swarm o' bees, if they heard she was needin' a situation. An' he'll no dischairge you, bairnie, for he'll be wantin' to get his ain back—he's that kind, ye see. Forbye, he kens fine we could put him in his place wi' a word, after this nicht's goings-on. He's braw material for a 'beltit knicht', as oor Bawby Burrns has it—is he no?"
"He's a bad, bad man," Daisy murmured, dimpling down reflectively, "so bad, I almost like him. I'm going to have some more fun with him, before I'm through."