CHAPTER XIII
Another Sunday man and horse and dog roved the Piedmont hills. Andagain Daylight and Dede rode together. But this time her surprise atmeeting him was tinctured with suspicion; or rather, her surprise wasof another order. The previous Sunday had been quite accidental, buthis appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted of morethan the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him,and he, remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park,stated offhand that he was thinking of buying it. His one-timeinvestment in a brickyard had put the idea into his head--an idea thathe decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ridealong with him to inspect the quarry.
So several hours he spent in her company, in which she was much thesame girl as before, natural, unaffected, lighthearted, smiling andlaughing, a good fellow, talking horses with unflagging enthusiasm,making friends with the crusty-tempered Wolf, and expressing the desireto ride Bob, whom she declared she was more in love with than ever. Atthis last Daylight demurred. Bob was full of dangerous tricks, and hewouldn't trust any one on him except his worst enemy.
"You think, because I'm a girl, that I don't know anything abouthorses," she flashed back. "But I've been thrown off and bucked offenough not to be over-confident. And I'm not a fool. I wouldn't get ona bucking horse. I've learned better. And I'm not afraid of any otherkind. And you say yourself that Bob doesn't buck."
"But you've never seen him cutting up didoes," Daylight said.
"But you must remember I've seen a few others, and I've been on severalof them myself. I brought Mab here to electric cars, locomotives, andautomobiles. She was a raw range colt when she came to me. Broken tosaddle that was all. Besides, I won't hurt your horse."
Against his better judgment, Daylight gave in, and, on an unfrequentedstretch of road, changed saddles and bridles.
"Remember, he's greased lightning," he warned, as he helped her tomount.
She nodded, while Bob pricked up his ears to the knowledge that he hada strange rider on his back. The fun came quickly enough--too quicklyfor Dede, who found herself against Bob's neck as he pivoted around andbolted the other way. Daylight followed on her horse and watched. Hesaw her check the animal quickly to a standstill, and immediately, withrein across neck and a decisive prod of the left spur, whirl him backthe way he had come and almost as swiftly.
"Get ready to give him the quirt on the nose," Daylight called.
But, too quickly for her, Bob whirled again, though this time, by asevere effort, she saved herself from the undignified position againsthis neck. His bolt was more determined, but she pulled him into aprancing walk, and turned him roughly back with her spurred heel.There was nothing feminine in the way she handled him; her method wasimperative and masculine. Had this not been so, Daylight would haveexpected her to say she had had enough. But that little preliminaryexhibition had taught him something of Dede's quality. And if it hadnot, a glance at her gray eyes, just perceptibly angry with herself,and at her firm-set mouth, would have told him the same thing.Daylight did not suggest anything, while he hung almost gleefully uponher actions in anticipation of what the fractious Bob was going to get.And Bob got it, on his next whirl, or attempt, rather, for he was nomore than halfway around when the quirt met him smack on his tendernose. There and then, in his bewilderment, surprise, and pain, hisfore feet, just skimming above the road, dropped down.
"Great!" Daylight applauded. "A couple more will fix him. He's toosmart not to know when he's beaten."
Again Bob tried. But this time he was barely quarter around when thedoubled quirt on his nose compelled him to drop his fore feet to theroad. Then, with neither rein nor spur, but by the mere threat of thequirt, she straightened him out.
Dede looked triumphantly at Daylight.
"Let me give him a run?" she asked.
Daylight nodded, and she shot down the road. He watched her out ofsight around the bend, and watched till she came into sight returning.She certainly could sit her horse, was his thought, and she was a sureenough hummer. God, she was the wife for a man! Made most of themlook pretty slim. And to think of her hammering all week at atypewriter. That was no place for her. She should be a man's wife,taking it easy, with silks and satins and diamonds (his frontier notionof what befitted a wife beloved), and dogs, and horses, and suchthings--"And we'll see, Mr. Burning Daylight, what you and me can doabout it," he murmured to himself! and aloud to her:--
"You'll do, Miss Mason; you'll do. There's nothing too good inhorseflesh you don't deserve, a woman who can ride like that. No; staywith him, and we'll jog along to the quarry." He chuckled. "Say, heactually gave just the least mite of a groan that last time you fetchedhim. Did you hear it? And did you see the way he dropped his feet tothe road--just like he'd struck a stone wall. And he's got savveeenough to know from now on that that same stone wall will be alwaysthere ready for him to lam into."
When he parted from her that afternoon, at the gate of the road thatled to Berkeley, he drew off to the edge of the intervening clump oftrees, where, unobserved, he watched her out of sight. Then, turning toride back into Oakland, a thought came to him that made him grinruefully as he muttered: "And now it's up to me to make good and buythat blamed quarry. Nothing less than that can give me an excuse forsnooping around these hills."
But the quarry was doomed to pass out of his plans for a time, for onthe following Sunday he rode alone. No Dede on a chestnut sorrel cameacross the back-road from Berkeley that day, nor the day a week later.Daylight was beside himself with impatience and apprehension, though inthe office he contained himself. He noted no change in her, and stroveto let none show in himself. The same old monotonous routine went on,though now it was irritating and maddening. Daylight found a bigquarrel on his hands with a world that wouldn't let a man behave towardhis stenographer after the way of all men and women. What was the goodof owning millions anyway? he demanded one day of the desk-calendar,as she passed out after receiving his dictation.
As the third week drew to a close and another desolate Sundayconfronted him, Daylight resolved to speak, office or no office. And aswas his nature, he went simply and directly to the point She hadfinished her work with him, and was gathering her note pad and pencilstogether to depart, when he said:--
"Oh, one thing more, Miss Mason, and I hope you won't mind my beingfrank and straight out. You've struck me right along as asensible-minded girl, and I don't think you'll take offence at what I'mgoing to say. You know how long you've been in the office--it's years,now, several of them, anyway; and you know I've always been straightand aboveboard with you. I've never what you call--presumed. Becauseyou were in my office I've tried to be more careful than if--if youwasn't in my office--you understand. But just the same, it don't makeme any the less human. I'm a lonely sort of a fellow--don't take thatas a bid for kindness. What I mean by it is to try and tell you justhow much those two rides with you have meant. And now I hope you won'tmind my just asking why you haven't been out riding the last twoSundays?"
He came to a stop and waited, feeling very warm and awkward, theperspiration starting in tiny beads on his forehead. She did not speakimmediately, and he stepped across the room and raised the windowhigher.
"I have been riding," she answered; "in other directions."
"But why...?" He failed somehow to complete the question. "Go aheadand be frank with me," he urged. "Just as frank as I am with you. Whydidn't you ride in the Piedmont hills? I hunted for you everywhere.
"And that is just why." She smiled, and looked him straight in theeyes for a moment, then dropped her own. "Surely, you understand, Mr.Harnish."
He shook his head glumly.
"I do, and I don't. I ain't used to city ways by a long shot. There'sthings one mustn't do, which I don't mind as long as I don't want to dothem."
"But when you do?" she asked quickly.
"Then I do them." His lips had drawn firmly with this affirmation
ofwill, but the next instant he was amending the statement "That is, Imostly do. But what gets me is the things you mustn't do when they'renot wrong and they won't hurt anybody--this riding, for instance."
She played nervously with a pencil for a time, as if debating herreply, while he waited patiently.
"This riding," she began; "it's not what they call the right thing. Ileave it to you. You know the world. You are Mr. Harnish, themillionaire--"
"Gambler," he broke in harshly
She nodded acceptance of his term and went on.
"And I'm a stenographer in your office--"
"You're a thousand times better than me--" he attempted to interpolate,but was in turn interrupted.
"It isn't a question of such things. It's a simple and fairly commonsituation that must be considered. I work for you. And it isn't whatyou or I might think, but what other persons will think. And you don'tneed to be told any more about that. You know yourself."
Her cool, matter-of-fact speech belied her--or so Daylight thought,looking at her perturbed feminineness, at the rounded lines of herfigure, the breast that deeply rose and fell, and at the color that wasnow excited in her cheeks.
"I'm sorry I frightened you out of your favorite stamping ground," hesaid rather aimlessly.
"You didn't frighten me," she retorted, with a touch of fire. "I'm nota silly seminary girl. I've taken care of myself for a long time now,and I've done it without being frightened. We were together twoSundays, and I'm sure I wasn't frightened of Bob, or you. It isn'tthat. I have no fears of taking care of myself, but the world insistson taking care of one as well. That's the trouble. It's what the worldwould have to say about me and my employer meeting regularly and ridingin the hills on Sundays. It's funny, but it's so. I could ride withone of the clerks without remark, but with you--no."
"But the world don't know and don't need to know," he cried.
"Which makes it worse, in a way, feeling guilty of nothing and yetsneaking around back-roads with all the feeling of doing somethingwrong. It would be finer and braver for me publicly..."
"To go to lunch with me on a week-day," Daylight said, divining thedrift of her uncompleted argument.
She nodded.
"I didn't have that quite in mind, but it will do. I'd prefer doingthe brazen thing and having everybody know it, to doing the furtivething and being found out. Not that I'm asking to be invited tolunch," she added, with a smile; "but I'm sure you understand myposition."
"Then why not ride open and aboveboard with me in the hills?" he urged.
She shook her head with what he imagined was just the faintest hint ofregret, and he went suddenly and almost maddeningly hungry for her.
"Look here, Miss Mason, I know you don't like this talking over ofthings in the office. Neither do I. It's part of the whole thing, Iguess; a man ain't supposed to talk anything but business with hisstenographer. Will you ride with me next Sunday, and we can talk itover thoroughly then and reach some sort of a conclusion. Out in thehills is the place where you can talk something besides business. Iguess you've seen enough of me to know I'm pretty square. I--I dohonor and respect you, and ... and all that, and I..." He wasbeginning to flounder, and the hand that rested on the desk blotter wasvisibly trembling. He strove to pull himself together. "I just want toharder than anything ever in my life before. I--I--I can't explainmyself, but I do, that's all. Will you?--Just next Sunday? To-morrow?"
Nor did he dream that her low acquiescence was due, as much as anythingelse, to the beads of sweat on his forehead, his trembling hand, andhis all too-evident general distress.