CHAPTER XIX
Once again, on a rainy Sunday, weeks afterward, Daylight proposed toDede. As on the first time, he restrained himself until his hunger forher overwhelmed him and swept him away in his red automobile toBerkeley. He left the machine several blocks away and proceeded to thehouse on foot. But Dede was out, the landlady's daughter told him, andadded, on second thought, that she was out walking in the hills.Furthermore, the young lady directed him where Dede's walk was mostlikely to extend.
Daylight obeyed the girl's instructions, and soon the street hefollowed passed the last house and itself ceased where began the firststeep slopes of the open hills. The air was damp with the on-coming ofrain, for the storm had not yet burst, though the rising windproclaimed its imminence. As far as he could see, there was no sign ofDede on the smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into ahollow and rising again, was a large, full-grown eucalyptus grove.Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender trunked treesswaying back and forth in the wind and clashing their branchestogether. In the squalls, above all the minor noises of creaking andgroaning, arose a deep thrumming note as of a mighty harp. KnowingDede as he did, Daylight was confident that he would find her somewherein this grove where the storm effects were so pronounced. And find herhe did, across the hollow and on the exposed crest of the opposingslope where the gale smote its fiercest blows.
There was something monotonous, though not tiresome, about the wayDaylight proposed. Guiltless of diplomacy subterfuge, he was as directand gusty as the gale itself. He had time neither for greeting norapology.
"It's the same old thing," he said. "I want you and I've come for you.You've just got to have me, Dede, for the more I think about it themore certain I am that you've got a Sneaking liking for me that'ssomething more than just Ordinary liking. And you don't dast say thatit isn't; now dast you?"
He had shaken hands with her at the moment he began speaking, and hehad continued to hold her hand. Now, when she did not answer, she felta light but firmly insistent pressure as of his drawing her to him.Involuntarily, she half-yielded to him, her desire for the momentstronger than her will. Then suddenly she drew herself away, thoughpermitting her hand still to remain in his.
"You sure ain't afraid of me?" he asked, with quick compunction.
"No." She smiled woefully. "Not of you, but of myself."
"You haven't taken my dare," he urged under this encouragement.
"Please, please," she begged. "We can never marry, so don't let usdiscuss it."
"Then I copper your bet to lose." He was almost gay, now, for successwas coming faster than his fondest imagining. She liked him, without adoubt; and without a doubt she liked him well enough to let him holdher hand, well enough to be not repelled by the nearness of him.
She shook her head. "No, it is impossible. You would lose your bet."
For the first time a dark suspicion crossed Daylight's mind--a clewthat explained everything.
"Say, you ain't been let in for some one of these secret marriages haveyou?"
The consternation in his voice and on his face was too much for her,and her laugh rang out, merry and spontaneous as a burst of joy fromthe throat of a bird.
Daylight knew his answer, and, vexed with himself decided that actionwas more efficient than speech. So he stepped between her and the windand drew her so that she stood close in the shelter of him. Anunusually stiff squall blew about them and thrummed overhead in thetree-tops and both paused to listen. A shower of flying leavesenveloped them, and hard on the heel of the wind came driving drops ofrain. He looked down on her and on her hair wind-blown about her face;and because of her closeness to him and of a fresher and more poignantrealization of what she meant to him, he trembled so that she was awareof it in the hand that held hers.
She suddenly leaned against him, bowing her head until it restedlightly upon his breast. And so they stood while another squall, withflying leaves and scattered drops of rain, rattled past. With equalsuddenness she lifted her head and looked at him.
"Do you know," she said, "I prayed last night about you. I prayed thatyou would fail, that you would lose everything everything."
Daylight stared his amazement at this cryptic utterance. "That surebeats me. I always said I got out of my depth with women, and you'vegot me out of my depth now. Why you want me to lose everything, seeingas you like me--"
"I never said so."
"You didn't dast say you didn't. So, as I was saying: liking me, whyyou'd want me to go broke is clean beyond my simple understanding.It's right in line with that other puzzler of yours, themore-you-like-me-the-less-you-want-to-marry-me one. Well, you've justgot to explain, that's all."
His arms went around her and held her closely, and this time she didnot resist. Her head was bowed, and he had not see her face, yet hehad a premonition that she was crying. He had learned the virtue ofsilence, and he waited her will in the matter. Things had come to sucha pass that she was bound to tell him something now. Of that he wasconfident.
"I am not romantic," she began, again looking at him as he spoke.
"It might be better for me if I were. Then I could make a fool ofmyself and be unhappy for the rest of my life. But my abominablecommon sense prevents. And that doesn't make me a bit happier, either."
"I'm still out of my depth and swimming feeble," Daylight said, afterwaiting vainly for her to go on. "You've got to show me, and you ain'tshown me yet. Your common sense and praying that I'd go broke is allup in the air to me. Little woman, I just love you mighty hard, and Iwant you to marry me. That's straight and simple and right off thebat. Will you marry me?"
She shook her head slowly, and then, as she talked, seemed to growangry, sadly angry; and Daylight knew that this anger was against him.
"Then let me explain, and just as straight and simply as you haveasked." She paused, as if casting about for a beginning. "You arehonest and straightforward. Do you want me to be honest andstraightforward as a woman is not supposed to be?--to tell you thingsthat will hurt you?--to make confessions that ought to shame me? tobehave in what many men would think was an unwomanly manner?"
The arm around her shoulder pressed encouragement, but he did not speak.
"I would dearly like to marry you, but I am afraid. I am proud andhumble at the same time that a man like you should care for me. Butyou have too much money. There's where my abominable common sensesteps in. Even if we did marry, you could never be my man--my loverand my husband. You would be your money's man. I know I am a foolishwoman, but I want my man for myself. You would not be free for me.Your money possesses you, taking your time, your thoughts, your energy,everything, bidding you go here and go there, do this and do that.Don't you see? Perhaps it's pure silliness, but I feel that I can lovemuch, give much--give all, and in return, though I don't want all, Iwant much--and I want much more than your money would permit you togive me.
"And your money destroys you; it makes you less and less nice. I am notashamed to say that I love you, because I shall never marry you. And Iloved you much when I did not know you at all, when you first came downfrom Alaska and I first went into the office. You were my hero. Youwere the Burning Daylight of the gold-diggings, the daring traveler andminer. And you looked it. I don't see how any woman could have lookedat you without loving you--then. But you don't look it now.
"Please, please, forgive me for hurting you. You wanted straight talk,and I am giving it to you. All these last years you have been livingunnaturally. You, a man of the open, have been cooping yourself up inthe cities with all that that means. You are not the same man at all,and your money is destroying you. You are becoming something different,something not so healthy, not so clean, not so nice. Your money andyour way of life are doing it. You know it. You haven't the same bodynow that you had then. You are putting on flesh, and it is not healthyflesh. You are kind and genial with me, I know, but you are not kindand genial to all the world as you were then. You
have become harshand cruel. And I know. Remember, I have studied you six days a week,month after month, year after year; and I know more about the mostinsignificant parts of you than you know of all of me. The cruelty isnot only in your heart and thoughts, but it is there in face. It hasput its lines there. I have watched them come and grow. Your money,and the life it compels you to lead have done all this. You are beingbrutalized and degraded. And this process can only go on and on untilyou are hopelessly destroyed--"
He attempted to interrupt, but she stopped him, herself breathless andher voice trembling.
"No, no; let me finish utterly. I have done nothing but think, think,think, all these months, ever since you came riding with me, and nowthat I have begun to speak I am going to speak all that I have in me.I do love you, but I cannot marry you and destroy love. You aregrowing into a thing that I must in the end despise. You can't helpit. More than you can possibly love me, do you love this businessgame. This business--and it's all perfectly useless, so far as you areconcerned--claims all of you. I sometimes think it would be easier toshare you equitably with another woman than to share you with thisbusiness. I might have half of you, at any rate. But this businesswould claim, not half of you, but nine-tenths of you, or ninety-ninehundredths.
"Remember, the meaning of marriage to me is not to get a man's money tospend. I want the man. You say you want ME. And suppose I consented,but gave you only one-hundredth part of me. Suppose there was somethingelse in my life that took the other ninety-nine parts, and,furthermore, that ruined my figure, that put pouches under my eyes andcrows-feet in the corners, that made me unbeautiful to look upon andthat made my spirit unbeautiful. Would you be satisfied with thatone-hundredth part of me? Yet that is all you are offering me ofyourself. Do you wonder that I won't marry you?--that I can't?"
Daylight waited to see if she were quite done, and she went on again.
"It isn't that I am selfish. After all, love is giving, not receiving.But I see so clearly that all my giving could not do you any good. Youare like a sick man. You don't play business like other men. You playit heart and and all of you. No matter what you believed and intendeda wife would be only a brief diversion. There is that magnificent Bob,eating his head off in the stable. You would buy me a beautifulmansion and leave me in it to yawn my head off, or cry my eyes outbecause of my helplessness and inability to save you. This disease ofbusiness would be corroding you and marring you all the time. You playit as you have played everything else, as in Alaska you played the lifeof the trail. Nobody could be permitted to travel as fast and as faras you, to work as hard or endure as much. You hold back nothing; youput all you've got into whatever you are doing."
"Limit is the sky," he grunted grim affirmation.
"But if you would only play the lover-husband that way--"
Her voice faltered and stopped, and a blush showed in her wet cheeks asher eyes fell before his.
"And now I won't say another word," she added. "I've delivered a wholesermon."
She rested now, frankly and fairly, in the shelter of his arms, andboth were oblivious to the gale that rushed past them in quicker andstronger blasts. The big downpour of rain had not yet come, but themist-like squalls were more frequent. Daylight was openly perplexed,and he was still perplexed when he began to speak.
"I'm stumped. I'm up a tree. I'm clean flabbergasted, Miss Mason--orDede, because I love to call you that name. I'm free to confessthere's a mighty big heap in what you say. As I understand it, yourconclusion is that you'd marry me if I hadn't a cent and if I wasn'tgetting fat. No, no; I'm not joking. I acknowledge the corn, andthat's just my way of boiling the matter down and summing it up. If Ihadn't a cent, and if I was living a healthy life with all the time inthe world to love you and be your husband instead of being awash to myback teeth in business and all the rest--why, you'd marry me.
"That's all as clear as print, and you're correcter than I ever guessedbefore. You've sure opened my eyes a few. But I'm stuck. What can Ido? My business has sure roped, thrown, and branded me. I'm tied handand foot, and I can't get up and meander over green pastures. I'm likethe man that got the bear by the tail. I can't let go; and I want you,and I've got to let go to get you.
"I don't know what to do, but something's sure got to happen--I can'tlose you. I just can't. And I'm not going to. Why, you're runningbusiness a close second right now. Business never kept me awake nights.
"You've left me no argument. I know I'm not the same man that camefrom Alaska. I couldn't hit the trail with the dogs as I did in themdays. I'm soft in my muscles, and my mind's gone hard. I used torespect men. I despise them now. You see, I spent all my life in theopen, and I reckon I'm an open-air man. Why, I've got the prettiestlittle ranch you ever laid eyes on, up in Glen Ellen. That's where Igot stuck for that brick-yard. You recollect handling thecorrespondence. I only laid eyes on the ranch that one time, and I sofell in love with it that I bought it there and then. I just rodearound the hills, and was happy as a kid out of school. I'd be abetter man living in the country. The city doesn't make me better.You're plumb right there. I know it. But suppose your prayer shouldbe answered and I'd go clean broke and have to work for day's wages?"
She did not answer, though all the body of her seemed to urge consent.
"Suppose I had nothing left but that little ranch, and was satisfied togrow a few chickens and scratch a living somehow--would you marry methen, Dede?"
"Why, we'd be together all the time!" she cried.
"But I'd have to be out ploughing once in a while," he warned, "ordriving to town to get the grub."
"But there wouldn't be the office, at any rate, and no man to see, andmen to see without end. But it is all foolish and impossible, andwe'll have to be starting back now if we're to escape the rain."
Then was the moment, among the trees, where they began the descent ofthe hill, that Daylight might have drawn her closely to him and kissedher once. But he was too perplexed with the new thoughts she had putinto his head to take advantage of the situation. He merely caught herby the arm and helped her over the rougher footing.
"It's darn pretty country up there at Glen Ellen," he saidmeditatively. "I wish you could see it."
At the edge of the grove he suggested that it might be better for themto part there.
"It's your neighborhood, and folks is liable to talk."
But she insisted that he accompany her as far as the house.
"I can't ask you in," she said, extending her hand at the foot of thesteps.
The wind was humming wildly in sharply recurrent gusts, but still therain held off.
"Do you know," he said, "taking it by and large, it's the happiest dayof my life." He took off his hat, and the wind rippled and twisted hisblack hair as he went on solemnly, "And I'm sure grateful to God, orwhoever or whatever is responsible for your being on this earth. Foryou do like me heaps. It's been my joy to hear you say so to-day.It's--" He left the thought arrested, and his face assumed the familiarwhimsical expression as he murmured: "Dede, Dede, we've just got to getmarried. It's the only way, and trust to luck for it's coming out allright--".
But the tears were threatening to rise in her eyes again, as she shookher head and turned and went up the steps.