Burning Daylight

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XIV

  "Of course, there's no way of telling what anybody wants from what theysay." Daylight rubbed Bob's rebellious ear with his quirt andpondered with dissatisfaction the words he had just uttered. They didnot say what he had meant them to say. "What I'm driving at is thatyou say flatfooted that you won't meet me again, and you give yourreasons, but how am I to know they are your real reasons? Mebbe youjust don't want to get acquainted with me, and won't say so for fear ofhurting my feelings. Don't you see? I'm the last man in the world toshove in where I'm not wanted. And if I thought you didn't care awhoop to see anything more of me, why, I'd clear out so blamed quickyou couldn't see me for smoke."

  Dede smiled at him in acknowledgment of his words, but rode onsilently. And that smile, he thought, was the most sweetly wonderfulsmile he had ever seen. There was a difference in it, he assuredhimself, from any smile she had ever given him before.

  It was the smile of one who knew him just a little bit, of one who wasjust the least mite acquainted with him. Of course, he checked himselfup the next moment, it was unconscious on her part. It was sure tocome in the intercourse of any two persons.

  Any stranger, a business man, a clerk, anybody after a few casualmeetings would show similar signs of friendliness. It was bound tohappen, but in her case it made more impression on him; and, besides,it was such a sweet and wonderful smile. Other women he had known hadnever smiled like that; he was sure of it.

  It had been a happy day. Daylight had met her on the back-road fromBerkeley, and they had had hours together. It was only now, with theday drawing to a close and with them approaching the gate of the roadto Berkeley, that he had broached the important subject.

  She began her answer to his last contention, and he listened gratefully.

  "But suppose, just suppose, that the reasons I have given are the onlyones?--that there is no question of my not wanting to know you?"

  "Then I'd go on urging like Sam Scratch," he said quickly. "Because,you see, I've always noticed that folks that incline to anything aremuch more open to hearing the case stated. But if you did have thatother reason up your sleeve, if you didn't want to know me, if--if,well, if you thought my feelings oughtn't to be hurt just because youhad a good job with me..." Here, his calm consideration of apossibility was swamped by the fear that it was an actuality, and helost the thread of his reasoning. "Well, anyway, all you have to do isto say the word and I'll clear out.

  "And with no hard feelings; it would be just a case of bad luck for me.So be honest, Miss Mason, please, and tell me if that's the reason--Ialmost got a hunch that it is."

  She glanced up at him, her eyes abruptly and slightly moist, half withhurt, half with anger.

  "Oh, but that isn't fair," she cried. "You give me the choice of lyingto you and hurting you in order to protect myself by getting rid ofyou, or of throwing away my protection by telling you the truth, forthen you, as you said yourself, would stay and urge."

  Her cheeks were flushed, her lips tremulous, but she continued to lookhim frankly in the eyes.

  Daylight smiled grimly with satisfaction.

  "I'm real glad, Miss Mason, real glad for those words."

  "But they won't serve you," she went on hastily. "They can't serveyou. I refuse to let them. This is our last ride, and... here is thegate."

  Ranging her mare alongside, she bent, slid the catch, and followed theopening gate.

  "No; please, no," she said, as Daylight started to follow.

  Humbly acquiescent, he pulled Bob back, and the gate swung shut betweenthem. But there was more to say, and she did not ride on.

  "Listen, Miss Mason," he said, in a low voice that shook withsincerity; "I want to assure you of one thing. I'm not just trying tofool around with you. I like you, I want you, and I was never more inearnest in my life. There's nothing wrong in my intentions or anythinglike that. What I mean is strictly honorable--"

  But the expression of her face made him stop. She was angry, and shewas laughing at the same time.

  "The last thing you should have said," she cried. "It's like a--amatrimonial bureau: intentions strictly honorable; object, matrimony.But it's no more than I deserved. This is what I suppose you callurging like Sam Scratch."

  The tan had bleached out of Daylight's skin since the time he came tolive under city roofs, so that the flush of blood showed readily as itcrept up his neck past the collar and overspread his face. Nor in hisexceeding discomfort did he dream that she was looking upon him at thatmoment with more kindness than at any time that day. It was not in herexperience to behold big grown-up men who blushed like boys, andalready she repented the sharpness into which she had been surprised.

  "Now, look here, Miss Mason," he began, slowly and stumblingly atfirst, but accelerating into a rapidity of utterance that was almostincoherent; "I'm a rough sort of a man, I know that, and I know I don'tknow much of anything. I've never had any training in nice things.I've never made love before, and I've never been in love beforeeither--and I don't know how to go about it any more than a thunderingidiot. What you want to do is get behind my tomfool words and get afeel of the man that's behind them. That's me, and I mean all right, ifI don't know how to go about it."

  Dede Mason had quick, birdlike ways, almost flitting from mood to mood;and she was all contrition on the instant.

  "Forgive me for laughing," she said across the gate. "It wasn't reallylaughter. I was surprised off my guard, and hurt, too. You see, Mr.Harnish, I've not been..."

  She paused, in sudden fear of completing the thought into which herbirdlike precipitancy had betrayed her.

  "What you mean is that you've not been used to such sort of proposing,"Daylight said; "a sort of on-the-run, 'Howdy,glad-to-make-your-acquaintance, won't-you-be-mine' proposition."

  She nodded and broke into laughter, in which he joined, and whichserved to pass the awkwardness away. He gathered heart at this, andwent on in greater confidence, with cooler head and tongue.

  "There, you see, you prove my case. You've had experience in suchmatters. I don't doubt you've had slathers of proposals. Well, Ihaven't, and I'm like a fish out of water. Besides, this ain't aproposal. It's a peculiar situation, that's all, and I'm in a corner.I've got enough plain horse-sense to know a man ain't supposed to arguemarriage with a girl as a reason for getting acquainted with her. Andright there was where I was in the hole. Number one, I can't getacquainted with you in the office. Number two, you say you won't seeme out of the office to give me a chance. Number three, your reason isthat folks will talk because you work for me. Number four, I just gotto get acquainted with you, and I just got to get you to see that Imean fair and all right. Number five, there you are on one side thegate getting ready to go, and me here on the other side the gate prettydesperate and bound to say something to make you reconsider. Numbersix, I said it. And now and finally, I just do want you to reconsider."

  And, listening to him, pleasuring in the sight of his earnest,perturbed face and in the simple, homely phrases that but emphasizedhis earnestness and marked the difference between him and the averagerun of men she had known, she forgot to listen and lost herself in herown thoughts. The love of a strong man is ever a lure to a normalwoman, and never more strongly did Dede feel the lure than now, lookingacross the closed gate at Burning Daylight. Not that she would everdream of marrying him--she had a score of reasons against it; but whynot at least see more of him? He was certainly not repulsive to her.On the contrary, she liked him, had always liked him from the day shehad first seen him and looked upon his lean Indian face and into hisflashing Indian eyes. He was a figure of a man in more ways than hismere magnificent muscles. Besides, Romance had gilded him, thisdoughty, rough-hewn adventurer of the North, this man of many deeds andmany millions, who had come down out of the Arctic to wrestle and fightso masterfully with the men of the South.

  Savage as a Red Indian, gambler and profligate, a man without morals,whose vengeance was never glutted
and who stamped on the faces of allwho opposed him--oh, yes, she knew all the hard names he had beencalled. Yet she was not afraid of him. There was more than that inthe connotation of his name. Burning Daylight called up other thingsas well. They were there in the newspapers, the magazines, and thebooks on the Klondike. When all was said, Burning Daylight had amighty connotation--one to touch any woman's imagination, as it touchedhers, the gate between them, listening to the wistful and impassionedsimplicity of his speech. Dede was after all a woman, with a woman'ssex-vanity, and it was this vanity that was pleased by the fact thatsuch a man turned in his need to her.

  And there was more that passed through her mind--sensations oftiredness and loneliness; trampling squadrons and shadowy armies ofvague feelings and vaguer prompting; and deeper and dimmer whisperingsand echoings, the flutterings of forgotten generations crystallizedinto being and fluttering anew and always, undreamed and unguessed,subtle and potent, the spirit and essence of life that under a thousanddeceits and masks forever makes for life. It was a strong temptation,just to ride with this man in the hills. It would be that only andnothing more, for she was firmly convinced that his way of life couldnever be her way. On the other hand, she was vexed by none of theordinary feminine fears and timidities. That she could take care ofherself under any and all circumstances she never doubted. Then whynot? It was such a little thing, after all.

  She led an ordinary, humdrum life at best. She ate and slept andworked, and that was about all. As if in review, her anchoriteexistence passed before her: six days of the week spent in the officeand in journeying back and forth on the ferry; the hours stolen beforebedtime for snatches of song at the piano, for doing her own speciallaundering, for sewing and mending and casting up of meagre accounts;the two evenings a week of social diversion she permitted herself; theother stolen hours and Saturday afternoons spent with her brother atthe hospital; and the seventh day, Sunday, her day of solace, on Mab'sback, out among the blessed hills. But it was lonely, this solitaryriding. Nobody of her acquaintance rode. Several girls at theUniversity had been persuaded into trying it, but after a Sunday or twoon hired livery hacks they had lost interest. There was Madeline, whobought her own horse and rode enthusiastically for several months, onlyto get married and go away to live in Southern California. After yearsof it, one did get tired of this eternal riding alone.

  He was such a boy, this big giant of a millionaire who had half therich men of San Francisco afraid of him. Such a boy! She had neverimagined this side of his nature.

  "How do folks get married?" he was saying. "Why, number one, theymeet; number two, like each other's looks; number three, getacquainted; and number four, get married or not, according to how theylike each other after getting acquainted. But how in thunder we're tohave a chance to find out whether we like each other enough is beyondmy savvee, unless we make that chance ourselves. I'd come to see you,call on you, only I know you're just rooming or boarding, and thatwon't do."

  Suddenly, with a change of mood, the situation appeared to Dederidiculously absurd. She felt a desire to laugh--not angrily, nothysterically, but just jolly. It was so funny. Herself, thestenographer, he, the notorious and powerful gambling millionaire, andthe gate between them across which poured his argument of peoplegetting acquainted and married. Also, it was an impossible situation.On the face of it, she could not go on with it. This program offurtive meetings in the hills would have to discontinue. There wouldnever be another meeting. And if, denied this, he tried to woo her inthe office, she would be compelled to lose a very good position, andthat would be an end of the episode. It was not nice to contemplate;but the world of men, especially in the cities, she had not foundparticularly nice. She had not worked for her living for years withoutlosing a great many of her illusions.

  "We won't do any sneaking or hiding around about it," Daylight wasexplaining. "We'll ride around as bold if you please, and if anybodysees us, why, let them. If they talk--well, so long as our consciencesare straight we needn't worry. Say the word, and Bob will have on hisback the happiest man alive."

  She shook her head, pulled in the mare, who was impatient to be off forhome, and glanced significantly at the lengthening shadows.

  "It's getting late now, anyway," Daylight hurried on, "and we'vesettled nothing after all. Just one more Sunday, anyway--that's notasking much--to settle it in."

  "We've had all day," she said.

  "But we started to talk it over too late. We'll tackle it earlier nexttime. This is a big serious proposition with me, I can tell you. Saynext Sunday?"

  "Are men ever fair?" she asked. "You know thoroughly well that by'next Sunday' you mean many Sundays."

  "Then let it be many Sundays," he cried recklessly, while she thoughtthat she had never seen him looking handsomer. "Say the word. Onlysay the word. Next Sunday at the quarry..."

  She gathered the reins into her hand preliminary to starting.

  "Good night," she said, "and--"

  "Yes," he whispered, with just the faintest touch of impressiveness.

  "Yes," she said, her voice low but distinct.

  At the same moment she put the mare into a canter and went down theroad without a backward glance, intent on an analysis of her ownfeelings. With her mind made up to say no--and to the last instant shehad been so resolved--her lips nevertheless had said yes. Or at leastit seemed the lips. She had not intended to consent. Then why hadshe? Her first surprise and bewilderment at so wholly unpremeditatedan act gave way to consternation as she considered its consequences.She knew that Burning Daylight was not a man to be trifled with, thatunder his simplicity and boyishness he was essentially a dominant malecreature, and that she had pledged herself to a future of inevitablestress and storm. And again she demanded of herself why she had saidyes at the very moment when it had been farthest from her intention.