Burning Daylight

by Jack London

  CHAPTER XV

  Life at the office went on much the way it had always gone. Never, byword or look, did they acknowledge that the situation was in any wisedifferent from what it had always been. Each Sunday saw thearrangement made for the following Sunday's ride; nor was this everreferred to in the office. Daylight was fastidiously chivalrous onthis point. He did not want to lose her from the office. The sight ofher at her work was to him an undiminishing joy. Nor did he abuse thisby lingering over dictation or by devising extra work that would detainher longer before his eyes. But over and beyond such sheer selfishnessof conduct was his love of fair play. He scorned to utilize theaccidental advantages of the situation. Somewhere within him was ahigher appeasement of love than mere possession. He wanted to be lovedfor himself, with a fair field for both sides.

  On the other hand, had he been the most artful of schemers he could nothave pursued a wiser policy. Bird-like in her love of individualfreedom, the last woman in the world to be bullied in her affections,she keenly appreciated the niceness of his attitude. She did thisconsciously, but deeper than all consciousness, and intangible asgossamer, were the effects of this. All unrealizable, save for somesupreme moment, did the web of Daylight's personality creep out andaround her. Filament by filament, these secret and undreamable bondswere being established. They it was that could have given the cue toher saying yes when she had meant to say no. And in some such fashion,in some future crisis of greater moment, might she not, in violation ofall dictates of sober judgment, give another unintentional consent?

  Among other good things resulting from his growing intimacy with Dede,was Daylight's not caring to drink so much as formerly. There was alessening in desire for alcohol of which even he at last became aware.In a way she herself was the needed inhibition. The thought of her waslike a cocktail. Or, at any rate, she substituted for a certainpercentage of cocktails. From the strain of his unnatural cityexistence and of his intense gambling operations, he had drifted on tothe cocktail route. A wall must forever be built to give him easementfrom the high pitch, and Dede became a part of this wall. Herpersonality, her laughter, the intonations of her voice, the impossiblegolden glow of her eyes, the light on her hair, her form, her dress,her actions on horseback, her merest physical mannerisms--all, picturedover and over in his mind and dwelt upon, served to take the place ofmany a cocktail or long Scotch and soda.

  In spite of their high resolve, there was a very measurable degree ofthe furtive in their meetings. In essence, these meetings were stolen.They did not ride out brazenly together in the face of the world. Onthe contrary, they met always unobserved, she riding across themany-gated backroad from Berkeley to meet him halfway. Nor did theyride on any save unfrequented roads, preferring to cross the secondrange of hills and travel among a church-going farmer folk who wouldscarcely have recognized even Daylight from his newspaper photographs.

  He found Dede a good horsewoman--good not merely in riding but inendurance. There were days when they covered sixty, seventy, and eveneighty miles; nor did Dede ever claim any day too long, nor--anotherstrong recommendation to Daylight--did the hardest day ever theslightest chafe of the chestnut sorrel's back. "A sure enough hummer,"was Daylight's stereotyped but ever enthusiastic verdict to himself.

  They learned much of each other on these long, uninterrupted rides.They had nothing much to talk about but themselves, and, while shereceived a liberal education concerning Arctic travel and gold-mining,he, in turn, touch by touch, painted an ever clearer portrait of her.She amplified the ranch life of her girlhood, prattling on about horsesand dogs and persons and things until it was as if he saw the wholeprocess of her growth and her becoming. All this he was able to traceon through the period of her father's failure and death, when she hadbeen compelled to leave the university and go into office work. Thebrother, too, she spoke of, and of her long struggle to have him curedand of her now fading hopes. Daylight decided that it was easier tocome to an understanding of her than he had anticipated, though he wasalways aware that behind and under all he knew of her was themysterious and baffling woman and sex. There, he was humble enough toconfess to himself, was a chartless, shoreless sea, about which he knewnothing and which he must nevertheless somehow navigate.

  His lifelong fear of woman had originated out of non-understanding andhad also prevented him from reaching any understanding. Dede onhorseback, Dede gathering poppies on a summer hillside, Dede takingdown dictation in her swift shorthand strokes--all this wascomprehensible to him. But he did not know the Dede who so quicklychanged from mood to mood, the Dede who refused steadfastly to ridewith him and then suddenly consented, the Dede in whose eyes the goldenglow forever waxed and waned and whispered hints and messages that werenot for his ears. In all such things he saw the glimmeringprofundities of sex, acknowledged their lure, and accepted them asincomprehensible.

  There was another side of her, too, of which he was consciouslyignorant. She knew the books, was possessed of that mysterious andawful thing called "culture." And yet, what continually surprised himwas that this culture was never obtruded on their intercourse. She didnot talk books, nor art, nor similar folderols. Homely minded as hewas himself, he found her almost equally homely minded. She liked thesimple and the out-of-doors, the horses and the hills, the sunlight andthe flowers. He found himself in a partly new flora, to which she wasthe guide, pointing out to him all the varieties of the oaks, makinghim acquainted with the madrono and the manzanita, teaching him thenames, habits, and habitats of unending series of wild flowers, shrubs,and ferns. Her keen woods eye was another delight to him. It had beentrained in the open, and little escaped it. One day, as a test, theystrove to see which could discover the greater number of birds' nests.And he, who had always prided himself on his own acutely trainedobservation, found himself hard put to keep his score ahead. At theend of the day he was but three nests in the lead, one of which shechallenged stoutly and of which even he confessed serious doubt. Hecomplimented her and told her that her success must be due to the factthat she was a bird herself, with all a bird's keen vision andquick-flashing ways.

  The more he knew her the more he became convinced of this birdlikequality in her. That was why she liked to ride, he argued. It was thenearest approach to flying. A field of poppies, a glen of ferns, a rowof poplars on a country lane, the tawny brown of a hillside, the shaftof sunlight on a distant peak--all such were provocative of quick joyswhich seemed to him like so many outbursts of song. Her joys were inlittle things, and she seemed always singing. Even in sterner thingsit was the same. When she rode Bob and fought with that magnificentbrute for mastery, the qualities of an eagle were uppermost in her.

  These quick little joys of hers were sources of joy to him. He joyedin her joy, his eyes as excitedly fixed on her as hers were fixed onthe object of her attention. Also through her he came to a closerdiscernment and keener appreciation of nature. She showed him colors inthe landscape that he would never have dreamed were there. He hadknown only the primary colors. All colors of red were red. Black wasblack, and brown was just plain brown until it became yellow, when itwas no longer brown. Purple he had always imagined was red, somethinglike blood, until she taught him better. Once they rode out on a highhill brow where wind-blown poppies blazed about their horses' knees,and she was in an ecstasy over the lines of the many distances. Seven,she counted, and he, who had gazed on landscapes all his life, for thefirst time learned what a "distance" was. After that, and always, helooked upon the face of nature with a more seeing eye, learning adelight of his own in surveying the serried ranks of the upstandingranges, and in slow contemplation of the purple summer mists thathaunted the languid creases of the distant hills.

  But through it all ran the golden thread of love. At first he had beencontent just to ride with Dede and to be on comradely terms with her;but the desire and the need for her increased. The more he knew of her,the higher was his appraisal. Had she been reserved and haughty withhim, or
been merely a giggling, simpering creature of a woman, it wouldhave been different. Instead, she amazed him with her simplicity andwholesomeness, with her great store of comradeliness. This latter wasthe unexpected. He had never looked upon woman in that way. Woman,the toy; woman, the harpy; woman, the necessary wife and mother of therace's offspring,--all this had been his expectation and understandingof woman. But woman, the comrade and playfellow and joyfellow--thiswas what Dede had surprised him in. And the more she became worthwhile, the more ardently his love burned, unconsciously shading hisvoice with caresses, and with equal unconsciousness flaring up signalfires in his eyes. Nor was she blind to it yet, like many women beforeher, she thought to play with the pretty fire and escape the consequentconflagration.

  "Winter will soon be coming on," she said regretfully, and withprovocation, one day, "and then there won't be any more riding."

  "But I must see you in the winter just the same," he cried hastily.

  She shook her head.

  "We have been very happy and all that," she said, looking at him withsteady frankness. "I remember your foolish argument for gettingacquainted, too; but it won't lead to anything; it can't. I know myselftoo well to be mistaken."

  Her face was serious, even solicitous with desire not to hurt, and hereyes were unwavering, but in them was the light, golden andglowing--the abyss of sex into which he was now unafraid to gaze.

  "I've been pretty good," he declared. "I leave it to you if I haven't.It's been pretty hard, too, I can tell you. You just think it over.Not once have I said a word about love to you, and me loving you allthe time. That's going some for a man that's used to having his ownway. I'm somewhat of a rusher when it comes to travelling. I reckonI'd rush God Almighty if it came to a race over the ice. And yet Ididn't rush you. I guess this fact is an indication of how much I dolove you. Of course I want you to marry me. Have I said a word aboutit, though? Nary a chirp, nary a flutter. I've been quiet and good,though it's almost made me sick at times, this keeping quiet. Ihaven't asked you to marry me. I'm not asking you now. Oh, not butwhat you satisfy me. I sure know you're the wife for me. But howabout myself? Do you know me well enough know your own mind?" Heshrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, and I ain't going to takechances on it now. You've got to know for sure whether you think youcould get along with me or not, and I'm playing a slow conservativegame. I ain't a-going to lose for overlooking my hand."

  This was love-making of a sort beyond Dede's experience. Nor had sheever heard of anything like it. Furthermore, its lack of ardor carriedwith it a shock which she could overcome only by remembering the wayhis hand had trembled in the past, and by remembering the passion shehad seen that very day and every day in his eyes, or heard in hisvoice. Then, too, she recollected what he had said to her weeksbefore: "Maybe you don't know what patience is," he had said, andthereat told her of shooting squirrels with a big rifle the time he andElijah Davis had starved on the Stewart River.

  "So you see," he urged, "just for a square deal we've got to see somemore of each other this winter. Most likely your mind ain't made upyet--"

  "But it is," she interrupted. "I wouldn't dare permit myself to carefor you. Happiness, for me, would not lie that way. I like you, Mr.Harnish, and all that, but it can never be more than that."

  "It's because you don't like my way of living," he charged, thinking inhis own mind of the sensational joyrides and general profligacy withwhich the newspapers had credited him--thinking this, and wonderingwhether or not, in maiden modesty, she would disclaim knowledge of it.

  To his surprise, her answer was flat and uncompromising.

  "No; I don't."

  "I know I've been brash on some of those rides that got into thepapers," he began his defense, "and that I've been travelling with alively crowd."

  "I don't mean that," she said, "though I know about it too, and can'tsay that I like it. But it is your life in general, your business.There are women in the world who could marry a man like you and behappy, but I couldn't. And the more I cared for such a man, the moreunhappy I should be. You see, my unhappiness, in turn, would tend tomake him unhappy. I should make a mistake, and he would make an equalmistake, though his would not be so hard on him because he would stillhave his business."

  "Business!" Daylight gasped. "What's wrong with my business? I playfair and square. There's nothing under hand about it, which can't besaid of most businesses, whether of the big corporations or of thecheating, lying, little corner-grocerymen. I play the straight rulesof the game, and I don't have to lie or cheat or break my word."

  Dede hailed with relief the change in the conversation and at the sametime the opportunity to speak her mind.

  "In ancient Greece," she began pedantically, "a man was judged a goodcitizen who built houses, planted trees--" She did not complete thequotation, but drew the conclusion hurriedly. "How many houses haveyou built? How many trees have you planted?"

  He shook his head noncommittally, for he had not grasped the drift ofthe argument.

  "Well," she went on, "two winters ago you cornered coal--"

  "Just locally," he grinned reminiscently, "just locally. And I tookadvantage of the car shortage and the strike in British Columbia."

  "But you didn't dig any of that coal yourself. Yet you forced it upfour dollars a ton and made a lot of money. That was your business.You made the poor people pay more for their coal. You played fair, asyou said, but you put your hands down into all their pockets and tooktheir money away from them. I know. I burn a grate fire in mysitting-room at Berkeley. And instead of eleven dollars a ton for RockWells, I paid fifteen dollars that winter. You robbed me of fourdollars. I could stand it. But there were thousands of the very poorwho could not stand it. You might call it legal gambling, but to me itwas downright robbery."

  Daylight was not abashed. This was no revelation to him. Heremembered the old woman who made wine in the Sonoma hills and themillions like her who were made to be robbed.

  "Now look here, Miss Mason, you've got me there slightly, I grant. Butyou've seen me in business a long time now, and you know I don't make apractice of raiding the poor people. I go after the big fellows.They're my meat. They rob the poor, and I rob them. That coal dealwas an accident. I wasn't after the poor people in that, but after thebig fellows, and I got them, too. The poor people happened to get inthe way and got hurt, that was all.

  "Don't you see," he went on, "the whole game is a gamble. Everybodygambles in one way or another. The farmer gambles against the weatherand the market on his crops. So does the United States SteelCorporation. The business of lots of men is straight robbery of thepoor people. But I've never made that my business. You know that.I've always gone after the robbers."

  "I missed my point," she admitted. "Wait a minute."

  And for a space they rode in silence.

  "I see it more clearly than I can state it, but it's something likethis. There is legitimate work, and there's work that--well, thatisn't legitimate. The farmer works the soil and produces grain. He'smaking something that is good for humanity. He actually, in a way,creates something, the grain that will fill the mouths of the hungry."

  "And then the railroads and market-riggers and the rest proceed to robhim of that same grain,"--Daylight broke in Dede smiled and held up herhand.

  "Wait a minute. You'll make me lose my point. It doesn't hurt if theyrob him of all of it so that he starves to death. The point is thatthe wheat he grew is still in the world. It exists. Don't you see?The farmer created something, say ten tons of wheat, and those ten tonsexist. The railroads haul the wheat to market, to the mouths that willeat it. This also is legitimate. It's like some one bringing you aglass of water, or taking a cinder out of your eye. Something has beendone, in a way been created, just like the wheat."

  "But the railroads rob like Sam Scratch," Daylight objected.

  "Then the work they do is partly legitimate and partly not. Now wecome to you.
You don't create anything. Nothing new exists whenyou're done with your business. Just like the coal. You didn't digit. You didn't haul it to market. You didn't deliver it. Don't yousee? that's what I meant by planting the trees and building thehouses. You haven't planted one tree nor built a single house."

  "I never guessed there was a woman in the world who could talk businesslike that," he murmured admiringly. "And you've got me on that point.But there's a lot to be said on my side just the same. Now you listento me. I'm going to talk under three heads. Number one: We live ashort time, the best of us, and we're a long time dead. Life is a biggambling game. Some are born lucky and some are born unlucky.Everybody sits in at the table, and everybody tries to rob everybodyelse. Most of them get robbed. They're born suckers.

  "Fellow like me comes along and sizes up the proposition. I've got twochoices. I can herd with the suckers, or I can herd with the robbers.As a sucker, I win nothing. Even the crusts of bread are snatched outof my mouth by the robbers. I work hard all my days, and die working.And I ain't never had a flutter. I've had nothing but work, work,work. They talk about the dignity of labor. I tell you there ain't nodignity in that sort of labor. My other choice is to herd with therobbers, and I herd with them. I play that choice wide open to win. Iget the automobiles, and the porterhouse steaks, and the soft beds.

  "Number two: There ain't much difference between playing halfway robberlike the railroad hauling that farmer's wheat to market, and playingall robber and robbing the robbers like I do. And, besides, halfwayrobbery is too slow a game for me to sit in. You don't win quick enoughfor me."

  "But what do you want to win for?" Dede demanded. "You have millionsand millions, already. You can't ride in more than one automobile at atime, sleep in more than one bed at a time."

  "Number three answers that," he said, "and here it is: Men and thingsare so made that they have different likes. A rabbit likes avegetarian diet. A lynx likes meat. Ducks swim; chickens are scairtof water. One man collects postage stamps, another man collectsbutterflies. This man goes in for paintings, that man goes in foryachts, and some other fellow for hunting big game. One man thinkshorse-racing is It, with a big I, and another man finds the biggestsatisfaction in actresses. They can't help these likes. They havethem, and what are they going to do about it? Now I like gambling. Ilike to play the game. I want to play it big and play it quick. I'mjust made that way. And I play it."

  "But why can't you do good with all your money?"

  Daylight laughed.

  "Doing good with your money! It's like slapping God in the face, asmuch as to tell him that he don't know how to run his world and thatyou'll be much obliged if he'll stand out of the way and give you achance. Thinking about God doesn't keep me sitting up nights, so I'vegot another way of looking at it. Ain't it funny, to go around withbrass knuckles and a big club breaking folks' heads and taking theirmoney away from them until I've got a pile, and then, repenting of myways, going around and bandaging up the heads the other robbers arebreaking? I leave it to you. That's what doing good with moneyamounts to. Every once in a while some robber turns soft-hearted andtakes to driving an ambulance. That's what Carnegie did. He smashedheads in pitched battles at Homestead, regular wholesale head-breakerhe was, held up the suckers for a few hundred million, and now he goesaround dribbling it back to them. Funny? I leave it to you."

  He rolled a cigarette and watched her half curiously, half amusedly.His replies and harsh generalizations of a harsh school weredisconcerting, and she came back to her earlier position.

  "I can't argue with you, and you know that. No matter how right awoman is, men have such a way about them well, what they say soundsmost convincing, and yet the woman is still certain they are wrong.But there is one thing--the creative joy. Call it gambling if youwill, but just the same it seems to me more satisfying to createsomething, make something, than just to roll dice out of a dice-box allday long. Why, sometimes, for exercise, or when I've got to payfifteen dollars for coal, I curry Mab and give her a whole half hour'sbrushing. And when I see her coat clean and shining and satiny, I feela satisfaction in what I've done. So it must be with the man whobuilds a house or plants a tree. He can look at it. He made it. It'shis handiwork. Even if somebody like you comes along and takes histree away from him, still it is there, and still did he make it. Youcan't rob him of that, Mr. Harnish, with all your millions. It's thecreative joy, and it's a higher joy than mere gambling. Haven't youever made things yourself--a log cabin up in the Yukon, or a canoe, orraft, or something? And don't you remember how satisfied you were, howgood you felt, while you were doing it and after you had it done?"

  While she spoke his memory was busy with the associations she recalled.He saw the deserted flat on the river bank by the Klondike, and he sawthe log cabins and warehouses spring up, and all the log structures hehad built, and his sawmills working night and day on three shifts.

  "Why, dog-gone it, Miss Mason, you're right--in a way. I've builthundreds of houses up there, and I remember I was proud and glad to seethem go up. I'm proud now, when I remember them. And there wasOphir--the most God-forsaken moose-pasture of a creek you ever laideyes on. I made that into the big Ophir. Why, I ran the water in therefrom the Rinkabilly, eighty miles away. They all said I couldn't, butI did it, and I did it by myself. The dam and the flume cost me fourmillion. But you should have seen that Ophir--power plants, electriclights, and hundreds of men on the pay-roll, working night and day. Iguess I do get an inkling of what you mean by making a thing. I madeOphir, and by God, she was a sure hummer--I beg your pardon. I didn'tmean to cuss. But that Ophir!--I sure am proud of her now, just as thelast time I laid eyes on her."

  "And you won something there that was more than mere money," Dedeencouraged. "Now do you know what I would do if I had lots of moneyand simply had to go on playing at business? Take all the southerlyand westerly slopes of these bare hills. I'd buy them in and planteucalyptus on them. I'd do it for the joy of doing it anyway; butsuppose I had that gambling twist in me which you talk about, why, I'ddo it just the same and make money out of the trees. And there's myother point again. Instead of raising the price of coal without addingan ounce of coal to the market supply, I'd be making thousands andthousands of cords of firewood--making something where nothing wasbefore. And everybody who ever crossed on the ferries would look up atthese forested hills and be made glad. Who was made glad by youradding four dollars a ton to Rock Wells?"

  It was Daylight's turn to be silent for a time while she waited ananswer.

  "Would you rather I did things like that?" he asked at last.

  "It would be better for the world, and better for you," she answerednoncommittally.