had solved them in his masterful way, he left the office in his
big car, almost sighing with relief at anticipation of the
approaching double Martini. Rarely was he made tipsy. His
constitution was too strong for that. Instead, he was that
direst of all drinkers, the steady drinker, deliberate and
controlled, who averaged a far higher quantity of alcohol than
the irregular and violent drinker. For six weeks hard-running he
had seen nothing of Dede except in the office, and there he
resolutely refrained from making approaches. But by the seventh
Sunday his hunger for her overmastered him. It was a stormy day.
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A heavy southeast gale was blowing, and squall after squall of
rain and wind swept over the city. He could not take his mind
off of her, and a persistent picture came to him of her sitting
by a window and sewing feminine fripperies of some sort. When
the time came for his first pre-luncheon cocktail to be served to
him in his rooms, he did not take it.
Filled with a daring determination, he glanced at his note book
for Dede’s telephone number, and called for the switch.
At first it was her landlady’s daughter who was raised, but in a
minute he heard the voice he had been hungry to hear.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m coming out to see you,” he
said. “I didn’t want to break in on you without warning, that
was all.”
“Has something happened?” came her voice.
“I’ll tell you when I get there,” he evaded.
He left the red car two blocks away and arrived on foot at the
pretty, three-storied, shingled Berkeley house. For an instant
only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but the next moment he
rang the bell. He knew that what he was doing was in direct
violation of her wishes, and that he was setting her a difficult
task to receive as a Sunday caller the multimillionaire and
notorious Elam Harnish of newspaper fame. On the other hand, the
one thing he did not expect of her was what he would have termed
“silly female capers.”
And in this he was not disappointed.
She came herself to the door to receive him and shake hands with
him. He hung his mackintosh and hat on the rack in the
comfortable square hall and turned to her for direction.
“They are busy in there,” she said, indicating the parlor from
which came the boisterous voices of young people, and through the
open door of which he could see several college youths. “So you
will have to come into my rooms.”
She led the way through the door opening out of the hall to the
right, and, once inside, he stood awkwardly rooted to the floor,
gazing about him and at her and all the time trying not to gaze.
In his perturbation he failed to hear and see her invitation to a
seat. So these were her quarters. the intimacy of it and her
making no fuss about it was startling, but it was no more than he
would have expected of her. It was almost two rooms in one, the
one he was in evidently the sitting-room, and the one he could
see into, the bedroom. Beyond an oaken dressing-table, with an
orderly litter of combs and brushes and dainty feminine
knickknacks, there was no sign of its being used as a bedroom.
Burning Daylight
184
The broad couch, with a cover of old rose and banked high with
cushions, he decided must be the bed, but it was farthest from
any experience of a civilized bed he had ever had.
Not that he saw much of detail in that awkward moment of
standing. His general impression was one of warmth and comfort
and beauty. There were no carpets, and on the hardwood floor he
caught a glimpse of several wolf and coyote skins. What captured
and perceptibly held his eye for a moment was a Crouched Venus
that stood on a Steinway upright against a background of
mountain-lion skin on the wall.
But it was Dede herself that smote most sharply upon sense and
perception. He had always cherished the idea that she was very
much a woman–the lines of her figure, her hair, her eyes, her
voice, and birdlike laughing ways had all contributed to this;
but here, in her own rooms, clad in some flowing, clinging gown,
the emphasis of sex was startling. He had been accustomed to her
only in trim tailor suits and shirtwaists, or in riding costume
of velvet corduroy, and he was not prepared for this new
revelation. She seemed so much softer, so much more pliant, and
tender, and lissome. She was a part of this atmosphere of
quietude and beauty. She fitted into it just as she had fitted
in with the sober office furnishings.
“Won’t you sit down?” she repeated.
He felt like an animal long denied food. His hunger for her
welled up in him, and he proceeded to “wolf” the dainty morsel
before him. Here was no patience, no diplomacy. The
straightest, direct way was none too quick for him and, had he
known it, the least unsuccessful way he could have chosen.
“Look here,” he said, in a voice that shook with passion,
“there’s one thing I won’t do, and that’s propose to you in the
office. That’s why I’m here. Dede Mason, I want you. I just
want
you.”
While he spoke he advanced upon her, his black eyes burning with
bright fire, his aroused blood swarthy in his cheek.
So precipitate was he, that she had barely time to cry out her
involuntary alarm and to step back, at the same time catching one
of his hands as he attempted to gather her into his arms.
In contrast to him, the blood had suddenly left her cheeks. The
hand that had warded his off and that still held it, was
trembling. She relaxed her fingers, and his arm dropped to his
side. She wanted to say something, do something, to pass on from
the awkwardness of the situation, but no intelligent thought nor
action came into her mind. She was aware only of a desire to
laugh. This impulse was party hysterical and partly spontaneous
Burning Daylight
185
humor–the latter growing from instant to instant. Amazing as
the affair was, the ridiculous side of it was not veiled to her.
She felt like one who had suffered the terror of the onslaught of
a murderous footpad only to find out that it was an innocent
pedestrian asking the time.
Daylight was the quicker to achieve action. “Oh, I know I’m a
sure enough fool,” he said. “I-I guess I’ll sit down. Don’t be
scairt, Miss Mason. I’m not real dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered, with a smile, slipping down
herself into a chair, beside which, on the floor, stood a
sewing-basket from which, Daylight noted, some white fluffy thing
of lace and muslin overflowed. Again she smiled. “Though I
confess you did startle me for the moment.”
“It’s funny,” Daylight sighed, almost with regret; “here I am,
strong enough to bend you around and tie knots in you. Here I
am, used to having my will with man and beast and anything. And
here I am sitting in this chair, as weak and helpless as a little
lamb. You sure take the starch out of me.”
Dede vainly cudgeled her brains in quest of a reply to these
remarks. Instead, her thought dwelt insistently upon the
significance of his stepping aside, in the middle of a violent
proposal, in order to make irrelevant remarks. What struck her
was the man’s certitude. So little did he doubt that he would
have her, that he could afford to pause and generalize upon love
and the effects of love.
She noted his hand unconsciously slipping in the familiar way
into the side coat pocket where she knew he carried his tobacco
and brown papers.
“You may smoke, if you want to,” she said. He withdrew his hand
with a jerk, as if something in the pocket had stung him.
“No, I wasn’t thinking of smoking. I was thinking of you.
What’s a man to do when he wants a woman but ask her to marry
him? That’s all that I’m doing. I can’t do it in style. I
know that. But I can use straight English, and that’s good
enough for me. I sure want you mighty bad, Miss Mason. You’re
in my mind ‘most all the time, now. And what I want to know
is–well, do you want me? That’s all.”
“I-I wish you hadn’t asked,” she said softly.
“Mebbe it’s best you should know a few things before you give me
an answer,” he went on, ignoring the fact that the answer had
already been given. “I never went after a woman before in my
life, all reports to the contrary not withstanding. The stuff