live.” She made an impatient moue, and he continued seriously.
“You see, it’s like this, Dede. I’ve been working like forty
horses ever since this blamed panic set in, and all the time some
of those ideas you’d given me were getting ready to sprout.
Well, they sprouted this morning, that’s all. I started to get
up, expecting to go to the office as usual. But I didn’t go to
the office. All that sprouting took place there and then. The
sun was shining in the window, and I knew it was a fine day in
the hills. And I knew I wanted to ride in the hills with you
just about thirty million times more than I wanted to go to the
office. And I knew all the time it was impossible. And why?
Because of the office. The office wouldn’t let me. All my money
reared right up on its hind legs and got in the way and wouldn’t
let me. It’s a way that blamed money has of getting in the way.
You know that yourself.
“And then I made up my mind that I was to the dividing of the
ways. One way led to the office. The other way led to Berkeley.
And I took the Berkeley road. I’m never going to set foot in the
office again. That’s all gone, finished, over and done with, and
I’m letting it slide clean to smash and then some. My mind’s set
on this. You see, I’ve got religion, and it’s sure the old-time
religion; it’s love and you, and it’s older than the oldest
religion in the world. It’s IT, that’s what it is–IT, with a
capital I-T.”
She looked at him with a sudden, startled expression.
“You mean–?” she began.
“I mean just that. I’m wiping the slate clean. I’m letting it
all go to smash. When them thirty million dollars stood up to my
face and said I couldn’t go out with you in the hills to-day, I
knew the time had come for me to put my foot down. And I’m
putting it down. I’ve got you, and my strength to work for you,
and that little ranch in Sonoma. That’s all I want, and that’s
all I’m going to save out, along with Bob and Wolf, a suit case
and a hundred and forty hair bridles. All the rest goes, and
good riddance. It’s that much junk.”
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215
But Dede was insistent.
“Then this–this tremendous loss is all unnecessary?” she asked.
“Just what I haven’t been telling you. It IS necessary. If that
money thinks it can stand up right to my face and say I can’t go
riding with you-”
“No, no; be serious,” Dede broke in. “I don’t mean that, and you
know it. What I want to know is, from a standpoint of business,
is this failure necessary?”
He shook his head.
“You bet it isn’t necessary. That’s the point of it. I’m not
letting go of it because I’m licked to a standstill by the panic
and have got to let go. I’m firing it out when I’ve licked the
panic and am winning, hands down. That just shows how little I
think of it. It’s you that counts, little woman, and I make my
play accordingly.”
But she drew away from his sheltering arms.
“You are mad, Elam.”
“Call me that again,” he murmured ecstatically. “It’s sure
sweeter than the chink of millions.”
All this she ignored.
“It’s madness. You don’t know what you are doing–”
“Oh, yes, I do,” he assured her. “I’m winning the dearest wish
of my heart. Why, your little finger is worth more–”
“Do be sensible for a moment.”
“I was never more sensible in my lie. I know what I want, and
I’m going to get it. I want you and the open air. I want to get
my foot off the paving-stones and my ear away from the telephone.
I want a little ranch-house in one of the prettiest bits of
country God ever made, and I want to do the chores around that
ranch-house–milk cows, and chop wood, and curry horses, and
plough the ground, and all the rest of it; and I want you there
in the ranch-house with me. I’m plumb tired of everything else,
and clean wore out. And I’m sure the luckiest man alive, for
I’ve got what money can’t buy. I’ve got you, and thirty millions
couldn’t buy you, nor three thousand millions, nor thirty cents-”
A knock at the door interrupted him, and he was left to stare
delightedly at the Crouched Venus and on around the room at
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216
Dede’s dainty possessions, while she answered the telephone.
“It is Mr. Hegan,” she said, on returning. “He is holding the
line. He says it is important.”
Daylight shook his head and smiled.
“Please tell Mr. Hegan to hang up. I’m done with the office and
I don’t want to hear anything about anything.”
A minute later she was back again.
“He refuses to hang up. He told me to tell you that Unwin is in
the office now, waiting to see you, and Harrison, too. Mr. Hegan
said that Grimshaw and Hodgkins are in trouble. That it
looks as if they are going to break. And he said something about
protection.”
It was startling information. Both Unwin and Harrison
represented big banking corporations, and Daylight knew that if
the house of Grimshaw and Hodgkins went it would precipitate a
number of failures and start a flurry of serious dimensions. But
Daylight smiled, and shook his head, and mimicked the stereotyped
office tone of voice as he said:–
“Miss Mason, you will kindly tell Mr. Hegan that there is
nothing doing and to hang up.”
“But you can’t do this,” she pleaded.
“Watch me,” he grimly answered.
“Elam!”
“Say it again” he cried. “Say it again, and a dozen Grimshaws
and Hodgkins can smash!”
He caught her by the hand and drew her to him.
“You let Hegan hang on to that line till he’s tired. We can’t be
wasting a second on him on a day like this. He’s only in love
with books and things, but I’ve got a real live woman in my arms
that’s loving me all the time she’s kicking over the traces.”
CHAPTER XXIII
“But I know something of the fight you have been making,” Dede
contended. “If you stop now, all the work you have done,
everything, will be destroyed. You have no right to do it. You
can’t do it.”
Daylight was obdurate. He shook his head and smiled
tantalizingly.
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217
“Nothing will be destroyed, Dede, nothing. You don’t understand
this business game. It’s done on paper. Don’t you see? Where’s
the gold I dug out of Klondike? Why, it’s in twenty-dollar gold
pieces, in gold watches, in wedding rings. No matter what
happens to me, the twenty-dollar pieces, the watches, and the
wedding rings remain. Suppose I died right now. It wouldn’t
affect the gold one iota. It’s sure the same with this present
situation. All I stand for is paper. I’ve got the paper for
thousands of acres of land. All right. Burn up the paper, and
burn me along with it. The land remains, don’t it? The rain
falls on it, the seeds sprout in it, the trees grow out of it,
the houses stand on it, the electric cars run over it. It’s
paper that business is run on. I lose my paper, or I lose my
life, it’s all the same; it won’t alter one grain of sand in all
that land, or twist one blade of grass around sideways.
“Nothing is going to be lost–not one pile out of the docks, not
one railroad spike, not one ounce of steam out of the gauge of a
ferry-boat. The cars will go on running, whether I hold the
paper or somebody else holds it. The tide has set toward
Oakland. People are beginning to pour in. We’re selling
building lots again. There is no stopping that tide. No matter
what happens to me or the paper, them three hundred thousand
folks are coming in the same. And there’ll be cars to carry them
around, and houses to hold them, and good water for them to drink
and electricity to give them light, and all the rest.”
By this time Hegan had arrived in an automobile. The honk of it
came in through the open window, and they saw, it stop alongside
the big red machine. In the car were Unwin and Harrison, while
Jones sat with the chauffeur
“I’ll see Hegan,” Daylight told Dede. “There’s no need for the
rest. They can wait in the machine.”
“Is he drunk?” Hegan whispered to Dede at the door.
She shook her head and showed him in.
“Good morning, Larry,” was Daylight’s greeting. “Sit down and
rest your feet. You sure seem to be in a flutter.”
“I am,” the little Irishman snapped back. “Grimshaw and Hodgkins