some sort or other.”
As he stood at the top of the steps, leaving, she said:-
“You needn’t send those men. There will be no packing, because I
am not going to marry you.”
“I’m not a bit scared,” he answered, and went down the steps.
CHAPTER XXIV
Three days later, Daylight rode to Berkeley in his red car. It
was for the last time, for on the morrow the big machine passed
into another’s possession. It had been a strenuous three days,
for his smash had been the biggest the panic had precipitated in
California. The papers had been filled with it, and a great cry
of indignation had gone up from the very men who later found that
Daylight had fully protected their interests. It was these
facts, coming slowly to light, that gave rise to the widely
repeated charge that Daylight had gone insane. It was the
unanimous conviction among business men that no sane man could
possibly behave in such fashion. On the other hand, neither his
prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became public,
so the only conclusion attainable was that the wild financier
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from Alaska had gone lunatic. And Daylight had grinned and
confirmed the suspicion by refusing to see the reporters.
He halted the automobile before Dede’s door, and met her with his
same rushing tactics, enclosing her in his arms before a word
could be uttered. Not until afterward, when she had recovered
herself from him and got him seated, did he begin to speak.
“I’ve done it,” he announced. “You’ve seen the newspapers, of
course. I’m plumb cleaned out, and I’ve just called around to
find out what day you feel like starting for Glen Ellen. It’ll
have to be soon, for it’s real expensive living in Oakland these
days. My board at the hotel is only paid to the end of the week,
and I can’t afford to stay after that. And beginning with
to-morrow I’ve got to use the street cars, and they sure eat up
the nickels.”
He paused, and waited, and looked at her. Indecision and trouble
showed on her face. Then the smile he knew so well began to grow
on her lips and in her eyes, until she threw back her head and
laughed in the old forthright boyish way.
“When are those men coming to pack for me?” she asked.
And again she laughed and simulated a vain attempt to escape his
bearlike arms.
“Dear Elam,” she whispered; “dear Elam.” And of herself, for
the first time, she kissed him.
She ran her hand caressingly through his hair.
“Your eyes are all gold right now,” he said. “I can look in them
and tell just how much you love me.”
“They have been all gold for you, Elam, for a long time. I
think,
on our little ranch, they will always be all gold.”
“Your hair has gold in it, too, a sort of fiery gold.” He
turned her face suddenly and held it between his hands and looked
long into her eyes. “And your eyes were full of gold only the
other day, when you said you wouldn’t marry me.”
She nodded and laughed.
“You would have your will,” she confessed. “But I couldn’t be a
party to such madness. All that money was yours, not mine. But
I was loving you all the time, Elam, for the great big boy you
are, breaking the thirty-million toy with which you had grown
tired of playing. And when I said no, I knew all the time it was
yes. And I am sure that my eyes were golden all the time. I had
only one fear, and that was that you would fail to lose
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223
everything. Because, dear, I knew I should marry you anyway, and
I did so want just you and the ranch and Bob and Wolf and those
horse-hair bridles. Shall I tell you a secret? As soon as you
left, I telephoned the man to whom I sold Mab.”
She hid her face against his breast for an instant, and then
looked at him again, gladly radiant.
“You see, Elam, in spite of what my lips said, my mind was made
up then. I–I simply had to marry you. But I was praying you
would succeed in losing everything. And so I tried to find what
had become of Mab. But the man had sold her and did not know
what had become of her. You see, I wanted to ride with you over
the Glen Ellen hills, on Mab and you on Bob, just as I had ridden
with you through the Piedmont hills.”
The disclosure of Mab’s whereabouts trembled on Daylight’s lips,
but he forbore.
“I’ll promise you a mare that you’ll like just as much as Mab,”
he said.
But Dede shook her head, and on that one point refused to be
comforted.
“Now, I’ve got an idea,” Daylight said, hastening to get the
conversation on less perilous ground. “We’re running away from
cities, and you have no kith nor kin, so it don’t seem exactly
right that we should start off by getting married in a city. So
here’s the idea: I’ll run up to the ranch and get things in shape
around the house and give the caretaker his walking-papers. You
follow me in a couple of days, coming on the morning train. I’ll
have the preacher fixed and waiting. And here’s another idea.
You bring your riding togs in a suit case. And as soon as the
ceremony’s over, you can go to the hotel and change. Then out
you come, and you find me waiting with a couple of horses, and
we’ll ride over the landscape so as you can see the prettiest
parts of the ranch the first thing. And she’s sure pretty, that
ranch. And now that it’s settled, I’ll be waiting for you at the
morning train day after to-morrow.”
Dede blushed as she spoke.
“You are such a hurricane.”
“Well, ma’am,” he drawled, “I sure hate to burn daylight. And
you
and I have burned a heap of daylight. We’ve been
scandalously extravagant. We might have been married years ago.”
Two days later, Daylight stood waiting outside the little Glen
Ellen hotel. The ceremony was over, and he had left Dede to go
inside and change into her riding-habit while he brought the
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224
horses. He held them now, Bob and Mab, and in the shadow of the
watering-trough Wolf lay and looked on. Already two days of
ardent California sun had touched with new fires the ancient
bronze in Daylight’s face. But warmer still was the glow that
came into his cheeks and burned in his eyes as he saw Dede coming
out the door, riding-whip in hand, clad in the familiar corduroy
skirt and leggings of the old Piedmont days. There was warmth
and glow in her own face as she answered his gaze and glanced on
past him to the horses. Then she saw Mab. But her gaze leaped
back to the man.
“Oh, Elam!” she breathed.
It was almost a prayer, but a prayer that included a thousand
meanings Daylight strove to feign sheepishness, but his heart was
singing too wild a song for mere playfulness. All things had
been in the naming of his name–reproach, refined away by
gratitude, and all compounded of joy and love.
She stepped forward and caressed the mare, and again turned and
looked at the man, and breathed:–
“Oh, Elam! ”
And all that was in her voice was in her eyes, and in them
Daylight glimpsed a profundity deeper and wider than any speech
or thought–the whole vast inarticulate mystery and wonder of sex
and love.
Again he strove for playfulness of speech, but it was too great a
moment for even love fractiousness to enter in. Neither spoke.
She gathered the reins, and, bending, Daylight received her foot
in his hand. She sprang, as he lifted and gained the saddle.
The next moment he was mounted and beside her, and, with Wolf
sliding along ahead in his typical wolf-trot, they went up the
hill that led out of town–two lovers on two chestnut sorrel
steeds, riding out and away to honeymoon through the warm summer
day. Daylight felt himself drunken as with wine. He was at the
topmost pinnacle of life. Higher than this no man could climb
nor had ever climbed. It was his day of days, his love-time and
his mating-time, and all crowned by this virginal possession of a
mate who had said “Oh, Elam,” as she had said it, and looked at
him out of her soul as she had looked.
They cleared the crest of the hill, and he watched the joy mount
in her face as she gazed on the sweet, fresh land. He pointed
out
the group of heavily wooded knolls across the rolling stretches
of
ripe grain.
“They’re ours,” he said. “And they’re only a sample of the