“Look here, Miss Mason, I know you don’t
like this talking over of things in the office.
Neither do I. It’s part of the whole thing,
I guess; a man ain’t supposed to talk anything
but business with his stenographer. Will you
ride with me next Sunday, and we can talk it over
thoroughly then and reach some sort of a conclusion.
Out in the hills is the place where you can talk
something besides business. I guess you’ve
seen enough of me to know I’m pretty square.
I—I do honor and respect you, and... and
all that, and I ..” He was beginning to
flounder, and the hand that rested on the desk blotter
was visibly trembling. He strove to pull himself
together. “I just want to harder than
anything ever in my life before. I—I—I
can’t explain myself, but I do, that’s
all. Will you?—Just next Sunday?
To-morrow?”
Nor did he dream that her low acquiescence was due,
as much as anything else, to the beads of sweat on
his forehead, his trembling hand, and his all too-evident
general distress.
“Of course, there’s no way of telling
what anybody wants from what they say.”
Daylight rubbed Bob’s rebellious ear with his
quirt and pondered with dissatisfaction the words he
had just uttered. They did not say what he had
meant them to say. “What I’m driving
at is that you say flatfooted that you won’t
meet me again, and you give your reasons, but how
am I to know they are your real reasons? Mebbe
you just don’t want to get acquainted with me,
and won’t say so for fear of hurting my feelings.
Don’t you see? I’m the last man
in the world to shove in where I’m not wanted.
And if I thought you didn’t care a whoop to
see anything more of me, why, I’d clear out
so blamed quick you couldn’t see me for smoke.”
Dede smiled at him in acknowledgment of his words,
but rode on silently. And that smile, he thought,
was the most sweetly wonderful smile he had ever seen.
There was a difference in it, he assured himself,
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 was just the least mite acquainted
with him. Of course, he checked himself up the
next moment, it was unconscious on her part.
It was sure to come in the intercourse of any two
persons.
Any stranger, a business man, a clerk, anybody after
a few casual meetings would show similar signs of
friendliness. It was bound to happen, 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 had never smiled like that; he
was sure of it.
It had been a happy day. Daylight had met her
on the back-road from Berkeley, and they had had hours
together. It was only now, with the day drawing
to a close and with them approaching the gate of the
road to Berkeley, that he had broached the important
subject.
