“Yes,” she said, her voice low but distinct.
At the same moment she put the mare into a canter
and went down the road without a backward glance,
intent on an analysis of her own feelings. With
her mind made up to say no—and to the last
instant she had been so resolved—her lips
nevertheless had said yes. Or at least it seemed
the lips. She had not intended to consent.
Then why had she? Her first surprise and bewilderment
at so wholly unpremeditated an act gave way to consternation
as she considered its consequences. She knew
that Burning Daylight was not a man to be trifled
with, that under his simplicity and boyishness he
was essentially a dominant male creature, and that
she had pledged herself to a future of inevitable stress
and storm. And again she demanded of herself
why she had said yes at the very moment when it had
been farthest from her intention.
Life at the office went on much the way it had always
gone. Never, by word or look, did they acknowledge
that the situation was in any wise different from
what it had always been. Each Sunday saw the
arrangement made for the following Sunday’s ride;
nor was this ever referred to in the office.
Daylight was fastidiously chivalrous on this point.
He did not want to lose her from the office.
The sight of her at her work was to him an undiminishing
joy. Nor did he abuse this by lingering over
dictation or by devising extra work that would detain
her longer before his eyes. But over and beyond
such sheer selfishness of conduct was his love of
fair play. He scorned to utilize the accidental
advantages of the situation. Somewhere within
him was a higher appeasement of love than mere possession.
He wanted to be loved for himself, with a fair field
for both sides.
On the other hand, had he been the most artful of
schemers he could not have pursued a wiser policy.
Bird-like in her love of individual freedom, the
last woman in the world to be bullied in her affections,
she keenly appreciated the niceness of his attitude.
She did this consciously, but deeper than all consciousness,
and intangible as gossamer, were the effects of this.
All unrealizable, save for some supreme moment, did
the web of Daylight’s personality creep out
and around her. Filament by filament, these
secret and undreamable bonds were being established.
They it was that could have given the cue to her
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 of all dictates
of sober judgment, give another unintentional consent?
