hat'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 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