ng wouldn't do it, and there was no other
way. He might as well wish himself a boy again.

Another satisfaction he cuddled to himself from their interview. He had
heard of stenographers before, who refused their employers, and who
invariably quit their positions immediately afterward. But Dede had
not even hinted at such a thing. No matter how baffling she was, there
was no nonsensical silliness about her. She was level headed. But,
also, he had been level-headed and was partly responsible for this. He
hadn't taken advantage of her in the office. True, he had twice
overstepped the bounds, but he had not followed it up and made a
practice of it. She knew she could trust him. But in spite of all
this he was confident that most young women would have been silly
enough to resign a position with a man they had turned down. And
besides, after he had put it to her in the right light, she had not
been silly over his sending her brother to Germany.

"Gee!" he concluded, as the car drew up before his hotel. "If I'd only
known it as I do now, I'd have popped the question the first day she
came to work. According to her say-so, that would have been the proper
moment. She likes me more and more, and the more she likes me the less
she'd care to marry me! Now what do you think of that? She sure must
be fooling."

CHAPTER XIX

Once again, on a rainy Sunday, weeks afterward, Daylight proposed to
Dede. As on the first time, he restrained himself until his hunger for
her overwhelmed him and swept him away in his red automobile to
Berkeley. He left the machine several blocks away and proceeded to the
house on foot. But Dede was out, the landlady's daughter told him, and
added, on second thought, that she was out walking in the hills.
Furthermore, the young lady directed him where Dede's walk was most
likely to extend.

Daylight obeyed the girl's instructions, and soon the street he
followed passed the last house and itself ceased where began the first
steep slopes of the open hills. The air was damp with the on-coming of
rain, for the storm had not yet burst, though the rising wind
proclaimed its imminence. As far as he could see, there was no sign of
Dede on the smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into a
hollow and rising again, was a large, full-grown eucalyptus grove.
Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender trunked trees
swaying back and forth in the wind and clashing their branche