You recollect, you said you didn't like my way of life.
Well, I've changed it a heap.
I ain't gambling like I used to. I've gone into what you called the legitimate, making two minutes grow where one grew before, three hundred thousand folks where only a hundred thousand grew before.
And this time next year there'll be two million eucalyptus growing on the hills.
Say do you like me more than the littlest bit?"
She raised her eyes from her work and looked at him as she answered:
"I like you a great deal, but—"
He waited a moment for her to complete the sentence, failing which, he went on himself.
"I haven't an exaggerated opinion of myself, so I know I ain't bragging when I say I'll make a pretty good husband.
You'd find I was no hand at nagging and fault-finding.
I can guess what it must be for a woman like you to be independent.
Well, you'd be independent as my wife.
No strings on you.
You could follow your own sweet will, and nothing would be too good for you.
I'd give you everything your heart desired—"
"Except yourself," she interrupted suddenly, almost sharply.
Daylight's astonishment was momentary.
"I don't know about that.
I'd be straight and square, and live true.
I don't hanker after divided affections."
"I don't mean that," she said.
"Instead of giving yourself to your wife, you would give yourself to the three hundred thousand people of Oakland, to your street railways and ferry-routes, to the two million trees on the hills to everything business—and—and to all that that means."
"I'd see that I didn't," he declared stoutly.
"I'd be yours to command."
"You think so, but it would turn out differently."
She suddenly became nervous.
"We must stop this talk.
It is too much like attempting to drive a bargain.
'How much will you give?'
'I'll give so much.'
'I want more,' and all that.
I like you, but not enough to marry you, and I'll never like you enough to marry you."
"How do you know that?" he demanded.
"Because I like you less and less."
Daylight sat dumfounded.
The hurt showed itself plainly in his face.
"Oh, you don't understand," she cried wildly, beginning to lose self-control—"It's not that way I mean.
I do like you; the more I've known you the more I've liked you.
And at the same time the more I've known you the less would I care to marry you."
This enigmatic utterance completed Daylight's perplexity.
"Don't you see?" she hurried on.
"I could have far easier married the Elam Harnish fresh from Klondike, when I first laid eyes on him long ago, than marry you sitting before me now."
He shook his head slowly.
"That's one too many for me.
The more you know and like a man the less you want to marry him.
Familiarity breeds contempt—I guess that's what you mean."
"No, no," she cried, but before she could continue, a knock came on the door.
"The ten minutes is up," Daylight said.
His eyes, quick with observation like an Indian's, darted about the room while she was out.
The impression of warmth and comfort and beauty predominated, though he was unable to analyze it; while the simplicity delighted him—expensive simplicity, he decided, and most of it leftovers from the time her father went broke and died.