became immediately a closed affair. It ceased to exist. In the
afternoon, after lunch, it lived again for one or two hours,
when, leaving it, he rebuilt the wall of inhibition. Of course,
there were exceptions to this; and, such was the rigor of his
discipline, that if he had a dinner or a conference before him in
which, in a business way, he encountered enemies or allies and
planned or prosecuted campaigns, he abstained from drinking. But
the instant the business was settled, his everlasting call went
out for a Martini, and for a double-Martini at that, served in a
long glass so as not to excite comment.



CHAPTER VI

Into Daylight's life came Dede Mason. She came rather
imperceptibly. He had accepted her impersonally along with the
office furnishing, the office boy, Morrison, the chief,
confidential, and only clerk, and all the rest of the accessories
of a superman's gambling place of business. Had he been asked any
time during the first months she was in his employ, he would have
been unable to tell the color of her eyes. From the fact that she
was a demiblonde, there resided dimly in his subconsciousness a
conception that she was a brunette. Likewise he had an idea that
she was not thin, while there was an absence in his mind of any
idea that she was fat. As to how she dressed, he had no ideas at
all. He had no trained eye in such matters, nor was he interested.
He took it for granted, in the lack of any impression to the
contrary, that she was dressed some how. He knew her as "Miss
Mason," and that was all, though he was aware that as a