15. CHAPTER XV.
TIM IS PERPLEXED.
Mr. Gray had sufficient meanness in his nature
to experience a little pleasure in having rebuffed
the handsome daughter of his principal.
He had what he deemed sufficient reason for his
conduct. During six months, when a word or
smile from her would have been to his heart as
dew to a famishing plant, Miss Shaw had
ignored his existence. On three different
occasions he had dined at Mr. Shaw's table, and
on each occasion Miss Shaw had been absent.
Whether her absence was the result of accident
or design he had no means of knowing, but he
suspected the latter. He recalled the circumstance
that Miss Shaw had been somewhat vigorously
and persistently courted by his predecessor,
and he reasoned that the young lady possibly
experienced an apprehension that such a tendency
might be transmitted as one of the privileges
of the position. He had resolved, therefore,
to free her mind from such fear, should occasion
offer.
Without more vanity than exists in the nature
of most men, Mr. Gray realized the nature
of the service he had rendered Mr. Shaw. He
found that gentleman with a ruined practice,
and in six months he had placed him again on
his feet, at least in a professional point of view.
Old clients were coming back, and new ones
were not few in number or small in importance.
He knew also that Mr. Shaw's professional income
and his credit were his only means of support
and the one Mr. Gray had greatly augmented
while preserving the other. Miss Shaw
probably did not know that she was indirectly
indebted to him for the luxuries she enjoyed
but such was the fact. The knowledge added
to the sense of injustice which Mr. Gray experienced.
Miss Shaw returned from that interview
wounded and indignant. She returned a so with
a fixed purpose to bring the audacious young
man to her feet. If she could have solaced herself
with the reflection that Mr. Gray was a
boor, able in his profession, perhaps, but destitute
of wit or capacity to appreciate beauty or
grace, she would have permitted him to pass
from her thoughts. But one glance at his fine,
thoughtful face, one glimpse into the tender
depths of his calm, blue eyes convinced her that
he was a man of more than ordinary sensibilityr
a man of culture, poetic feeling, and exalted
imagination.
With this conviction came another conviction
that the first advances to acquaintance came
from her. The everlasting hills might moulde
and crumble and be swept into the sea, but not
one jot from his course would that man swerve.
Had she been older or less accustomed to success
in the affairs of the heart, she would have
hesitated before resolving to provoke a ontest
with such a man; but her confidence in her
power to fascinate had not yet been impaired.
Not quite nineteen, with the experience of
three years in society, her memory already
stored with some brilliant triumphs, she regarded
men as her natural subjects. To find one
less easy to bend than another was but to add
zest to the play.
Miss Shaw returned home in high spirits
She had found something to do which was congenial
to her nature. A man, when incensed,
feels of his muscle or examines his pistol, and
proceeds to pound or shoot, as his education
may determine. A woman's tactic are different.
If her antagonist is a man she flies to her looking-glass
The image there reflected is her
weapon. Through his senses she will penetrato
to the soul, and lay him at her feet. No woman
of tact aims her shaft at the brain. The senses
which a poor man possesses in common
with the brutes are her point of attack. The
sensual as well as the artistic eye loves beauty,
and that she unvails before him. His imagination
revels in visions of grace, and these visions
she em odies.
Miss Shaw's mirror did not dissuade her from
the revenge she contemplated. The Blue Grass
region of Kentucky is still famous for the beauty
of its women, and the speed of its horses. Both
are distinct types of these species. The Blue
Grass girl may be tall or short, dark or fair, but
she has always fine eyes, chiseled features, and a
dazzling complexion. She is proud as Cooper's
ideal Indian, but tender and graceful as a fawn.
The blood of the race concentrates in the woman.
Pure from instinct rather than calculation,
holding life as nothing compared to honor.
brilliant in fancy rather than profound in
thought, sometimes bold in attack but ever shy
of being caught, they are the hardest of women
to win, the most faithful and devoted when
won.
Miss Reginia Shaw was a girl of this type.
She was brilliant looking rather than strictly
beautiful. Her face was warm with color, such
tints as painters despair of reproducing. The
blood seemed to play in her cheeks as if from
love of the effect it produced. Her full, mobile,
scarlet lips were soft and moist, and exasperatingly
tempting. Her eyes were dark hazel,
shaded with long black lashes, and as full of
mischief as eyes of woman ever were. Hardly
up to average height of her sex, her form was
at once round, full, and slender—wide shoulders,
full bust, and slender waist, and such hands and
feet as girls of the Blue Grass region always
have.
Four days after the interview between Miss
Shaw and Mr. Gray already recorded, the latter
was sitting in his private office. The active
business of the day was over. The young lawyer
was experiencing the pleasure of his first decided
professional success. The case to which allusion
has been made, was won. Mr. Shaw had
presented it in court, but Mr. Shaw was above
the petty meanness of taking credit for labor
another had performed. To his clients and his
professional brethren he acknowledged that success
was due to the masterly manner in which
the case had been prepared. In private Mr.
Shaw rather embarrassed his young associate by
the warmth of his praise.
“You are already the brains of the firm,” said
the elder gentleman, “and soon you will be able
to go alone.”
“The firm will be Shaw & Co. while you live,”
responded Mr. Gray, with some feeling. “Without
your aid I might have struggled in the lower
ranks for years.”
“True; but few men in these days care to
carry a useless burden.”
“Don't speak of burden, Mr. Shaw. I owe
you everything in the past, and you can afford
to owe me something in the future. At all
events, nothing can ever change our business
relations—not even your own will.”
A deeper red than usual overspread the gray-haired
lawyer's features, and he silently grasped
the young man's hand. Soon after, he returned
to his private office.
Mr. Gray's thoughts that afternoon were
pleasant. To borrow his own expression, he was
out of the woods. A singular combination of
circumstances had enabled him to accomplish
in a few months what other men are content to
accomplish in as many years. Wealth and fame
were before him. The doors of society would
open at his knock. Love, the secret desire of
every young heart, might come as the chief of
blessings.
His reverie was disturbed by the entrance of
Tim, the office-boy. The young rascal was grinning
from ear to ear.
“Such an odd customer,” he said; “shall I
send her away?”
“Send who away?”
“A little girl that wants to see Mr. Shaw.”
“Bring her in. I will represent Mr Shaw.”
“But she won't come in. It seems,” added
the facetious lad, again breaking into a laugh,
“that she don't like young men.”
“Have you been teasing her, you scamp?”
“No; she teased me. Told her that Mr. Shaw
was not in, but another gentleman was in that
would take Mr. Shaw's place. Then she asked
if t'other gentleman was an old man. Told her
he was a young man. Said he wouldn't do;
wanted an old man.”
“Where is she now?”
“Outside, in the hall.”
Mr. Gray arose to go in search of the girl. He
thought, perhaps, that his personal appearance
might overcome any prejudice she had conceived
against young men as a class. He laid his cigar
on the mantel, lest this evidence of dissipation
should excite her suspicion, and as he turned he
caught a glimpse of a brown dress extending
slowly into the aperture, then a brown hand laid
cautiously on the edge of the door, then the side
of a dark face, and a bright black eye peering
around ust above the hand.
Mr. Gray paused, involuntarily. For a second
his mind hovered on the verge of a delightful
surprise. He was again about to advance when
the door was thrown violently open, and a brown
figure with black, streaming hair leaped forward,
and threw itself upon his breast.
“Whew!” exclaimed Tim, stealing out as if
in fear that his turn might come next, “isn't
she a young thunder gust. After all that talk
about not liking young men, to go at one in
that style,” and the youth, despairing of giving
full expression to his feelings in the ordinary
way, turned a neat handspring, a ter which
he performed sundry feats of balancing, more
curious to witness than to describe.
While going through with these little exhibitions
of skill in the gymnastic art it suddenly
occurred to the lively youth that an interview
commenced after the fashion he had witnessed
would not end in a hurry, and that while it
lasted he was virtually his own master. It occurred
to him also that he wanted to hold a consultation
with a boy in a neighboring office a
to the possibility of a visit to the theatre that
night. So Tim stole away without asking leave
of absence.
Neither Mr. Gray nor Mliss remarked his absence.
For once the child was so overcome by
the violence of her emotions as to fall into a
condition verging upon hysterics. The master
as she still called him, held her to his heart and
kissed her again and again, and Mliss, forgetting
that she was almost thirteen, forgetting
also that she had an antipathy to young men,
allowed herself to be placed upon his knee, and
her head to be held against his breast. It was
such delicious rest to feel once more around her
the arm of a beloved friend, that she would rather
have endured over again the heart hunger
of the last six months than have lost the least
of those tender caresses.
While this scene was being enacted an elegantly-dressed
young lady swept up the stairs leading
to Mr. Shaw's office, and entered the reception-room
without knocking. The room, as the
reader knows, was vacant. The agile Tim had
deserted his post. The lady saw that the door to
Mr. Gray's office was partly opened, and she
thought, perhaps, that she would give that gentleman
a pleasant surprise. So, with a half
smile on her lips, she advanced to the door, tapped
lightly, and pushed it open. The smile
quickly gave place to a look of consternation.
She stood transfixed as she met, looking over a
head that nestled on his breast, the innocent
and calm blue eyes of the young lawyer.
Mr. Gray, not in the least discomposed, made
a movement to arise, and the act disturbed the
position which Mliss had appareetly found so
comfortable. She raised her head, and following
the gaze of her companion, saw, framed as it
were in the doorway, the figure of a young and
elegant woman.
Miss Shaw had by this time recovered the
use of her tongue.
“Pray, don't disturb yourself, Mr. Gray,” she
said, with a look that gave point to her
words; “I can call again,” and she disappeared.
Mliss and the master had yet hardly spoken.
Mliss retained her seat, and winding one finger
in his beard, she gave his head a willful little
jerk, saking:
“Another Clytie, bad man.”
“No, Lissy, not another Clytie.”
