35. CHAPTER XXXV.
MISS KITTY'S FLIRTATION.
If we have described Miss Kitty Fox's emotions
on meeting Mr. Gray with tolerable accuracy,
the reader will suspect her to be a victim
of that dangerous disease known among poets
and novelists as Love at First Sight. The young
lady deceived herself in regard to the state of
her affections. She thought she only wanted
the excitement of a lively flirtation, while in
fact she was longing for a more serious conflict
in the court of Love than young ladies usually
comprehend under that vague description of
amorous encounter. She had arrived at an age
when she was making new discoveries in regard
to herself every day, and was desirous of testing
the value of these discoveries as elements of happiness.
The narrow limits allowed in her circle
to social intercourse between the sexes did not
afford the desired opportunity. But the barrier
which separated her from the more promising
fields in which she longed to wander was not
impassable. Miss Kitty knew that many of her
lady friends had tripped over it, enjoyed a gay
frolic and tripped back apparently unharmed.
Her ardent imagination led her over, far beyond
the shadow it cast, and in their wanderings the
hero who led her astray was the grave and handsome
lawyer bearing the unromantic name of
John Gray.
But Miss Kitty hardly knew how to arrange
a second meeting. Mr. Gray was not a society
man, or at least he did not attend the gatherings
which Miss Kitty's associates dignified
as social parties. Weeks passed and she did not even
see him. One day she met him face to face on Montgomery
street, and while conscious of a rising flush,
she was conscious also that he had not recognized her.
Her fever abated for a day or two after this meeting,
but afterward returned in redoubled force. The result
was a letter written in the utmost secrecy, and
couched in the most transparently ambiguous language,
signed by the fanciful name of “Rosebud,”
and addressed to “John Gray.”
This letter elicited no response. Mr. Gray's affections
were at that time divided between two young
girls whom Kitty knew pretty well, and he had no
surplus love to bestow on a stranger. The letter was
laid away and forgotten.
Miss Kitty's fever suffered a second abatement, but
in time renewed its forces and stormed the citadel of
her heart. The security of a feigned name suggested
a bolder system of tactics than she would have adopted
had she been writing or speaking in her own person.
The advantages of anonymous letter-writing
were manifold. She could draw him out and remain
concealed herself. She could offer him the incense of
love without compromising her own dignity. She
could lead him on, and draw back as he advanced.
And finally, should he contrive to meet his “Rosebud,”
he would not know who she was, since he had
failed to recognize Miss Kitty Fox. So the impassioned
girl wrote letter after letter, each more fervid
than the last, and these letters were read carelessly,
laid away, and finally reread at the time when Mr.
Gray was smarting under the infliction of a double
loss—the loss of Mliss and the defection of Regina.
The letters when first read had excited a smile of
compassion. It was easy to see that they were the
productions of a foolish young girl rather than of an
experienced intriguante. Their artlessness was as
apparent as their folly. The glow of passion was in
every line, but the writer was evidently but dimly
conscious of the purport of her words, from the man-of-the-world
standpoint. She did not mean one-half
of what it could be shown that she must have meant.
Judging harshly, as amatory correspondence is usually
judged, the writer's morals might be open to suspicion,
or the writer herself placed in the category of
women who, if not fallen, contemplate without dismay
the possibility of falling.
Read a second time under changed conditions of
mind, the letters produced a deeper impression.
Probably the morals of the best of men are subject
to the influence of circumstances. The temptation
that we lightly put aside at one time, we reacily embrace
at another. Mr. Gray had read these letters
once without the slightest desire to meet the writer;
he read them a second time and decided to seek an interview.
The foresight of the writer, in giving a
name by which she might be addressed in a letter rendered
the preliminary steps comparatively easy.
A few days after Miss Kitty's chaotic heart was
brown into a delightful ferment. The answer she
had despaired of receiving had come at last. She beheld
herself addressed as “My sweet little Rosebud.”
and for a moment she could get no farther. But the
writer proceeded to thank her for the many evidences
of partiality she had evinced, spoke of the pleasure
such evidences of partiality had given him, and closed
with a request for a personal interview. The time and
place he left to her suggestion, adding that if no more
convenient method suggested itself, he would be on
the Oakland boat at eleven the following Saturday. A
rosebud in her left hand would enable him to designate
her.
Miss Kitty got the letter out of the post-office herself
Thursday afternoon. She did not dare to read it
until she was home and locked in her own room. Then
she tore it open, and was filled with consternation at
the proposition for an interview. She had always contemplated
an interview at some future time, but now
that she stood face to face with it she was a little
frightened. She was not quite certain what construction
might be placed by Mr. Gray upon her letters.
She had heard it intimated that Mr. Gray was a bad
man. Not that she would like him the less for being
bad, but being bad he might form the opinion that
Rosebud was not very much better. But, notwithstanding
all these reasons why she should not grant
an interview, she had not the slightest idea of losing
the offered opportunity. Even if her heart should fail
her on the boat she need not display the rosebud.
Miss Kitty passed two such nights as some girls
never pass in a lifetime. The whole world of romance
and love seemed opening to her view. The man her
imagination had invested with all the qualities of a
hero, was to assist in the solution of the mysteries
with which Nature enshrouds the entrance into real
life. He was seeking her of his own will. There
were scares of beautiful women who must be dying
for a smile, whom he passed to seek his unknown
Rosebud. And then there was the question as to her
powers to please. Was she as pretty as he would expect
her to be after choosing her poetic and fragrant
name! Could she talk to please him, and would he
want to see her again! Would he address her coldly
and formally or would he be wicked and want to take
her in his arms and call her his rosebud.
Kitty rather expected he would be just a little wicked,
and in her heart she did not know that she could
blame him after reading her letters.
On Friday Miss Kitty wrote to an intimate school
friend, Miss Julia James, by name, informing her that
she was coming over Saturday to spend the day. Suturday
morning she informed her father that Miss
Julia James had invited her to spend the day with her
and had his permission. Miss Julia James being an
estimable young lady of the same set that Miss Kitty
belonged to, Dr. Fox made no objection. Her brother
could accompany her to the boat and Miss Julia would
meet her at the Oakland depot.
Fully twenty minutes before eleven Miss Kitty was
ensconsed in her chosen corner on the Oakland boat.
She had chosen her position so that she could see people
as they approached, not only that she might see
Mr. Gray when he came, but also another acquaintance
who ought to be on board. Her vail was doubled
four times over her charming face, and a shawl served
as a further screen in the event of the approach of
some person she did not wish to meet. Beneath the
shawl, in her left hand, she held a rosebud, the innocent
little token by which, if she chose, she was to
make herself known to her proposed companion.
Thus intrenched against unwarranted attack, Miss
Kitty sat and watched the passengers as they came on
board. She recognized several acquaintances but no
intimate friends. At five minutes to eleven Mr. Gray
passed through the gate, smoking a cigar, his overcoat
on his arm. Kitty's heart gave two or three tumultuous
throbs, and the tell-tale rosebud was unconsciously
drawn beneath her shawl. But after a moment
she rather enjoyed the situation. It was pleasant
to sit, herself unseen, and watch the movements
and expression of the man who had come to make her
acquaintance. She was a little disappointed at first
at seeing him with a cigar in his mouth. On
reflection, however, she concluded that that offense
might be forgiven. If the cigar indicated a
coolness and self-control, she was far from experiencing
herself, that very coolness and self-control indicated
a man of the world to whom clandestine meetings
were no great novelty. And then she was mistress
of the situation. If she did not choose to display
the rosebud, Mr. Gray could never find her out.
Could she be so very sure, however, that he would not
find her out? These men, she had heard, had a
thousand devices by which they followed a secret
flirtation to its source. Some were suspected of the
faculty of reading a young girl's thoughts in her eyes.
Others resorted to tricks, the repetition of expressions
that their correspondence had made mutually familiar,
or the chance whisper of a name, watching meanwhile
the effect. And girls were generally so easily caught.
Should Mr. Gray chance to come near her and by any
pretense utter the word “rosebud,” she knew she
should faint. And then of course he would know who
she was. If she did not faint, she would blush and
her eyes would betray her. She wished she could
smoke a horried cigar as coolly as the handsome gentleman
who seemed to have nothing else on his mind.
Just as the boat was about to push off a handsome
carriage drove on board in which were a lady and a
gentleman. Miss Kitty recognized the lady as Miss
Regina Shaw and the gentleman as Mr. Hopp. The
latter she only knew as a gentleman who sometimes
attended her church in company with Miss Shaw.
Miss Shaw raised her vail as they came to a halt
glanced upward, and bowed to some one on the upper
deck. Miss Kitty saw that that some one was Mr.
Gray. She saw also that Regina was looking exceedingly
beautiful, and that after her bow her eyes turned
frequently toward Mr. Gray. Miss Kitty saw furthermore,
that Miss Shaw gave monosyllabic replies to her
companion though she had been talking gayly when
they first appeared. Miss Kitty, with the precipitancy
characteristic of her age and sex, jumped at once at
the conclusion that Miss Shaw would rather have Mr.
Gray in the carriage than the gentleman who was
there. Miss Kitty found courage on this supposition
to bring her rosebud to view, and stealthily practice
the manner of disclosure which was to serve as an
introduction.
At last Mr. Gray tossed his cigar over the steamer's
side, and entered the ladies' cabin. Without seeming
to be in search of any one in particular, his eye
rested upon each face as a man's might who was
likely to meet in such a place a number of acquaintances.
The vailed figure in the remote corner attracted
his attention, and he walked leisurely that way.
Miss Kitty's courage deserted her. We might say it
fled, but the act of flying implies existence. In her
anxiety to escape detection she changed her rosebud
from the left to the right, and buried the latter under
her shawl. The gentleman meantime was approaching.
The gentleman, without seeming to look particularly
at Miss Kitty had, apparently, observed this
movement, for he walked up to her as if she had been
an old acquaintance, and held out his hand.
