Round the Corner in Gay Street Part 25

"When?"

"Now. He 's in the library."

Murray got up. "You are in earnest," he remarked. "Yes, I 'll go with you. But you 'll find the question will have to be pretty thoroughly threshed out with him before he agrees. He employs none but experts; you 'll have to win your spurs before you can wear them. And good stenographers are born, not made. If you 've got it in you, you 'll succeed; if you have n't, you won't, no matter how hard you try."

He could not see his sister's eyes, but he could read the determination in her voice as she answered that it was the expectation of winning those spurs that made her heart jump just to think about it.

It was a fortnight after this talk, and the longer and more earnest one which succeeded it, that, coming away from the factory one warm July afternoon at an earlier hour than usual, Peter Bell happened upon his young neighbour in a most unexpected place. Far downtown, blocks below the usual shopping district, he saw Shirley Townsend come out of a doorway and start rapidly up the street. She had not seen him, and he was too far away to call to her, so he was forced to quicken his pace almost to a run to overtake her at the next corner before she signalled her car.

She had walked so fast that the best he could do was to run and swing himself aboard the same car just as it got under way. The car was full, and Shirley herself was obliged to stand, clinging to a strap. Peter secured a strap beside her. There was little chance for conversation during the long ride uptown, but Peter's eyes were observant, and he noticed a peculiarity in Shirley's attire.

At an hour in the afternoon when the girls of her sort would all be wearing light frocks and ribbons, Shirley was dressed like the girls in the office he had just left. With a difference--which Peter's eyes also discerned, although he could not have told just where the difference lay. Shirley's white blouse, her blue serge skirt, her sailor hat, her trim shoes, all bore about them the stamp of quality, indefinable, yet not to be denied.

As for her face, Peter thought he had never seen it so alight with life.

The smile she had flashed at him was brilliant. He was glad he had caught the car. It was a decided enlivenment of the long ride, monotonous with daily repet.i.tion, just to stand beside the trim, swaying figure, and occasionally exchange a word with its possessor. Besides, he was feeling not a little curiosity as to the errand which had taken her to a place where hung the sign of a well-known commercial college.

"It is a hot day, isn't it?" observed Shirley, when he had handed her off the car, and they were walking up Gay Street toward Worthington Square. "Just the day to get into the country. I 'd like a gallop over about ten miles of good roads--just to feel the wind in my face."

"It would be great, would n't it?" agreed Peter.

She looked up at him. "You and Olive don't ride as much as you used to."

"She has n't seemed to care for it for the last year or so."

"Hasn't she asked you to ride Grayback whenever you wanted?"

"She 's been very kind about offering him. But I don't like to go over and order him out myself."

"He 's pining for exercise. So is Pretty Polly, though I had one short canter on her before breakfast. You 've never been out with me on horseback. Perhaps you don't know I can ride."

"I have my eyesight. And as for inviting you to go with me--how can I, when you have the horses? If you 're asking me to go with you--there 's nothing on earth I 'd rather do just now."

"I believe that," thought Shirley, as she ran into the house to change her clothes. "If ever a man looked as if he 'd like to drop his cares and get off on a horse's back, Peter does to-day."

In a few minutes she was crossing the lawn, in her riding habit, crop in hand. Peter met her, himself in riding trim. His face showed his pleasure in the prospect, as he put her up and swung into his own saddle.

"'If wishes were horses,'" he quoted, as they turned toward the Northboro road. "And sometimes they are. An hour ago I was looking out of the office window at the factory, and wishing for this very sort of thing. I ought to see Grandfather Bell. Do you mind if we go that way?"

"I 'm fond of that way. It will give us a good gallop down the old turnpike, and a cool walk through the woods to freshen the horses."

Once out of the city they were off at a brisk trot, talking a little now and then, but mostly busy with thoughts. They had seen so little of each other since Shirley's return that a sense of having begun a new acquaintanceship hampered them both. They had not yet found common ground.

"Now for the gallop," said Shirley, as they rounded a turn and came out upon a long, level stretch of road, with few vehicles in sight.

"This is the spot where your sister lost most of her hairpins, when she took her first ride with me," said Peter, indicating to Grayback that a change of pace was in order. "I don't think she 'd ever had such a dashing get-away before. Off, are you? Well, well, you do mean business, don't you? All right, I 'm with you. But don't expect me to recover the hairpins!" he called, as Grayback picked up the pace Pretty Polly had set.

But both Pretty Polly and her rider were evidently on their mettle, and Grayback, bigger and longer of stride though he was, had to look to his heels to keep up with the little brown mare.

Shirley proved a daring rider, and before she finally pulled Polly down to a canter she certainly had felt the wind in her face with a rush.

When she looked round at Peter, as they entered the mile-long course of wood-shaded road which succeeded the turnpike, she met a brighter smile than she had seen on his face since she came home, two months before.

Once more, for the moment, he looked the care-free boy again.

"You may be a pupil of the riding-schools, but you 've taken plenty of road-training since," was his comment. "And not a hairpin loose, so far as I can see."

"That's because I always tie my mop with a ribbon for riding, like any schoolgirl. It's childish, but comfortable. Is n't this deliciously cool in here? And I 've forgotten all about the pothooks already." But having said this, Shirley bit her lip. She had not meant to tell yet.

"Pothooks?" repeated Peter, curiously. "Have you been bothered by pothooks lately?"

"A trifle." She turned away her head, and pointed out a fine clump of ferns, growing on a bank by the roadside.

"Do you want them?" he asked.

"No, no, not enough to get down for. I--said something I did n't mean to, and the ferns offered a way of escape."

Peter was silent, wondering what she could mean.

Then Shirley said, frankly:

"That sounds rude, and I 'm going to tell you."

"Not because something slipped out. I won't even guess at it, unless you want me to."

"I do--now. I think I 'd like to tell you, though not even Nancy knows yet. My family do--but I don't think even they quite realise what it means to me. Perhaps you would."

"I 'd like to try."

"I--have begun to study stenography," said Shirley. "When I've learned it--and typewriting--thoroughly, I 'm to have a place in Murray's office."

She said it with her eyes looking straight between her horse's ears; and she did not see the quick, astonished glance which fell upon her.

Peter made no answer for so long that she turned, wondering and a little resentful.

"I beg your pardon," said Peter. "I believe I forgot to answer. But that was n't from lack of interest. You took my breath away. When I got it back I fell to thinking that I might have expected it of you."

"You might? Why?"

"I 'm not good at telling my thoughts. But I knew you had a mind of your own from the day you first gave Nancy Bell of Gay Street the preference over the little Hille girl of Worthington Square."

"Gay Street was sixteen times more interesting than Worthington Square, always," declared Shirley, frankly.

"How do you like the pothooks?"

"I 'm going to like them, whether they 're likable or not. Just now I 'm in a sort of delirium ever them. Little black quirls and dots and dashes walk through my dreams. I 've just one week of it now, and I 'm fascinated. The only trouble is, I want to get hold of everything at once."

"Hold steady and make sure as you go. Slow accuracy at first is much better than a fast jumble that you can't read yourself. If you like it, and are getting hold of it already, that shows you are going to win out.

It's easy to tell, from the start, who 'll make a stenographer in the end and who won't."

"That's what Murray says, and it encourages me. You 've studied it yourself, then?"