"No, I wouldn't sell," she answered quickly as her breath came back with a gasp.
"Because if you would," he went on cautiously, "I'm in the market to buy. It'll be a long time before that stock pays any dividend. How'd you like to sell a few shares?"
"No, I'd rather not—not now, at least. I'll have to think it over first. But won't you sit down? Really, I'm quite overcome! It's so much more than I had a right to expect."
"If you'd sell me a few shares," went on Rimrock without finesse, "you wouldn't have to work any more. Just name your price and——"
"Oh, I like to work," she countered gaily as she ran off a formal receipt; and, signing her name, she handed it back to him with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "And then there's another reason—sit down, I want to talk to you—I think it will be better for you. Oh, I know how you feel about it; but did you ever consider that other people like their own way, too? Well, when you're off by yourself just think that over, it will help you understand life."
Rimrock Jones sat down with a thud and took off his hat as he gazed at this astonishing woman. She was giving him advice in a most superior manner; and yet she was only a typist.
"You said something one time," she went on seriously, "that hurt my feelings very much—something about being trimmed, and by a woman! I resolved right there that you needed to be educated. Do you mind if I tell you why? Well, in the first place, Mr. Jones, I admire you very much for the way you've kept your word. You are absolutely honest and I won't forget it when it comes to voting my stock. But that cynical attitude that you chose to affect when you came to see me before—that calm way of saying that you couldn't trust anybody, not even the person addressed—that won't get you very far, where a woman is concerned. That is, not very far with me."
She looked him over with a masterful smile and Rimrock began to fumble his hat.
"You took it for granted," she went on accusingly, "that I had set out from the first to trim you but—and here's the thing that makes me furious—you said: 'Trimmed, by grab, by a woman!' Now I'd like to enquire if in your experience you have found women less honest than men; and in the second place I'd like to inform you that I'm just as intelligent as you are. It was no disgrace, as I look at the matter, for you to be bested by me; and as for being trimmed, I'd like to know what grounds you have for that remark? Did I ever ask more than you yourself had promised, or than would be awarded in a court of law? And couldn't I have said, when you went off without seeing me or writing a single word; couldn't I have said, when you went off with my money and were enjoying yourself in New York, that I had been trimmed—by a man?"
She spat out the word with such obvious resentment that Rimrock jumped and looked towards the door. It came over him suddenly that this mild, handsome woman was at heart strictly anti-man. That was putting it mildly, she was anti-Jones and might easily be tempted too far; for right there in her hand she held two thousand shares of stock that could be used most effectively as a club.