d against that reason. It was a
pleasure to see him, so she freely admitted to herself. Why should she
not have that pleasure? If the truth be told, she had argued it all out
before, when she had wondered whether he would come. Mrs. Merrill, she
thought, would not object to his coming. But--there was the question she
had meant to ask him.

"Bob," she said, turning to him, "Bob, would your father want you to
come?"

It was growing dark, and she could scarcely see his face. He hesitated,
but he did not attempt to evade the question.

"No, he would not," he answered. And added, with a good deal of force and
dignity: "I am of age, and can choose my own friends. I am my own master.
If he knew you as I knew you, he would look at the matter in a different
light."

Cynthia felt that this was not quite true. She smiled a little sadly.

"I am afraid you don't know me very well, Bob." He was about to protest,
but she went on, bravely, "Is it because he has quarrelled with Uncle
Jethro?"

"Yes," said Bob. She was making it terribly hard for him, sparing indeed
neither herself nor him.

"If you come here to see me, it will cause a quarrel between you and your
father. I--I cannot do that."

"There is nothing wrong in my seeing you," said Bob, stoutly; "if he
cares to quarrel with me for that, I cannot help it. If the people I
choose for my friends are good people, he has no right to an objection,
even though he is my father."

Cynthia had never come so near real admiration for him as at that moment.

"No, Bob, you must not come," she said. "I will not have you quarrel with
him on my account."

"Then I will quarrel with him on my own account," he had answered.
"Good-by. You may expect me this day week."

He went into the hall to put on his overcoat. Cynthia stood still on the
spot of the carpet where he had left her. He put his head in at the door.

"This day week," he said.

"Bob, you must not come," she answered. But the street door closed after
him as he spoke.

CHAPTER IX

"You must not come." Had Cynthia made the prohibition strong enough?
Ought she not to have said, "If you do come, I will not see you?" Her
knowledge of the motives of the men and women in the greater world was
largely confined to that which she had gathered from novels--not trashy
novels, but those by standard authors of English life. And many another
girl of nineteen has taken a novel for a guide when she has been suddenly
confronted