“You mistake my position,” said Robert.  It was in his mind then to lay the matter fully before her, as he had disdained to do before the committee, but her next words deterred him.

“I understand your position very fully,” said she.

Robert bowed.

“There is only one way of looking at it,” said Ellen, in her inexpressibly sweet, almost fanatical voice.  She tossed her head, and the fluff of fair hair over her temples caught a beam of afternoon sunlight.

“She is only a child,” thought Robert, looking at her.  He rose and crossed over to the sofa, and sat down beside her with a masterful impatience.  “Look here, Ellen,” he said, leaving all general issues for their own personal ones, “you are not going to let this come between us?”

Ellen sat stiff and straight, and made no reply.

“All this can make very little difference to you,” Robert urged.  “You know how I feel.  That is, it can make very little difference to you if you still feel as you did.  You must know that I have only been waiting—­that I am eager and impatient to lift you out of it all.”

Ellen faced him.  “Do you think I would be lifted out of it now?” she said.

“Why, but, Ellen, you cannot—­”

“Yes, I can.  You do not know me.”

“Ellen, you are under a total misapprehension of my position.”

“No, I am not.  I apprehend it perfectly.”

“Ellen, you cannot let this separate us.”

Ellen looked straight ahead in silence.

“You at least owe it to me to tell me if, irrespective of this, your feelings have changed,” Robert said, in a low voice.

Ellen said nothing.

“You may have come to prefer some one else,” said Robert.

“I prefer no one before my own, before all these poor people who are a part of my life,” Ellen cried out, suddenly, her face flaming.

“Then why do you refuse to let me act for their final good?  You must know what it means to have them thrown out of work in midwinter.  You know the factory will remain closed for the present on account of the strike.”

“I did not doubt it,” said Ellen, in a hard voice.  All the bitter thoughts to which she would not give utterance were in her voice.

“I cannot continue to run the factory at the present rate and meet expenses,” said Robert; “in fact, I have been steadily losing for the last month.”  He had, after all, descended to explanation.  “It amounts to my either reducing the wage-list or closing the factory altogether,” he continued.  “For my own good I ought to close the factory altogether, but I thought I would give the men a chance.”

Robert thought by saying that he must have finally settled matters.  It did not enter his head that she would really think it advisable for him to continue losing money.  The pure childishness of her attitude was something really beyond the comprehension of a man of business who had come into hard business theories along with his uncle’s dollars.