She understood Isaac Worthington, now, as well as his son understood him.  She knew that, if she were to yield to Bob Worthington, his father would disown and disinherit him.  She looked ahead into the years as a woman will, and allowed herself for the briefest of moments to wonder whether any happiness could thrive in spite of the violence of that schism—­any happiness for him.  She would be depriving him of his birthright, and it may be that those who are born without birthrights often value them the most.  Cynthia saw these things, and more, for those who sit at the feet of sorrow soon learn the world’s ways.  She saw herself pointed out as the woman whose designs had beggared and ruined him in his youth, and (agonizing and revolting thought!) the name of one would be spoken from whom she had learned such craft.  Lest he see the scalding tears in her eyes, she turned away and conquered them.  What could she do?  Where should she hide her love that it might not be seen of men?  And how, in truth, could she tell him these things?

“Cynthia,” he went on, seeing that she did not answer, and taking heart, “I will not say a word against my father.  I know you would not respect me if I did.  We are different, he and I, and find happiness in different ways.”  Bob wondered if his father had ever found it.  “If I had never met you and loved you, I should have refused to lead the life my father wishes me to lead.  It is not in me to do the things he will ask.  I shall have to carve out my own life, and I feel that I am as well able to do it as he was.  Percy Broke, a classmate of mine and my best friend, has a position for me in a locomotive works in which his father is largely interested.  We are going in together, the day after we graduate; it is all arranged, and his father has agreed.  I shall work very hard, and in a few years, Cynthia, we shall be together, never to part again.  Oh, Cynthia,” he cried, carried away by the ecstasy of this dream which he had, summoned up, “why do you resist me?  I love you as no man has ever loved,” he exclaimed, with scornful egotism and contempt of those who had made the world echo with that cry through the centuries, “and you love me!  Ah, do you think I do not see it—­cannot feel it?  You love me—­tell me so.”

He was coming toward her, and how was she to prevent his taking her by storm?  That was his way, and well she knew it.  In her dreams she had felt herself lifted and borne off, breathless in his arms, to Elysium.  Her breath was going now, her strength was going, and yet she made him pause by the magic of a word.  A concession was in that word, but one could not struggle so piteously and concede nothing.

“Bob,” she said, “do you love me?”

Love her!  If there was a love that acknowledged no bounds, that was confined by no superlatives, it was his.  He began to speak, but she interrupted him with a wild passion that was new to her.  As he sat in the train on his way back to Cambridge through the darkening afternoon, the note of it rang in his ears and gave him hope—­yes, and through many months afterward.