There he was before the fire, his feet slightly apart and his hands in his pockets, waiting for her.  She got a glimpse of him standing thus, as she came down the stairs.  It was not the attitude of a culprit.  Nor did he bear the faintest resemblance to a culprit as he came up to her in the doorway.  The chief recollection she carried away of that moment was that his teeth were very white and even when he smiled.  He had the impudence to smile.  He had the impudence to seize one of her hands in his, and to hold aloft a sheet of paper in the other.

“What does this mean?” said he.

“What do you thick it means?” retorted Cynthia, with dignity.

“A summons to stay away,” said Bob, thereby more or less accurately describing it.  “What would you have thought of me if I had not come?”

Cynthia was not prepared for any such question as this.  She had meant to ask the questions herself.  But she never lacked for words to protect herself.

“I’ll tell you what I think of you for coming, Bob, for insisting upon seeing me as you did,” she said, remembering with shame Ellen’s account of that proceeding.  “It was very unkind and very thoughtless of you.”

“Unkind?” Thus she succeeded in putting him on the defensive.

“Yes, unkind, because I know it is best for you not to come to see me, and you know it, and yet you will not help me when I try to do what is right.  I shall be blamed for these visits,” she said.  The young ladies in the novels always were.  But it was a serious matter for poor Cynthia, and her voice trembled a little.  Her troubles seemed very real.

“Who will blame you?” asked Bob, though he knew well enough.  Then he added, seeing that she did not answer:  “I don’t at all agree with you that it is best for me not to see you.  I know of nobody in the world it does me more good to see than yourself.  Let’s sit down and talk it all over,” he said, for she still remained standing uncompromisingly by the door.

The suspicion of a smile came over Cynthia’s face.  She remembered how Ellen had been wheedled.  Her instinct told her that now was the time to make a stand or never.

“It wouldn’t do any good, Bob,” she replied, shaking her head; “we talked it all over last week.”

“Not at all,” said he, “we only touched upon a few points last week.  We ought to thrash it out.  Various aspects of the matter have occurred to me which I ought to call to your attention.”

He could not avoid this bantering tone, but she saw that he was very much in earnest too.  He realized the necessity of winning; likewise, and he had got in and meant to stay.

“I don’t want to argue,” said Cynthia.  “I’ve thought it all out.”

“So have I,” said Bob.  “I haven’t thought of anything else, to speak of.  And by the way,” he declared, shaking the envelope, “I never got a colder and more formal letter in my life.  You must have taken it from one of Miss Sadler’s copy books.”