“Who is it?”
“I was not told to say, Miss. You will find the gentleman in the library.”
“What if I refuse to go down?”
“I should advise against that, Miss.”
She had a vision of herself carried down, kicking, struggling, to be pitched unceremoniously into some man’s presence. It was unendurable.
“Say I will be down in a moment,” she said.
“Thank you, Miss.”
It was not her father, of course, but who could it be who was allowed to see her? She could not imagine, and speculations were futile. In five minutes she was descending the stairs. At the front door stood the new servant, his eyes upon her respectfully. There obviously was to be no chance to avoid the library for an attempt at the out-of-doors. She walked to the library door and stepped inside. Cantor arose and stepped toward her eagerly, hand extended, his winning smile lighting his face.
“Welcome home,” he said. “I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you all these months.”
“How do you do, Mr. Cantor?” she said, unsmiling and somehow unsurprised. She had not expected to see him, yet that it should be he was not astonishing. Indeed, thought she, who else could it have been if—if the thing she had vague reasons for suspecting of this man were true?