"You wouldn't want to come and grow in my green-house then?" he smiled sadly.
I shook my head. "That's just it, Bob. I don't want to grow in any green-house yet. I want to be blown and tossed by all the winds of the world that blow."
"I'll let you grow as you wish," he persisted.
"Please, Bob," I pleaded. "Please——"
He turned away. I didn't want to hurt him.
"Bob," I said gently, "please understand. It isn't only that I think the reasons for our decision of a year ago still exist, but I've just got to stay here now, Bob, even though I don't want to. I've got it firmly fixed in my mind now that I'm going to see my undertaking through to a successful end. I'm bound to show Tom and the family what sort of stuff I'm made of. I'm going to prove that women aren't weak and vacillating. Why, I haven't been even a year here yet. I couldn't run to cover the first time I found myself out of a position. Besides the first position wasn't one I could exhibit to the family. I must stay. I'm just as anxious to prove myself a success as a young man whose family doesn't think he's got it in him. Please understand, and help me, Bob."
"Shall we see each other sometimes?" he queried.
"It's no use. It doesn't help," I said. "I do care for you, somehow, and seeing you seems to make foggy what was so clear and crystal, as if I were looking at it through a mist. I mean sitting here with you makes me feel—makes me forget what I marched for day before yesterday. I was so full of it—of all it meant and stood for—and now——No, Bob. No. You must let me work these things out alone. I shall never be satisfied now until I do."
He left me at my door. There was a light in the windows upstairs, and I knew that Esther had come home. Bob left me with just an ordinary hand-shake. It hurt somehow—that formal little ceremony from him. It hurt, too, afterward to stand in the doorway and watch him walking away. It hurt to hear the sound of his steady step growing fainter and fainter. O Bob, you might have turned around and waved!
I went upstairs. "Hello," said Esther. "Where have you been?" and I told her to dinner with a man from home. A little later I announced to her that I had resigned my position as private secretary to Mrs. Sewall. She asked no questions but she made her own slow deductions.