CHAPTER IV Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe looked up from the housekeeper's book which she was inspecting with displeased interest, and turned her light blue eyes upon her husband's niece, as she stood a forlorn yet rigidly defiant little figure, her back against the closed door. "You may come in, Jane, and sit down," said Lady Agatha, in precisely the same tone she would have used to a delinquent housemaid. Jane advanced and sat down, every line of her face and figure expressing an exasperating indifference to the stately hauteur of the lady, who on her part proceeded to concentrate her entire attention upon a bundle of tradesmen's accounts, which she compared one by one with the entries in the housekeeper's book. This went on for some twenty minutes, during which period Jane stared unremittingly out of the window against which a cold rain was beating. Then Lady Agatha spoke: "I have purposely detained you in complete silence, Jane, that you might reflect quietly upon your present position in life. I trust you have made good use of the opportunity." Jane made no reply; but she withdrew her eyes from the dripping window pane and fixed them upon her aunt. In return, Lady Agatha focused her frozen stare upon the girl. "Is it _possible_ that you had the _presumption_ to refuse Mr. Towle's offer of marriage last night?" she asked with an indescribable mixture of unwilling respect and cold dislike in her voice. "Yes, Aunt Agatha, I did," said Jane, a faint expression of regret passing over her face. "Why?" "Because I--couldn't--love him." Lady Agatha scowled. "I _cannot_ understand what attracted the man to you in the first place," she said disdainfully. "I believe he only saw you twice." "Three times," Jane corrected her. "You are not," said Lady Agatha, pausing to contemplate the girl's face and figure with the air of one examining a slightly damaged article of merchandise, "at all attractive. You have neither beauty nor style, and you are not in the least clever." Jane appeared to grow smaller in her chair. She sighed deeply. "Besides all this," went on Lady Agatha mercilessly, "you are practically penniless. I cannot understand how such a man as Mr. Towle, exceptionally well connected and very wealthy, _ever_ came to think of such a thing as marrying _you_! But"--spitefully--"I dare say _you_ know well enough how it came about." "I don't know what you mean, Aunt Agatha," stammered poor Jane. "Have you never met Mr. Towle, quite by accident, we will say, on the street, or----" "How can you say such a thing to me, Aunt Agatha!" cried Jane, "as if I were a--servant, or a--a quite common person. I never saw Mr. Towle except in this house, and I never spoke three words to him before last night. And--and I do like him, because he--likes me. But I cannot marry him on that account."