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."
Lady Agatha shrugged her shoulders with a hateful smile. "Oh, I dare say Mr. Towle will be very glad of the outcome later on," she said carelessly. "It is not easy to account for the vagaries of elderly men. But it was not to speak of this absurd contretemps that I sent for you this morning, Jane; Gwendolen reported to me what took place in her room last night, and at first I contemplated referring the whole matter to your uncle; but——"