"If you wish to talk to me," said Jane defiantly, "you will be obliged to come around to the back door. I will ask my mistress if I may speak with you in the kitchen for a few minutes. But there isn't any use of talking," she added. "I will not go home—at least not yet." Then she shut the door in his face.
Mr. Towle said something fierce under his breath; after which, without any hesitation whatever, he looked about for the kitchen entrance. "I'll talk with her," he said, "if I have to go to Hades to do it."
In the meanwhile Jane was interviewing her mistress. "Mr. Towle has come to see me, ma'am; may I speak with him in the kitchen for a few minutes?" she asked with haughty subservience. "Mary is out; and Master Belknap is playing in his sand pile."
Mrs. Belknap was in the act of putting the finishing touches to a dainty costume. She stopped short and faced about. "Who is Mr. Towle?" she demanded.
"He is a friend of—of Uncle Robert's, from England," replied Jane, rather sullenly to her mistress's thinking.
"Dear, dear!" murmured Mrs. Belknap, eying her pleasing reflection in the glass with a frown. "This is too much! And I was just on the point of going out to a reception; now, of course, I shall be obliged to——"
Jane looked up suddenly. "I don't wish to talk with him," she said.
"Then why not send him away? Wait! I will go down myself and speak with the man. I hope you haven't left him alone below stairs. There have been so many burglaries lately. He is in the kitchen, I suppose."
Jane smothered a hysterical laugh, as Mrs. Belknap's rustling skirts swept down the rear staircase. She heard her young mistress's distinct American voice in a tone of displeased surprise. Then a door closed sharply, and the girl heard a man's retreating steps passing beneath the open window.
"He must be horribly vexed," she murmured; "but I'll not go back to England." She did not choose to question herself too sharply as to her reasons for this dogged resolution. But she reflected that Mr. Towle appeared much older since she had last seen him.