“You,” he said curtly, “are the young woman who refused to marry my grandson.”

The words were so totally unexpected that Avery literally gasped with astonishment.  To be taken to task on this subject was an ordeal for which she was wholly unprepared.

“Well?” he said irritably.  “That is so, I believe?  You did refuse to marry him?”

“Yes,” Avery admitted, feeling the hot colour flood her face under the merciless scrutiny of the stone-grey eyes.

“But—­but—­”

“Well?” he said again, still more irritably.  “But what?”

“Oh, need we discuss it?” she said appealingly.  “I would so much rather not.”

“I desire to discuss it,” said Sir Beverley autocratically.  “I desire to know—­what objection you have to my grandson.  Many women, let me tell you, of far higher social standing than yourself would jump at such a chance.  But you—­you take upon yourself to refuse it.  I desire to know why.”

He spoke with a stubbornness that overbore all bodily weakness.  He would be a tyrant to his last breath.

But Avery could not bring herself to answer him.  She felt as if he were trying to force his way into a place which regarded as peculiarly sacred, from which in some fashion she owed it to Piers as well as to herself to bar him out.

“I am sorry,” she said gently after a moment, “but I am afraid that is just what I can’t tell you.”

She saw Sir Beverley’s chin thrust out at just the indomitable angle with which Piers had made her familiar, and she realized that he had no intention of abandoning his point.

“You told him, I suppose?” he demanded gruffly.

A faint sense of amusement arose within her, her anxiety notwithstanding.  It struck her as ludicrous that she should be browbeaten on this point.

She made answer with more assurance.  “I told him that the idea was unsuitable, out of the question, that he ought to marry a girl of his own age and station—­not a middle-aged widow like me.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Sir Beverley impatiently.  “You belong to the same generation, don’t you?  What more do you want?”

If he had slapped her face, Avery would scarcely have felt more amazed, She gazed at him in silence, wondering if she could have heard aright.

Sir Beverley frowned upon her fiercely, the iron will of him scorning and surmounting his physical weakness.

“You’ve got nothing against the boy, I suppose?” he pursued, with the evident determination to get at the truth despite all opposition.  “He has never given you any cause for complaint?  He’s behaved himself like a gentleman, hey?”

“Oh, of course, of course!” Avery said in distress.  “It’s not that!”

Sir Beverley frowned still more heavily.  “Then—­what the devil is it?” he demanded.  “Don’t you like him well enough?  Aren’t you—­in love with him?” His lips curled ironically over the words; they sounded inexpressibly bitter.