d still, almost wishing for Sophy whose
footfalls lessened on the stairs. There were two bits of light in the
room, the candle and Madame Beattie's face. Madame Beattie had taken off
her toupee, and for Lydia she had not troubled to put it on. She lay on
the bed against pillows, a down quilt drawn over her feet, regardless of
the seasonable warmth, and a disorder of paper-covered books about her.
One she held in her ringed hand, and now she put it down, her eyeglasses
with it, and turned the candle so that the light from the reflector fell
on Lydia's face.

"I wasn't sure which girl it was," she said, in a tone of mild
good-nature. "It's not the good one. It's you, mischief. Come and sit
down."

Madame Beattie did not apologise for giving audience in her bedchamber.
In the old royal days before the downfall of her kingdom she had
accorded it to greater than Lydia French. Lydia's breath came so fast
now that it hurt her. She stepped forward, but she did not take the low
chair which really had quite a comfortable area left beyond Madame
Beattie's corset and stockings. She stood there in the circle of light
and said desperately:

"What was it about your necklace?"

She had created an effect. Madame Beattie herself gasped.

"For God's sake, child," said she, "what do you know about my necklace?"

"I don't know anything," said Lydia. "And I want to know everything that
will help Jeff."

She broke down here, and cried bitterly. Madame Beattie lay there
looking at her, at first with sharp eyes narrowed, as if she rather
doubted whose emissary Lydia might be. Then her face settled into an
astonished yet astute calm and wariness.

"You'll have to sit down," said she. "It's a long story." So Lydia sank
upon the zone left by the corset and stockings. "Who's been talking to
you?" asked Madame Beattie: but Lydia looked at her and dumbly shook her
head. "Jeff?"

"No. Oh, no!"

"His father?"

"Farvie? Not a word."

Madame Beattie considered.

"What business is it of yours?" she asked.

Lydia winced. She was used to softness from Anne and the colonel. But
she controlled herself. If she meant to enter on the task of exonerating
Jeffrey, she must, she knew, make herself impervious to snubs.

"Anne and I are doing all we can to help Jeffrey," she said. "He doesn't
know it. Farvie doesn't know it. But there's something about a necklace.
And it had ever so much to do with Jeffrey and his case. And I want to
know."

Ma