jump. She felt suddenly that she was
in deeper than she had expected to be.

"Do you realise," he began gravely, "what you accuse Mrs. Blake of?"

Lydia had not been used to think of her by that name and she asked, with
lifted glance:

"Esther?"

"Yes. Mrs. Jeffrey Blake."

"She took the necklace," said Lydia. She spoke with the dull obstinacy
that made Anne shake her sometimes and then kiss her into kindness, she
was so pretty.

But Alston Choate, she saw, was not going to find it a road to
prettiness. He was after the truth like a dog on a scent, and he didn't
think he had it yet.

"Madame Beattie," he said, "tells you she believes that Esther--" his
voice slipped caressingly on the word with the lovingness of usage, and
Lydia saw he called her Esther in his thoughts--"Madame Beattie tells
you she believes that Esther did this--this incredible thing."

The judicial aspect fell away from him, and the last words carried only
the man's natural distaste. Lydia saw now that whether she was believed
or not, she was bound to be most unpopular. But she stood to her guns.

"Madame Beattie knows it. Esther owned it, I told you."

"Owned it to Madame Beattie?"

"To Jeff, anyway. Madame Beattie says so."

"Do you think for a moment she was telling you the truth?"

"But that's just the kind of women they are," said Lydia, at once
reckless and astute. "Esther's just the woman to take a necklace, and
Madame Beattie's just the woman to tell you she's taken it."

"Miss Lydia," said Choate gravely, "I'm bound to warn you in advance
that you mustn't draw that kind of inference."

Lydia lost her temper. It seemed to her she had been talking plain fact.

"I shall draw all the inferences I please," said she, "especially if
they're true. And you needn't try to mix me up by your law terms, for I
don't understand them."

"I have been particularly careful not to," said Choate rather stiffly;
but still, she saw, with an irritating proffer of compassion for her
because she didn't know any better. "I am being very unprofessional
indeed. And I still advise you, in plain language, not to draw that sort
of inference about a lady--" There he hesitated.

"About Esther?" she inquired viciously.

"Yes," said he steadily, "about Mrs. Jeffrey Blake. She is a
gentlewoman."

So Anne had said: "Esther is a lady." For the moment Lydia felt more
imbued with the impartiality of the law than both of them. Esther's
being a lady had, she