mazed at his altered look. Jeff was like a man
who had had a rage and got over it, who had even heard good news, or had
in some way been recalled. And he had. On the way home, when he had
nearly reached there, in haste to find Lydia and tell her the necklace
was back in Madame Beattie's hands, he had suddenly remembered that he
was a prisoner and that all men were prisoners until they knew they
were, and it became at once imperative to get back to Esther and see if
he could let her out. And the effect of this was to make his face to
shine as that of one who was already released from bondage. To Esther
he looked young, like the Jeff she used to know.

"Don't go, Choate," he said, when Alston picked himself up from the
mantel and straightened, as if his next move might be to walk away. "I
wanted to see Esther, but I'd rather see you both. I've been thinking
about this infernal necklace, and I realise it's of no value at all."

Choate's mind leaped at once to the jewels in Maupassant's story, and
Madame Beattie's quick disclaimer when he ventured to hint the necklace
might be paste. Did Jeff know it was actually of no value?

Jeff began to walk about the room, expressing himself eagerly as if it
were difficult to do it at all and it certainly could not be done if he
sat.

"I mean," said he, "the only value of anything tangible is to help you
get at something that isn't tangible. The necklace, in itself, isn't
worth anything. It glitters. But if we were blind we shouldn't see it
glitter."

"We could sell it," said Choate drily, "or its owner could, to help us
live and support being blind."

Esther looked from one to the other. Jeffrey seemed to her quite mad.
She had known him to talk in erratic ways before he went into business
and had no time to talk, but that had been a wildness incident to youth.
But Choate was meeting him in some sort of understanding, and she
decided she could only listen attentively and see what Choate might find
in him.

"It's almost impossible to say what I want to," said Jeff. The sweat
broke out on his forehead and he plunged his hands in his pockets and
stood in an obstinate wrestling with his thought. "I mean, this
necklace, as an object, is of no more importance, really, than that
doorstone out there. But the infernal thing has captured us. It's made
us prisoner. And we've got to free ourselves."

Now Esther was entirely certain he was mad. Being mad, she did not see
that he could sa