's right," said Jeff in the kindness of sudden relief. "Run along."

Madame Beattie had decided otherwise. At the top of the steps in her
panoply of black chiffon, velvet, ostrich feathers--clothes so rich in
the beginning and so well made that they seemed always too unchanged to
be thrown away and so went on in a squalid perpetuity--she laid a hand
on Esther's wrist.

"Come, come, Esther," said she, "don't run away. I came to see you as
much as anybody."

Esther longed to shake off the masterful old hand, but she would not. A
sad passivity became her best unless she relinquished every possible
result of the last ten minutes. And it must have had some result. Jeff
had, at least, been partly won. Surely there was an implied intimacy in
his quick undertone when he had bade her run along. So Madame Beattie
went on cheerfully leading her captive and yet, with an art Esther hated
her for, seeming to keep the wrist to lean on, and Lydia, who had
brought another chair, greeted the new visitor with an unaffected
pleasure. She still liked her so much that it was not probable anything
Madame Beattie could say or do would break the tie. And Madame Beattie
liked her: only less than the assurance of her own daily comfort. The
pure stream of affection had got itself sadly sullied in these later
years. She hardly thought now of the way it started among green hills
under a morning sun.

She seated herself, still not releasing Esther until she also had sunk
into a chair by her side, and refreshed herself from a little
viniagrette. Then she winked her eyes open in a way she had, as if
returning from distant considerations and said cheerfully:

"I suppose you're talking about that stupid necklace."

Lydia broke into a little laugh, she did not in the least know why,
except that Madame Beattie was always so amusing to her. Madame Beattie
gave her a nod as if in acknowledgment of the tribute of applause,
continuing:

"Now I've come to be disagreeable. Esther has been agreeable, I've no
doubt. Jeff, I hope you're being nice to her."

A startled look came into Lydia's eyes. Why should Madame Beattie want
Jeff to be nice to her when she knew how false Esther had been and would
always be?

"Esther," continued Madame Beattie, "has been a silly child. She took my
necklace, years ago, and Jeff very chivalrously engaged to pay me for it
and--"

"That will do," said Jeff harshly. "We all know what happened years ago.
Anyhow Esther does.