e good anyway. We haven't lost
young Williams. He wrote to me, not long ago. When I answer it, I'll
tell him he's something to the good."

But Madame Beattie was not going to waste time on young Williams.

"It ought to be a criminal offence," she said rapidly, "to be such a
fool. You had the world in your hand. You've got it still. You and
Esther could run such a race! think what you've got, both of you, youth,
beauty, charm. You could make your way just by persuasion, persuading
this man to one thing and that man to another. How Esther could help
you! Don't you see she's an asset? What if you don't love her? Love! I
know it from the first letter to the last, and there's nothing in it,
Jeff, nothing. But if you make money you can buy the whole world."

Her eager old face was close to his, the eyes, greedy, ravenous,
glittered into his and struck their base messages deeper and deeper into
his soul. The red of nature had come into her cheeks and fought there
with the overlying hue of art. Jeff, from an instinct of blind courage,
met her gaze and tried to think he was defying it bravely. But he was
overwhelmed with shame for her because she was avowedly what she was.
Often he could laugh at her good-tempered cynicism. Over her now, for he
actually did have a kind of affection for her, he could have cried.

"Don't!" he said involuntarily, and she misunderstood him. His shame for
her disgrace she had taken for yielding and she redoubled the hot
torrent of temperamental persuasion.

"I will," she said fiercely, "until you get on your legs and act like a
man. Go to Esther. Go to her now, this night. Come with me. Make love to
her. She's a pretty woman. Sweep her off her feet. Tell her you're going
to make good and she's going to help you."

Jeff rose and stepped out of the car. The ravenous old hand still
dragged at his arm, but he lifted it quietly and gave it back to her. He
stood there a moment, his hat off, and signalled the chauffeur. Madame
Beattie leaned over to him until her eyes were again glittering into
his.

"Is that it?" she asked. "Are you going to run away?"

"Yes," said Jeff, quietly. "I'm going to run away."

The man came and Jeff stood there, hat still in hand, until the car had
started. He felt like showing her an exaggerated courtesy. Jeff thought
he had never been so sorry for anybody in his life as for Madame
Beattie.

Madame Beattie drew her cloak the closer, sunk her chin in it and
concluded