Jeff was done with her. She was briefly sorry though not from
shame. It scarcely disconcerted her to find he liked her even less than
she had thought. Where was his large tolerance, she might have asked,
the moral neutrality of the man of the world?

He had made it incumbent on her merely to take other measures, and next
day, seeing Lydia walk past the house, she went to call on Anne. Her way
was smooth. Anne herself came to the door in the neighbourly Addington
fashion when help was busy, and took her into the library, expressing
regret that her father was not there. The family had gone out on various
errands. This she offered in her gentle way, even with a humorous
ruefulness, Madame Beattie would find her so inadequate. To Anne, Madame
Beattie was exotic as some strange eastern flower, not less impressive
because it was a little wilted and showed the results of brutal usage.

Madame Beattie composedly took off her cloak and put her feet up on the
fender, an attitude which perilously tipped her chair. On this Anne
solicitously volunteered to move the fender and did it, bringing the
high-heeled shoes comfortably near the coals. Then Madame Beattie,
wasting no time in preliminaries, began, with great circumspection and
her lisp, and told Anne the later story of the necklace. To her calm
statement of Esther's thievery Anne paid a polite attention though no
credence. She had not believed it when Lydia told her. Why should she be
the more convinced from these withered lisping lips? But Madame Beattie
went on explicitly, through the picturesque tale of Lydia and the
necklace and the bag. Then Anne looked at her in unaffected horror. She
sat bolt upright, her slender figure tense with expectation, her hands
clasped rigidly. Madame Beattie enjoyed this picture of a sympathetic
attention, a nature played upon by her dramatic mastery. Anne had no
backwardness in believing now, the deed was so exactly Lydia's. She
could see the fierce impulse of its doing, the reckless haste, no pause
for considering whether it were well to do. She could appreciate Lydia's
silence afterward. "Poor darling" she murmured, and though Madame
Beattie interrogated sharply, "What?" she was not to hear. All the
mother in Anne, faithfully and constantly brooding over Lydia, grew into
passion. She could hardly wait to get the little sinner into her arms
and tell her she was eternally befriended by Anne's love. Madame Beattie
was coming to conclusions.