Beattie, who had not known a tear for twenty years at least,
could have cried then, the money had seemed so unreasonably, so
incredibly near.

"You've got oceans of money," said she, in a passion of eagerness, "all
you Addington bigwigs. You put it away and let it keep ticking on while
you eat noon dinners and walk down town. What is two thousand pounds to
you? In another year you wouldn't know it."

"I sha'n't haggle," said Alston. "I'll tell you precisely what I'll put
into your hand--with conditions--if you agree to make this your farewell
appearance. I'll give you five thousand dollars. And as a thrifty
Addingtonian--you know what we are--I advise you to take it. I might
repent."

She leaned toward him and put a shaking hand on his knee.

"I'll take it," she said. "I'll sign whatever you say. Give me the money
now. You wouldn't ask me to wait, Alston Choate. You wouldn't play a
trick on me."

Alston drew himself up from his lounging ease, and as he lifted the
trembling old hand from his knee, gave it a friendly pressure before he
let it fall.

"I can't give it to you now," he said. "Not this minute. Would you mind
coming to my office to-morrow, say at ten? We shall be less open to
interruption."

"Of course I'll come," she said, almost passionately.

He had never seen her so shaken or indeed actually moved from her
cynical calm. She was making her way out of the room without waiting for
his good-bye. At the door she turned upon him, her blurred old face a
sad sight below the disordered wig. Esther, coming downstairs, met her
in the hall and stopped an instant to stare at her, she looked so
terrible. Then Esther came on to Alston Choate.

"What is it?" she began.

"I was going to ask for you," said Alston. "I want to tell you what I
have just been telling Madame Beattie. Then I must see Jeff and his
sisters." This sounded like an afterthought and yet he was conscious
that Anne was in his mind like a radiance, a glow, a warm sweet wind.
"Everybody connected with Madame Beattie ought to understand clearly
what she can do and what she can't. She seems to have such an
extraordinary facility for getting people into mischief."

He placed a chair for her and when she sank into it, her eyes
inquiringly on his face, he began, still standing, to tell her briefly
the history of the necklace. Esther's face, as he went on, froze into
dismay. He was telling her that the thing which alone had brought out
passionate