uld be of use, social
use, Jeff. You need all the pull you can get, and I could help you
there, tremendously."

The same bribe Madame Beattie had held out to him, he remembered, with a
sorry smile. Esther, Madame Beattie had cheerfully determined, was to
help him placate the little gods. Now Esther herself was offering her
own abetment in almost the same terms. He saw no way even vaguely to
resolve upon what he felt able to do, except by indirection. They must
consider it together.

"Esther," he said, "sit down. Let me, too, so we can get hold of
ourselves, find out what we really think."

They sat, and she clasped her hands in a way prayerfully suggestive and
looked at him as if she hung on the known value of his words. Jeff
groped about in his mind for their common language. What had it
been?--laughter, kisses, the feverish commendation of the pageant of
life. He sat there frowning, and when his brow cleared it was because he
decided the only way possible was to open the door of his own mind and
let her in. If she found herself lonesome, afraid even in its
furnishings as they inevitably were now, that would tell them something.
She need never come again.

"Esther," he said, "the only thing I've found out about myself is that I
haven't found out anything. I don't know whether I'm a decent fellow,
just because I want to be decent, or whether I'm stunted, calloused, all
the things they say happen to criminals."

"Don't," said Esther sharply. "Don't talk of criminals."

"I've got to. You let me wander on a minute. Maybe it'll get us
somewhere." He debated whether he should tell her he wanted to save
Addington. No, she wouldn't understand. Could he tell her that at that
minute he loved Addington better than anything but Lydia? and Lydia he
must still keep hidden in the back of his mind under the green leaves of
secrecy. "Esther," said he, "Esther, poor child, I don't want you to be
a prisoner to me. And I don't want to be a prisoner to you. It would be
a shocking wrong to you to be condemned to live with me all your life
just because an old woman has scared you. What a penalty to pay for
being afraid of Madame Beattie--to live with a husband you had stopped
thinking about at all."

Esther gave a patient sigh.

"I don't understand," she said, "what you are talking about. And this
isn't the way, dear, for us to understand each other. If we love each
other, oughtn't we to forgive?"

"We do," said Jeff. "I haven't