With that he made his exit, backing out and bowing ridiculously over his hat. And Esther had hardly time to weigh her defeat, for callers came. They began early and continued through the afternoon, and they all asked for Madame Beattie. It was a hot day and Madame Beattie, without her toupée and with iced _eau sucrée_ beside her, was absorbedly reading. She looked up briefly, when Sophy conveyed to her the summons to meet lingering ladies below, and only bade her: "Excuse me to them. Say I'm very much engaged." Then she went on reading. Esther, when the message was suavely but rather maliciously delivered by Sophy, who had a proper animosity for her social betters, hardly knew whether it was easier to meet the invaders alone or run the risk of further disclosure if Madame Beattie appeared. For though no word was spoken of diamonds or interviews or newspapers, she could follow, with a hot sensitiveness, the curiosity flaring all over the room, like a sky licked by harmless lightnings. When a lady equipped in all the panoply of feminine convention asked for grandmother's health, she knew the thought underneath, decently suppressed, was an interest, no less eager for being unspoken, in grandmother's attitude toward the interview. Sometimes she wanted to answer the silent question with a brutal candour, to say: "No, grandmother doesn't care. She was perfectly horrible about it. She only laughed." And when the stream of callers had slackened somewhat she telephoned Alston Choate, and asked if he would come to see her that evening at nine. She couldn't appoint an earlier hour because she wasn't free. And immediately after that, Reardon telephoned her and asked if he might come, rather late, he hesitated, to be sure of finding her alone. And when she had to put him off to the next night, he spoke of the interview as "unpardonable ". He was coming, no doubt, to bring his condolence. XX Jeffrey himself had not seen the interview. He had only a mild interest in Addington newspapers, and Anne had carefully secreted the family copy lest the colonel should come on it. But on the afternoon when Esther was receiving subtly sympathetic townswomen, Jeffrey, between the rows of springing corn, heard steps and looked up from his hoeing. It was Lydia, the _Argosy_ in hand. She was flushed not only with triumph because something had begun at last, but before this difficulty of entering on the tale with Jeff. Pretty child! his heart quickened at sight of her in her blue dress, sweet arms and neck bare because Lydia so loved freedom. But, in that his heart did respond to her, he spoke the more brusquely, showing he had no right to find her fair. "What is it?"