Lydia, in a hurry, the only way she knew of doing it, extended the paper, previously folded to expose the headline of Madame Beattie's name. Jeff, his hoe at rest in one hand, took the paper and looked at it frowningly, incredulously. Then he read. A word or two escaped him near the end. Lydia did not quite hear what the word was, but she thought he was appropriately swearing. Her eyes glistened. She had begun to agitate. Jeff had finished and crushed the paper violently together, with no regard to folds. "Oh, don't," said Lydia. "You can't get any more. They couldn't print them fast enough." Jeff passed it to her with a curt gesture of relinquishing any last interest in it. "That's Moore," he said. "It's like him." Lydia was at once relieved. She had been afraid he wasn't going to discuss it at all. "You don't blame her, do you?" she prompted. "Madame Beattie?" He was thinking hard and scowling. "No." "Anne blames her. She says no lady would have done it." "Oh, you can't call names. That's Madame Beattie," said Jeff absently. "She's neither principles nor morals nor the kind of shame other women feel. You can't judge Madame Beattie." "So I say," returned Lydia, inwardly delighted and resolving to lose no time in telling Anne. "I like her. She's nice. She's clever. She knows how to manage people. O Jeff, I wish you'd talk with her." "About this?" He was still speaking absently. "It wouldn't do any good. If it amuses her or satisfies her devilish feeling toward Esther to go on talking and that slob will get it into print--and he will--you can't stop her." "What do you mean by her feeling toward Esther?" Lydia's heart beat so that she drew a long breath to get it into swing again. "We can't go into that," said Jeff. "It runs back a long way. Only everything she can do to worry Esther or frighten her--why, she'd do it, that's all. That's Madame Beattie." Lydia knew this was the path that led to the necklace. Why couldn't she tell him she knew the story and enlist him on Madame Beattie's side and hers, the side that was fighting for him and nothing else? But she did not dare. All she could do was to say, her hands cold against each other and her voice choked: "O Jeff, I wish you'd give this up." "What?" He was recalled now from memories the printed paper had wakened in him, and looking at her kindly. At least Lydia was sure he was, because his voice sounded so dear. She could not know his eyes were full of an adoring gentleness over her who seemed to him half child, half maiden, and tumultuously compassionate. She made a little timid gesture of the hand over the small area about them. "This," she said. "You mustn't stay here and hoe corn. You must get into business and show people--" Her voice choked. It refused absurdly to go on.