Esther looked from one to the other. Jeffrey seemed to her quite mad. She had known him to talk in erratic ways before he went into business and had no time to talk, but that had been a wildness incident to youth. But Choate was meeting him in some sort of understanding, and she decided she could only listen attentively and see what Choate might find in him. "It's almost impossible to say what I want to," said Jeff. The sweat broke out on his forehead and he plunged his hands in his pockets and stood in an obstinate wrestling with his thought. "I mean, this necklace, as an object, is of no more importance, really, than that doorstone out there. But the infernal thing has captured us. It's made us prisoner. And we've got to free ourselves." Now Esther was entirely certain he was mad. Being mad, she did not see that he could say anything she need combat. But her own name arrested her and sent the blood up into her face. "Esther," said he, "you're a prisoner to it because you've fallen in love with its glitter, and you think if you wore it you'd be lovelier. So it's made you a prisoner to the female instinct for adornment." Alston was watching him sharply now. He was wondering whether Jeff was going to accuse her of appropriating it in the beginning. "Choate is a prisoner," said Jeff earnestly and with such simplicity that even Choate, with his fastidious hatred of familiarity, could not resent it. "He's a prisoner to your charm. But here's where the necklace comes in again. If he could find out you'd done unworthy things to get it your charm would be broken and he'd be free." This was so true that Choate could only stare at him and wish he would either give over or brutally tell him whether he was to be free. "Madame Beattie uses the necklace as a means of livelihood," said Jeff. He was growing quite happy in the way his mind was leading him, because it did seem to be getting him somewhere, where all the links would hold. "Because she can get more out of it, in some mysterious way I haven't fathomed, than by selling it. And so she's prisoner to it, too." "I shall be able to tell what the reason is," said Choate, "before long, I fancy. I've sent for the history of the Beattie necklace. I know a man in Paris who is getting it for me." "Good!" said Jeff. "Now I propose we all escape from the necklace. We're prisoners, and let's be free." "How are you a prisoner?" Alston asked him. Jeff smiled at him. "Why," said he, "if, as I told you, I took the necklace from this house, I'm a criminal, and the necklace has laid me by the heels. Who's got it now?" This he asked of Esther and she returned bitterly: "Aunt Patricia's got it. She walked out of the room with it, shaking it in the sun." "Good!" said Jeff again. "Let her have it. Let her shake it in the sun. But we three can escape. Have we escaped? Choate, have you?"