"You have come to me," she said, "to ask a thing like that? To ask for money--" "You are to influence Jeff," Madame Beattie lisped. "Jeff can do almost anything he likes if he doesn't waste himself muddling round with turnips and evening schools. You are to tell him his wife and the imp are going to be shown up. He wouldn't believe me. He thinks he can thrash Moore and there'll be an end of it. But it won't be an end of it, my dear, for there are plenty of channels besides Weedon Moore. You tell him. If he doesn't care for Esther he may for the little imp. He thinks she's very nice." Madame Beattie here, in establishing an understanding, leered a little in the way of indicating a man's pliability when he thought a woman "very nice", and this finished the utter revolt of Anne, who stood, her hand on a chair back, gazing at her. "I never," said Anne, in a choked way, "I never heard such horrible things in my life." Then, to her own amazement, for she hardly knew the sensation and never with such intensity as overwhelmed her now, Anne felt very angry. "Why," she said, in a tone that sounded like wonder, "you are a dreadful woman. Do you know what a dreadful woman you are? Oh, you must go away, Madame Beattie. You must go out of this house at once. I can't have you here." Madame Beattie looked up at her in a pleasant indifference, as if it rather amused her to see the grey dove bristling for its young. Anne even shook the chair she held, as if she were shaking Madame Beattie. "I mean it," she said. "I can't have you stay here. My father might come in and be civil to you, and I won't have anybody civil to you in this house. Lydia might come in, and Lydia likes you. Why, Madame Beattie, can you bear to think Lydia likes you, when you're willing to say the things you do?" Madame Beattie was still not moved except by mild amusement. Anne left the chair and took a step nearer. "Madame Beattie," she said, "you don't believe a word I say. But I mean it. You've got to go out of this house, or I shall put you out of it with my hands. With my hands, Madame Beattie--and I'm very strong." Madame Beattie was no coward, but she was not young and she had a sense of physical inadequacy. About Anne there was playing the very spirit of tragic anger, none of it for effect, not in the least gauged by any idea of its efficiency. Those slender hands, gripping each other until the knuckles blanched, were ready for their act. The girl's white face was lighted with eyes of fire. Madame Beattie rose and slowly assumed her cloak. "You're a silly child," she said. "When you're as old as I am you'll have more common-sense. You'd rather risk a scandal than tell Jeff he has a debt to pay. By to-morrow you'll see it as I do. Come to me in the morning, and we'll talk it over. I won't act before then."