"You've got oceans of money," said she, in a passion of eagerness, "all you Addington bigwigs. You put it away and let it keep ticking on while you eat noon dinners and walk down town. What is two thousand pounds to you? In another year you wouldn't know it." "I sha'n't haggle," said Alston. "I'll tell you precisely what I'll put into your hand--with conditions--if you agree to make this your farewell appearance. I'll give you five thousand dollars. And as a thrifty Addingtonian--you know what we are--I advise you to take it. I might repent." She leaned toward him and put a shaking hand on his knee. "I'll take it," she said. "I'll sign whatever you say. Give me the money now. You wouldn't ask me to wait, Alston Choate. You wouldn't play a trick on me." Alston drew himself up from his lounging ease, and as he lifted the trembling old hand from his knee, gave it a friendly pressure before he let it fall. "I can't give it to you now," he said. "Not this minute. Would you mind coming to my office to-morrow, say at ten? We shall be less open to interruption." "Of course I'll come," she said, almost passionately. He had never seen her so shaken or indeed actually moved from her cynical calm. She was making her way out of the room without waiting for his good-bye. At the door she turned upon him, her blurred old face a sad sight below the disordered wig. Esther, coming downstairs, met her in the hall and stopped an instant to stare at her, she looked so terrible. Then Esther came on to Alston Choate. "What is it?" she began. "I was going to ask for you," said Alston. "I want to tell you what I have just been telling Madame Beattie. Then I must see Jeff and his sisters." This sounded like an afterthought and yet he was conscious that Anne was in his mind like a radiance, a glow, a warm sweet wind. "Everybody connected with Madame Beattie ought to understand clearly what she can do and what she can't. She seems to have such an extraordinary facility for getting people into mischief." He placed a chair for her and when she sank into it, her eyes inquiringly on his face, he began, still standing, to tell her briefly the history of the necklace. Esther's face, as he went on, froze into dismay. He was telling her that the thing which alone had brought out passionate emotion in her had never existed at all. Not until then had he realised how she loved the necklace, the glitter of it, the reputed value, the extraordinary story connected with it. Esther's life had been built on it. And when Alston had finished and found she could not speak, he was sorry for her and told her so. "I'm sorry," he said simply. Esther looked at him a moment dumbly. Then her face convulsed. She was crying. "Don't," said Choate helplessly. "Don't do that. The thing isn't worth it. It isn't worth anything to speak of. And it's made you a lot of trouble, all of you, and now she's going back to Europe and she'll take it with her."