"She said she'd lost it," Madame Beattie went on, in almost chuckling enjoyment of her tale. "She said it had bewitched her. That was true enough. She'd gone to New York. She came back by boat. Crazy thing for a woman to do. And she said she stayed on deck late, and stood by the rail and took the necklace out of her bag to hold it up in the moonlight. And it slipped out of her hands."
"Into the water?"
"She said so."
"You don't believe it." Lydia read that clearly in the contemptuous old face.
"Well, now, I ask you," said Madame Beattie, "was there ever such a silly tale? A young woman of New England traditions—yes, they're ridiculous, but you've got to reckon with them—she comes home on a Fall River boat and doesn't even stay in her cabin, but hangs round on decks and plays with priceless diamonds in the moonlight. Why, it's enough to make the cat laugh."
Madame Beattie, in spite of her cosmopolitan reign, was at least local enough to remember the feline similes Lydia put such dependence on, and she used this one with relish. Lydia felt the more at home.
"But what did she do with it?" she insisted.
"I don't know," said Madame Beattie idly. "Put it in a safety deposit in New York perhaps. Don't ask me."
"But don't you care?" cried Lydia, all of a heat of wonder—terror also at melodramatic thieving here in simple Addington.
"I can care about things without screaming and sobbing," said Madame Beattie briefly. "Though I sobbed a little at the time. I was a good deal unstrung from other causes. But of course I laid it before Jeff, as her husband—"