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?"
He looked at Choate so seriously that Choate had to take it with an equal gravity. He knew how ridiculous the situation could be made by a word or two. But Jeff was making it entirely sane and even epic.
"We know perfectly well," said Jeff, "that the law wouldn't have much to do if all offenders and all witnesses told the truth. They don't, because they're prisoners—prisoners to fear and prisoners to selfishness and hunger. But if we three told each other the truth—and ourselves, too—we could be free this instant. You, Esther, if you would tell Choate here how you've loved that necklace and what you've done for it, why, you'd free him."
Esther cried out here, a little sharp cry of rage against him.
"I see," said she, "it's only an attack on me. That's where all your talk is leading."
"No, no," said Jeff earnestly. "I assure you it isn't. But if you owned that, Esther, you'd be ashamed to want glittering things. And Choate would get over wanting you. And that's what he'd better do."
The impudence of it, Choate knew, was only equalled by its coolness. Jeff was at this moment believing so intently in himself that he could have made anybody—but an angry woman—believe also. Jeff was telling him that he mustn't love Esther, and virtually also that this was because Esther was not worthy to be loved. But if Choate's only armor was silence, Esther had gathered herself to snatch at something more effectual.
"You say we're all prisoners to something," she said to Jeffrey. Her face was livid now with anger and her eyes glowed upon him. "How about you? You came into this house and took the necklace. Was that being a prisoner to it? How about your being free?"