She moved slightly at this, and Jeff smiled at her.
"Yes," said he, "we have to be punished. Sometimes I suppose the full knowledge of what we've done is punishment enough. Now about me. If anybody came to me to-day and said, 'I'll make you square with the world,' I should say, 'Don't you do it. Save Addington. I'd rather throw my good name into the hopper and let it grind out grist for Addington.'"
Miss Amabel put out the motherly hand and he grasped it.
"And I assure you," he said again, "I don't know whether that's common-sense—tossing the rotten past into the abyss and making a new deal—or whether it's because I've deteriorated too much to see I've deteriorated. You tell, Amabel."
She took out her large handkerchief—Amabel had a convenient pocket—and openly wiped her eyes.
"I'll give you money, Jeff," she said, "and you can put it into plays. I'd like to pay you something definite for doing it, because I don't see how you're going to live."
"Lydia'll help me do it," said Jeff, "she and Anne. They're curiously wise about plays and dances. No, Amabel, I sha'n't eat your money, except what you pay me for evening school. And I have an idea I'm going to get on. I always had the devil's own luck about things, you know. Look at the luck of getting you to fork out for plays you've never heard the mention of. And I feel terrible loquacious. I think I shall write things. I think folks'll take 'em. They've got to. I want to hand over a little more to Esther."
Even to her he had never mentioned the practical side of Esther's life. Miss Amabel looked at him sympathetically, inquiringly.
"Yes," he said, "she's having a devil of a time. I want to ease it up somehow—send her abroad or let her get a divorce or something."
"You couldn't—" said Amabel. She stopped.