“But I haven’t got it,” Jacqueline repeated. “I told you it would be September, and that suited you all right, when you took the beads.”
“The beads ain’t no good to me,” said Miss Crevey. Her sallow cheeks were reddened, and she spoke very fast. “Cash is what I want, and what I must have.” She hesitated the merest second. “I’ve got a chance to sell them beads,” she launched a thunderbolt.
Jacqueline stared at her. For a moment she could do nothing but stare.
“But you can’t sell those beads,” she said in a scared whisper.
“Now look here,” Miss Crevey spoke on, in her rapid, nervous voice. “I wouldn’t deceive you. I’ll tell you just how ’tis. Mrs. Enos Trowbridge was in here day before yesterday, and her cousin was with her. They was looking at some old things I got laying round, and they spied them beads tucked away in the secretary. That cousin’s just set on having ’em. Seems they’re the identical same as some old ones of her mother’s she lost in a fire.”
“But she can’t have those beads!” Jacqueline cried in a panic. “I won’t have it! Don’t you let her!”
“I wouldn’t cheat you,” Miss Crevey repeated shrilly. “She’ll give me six dollars for ’em. I’ll keep the five you owe me, and you shall have the dollar for yourself.”
Her face was like flame as she snapped out the words. Those bills that she must meet, the wretched, driven, little old woman that she was! She must think only of those bills. She mustn’t admit even to herself that she was cheating a child. For Mrs. Enos Trowbridge’s cousin had offered her twenty-five dollars for those quaint old beads.
“You can get yourself a whole lot of candy for a dollar,” wheedled Miss Crevey.
“No, I can’t,” said Jacqueline bluntly. “I couldn’t get more than half a pound of decent candy. And I don’t want candy, and I don’t want your old dollar. I won’t have those beads sold. I never said you could sell them. I won’t let you.”