"He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and
sapphire eye were a miniature head of Medusa"

THE GREAT PEARL
SECRET

C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON

FRONTISPIECE
BY
JULIAN DE MISKEY

GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1921

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. [In Juliet's Sitting Room]
II. [The Explanation]
III. ["To Meet the Duchess"]
IV. [The Letter with the Tsarina's Seal]
V. [The Third Ringer of the Bell]
VI. [Behind the Bookshelf]
VII. [What Juliet Told Jack]
VIII. [Juliet Breaks the Seals]
IX. [The Eye That Looked to the Right]
X. [The House in a Crosstown Street]
XI. [In Jack's Private Sitting Room]
XII. ["The 'Whisperer' Stuff"]
XIII. [A Woman's Eyes]
XIV. [Supper at Twelve]
XV. [The Fortune Teller]
XVI. [The Grey Room]
XVII. [The Crystal]
XVIII. [The Bargain]
XIX. [Old Nick]
XX. [The Third Degree]
XXI. [The Middle Door]
XXII. [The Whole of the Secret]

THE GREAT PEARL SECRET

CHAPTER I
IN JULIET'S SITTING ROOM

A maid opened the door leading from a bedroom to a salon of the "royal suite" at Harridge's Hotel. Dusk had fallen, and entering, she switched on the electricity. The room, with its almost Louis Seize decorations, was suddenly flooded with light; and to her surprise the Frenchwoman saw a slim black figure nestled deep among cushions on a sofa before the fire. A small white face, with a frame of terra-cotta hair crushed under a mourning toque, turned a pair of big black eyes upon her.

"Miladi West!" exclaimed the maid. (She pronounced it "Vest") "Pardon, Madame, I did not know that any one was here."

She spoke in French, with an accent which told that her first language had been Italian, learned in the south of France; though in looks she was the chic Parisienne. Her English was quite good, but when she used that tongue, her accent was of New York. She preferred French, however, was proud of being French, and had Frenchified her Nicois-Italian name of Simonetta Amaranti to Simone Amaranthe. All Juliet Phayre's friends had to be polite to Simone.

"Mr. Phayre's man let me in," said the red-haired lady in widow's weeds. "After I'd had a look at the wedding presents, I was so dazzled that I switched off the lights." She laughed, and then cried, "Leave the lights now! I suppose Mademoiselle won't be forever?"

Simone shrugged her thin shoulders just perceptibly. "Mademoiselle sent me out on an errand, Miladi. I have not long returned, with the perfume she wanted. It was for the coiffeur who is here to wash the hair of Mademoiselle. She would not have the stuff he brought, so the man was obliged to wait. I am afraid the drying, even with the hot-air machine, will take some time. Miladi knows what a quantity of the hairs there are on the pretty head of Mademoiselle, and how she is exacting of the way everything is done!"

The red-haired lady guessed from the Frenchwoman's tone that Simone considered the introduction of a coiffeur a slight to her own skill. "Why, yes," she agreed. "Mademoiselle is exacting. But what would you? She is a spoiled child. The least crumple in a rose-leaf—by the way, Simone" (she stopped for a little throaty chuckle), "is it true about the carpet in this suite?"

"The carpet, Miladi?" Simone flushed faintly through her dark skin, and "Miladi" made a second guess. Of course Juliet trusted Simone, and depended upon her blindly; but she—Emmy West—had often wondered how certain spicy little items concerning the Phayre family reached the gossip columns of "society papers."

"I read such an amusing paragraph in Modern Ways this morning," she explained. "It was apropos of the wedding, of course. Modern Ways loves a chance for a 'dig' at us Americans who marry well-known Englishmen! It said that when Miss Juliet Phayre and her Uncle Henry came over from Paris the other day, and took this royal suite which Mr. Phayre had engaged, Miss Phayre sent for the manager before she'd been in the hotel half an hour. 'There's a spot of ink on the carpet,' she complained (according to the paper). 'I must have another carpet at once.' Now do tell me, Simone (I'm very discreet!) did that really happen?"

"It did, Madame," the maid admitted. "Though how it got to these sacred journalists——"

"And did the manager say to Mademoiselle, 'We have had half the kings of Europe in this suite since that spot appeared, Miss Phayre, and not one of them mentioned it!'"

"His words were to that effect, Miladi, so far as I remember. But——"

"Oh, then you were in the room? What fun! You can tell me if Juliet—if Mademoiselle replied that a spotted carpet might be good enough for a king; it wasn't good enough for a Phayre."

Simone flung out her hands, palm upward. They were beautifully manicured hands, as carefully tended as her mistress's. And as she smiled her teeth showed very white. When her face was grave, she looked somewhat sullen, and might be thirty-five; but the smile was rejuvenating. It put her back to twenty-eight, and made her almost handsome as well as chic. "Miladi has known Mademoiselle since her schooldays, is it not?" she hedged. "Miladi will be able to judge as well as if I told her whether Mademoiselle would have made that answer."

"I thought it rang true when I read it!" laughed Lady West. "But Simone, when you say I have 'known Mademoiselle since her schooldays', you make me sound awfully antique. We were at Madame de Sain's together. I came over to England the year I left, and married poor Sir Algy only three months after I was presented." She thought it best to hammer these details into Simone's head, in case the woman really was in touch with those back-door, kitchen-stairs reporters. Then, to give an air of carelessness to her words, she turned the subject. "Perhaps you might let Mademoiselle know I've come. Parker told me that she was lying down—that she'd promised her uncle to rest till tea time. So I wouldn't have her disturbed. But if her hair is being washed, she might let me in."

"I will ask Miladi," said Simone. "I came to the salon to see if the curtains were drawn. If Madame permits!" She tripped with her short, high-heeled step first to one window, then the other, and closed the draperies of old-rose brocade. Having done this, she pattered out of the room.

Emmy West's eyes followed the thin but graceful figure in black silk. "Simone is a character!" she thought. And she wondered what the maid's secret opinion was of this marriage which would take place next day; the richest American heiress with the poorest British duke!

Left alone again, Emmy wriggled up from her nest of cushions, and beguiled the time in examining the wedding gifts once more. This did not take long, as the marriage had been suddenly hurried on by special license, and friends of Juliet Phayre and the Duke of Claremanagh had had only a few days to send in their offerings. Emmy had made this uninvited visit with the object of admiring a certain one of Juliet's presents, but she had already informed herself that it was not on show with the rest. Unless the bride-elect refused to see her, she did not intend to leave Harridge's without a glimpse—or anyhow, news—of it.

When she had wandered languidly round the three or four tables on which jewel cases, gold, silver, china, and tortoise-shell things were spread, she propped her own black-edged card conspicuously in front of a Sevres-framed mirror, and bent down for a hasty peep at her face in its oval. She wondered if her hair were a tiny touch too red. She liked it, herself, and thought the heart-shaped white face, with its wide-apart black eyes set in that copper halo, a siren face. In the weeds of a war-widow it seemed to her that she was almost irresistible, but she could not help realizing that there were people who did resist her. The Duke was one. And an attractive cousin of Juliet's, John Manners, was another. She was vaguely aware that her own taste was decidedly vivid. Perhaps the hair was rather red! She had had it "bobbed" since Juliet came to London, because it worried her that Juliet should look years younger than she. No one would take Lady West for twenty-seven, but she had been an "old girl" and Juliet a "new girl," the year they met at school. Juliet was twenty-three now, and she, Emmy, had gone back to twenty-five. One had to be that, if one had married before the war!

Quickly she dusted on a little powder from her vanity box, and accentuated the cupid's bow of her lips with a stick of red salve, for it was possible that Claremanagh might "breeze in." It would be like him! This thought was still in her mind when a door behind her opened. She turned nervously, tucking the lip-salve into her gold mesh bag, for just now the Duke was having a craze for baby complexions without make-up. But it was not the Duke. It was a girl, standing in the doorway between bedroom and salon.

"Hello, Emmy!" she said.

"Hello, Juliet!" said Emmy. And suddenly she felt years older than she had felt a moment ago. Juliet Phayre was such a big baby!

The girl wore a pale pink chiffon thing which she probably considered a dressing gown. It was embroidered with wild roses and banded with swansdown, and no practical person would have dreamed of keeping it on for a shampoo. Juliet, however, thought herself sufficiently protected with a towel over her shoulders—a silvery damask towel under which her bare, girlish arms hung down. Over the towel streamed masses of hair in long, wet strands, which must be bright golden-brown when dry. These fell—weighted with water—nearly to her knees, and from their curly ends drops poured like unstrung pearls. She was so tall and slender, and brilliant rose-and-white, that she would have looked to a poet like Undine just out of her fountain.

"You extravagant thing," Lady West scolded, "to spoil a lovely boudoir gown like that!"

"Simone gets it to-morrow as a perquisite, with all my old things," Juliet dismissed the subject. "She said you'd been here an age, so I thought I'd better come in. I'll dry my hair before the fire, presently we'll have tea."

So saying, she sat down tailor-fashion on a long, fat velvet cushion which lay in front of the low fender.

"Evidently you're not expecting the Duke," laughed Lady West.

"No-o," said the girl. "But I'm expecting a letter from him—or something."

"You haven't got the pearls on show with your other presents, I see," remarked her friend. "I don't blame you! Of course, Parker is doing the watch-dog act outside; and only your bestest pals come up. Still, the pearls are frightfully valuable. And you can never tell! But do, do let me see them. I'm dying to!"

"I haven't got them yet," Juliet confessed.

"Not got them?" gasped the elder woman. "You're joking. Why"—and she laughed with great gaiety—"one marries Claremanagh for his pearls!"

"Does one?" Juliet took her up. "I know whole populations of females who'd give their pearls to marry him, for—himself!"

This told Emmy West that the bride-to-be knew she had been scratched, and was ready to scratch back. For an instant Emmy hesitated whether to be sweet or sharp, and decided to compromise. "By Jove, you are in love, aren't you?" she said.

"I am," Juliet admitted. "I don't care a rap about being a duchess. That sort of thing seems—somehow old-fashioned since the war. And I don't think I ever was a snob, thank goodness."

Emmy wondered if this were another "dig." She had been a Chicago girl, and only a "tuppenny half-penny" heiress, compared to Juliet Phayre; but she had wanted a title, and had paid all she could afford for a mere baronet, such as her few hundred thousand dollars would buy. On the sofa once more facing her low-seated hostess, she looked Juliet full in the eyes; but Juliet's were innocent, even dreamy. "I'd have snapped at my Boy if he'd been just a Tommy when I met him Over There, instead of a perfectly gorgeous Guardsman," the girl went on. "But, of course, I do want the pearls! I wouldn't be human if I didn't; everyone talks about them so much, even my Cousin Jack Manners, and says they're so marvellous. I expect they are what Pat is sending around this evening."

"Sending around!" repeated the other. "You talk as if—as if they were a box of chocolates! Claremanagh is the careless-est creature on earth, I know. And he has been—er—very careless with the pearls. But I don't think even he would be as bad as that."

"Why not?" asked the girl to whom most jewels meant little. "If he sent them by Old Nick, that dear, quaint man of his, they'd be safer than if he brought them himself. I never knew before that he was superstitious. But he is. It's bad luck for a Claremanagh to see his bride the day before the wedding. Creepy things have happened, it seems, according to an old story! So he said he wasn't running risks. For some reason, he couldn't give me his present before to-day. So that's why the thing is to come by messenger, you see."

"I see," echoed Emmy. "And you're sure the present will be the pearls?"

This was rather an impudent question to ask, especially for one who knew the Duke's circumstances; but, for a wonder, Juliet did not seem to mind. She answered quite easily, "Oh, I suppose so. Don't the Claremanagh men always give them to their brides?"

"I believe they have dutifully handed them over so far—for several generations, since the pearls came into their family in that exciting way," said Lady West. "But you know, Peter—I mean Claremanagh—is very independent, and quite—er—a law unto himself."

"Why do you call him 'Peter'?" the girl branched off from the subject. "He has about a dozen names, I know, but I hadn't heard that 'Peter' was one. My selection from the lot is Pat!"

"Oh, 'Peter' was only a silly nickname I made up for him. 'Peter Pan', because he just isn't the sort who ever grows up!" Emmy explained elaborately. "Of course he was a lot with Algy and me the first year I married—before the war spoilt everything for everyone. And then, when I took up Red Cross work in France, after poor Algy—-"

"I know," Juliet ruthlessly interrupted. "That was where and when I came on the scene."

"It was," agreed Emmy, in a flat voice. "You came, you saw, you conquered. But we were talking of the Tsarina pearls. I do hope the Duke is 'delivering the goods', as we say in our country. I don't mind confessing to you, my angel child, I dropped in hoping for a private view."

"Oh, I guessed that the minute Simone told me you were here, and determined to wait!" Juliet laughed like a naughty child who dares a "grown-up" to slap it. Emmy's ears tingled. The girl's tone, though intimate and friendly, told her how unimportant she was in the future Duchess's scheme of things. She had always envied Juliet, and had an old grudge against the heiress for refusing her brother, Bill Lowndes. Now she suddenly hated her. Instead of inflicting a kittenish scratch or two, she wanted to strike at Juliet Phayre's heart.

"Well," she excused herself, "I never saw the pearls, except—er—at a distance."

"You have seen them, then?" Juliet exclaimed. "How was that? Pat's mother died years before you knew him, and only the Duchess is supposed to wear the pearls, isn't she?"

"Only the Duchess is supposed to wear them."

Juliet sat up straight on the velvet cushion. Her hair was drying beautifully now. The red background of fireglow lit it to flame, so that Lady West saw the slight figure surrounded by a nimbus. "Ever since Pat and I were engaged, you've been hinting at something queer, or secret, about that rope of pearls, Emmy," the girl blazed. "Now, out with it, please! Tell me what you mean."

The elder woman was taken aback. "Don't you know what I mean?" she temporized.

"No, I don't," snapped Juliet. "But I'm sure it's something unpleasant."

"At least, I had no intention of telling you," Lady West snapped back. "I wouldn't distress you for worlds, dear, especially on your wedding eve."

"Wedding eve be—'jizzled!'" inelegantly remarked the bride-elect. "You sound quite early Edwardian! If you don't tell me, I shall think the thing worse than it is."

"You had better ask Claremanagh, or Jack Manners, who is a pal of his," said Emmy.

"I can't, till I have an idea what to ask them about."

"Ask whether Lyda Pavoya ever—no, I won't say it!"

"Whether she ever wore the pearls? That's what you were going to say!"

"So you did know?"

"I didn't. And I don't now. I only know what you have in your mind. I don't believe she was allowed to wear the pearls."

"Why should you believe it? And even if she did, it was before you knew Peter—the Duke. Or anyhow, it was before you were engaged. It was when she was dancing for the Polish Relief Fund in Paris, that I saw——"

"You saw what?"

"Saw—her."

"Emmy! You didn't see her wearing the Tsarina pearls? It's not possible."

"Why, of course you must be right, dear. Even though they are blue, they'd be like any other pearls, wouldn't they, to see at a distance."

"That's just what you said about Pat's pearls five minutes ago: that you'd seen them only 'at a distance.'"

Lady West did not reply. She put on a stricken, trapped expression, which went well with her widow's weeds. The two gazed into each other's eyes, each waiting for the other to speak. Neither heard a sound at the door until a respectable voice—such a voice as is never possessed save by a British butler or valet—announced "His Grace the Duke of Claremanagh."

CHAPTER II
THE EXPLANATION

A perfectly charming young man came in—a young man so delightful to look at that it seemed almost too much that he should be a duke. With that merry brown face (the war had left a scar across cheek and temple), those Celtic grey eyes, that jet-black hair, that "figure for a fencer," and above all that engaging grin of his, the merest Nobody might hope to make his mark as Somebody.

"Breezing in" (as Emmy had put it), he smiled his nice smile that brought a dimple like a cut line into each thin, tanned cheek. The smile was for Juliet, whose velvet throne was opposite the door, and for her he waved aloft a small, sealed white parcel. Then he saw Lady West, and his expression changed. As the saying is, his "face fell," but in half a second he had controlled his features.

"How do you do?" he enquired. His voice was as pleasant as his grin, but there was a slight stiffness in his tone for the red-haired war-widow.

"I'm going strong, thanks! Going in every sense of the word," Emmy assured him. "I should have taken myself off before now, only Juliet pretended not to be expecting you. Of course, the day before the wedding is supposed by old-fashioned folk to be close time for brides, where their loving bridegrooms are concerned, and so——"

"I'm not old-fashioned," said Claremanagh.

"Rather not! I've every reason for knowing that. We all have. But Juliet had some story about a 'bad luck' superstition. I thought you were the last man to be superstitious, Irish as you are, but it didn't sound like a joke——"

"It wasn't a joke. I'm as superstitious as the deuce about one or two things," the man confessed. "Juliet wasn't 'pretending' but"—and he turned to the girl—"I had to come. There was something I didn't want to explain in a letter, and—hang 'bad luck!' It's a cross dog that would dare bite us."

As Emmy West saw the look he gave Juliet, she felt as though her heart had been sharply pinched between a thumb and a finger. She had believed till now that his "superstition" was an excuse for spending his time with someone whose society he preferred to the bride's. Yet here he was, bouncing in like a bomb, with that eager light in his eyes, and in his hand a packet which might be the pearls!

When Juliet explained that there "was a reason" why Claremanagh "couldn't give his present till to-day," an exciting thought had tumbled into Emmy's head: What if Lyda Pavoya had refused to return the pearls he'd been teased into lending her, and had taken them to New York, where she was now dancing? Emmy visioned the poor Duke frantically cabling, the moment he had secured the American heiress; or perhaps engaging a lawyer to frighten the Polish siren. Lyda wouldn't be easy to frighten, Emmy imagined, admiringly. (She, in fact, admired the dancer so sincerely, that her own attempts at sirenhood were copied from Pavoya.) Even if Lyda had disgorged the booty, would there have been time for it to arrive from across the Atlantic? Only the opening of that little parcel would show, and Emmy's jealous pain was complicated by curiosity.

Still, she decided, it would be useless to wear out her welcome by lingering. The chances were that Claremanagh wouldn't break those thrilling seals till she had gone. Besides, Juliet was in a state of suppressed fury, and was capable in that mood of banishing her with rudeness. In some moods, the girl was capable of anything! So Lady West "kissed air" in the neighbourhood of Miss Phayre's burning cheeks, and accepted defeat with one sole satisfaction: If the pearls had come—or if they ever came!—she had pretty well spoiled them for the future Duchess.

"Au revoir, dearest child," she said. "I shall be in church to-morrow, of course. Au revoir, Peter, and good luck in spite of the Claremanagh curse. I do hope it won't put on seven-league boots and follow you to New York."

"Leather's too dear since the war for superannuated old curses to buy seven-league boots," replied the Duke, unflatteringly prompt in opening the door.

The pretty lady went to it with wormlike meekness, but turned on the threshold. "If I meet the Curse, I'll tell it to mind its business," she laughed. "The Claremanaghs have had enough bad luck. You'll create a new record, working out your democratic notions in a new country, with one or two old friends there to applaud them."

With this exit speech she put herself in charge of Parker, who would ring up the lift for her. The Duke shut the salon door, and turned to the girl. He didn't even say "Thank goodness, the woman's gone!" He seemed to have forgotten her existence.

"Heavens, what hair you have!" he exclaimed. "I knew it must be gorgeous, but I didn't dream of this. To-night I shall dream of it! By rights, I oughtn't to have seen this show till to-morrow night, ought I? But I'm glad I have. All your beauties bursting upon me at once would be too much for my brain."

"Don't make fun of me," Juliet laughed, with a wistfulness rather pathetic in so pretty and so rich a girl.

"Make fun of you!" Claremanagh snatched her up from the low seat, and crushed the yielding, thinly clad young body in his arms. On the sweet-scented, damp hair he rained kisses. "Am I a wooden man? Take that—and that, to punish you! Mavourneen—if it were to-morrow!"

Between warm joy and chilling doubt Juliet Phayre shivered. If only she could believe him—believe that he cared for her, and not for the money! She almost had believed—before Emmy West came.

The girl burned to tell "Pat" what Emmy had said and hinted. If he could reassure her, it would be balm on a wound never quite healed. But—if he couldn't. If questioning should make bad things worse? Then she would wish in vain that she'd "let sleeping dogs lie," because she loved the man too much to give him up. She had wanted him as a child wants the moon, ever since the day she, a gilt-edged Red Cross nurse, had met him, a soldier on leave, in Paris. Now she had got him—or almost—and the future might be so wonderful!

He had promised her uncle, Henry Phayre, to live for at least half of each year in America, there to work as other men worked (Phayre would supply the employment), and Juliet had looked forward to being proud of her adorable husband, happy with him; a living proof—the pair of them—that an American girl can marry a duke for himself, not for his title; that a duke can make an American heiress his wife for love. But now, Emmy had raked up those old rags of gossip, nearly forgotten. And Juliet had read in the paper only a few days ago about Pavoya's first night in New York; the furore her "wild eastern dancing and strange, Slavic fascination" had created. The girl felt sick at heart as she asked herself if Pat's pleasure in the thought of "seeing New York" had any connection with Pavoya's presence there.

It was all she could do not to purr out her complaints of "that cat, Emmy West," but native prudence prevailed over hot impulse. She enjoyed as much as Emmy permitted Pat's praise of her glorious hair (surely Pavoya's wasn't as long or thick, and probably its "rusty red" was due to dye), and then she reminded him of the parcel.

"Is it my present from you?" she asked, almost shyly, nodding toward the table where Pat had thrown the neat white square.

Instantly he let her go, and took the little parcel again in his hand.

"Yes, sweet, it is my present for you," he said. "But not the present I wanted to give you. That's why I risked the 'curse' and came to explain."

"Oh!" was the girl's noncommittal answer. Her heart sank. The pearls were not in the packet, she knew now, but her disappointment was not so much in missing them as in the thought that Emmy could say "I told you so!"

"Before you open these silly seals, and see what I've brought," the Duke went on, "I want to make my explanation, and be sure you understand the whole business. Come and sit by me on the sofa, will you?"

He drew her down beside him, and gathered her close.

"Of course, you know all about our pearls, the one ewe lamb of ancient glory left to us poor Claremanaghs," he said.

"I don't know all about them," amended Juliet, her heart missing a beat.

"Tell me just what you do know, and then I shan't bore you with repetitions."

"Oh, people have told me things," she hedged. "Didn't a Tsarina of Russia sell the pearls to some old ancestor of yours?"

"Good lord, no!" he chuckled. "Never was a Claremanagh so stony broke as yours truly; yet never was there one since the days of pterodactyls who could run to the price of a Tsarina's pearls; that is, in lucre. My great-great-grandfather bought them with kisses. But joking apart, it's rather a romantic tale. He was a soldier and offered his services to Russia because he'd seen a portrait of the Tsarina, which the Prince of Wales had, and fell in love with it. Well, she fell in love with him, too, at sight. He wasn't bad to look at, judging from his portrait——"

"Was he like you?" cut in Juliet.

Pat laughed. "They say so. When we can get those Pill people out of Castle Claremanagh (their lease has a year to run) you shall tell me if you find a likeness. There was an 'affair' between the two; and great-great-grandfather Pat (he was Patrick, too, like all the eldest sons) had it politely intimated to him, through his friend Wales, that he'd better come home—a marriage had been arranged for him. He'd not have stirred a foot if it hadn't been for his Love. She begged him to go. There was a plot to murder him, it seems, and as for her, she'd ceased to be very popular with the Tsar, her husband. She made her sweetheart promise to marry the English girl, and she gave him the rope of pearls which since then have been called after her—the 'Tsarina's pearls.' They were for his wife, as a gift from her, so the girl shouldn't hate the thought of their love."

"I should have hated it all the more!" cried Juliet. "I wouldn't have worn the things if I'd been his bride."

"Well, as my bride I hope you will wear them often. They'll be dashed becoming to your blondness, for the things are unique in one way: they're blue; a hundred and eighty immense and perfectly matched blue pearls. Never has anything been seen like them, the expert johnnies say."

"Was the Tsarina a blonde?" the girl wanted to know.

"A copper-headed blonde. You shall see her miniature."

Juliet said nothing. But she thought of Lyda Pavoya's head. She had never seen the Polish dancer, but she had heard her described: the traditional "siren-green" eyes, white face, and red hair. And she knew that Emmy West modelled herself, so far as Nature permitted, on Pavoya.

"In the ordinary sense of the word, the Tsarina pearls aren't an heirloom in our family," Claremanagh continued. "But the first bride who received them passed on the gift to her eldest son's bride. So it has gone on ever since. The thing falls to the heir, or his wife; and it's tacitly understood that neither the rope as a whole, nor even one of the pearls, shall be sold. Well, I came into the inheritance (if you can call it that) seven years ago, when I was twenty-one. I'm afraid I'd have sold the bally thing more than once if I could have done it in common decency. But I couldn't. So there you are!"

"What did you do with it?" Juliet ventured, half dreading the answer. Her head was pressed close to Pat's shoulder. She could not look up at his face, but she thought a muscle jumped in the arm that held her, and that there was a sudden change in his tone.

"Do with it?" he echoed. "Why, what should I do but keep it in the bank waiting for the Lady of my Dreams? I couldn't wear it round my neck, you know! But, well, I did get it out of the bank now and then, to show to beautiful beings who begged to see it. Once it was in a Loan Exhibition for the benefit of something or other, I forget what. The confession I have to make, though, is this: only two months before I met the dearest girl on earth I was so hard up I'd have had to grind a monkey-organ in the streets if I hadn't been engaged in fighting for King and Country. I'd had some beastly bad luck with a speculation an alleged pal had let me in for, and honest Injun, I didn't know which way to turn, until a chap I know offered me two hundred thousand francs on the security of the pearls."

"Francs?" echoed Juliet.

"Yes. The man's a Frenchman. And the business was done in France. He's a dashed good fellow in his way. But it's a queer way. He's a kind of gilded, super money-lender. His transactions are only with his friends, and the interest he takes is fair and square: twenty per cent. instead of sixty or so, as the sharks do—to my bitter knowledge. With what I got from Louis Mayen I paid my debts, and hung onto a bit, a few thousands. Then, two months later, I met you—and the fat was in the fire!"

"How, in the fire?"

"Why, I made up my mind at first sight to grab you if I could——"

Juliet broke out laughing like a child, forgetful of her secret burden. "Did you—really? So did I you!"

"Bold hussy!" He kissed her with passion. "But it was worse for me than you. I'd just lost my chance of giving you your legitimate wedding present—if you'd have me. The day you said 'Yes', instead of walking on air I could have thrown myself in the sea, I felt such a fool."

"Silly boy!" cried the girl. "Any real money-lender, or even your super, gilded one, would have let you have all you wanted if you'd said you were marrying Silas Phayre's heiress. I mayn't know much about business, but I know that!"

"And I mayn't be a saint, but I'm not a cad," Claremanagh capped her. "I wouldn't go to a money-lender on the strength of being engaged to you. I don't say that if Louis Mayen had been in France then I'd not have wheedled the pearls back from him, on the mere strength of friendship, and an I.O.U., or some such arrangement. He'd have trusted me," Pat laughed; "anyhow, in the circumstances! But you and I were engaged a fortnight after the Armistice, you remember. Just a week before our own Great Day (yours and mine) Mayen went to Russia with a lot of important Frenchmen of Hebrew blood, on a diplomatic mission. He had a bad time in Petrograd. He and his lot were stuck into the prison of St. Peter and St. Paul, by the Bolchies. I didn't know where the pearls were and couldn't find out. That was two months ago. But after six weeks in a cell, Mayen was released by order of Lenine; and it was expected in Paris that he and the rest would be back in France by now.

"We were there ourselves—you and your uncle in Paris, and I at G.H.Q. you know, till just ten days ago—though it seems longer. And I was hoping against hope that Mayen might turn up. I wouldn't say a word to you, for I didn't want you to be disappointed. And even as late as last night I wouldn't quite give up. Your Cousin Jack Manners, who is the best fellow on earth, has been watching things for me in Paris. He'd heard that Mayen had quietly sneaked back, and hadn't let any one know, in order to get a good rest cure. But this turns out to be a canard. Now you see why I had to go out and find you a 'fairing' as the Scots say. I couldn't afford anything worth while unless I borrowed; so I thought things over, and decided that you'd prefer a little remembrance of our wedding, bought with my own 'pocket-money,' and supplemented by a souvenir of my mother. Am I right?"

"Absolutely! Whatever you give me, I shall love it," said Juliet. "I wouldn't care if it cost sixpence. It's from you; that makes the value for me. But, Pat, I can't bear to think of your being poor! You won't be after to-morrow. I haven't liked to talk of such things, but I told Uncle Henry I wanted a million dollars settled on you, to use as you pleased. Surely he did what I——"

"He did, my child. But I 'wasn't taking any'. I meant to tell you this myself when we were old married people—a week after the wedding, let's say! But since you've brought up the subject, we might as well have it out. Your money is going to restore Claremanagh, and the jolly old London house in Queen Anne's gate that my great-grandfather bought. I don't so much mind that. You'll enjoy the places. And it won't be till the tenants there turn out. I'm to have a screw from your uncle for pretending to work in the S. P. Phayre Bank: a hundred dollars a week to begin with (he offered more, but I wouldn't have it), about a fiftieth part of which I'll really earn. But even that will bring me nearly a hundred pounds a month, so I shan't disgrace my wife by wearing paper collars or elastic-sided boots, or not getting my hair cut. Then, as my earning power increases, so will my pay. Besides, your noble guardian wants to buy my place at Maidenhead, when it's free, next spring. He'll give sixty thousand pounds, which will leave me fifty when the mortgage is paid off; and Mr. Phayre will advise me about investments. So you see, you're not marrying a pauper after all, my good girl! As for the pearls, it's only a delay—an annoying delay. When Mayen really does get back to Paris, he'll find a letter from me containing a post-dated cheque for the two hundred thousand francs, and interest. That will come out of the fifty thousand pounds, and still leave me a decent pile. Mayen will at once take steps to get the pearls to me."

"But we'll be in New York," objected Juliet. "How can Monsieur Mayen send them without danger of their being stolen?"

"Trust him to arrange that," Claremanagh soothed her. "There must be lots of ways. Besides, they'll be insured for their full value, which is supposed to be—intrinsic, not sentimental—one hundred thousand pounds. What I hope is, they'll be in time for you to make a show in your box at the opera—Metropolitan Opera House, you call it, don't you? You see, I've been reading up a guide book to New York! And now I've made all my explanations and excuses, my darling, you'd better open the poor little box."

His arm still round her, the girl broke the jeweller's seals. Inside the white paper was a white velvet case, and inside the white velvet case was a string of white pearls. They were small, but good, and from them depended an old-fashioned, open-faced locket containing an ivory miniature of a beautiful boy.

"The pearls are from me," Pat said. "The locket and miniature are from my mother. She used always to wear the locket. And when she died, eight years ago, one of the last things she did was to give it to me, 'for my bride'."

Juliet Phayre would not have been human if she had not forgotten, in that moment, both Emmy West and Lyda Pavoya.

CHAPTER III
"TO MEET THE DUCHESS"

Mrs. Lowndes, Emmy West's sister-in-law, was giving a luncheon for the Duchess of Claremanagh; and the Duchess was late. Nine lovely ladies (including the hostess) were waiting for her in the Futurist drawing room of an apartment overlooking the Park. It was not to all tastes a beautiful drawing room, but it was expensive for all purses. So was the apartment; too expensive, Billy Lowndes' friends said, for his. As for the ladies, each one was beautiful, or her clothes were; for Nat Lowndes had chosen her guests with the special view of impressing the Duchess, whom Billy had tried to marry when she was Miss Phayre.

The invitations were for one-fifteen, and before one-thirty everyone had arrived—except the Duchess. By twenty to two the nine voices were chattering with almost abnormal gaiety, but ears and eyes were secretly on the alert. Natalie Lowndes was not precisely in the Duchess' "set", or if she was, moved on the chilled outer edge of it. These women who chatted in her startling salon would have preferred other engagements, if they had not been asked "to meet the Duchess of Claremanagh." Most of them knew that Billy had desperately wanted Juliet Phayre, and that Juliet had been at school with his sister, Lady West, now in London. Their private opinion was that the Duchess had accepted for Lady West's sake rather than Mrs. Lowndes'; and as the minutes lagged, they wondered if the chief guest were purposely proving her slight esteem of the circle.

This idea ruffled their vanity, and as they talked, glancing at wrist watches, their irritation grew. Natalie who, like her husband, was from the Middle West, felt the atmosphere of her overheated room fall to zero. She began to feel sick at heart, and tears pricked her eyelids. But she kept a brave front.

No one had spoken yet of the delay, nor of the lady who caused it; but at a quarter to two it seemed better to be frank.

"I can't think what can have happened to Juliet!" Natalie said. (Nat was one of those women who always called her smartest acquaintances by their Christian names—behind their backs.) "We'll wait five minutes more—not a moment longer. I'm sure she wouldn't wish it."

"Royalties are always so prompt," said Mrs. Sam Selby-Saunders, who knew the habits of kings and queens from the Sunday Supplements. "Evidently dukes—or anyhow duchesses—don't follow their example."

"Something must be the matter," Nat defended the absent. "At first Juliet was afraid she couldn't accept to-day. You know, there's a meeting this morning at Mrs. Van Esten's, to arrange details of the wonderful roof garden show in aid of the Armenians. Juliet had to be present, as she's on the committee. But at last she decided she could get away in time. She must have been kept."

Nobody spoke for a minute. If there had been only Ten First Families in New York, Mrs. Van Esten would still have been high on the list. She was the organizer of the proposed entertainment, the plans for which were thrilling the town; and if this business were keeping the Duchess, she was almost excusable. Anyhow, nobody's feelings need be hurt.

Suddenly, in the midst of the pause, Miss Solomon laughed. Her father was as rich as Silas Phayre had been, and there was no reason why she shouldn't be a duchess, too, some day, when travel abroad became easier. "I did hear the loveliest thing!" she chuckled. "I wonder if any of you have heard it? ... That Mrs. Van Esten meant to propose at the committee meeting to-day the name of Lyda Pavoya."

"Good gracious, for what?" gasped Nat Lowndes.

"To dance at the entertainment, of course. Mrs. Van E.'s maid and my maid are cousins. So I should say it was true. You know Mrs. Van E. is notorious for never listening to gossip. She prides herself on 'being above it'. Very silly, I think. Because one can make such awful 'gaffs' if one doesn't know the seamy side of things."

"No wonder the Duchess is late!" cried Mrs. Sam. "She has probably had to go home between the meeting and here to faint or have a fit."

Nobody could help laughing, and nobody tried to help it. There was a weekly paper in New York—a paper called the Inner Circle. This publication one got one's maid to buy and hide under a pile of books until it could be read. The moment all its paragraphs had been absorbed the paper was destroyed, thus making it possible to say, "the Inner Circle! I wouldn't give the wretched rag houseroom!" The inside middle pages of the "rag" were headed "Let's Whisper!" And at the time of the Phayre-Claremanagh marriage, two months ago, the choicest whispering had concerned the Duke's flirtation with Lyda Pavoya.

"It is easier to break off a flirtation than an engagement, because you can't be sued for breach of promise," was one mot of "The Whisperer," and it was intimated that the Duke had profited by this immunity when he proposed to Miss Phayre. "But what about the pearls?" was a question which no one had forgotten, and for which everyone wanted an answer. Oh, yes, it would be a rich joke if Mrs. Van Esten proposed Pavoya for a "star turn" at the Armenian charity entertainment!

"If it's true," said Nat, "Juliet couldn't very well refuse her consent to have Pavoya. That would make things worse. As it is, none of us could help noticing how she has kept the Duke away from every single opera where Pavoya has danced. Not once has he or she been in their box on a Pavoya night. But——"

The company hung on the word, as Nat drew in her breath, and paused for effect. Never were they to know, however, what revelation was to follow that "but," for at this instant Mrs. Lowndes' butler announced "The Duchess of Claremanagh," and left out the preface of "Her Grace."

His omission upset the hostess so much that she stammered over her greeting, and forgot what she had read in a book called "English Etiquette" about introducing a duchess. Juliet Claremanagh was so contrite for her own guilt, however, that she had no thought for others' shortcomings.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry to be late! Do forgive me, everyone!" she cried, like a penitent schoolgirl. "I was kept so long at that meeting, and then I had to dash home for a minute. My husband had made me promise. You see, this is supposed to be a great day for me. The pearls—perhaps you've heard of them?—are due at last!"

"Perhaps" they had heard of the pearls! The Duchess was forgiven at once. Introductions were hastily made. As the party sat down, the guest of honour pulling off her gloves, she went on with her excuses. Evidently she was willing to talk of the pearls, so Nat ventured an entering wedge.

"Emmy wrote me they had to be re-strung," she said. "And that the most skilled pearl-stringer in England wasn't demobilized, or something; so you had to wait." What Emmy had really written was, "This is the story they're putting round." But it would be exciting to get Juliet's answer, and watch Juliet's face.

The Duchess was somewhat paler than Juliet Phayre had been, for she and the Duke had made a huge success in New York, and were in such request that they kept appalling hours. But she was rosier than she had ever been as she replied that, yes, she had had to wait. But at last the pearls had been sent. They were on the Britannia, in care of a trusted person; and that person had "wirelessed" that he would be at the house by half-past twelve. Unluckily, however, the Britannia had been delayed outside for a sister ship to leave the dock. She—Juliet—had gone home from Mrs. Van Esten's to receive the messenger, with her husband. But the former and Pat's trusted man, sent to meet him, had not arrived. She had waited a few minutes, and had then come on in the car to Mrs. Lowndes'. Of course, the auto had been detained for ages, at two or three crossings! It was always like that if one were late! And now she could not be at home when the pearls appeared, for there were engagements, which couldn't be broken, for the whole of the afternoon.

After all, the luncheon was a great success. The Duchess atoned for her sins by being "sweet" to everyone, much sweeter than she had troubled herself to be, as a spoiled young girl, with strangers. She was as pleased as a child with the delicious dishes ordered, almost with prayer, by Nat; and when she was obliged to go, after coffee and cigarettes, she left behind her a charming impression. Mrs. Selby-Saunders and Miss Solomon and all the rest made up for their sharp speeches by praising the bride's beauty and exquisite clothes.

"She's much prettier than she used to be," generously said Nat (who had never seen Juliet as Miss Phayre), "and the Duke must be a fool if he likes Lyda Pavoya better. If he neglects his wife, she won't have any trouble finding someone else who won't."

"What about that cousin of hers, Jack Manners, who used to be in love with her when she was almost a child?—a nephew of her mother's," asked Mrs. Selby-Saunders. "An awfully nice fellow! She ought to have married him. They say he volunteered before America joined the Allies, because she refused him——"

"He's in France still," Nat supplied the information eagerly. "My sister-in-law, Lady West, met him there——"

"I saw in some newspaper that he was to sail for home on the Britannia" said Miss Solomon. "Perhaps he is the messenger bringing the pearls!"

CHAPTER IV
THE LETTER WITH THE TSARINA'S SEAL

John Manners was not the messenger bringing the pearls. Even if he had been asked to bring them, he would not have accepted the responsibility of escorting Claremanagh's "ewe lamb" across the Atlantic. He knew more about those pearls than he wanted to know, for he had been in love with Juliet Phayre before he began to like Claremanagh—to like him in spite of himself, in spite of natural jealousy, and in spite of prejudice. It was a mere coincidence that he should be on the same ship with Monsieur Mayen's messenger, for with the return of Mayen from Russia, Manners' friendly services for the Duke came to an end.

His services for France were ended also; and he was keenly interested in his own emotions as he touched the bell on the front door of the Phayre house. How would it feel to meet Juliet married—and married to a man with whom fate had queerly forced him into friendship?

The front door was a very elaborate door. It was mostly composed of old wrought iron so delicately carved as to be like iron lacework. Silas Phayre had imported it from an ancient palazzo in Florence and, characteristically, had it backed with modern plate glass. The inner side of this crystal screen was curtained with creamy silk tissue, thus forming a sort of mirror for any one waiting to enter. Manners gazed vaguely at his reflection behind the pattern of wrought iron, and his sense of humour noted that thwarted love had not made of him a haggard wreck. Fighting in France had browned and hardened him. He was lean, but far from frail. The dark tan on his face caused his yellowish hair to seem straw-coloured in contrast, and his eyes boyishly blue. This, and the khaki uniform he still wore, gave him an air of being younger than he was—twenty-eight: and the man and his image were exchanging an amused grin when a new reflection appeared in the glass. Mechanically Manners turned, and found himself face to face with a woman. She had paused at the foot of the marble steps, and hesitated, as if the sight of someone on the threshold had upset her calculations. But at this instant the door was thrown open—not by one of the imported English footmen whom Manners knew of old, but by an elderly Japanese. The yellow face gave Jack a shock, but he realized that British and American youths had been better employed than as footmen since he himself had gone to France.

The Japanese looked past the officer in khaki to the lady, whom he appeared to recognize and even to be expecting. This look settled matters for her. She decided to keep to her original plan. With a slight inclination of the head to Manners, she stepped briskly into the vestibule. Behind her, she left a faint trail of alluring fragrance. Even Jack Manners, who disliked artificial perfumes, breathed it in with pleasure. He had never smelled anything quite like it before; but he thought of an eastern garden in moonlight, and the thrill of that picture mingled with another thrill. He had recognized the woman. He had seen her before, but only on the stage, and now she was veiled with one of those patterned veils almost as concealing for an ordinary woman as a mask. But this was not an ordinary woman. It was Pavoya, the Polish dancer; the "divine Pavoya," the "diabolic Pavoya," according to the point of view. Even lacking the green glint of slanted eyes, the fiery glow of close-banded hair through the veil, that figure in the plain black dress would have been unmistakable. Portrait painters, photographers, post-impressionists, and caricaturists had rendered it familiar, in all lands, to those who had not seen the dancer herself. Manners could hardly believe in the truth of his swift impression. It was almost incredible that she should come as a guest to this house. Could she have made friends with Juliet? Juliet's cousin wondered.

The thing that happened next was still more strange. The slim siren in black did not wait to be ushered in by the servant. She flitted from vestibule to hall beyond, then vanished as if she knew where to go and was in haste to get there. The Japanese did not turn his head to look after her, but gave his attention to the man on the doorstep.

"I'm Captain Manners," said Jack. "I've come to see my cousin, the Duchess. I suppose she is at home?" He supposed this, not only because Juliet knew that he was due on the Britannia, and had cabled her desire to see him at once, but also because Mademoiselle Pavoya must have gone in by appointment. Even before the servant answered, however, he read in the troubled dark face that something had gone wrong.

"Please to walk in, sir," said the Japanese, in stiff, correct English. "I have a note for you from Her Grace the Duchess. She was unfortunately obliged to go out; but I think she hopes to be back early. If you will kindly walk into the Persian room, sir, I will give you the letter."

Well did Jack remember the Persian room! It had been Silas Phayre's great fad and favourite, and during his life had been used as a smoking room. Jack half expected to find Lyda Pavoya there, perhaps reading another note from Juliet; but the wonderful room, with its rare tiles and priceless rugs and exquisite old tapestries, was unoccupied. The servant placed an envelope on an antique tray of Persian enamel, and presented it with a bow. Then he went out unobtrusively, leaving Manners to study with some interest the seal Juliet had used.

It seemed superfluous that she should use any at all, as the scrawled address showed that the writer had been in haste; but the interesting thing was the seal itself. It was Claremanagh's own seal, which he kept for his private correspondence, and the ring with which he made it had been given by the Tsarina of the Pearls to his great-great-grandfather. Jack happened to know this, because the Duke had ordered a copy made for Louis Mayen, with which to seal the box containing the pledged pearls. Claremanagh had told Jack this story before leaving France, and had pointed out the ring, which he invariably wore. The design was an eye; and the motto underneath was, "Je te regard."

"Must have given the ring to Juliet," Manners thought, as he opened the envelope. He read:

DEAR OLD BOY:

Don't think me a beast to be out. I really couldn't help it. I was dragged into accepting for a tiresome lunch party, given by a tiresome female, in my honour: Emmy West's sister-in-law. Some story has been started that I was jealous of Emmy (among other women!) with Pat. Nonsense! But I knew, if I refused, what the creatures would say. Besides, I couldn't be sure just when you'd turn up. And above all, I wanted a chance to see you quite, quite alone. I've got lots of things to tell you, that I couldn't tell any one else. If you call while I'm away, as I expect, stop and see Pat, who is to lunch at home, as he's got a bad cold. Then say you must go, as you have an engagement. That will be true, because I now invite you to make an engagement with me. But if he insists on your visiting us, before you go home to Long Island, as he's sure to, do accept. You were horrid to answer my cable with a refusal, and say you had to go at once to your own place to decide on some silly old improvements you want to make. That's only an excuse, Jack, because you didn't quite see yourself staying in the house with Pat and me. But you are much too strong a man to mind a little thing like that. I don't believe you were ever in love with me, really. You just thought you were, that's all, from knowing me when I was a wee kid, and always being my bestest pal whom I could count on without fail.

Oh, Jack, I do count on you now, as I never did before. So you won't fail me for the first time in your life, will you? I suppose this is selfish of me, and "exactly like a woman" (as Uncle Henry used to say, whenever I wanted to do anything he didn't want me to do), but I can't help it. You'll see, when I tell you, why nobody else can be of any use to me in this trouble.

I have to write all this, though I hope to meet you so soon; because if I didn't, you might refuse Pat's most pressing invitation. And where should I be then? Don't think for an instant that I'm tired of Pat, and want a divorce or anything. It isn't that at all. I adore him as much as ever. That's where the trouble comes in! But we've had a row, and every day it will get worse. Why, even the seal ring, which I'm using for this letter, has become a bone of contention—among other things. This does need a seal, if ever a letter did, for it's dreadfully indiscreet and unwifely, I suppose.

Already I've eased my mind a little by pouring out my woes to you, as in old times. And now for that engagement with me, which I trust you to keep. I am supposed to go to an "At Home," which I'm not sure isn't given for me. All I am sure about is that I shan't be there. Instead, I'll be in the Palm Room of the Hotel Lorne (where no one we know ever goes for tea) at five o'clock. And I shall wait for you, so you'll have to come. Afterward, if you haven't done it before, you can see to sending all your things to our house for a visit of at least a week. But we'll talk of that!

Ever your affectionate cousin,
JEWEL.

P. S. You see, I haven't forgotten your old name for me. No one except you ever called me his "Jewel."

When Manners had read this letter through, he sat with it for some moments in his hand. Then, suddenly, he roused himself to realize that it was not a document to flaunt in the open. He replaced it in the envelope, which he slipped into an inner pocket of his khaki coat. Had the Japanese told Claremanagh of his arrival, he wondered? Or had there been some secret understanding between the Duchess and her servant that Captain Manners should be left long enough in the Persian room to read and put out of sight her sealed letter? Claremanagh had his own confidential man, Nickson (known as "Old Nick"); why should not Juliet have hers? There was no reason. Yet Jack hated to think that the girl should be driven to a rather sordid expedient, and somehow this thought dragged into his head another.

"By George!" he exploded aloud. Then he bit his lip. But the thought could not be pushed away. Since Juliet was out, to whom was the visit of Lyda Pavoya being made?

The Japanese seemed to be in the confidence of more than one person in this house!

CHAPTER V
THE THIRD RINGER OF THE BELL

Simone had been in the act of coming downstairs, dressed for a walk with her mistress's English bulldog, Admiral Beatty, when a vision flashed through the hall: a reedlike figure in black with a glint of red hair through a patterned veil.

Simone stopped short, petrified, pulling so suddenly at the dog's leash that the reticent bull gave a grunt.

It took a great deal to petrify Simone. She had been through an earthquake in Italy. She had escaped from a burning hotel in her first year of service in New York. There had been further sensations also, and her nerves were accustomed to shocks. But to see Lyda Pavoya, the dancer, dart unannounced through the hall, when the Duke was alone in the house, went beyond everything.

She was certain, despite the veil, that the woman was Pavoya. No other creature on earth had a figure like that, or held her head so like a light flower on a stem. The Duchess was tall and slim and graceful, with a slender, long throat; but she had the slightness of a normal, charmingly formed young girl. The Polish dancer was almost a thing supernatural, a streak of living flame made woman.

Simone's dark skin was thick, but her head was not. Her brain worked fast. Like a general at manoeuvres, it reviewed the situation at a glance. The Duke was at home because of a "cold!" He had known for days that the Duchess would be out for luncheon, and that she was safe not to return home en surprise. He must have invited Pavoya to come in his wife's absence. And more than this, it struck Simone that the visit of to-day could not be the first. Togo, the Japanese (of whom she was jealous because of her mistress's fancy for his services), seemed to be acquainted with the dancer. He let her pass without a word. No doubt she had been to the house before, when the Duchess and Simone were out of the way. Either the Duke or Pavoya—or both—had bribed Togo, who was playing a mean, double game between his master and mistress! The Frenchwoman resolved that she would not, after all, take Beatty for a walk. Bending down, she unfastened the leash from his expensive collar, on which was engraved: "Miss America from her British Ally. P.C. to J.P."

Feeling himself free the dog instantly turned and spraddled back to the Adored One's boudoir, where he was privileged to wallow among all the prettiest cushions. Such wallowing he much preferred to a promenade with Simone or any one else save his worshipped Duchess.

As Simone rose from her stooping posture, she saw that Togo had ushered a man into the house. A second glance enabled her to recognize this man, and she was more amused than surprised to see that it was Captain Manners. Juliet had not asked her maid to deliver the secret letter, because it would be simpler for the man who opened the door to do so, and as the confidential mission was given to another, the Duchess had prudently refrained for mentioning it to Simone. The latter imagined her mistress must mentally have mislaid the fact that she herself had seen in the papers: Captain Manners' return on the Britannia, from France.

In any case, here he was, and all that was cynical in Simone laughed at the contretemps. He was certain to have asked for the Duke, as the Duchess was out. Would Togo, who had just let in Pavoya, venture to interrupt a tête-à-tête, by announcing that Her Grace's cousin had arrived? It occurred to Simone that the Japanese had not dared to turn away so important a person, but that, having let him in, he would find some way of excusing the Duke.

The situation was too dramatic to waste. The Frenchwoman pictured His Grace's expression, faced by his wife's cousin and loyal friend. She had wanted her mistress to marry Claremanagh, because it was distinguished to be the maid of a Duchess, but she had liked Manners and received many a tip from him in days gone by. For that reason, and for others even more important, she must help Manners catch his cousin Juliet's husband and Lyda Pavoya together.

Thinking quickly, she tripped down the broad marble staircase which led to the great hall—a staircase that she was the one servant permitted to use. She had not passed the midway landing, however, when a second Japanese—a youth under the command of Togo—went hurrying toward the front door.

The electric bell was not audible to any one in the hall, but Simone guessed that a third caller had rung. In Togo's absence with Captain Manners, it was the duty of Huji to answer the door. The maid flew down the remaining steps, and was in time to hear the Japanese in embarrassed conversation with the latest arrival. This person was speaking broken English, and Huji, not as fluent in that tongue as Togo, could not understand.

"A Frenchman!" decided Simone. "Mon Dieu, it will be the messenger with the pearls!"

She stepped forward with a smile. "Monsieur," she said, "Je suis Française, la femme de chambre de la Duchesse. Si je puis être utile——"

The newcomer turned at the words, and beamed at sight of a compatriot. He was youngish, between thirty and forty, Simone thought. He was good-looking, too; richly dark, as if he might be a child of the south, like herself. His eyes were handsome, and his small features well cut; so were his clothes. He had a neat, close-clipped moustache, and red lips which made his teeth look white as he gave smile for smile, though in reality they were slightly yellowed by constant cigarette smoking. Simone approved of him. He had the air of being a gentleman, and she was glad that fate had made them meet.

Naturally she knew of the Tsarina pearls, and that they were expected, after tiresome delays; for Juliet was both trustful and careless where Simone was concerned. But, save for this little comedy, she would not have met the messenger. Vaguely the maid understood that he was private secretary to some French financier in whose "care" the pearls had been left; and a secretary was far above a femme de chambre in the social scale. It was a pleasant accident which enabled her to earn his gratitude, and Simone had a sudden vision of being invited out to dine, or go to the theatre, as a reward. Who knew how it might end if she played just the right cards?

For a moment the two tossed "politenesses" to each other in their own beautiful language, the Nicoise striving to speak like a Parisienne. But there was no time to waste before the return of Togo, and after a few flowery sentences Simone came to business. "Monsieur has arrived on the Britannia, is it not?" she fluted.

This told, as she intended, that the "mission" was no secret from her; and the way was cleared for the messenger. He showed her a visiting-card, with which he had vainly tried to impress Huji. "Leon Defasquelle" was the name Simone read, and its owner volubly explained that he was awaited with impatience by the Duke of Claremanagh. "This Oriental," he went on, with a glance at the attentive yellow face, "informs me, if I understand aright, that I cannot see the Duke."

"Monsieur may have understood Huji. But it is Huji who does not understand the situation," smiled Simone. "His Grace the Duke is confined to the house with a cold. Otherwise he would doubtless have met Monsieur at the ship. As it was, he sent his own man. Was not Monsieur received by an Irishman named Nickson?"

Monsieur Defasquelle shook his head sadly. There must have been a mistake. He had hoped to find someone who would see him through the formalities of landing, but no one had appeared. Possibly this was due to the fact that his luggage had been placed under the Letter F instead of D, and so the Duke's man had missed him. Fortunately, through the influence of Mr. Henry Phayre (still engaged in the noble work of reconstructing devastated France), and that of the well-known New York banking house of Phayre, there had been no difficulty with the Customs. His—Defasquelle's—mission had for obvious reasons been kept secret on shipboard, but the object he brought had been declared, and instead of being delayed at the dock, he had been aided by the authorities. It seemed strange now to meet obstacles at the journey's end!

"Be seated, Monsieur, for a moment," his countrywoman cooed. "I will go myself and tell His Grace that you have arrived. I am a privileged person in this house!"

Huji had understood not a word of the conversation in French, but seeing Simone start in the direction of the Duke's "study," he put himself in the woman's way. "Togo say Duke no see any peoples," he warned her in his best English.

"I will take the responsibility on myself," she said. "I knew the Duke long before Togo saw either of Their Graces."

With a slight push she passed the boy, and in her haste almost skated along the polished floor to the door next that of the Persian room. There she tapped sharply, without a second's hesitation, and waiting for an answer she could hear her heart knock in her breast.

For a long moment that felt longer there was no other sound. The silence behind the door seemed abnormal to her high-keyed nerves. But suddenly, as she was about to rap again, the door was flung open. The Duke stood on the threshold, his charming brown face less charming than usual, because of a slight frown. At sight of Simone he showed surprise, his scowl having been prepared for Togo.

"What is it? Has your mistress come home?" he asked. The frown had faded; the voice was kind. But this change did not deceive Simone. She was sure that the Duke was in what he himself would call a "blue funk," and the fear she imagined brought back the last picture her mind had made of him. Quickly she saw the way to kill two birds with one stone.

"Monsieur le Duc," she said in French. "The messenger has arrived from the Britannia, and is being detained in the hall by the Japanese. He is very vexed and surprised. I took it on myself to tell Your Grace, as I think this is a man who would go away in anger; and that would be a pity."

Claremanagh flushed. Simone read his confusion. Pavoya was not to be seen, but she was in the room, hidden somewhere; there was no doubt of that; either behind the big Spanish screen, or in the window recess covered by velvet curtains. If Simone had not learned to control her features she would have laughed. She knew that the wretched young man must be thinking, "What shall I do? If I go outside this room to meet Defasquelle, someone may walk in and find Pavoya. Perhaps it may be a plot of my wife's, who has come back and seen Pavoya! Yet if I receive Defasquelle here, Pavoya will have to remain hidden, since there will be no chance for her to escape."

It was a case of the frying pan and the fire, and to know which was which seemed a "toss up". However, the Duke made the best of things as they were, and decided quickly. "Of course I'll see this gentleman," he said in rather a loud tone. "Have him sent here at once."

"Bien, Monsieur le Duc!" agreed Simone; then added instantly, "And the Capitaine Manners? Is he to be kept waiting?"

"Good Lord!" exploded Claremanagh. "Is he here, too?"

"He has been here some time," the maid had begun to explain when Togo appeared, his eye bright with rage. This woman had upset his careful arrangements! He knew that she had done it to make mischief. But now there was no circumventing her. He had heard the whole story from Huji, and an elaborate plan to keep Captain Manners contented in the Persian room was a burst bubble. Meekly Togo took orders from the Duke to bring both visitors to him, Captain Manners first, because he was a relative, and not more than five minutes later, Monsieur Defasquelle.

"Does His Grace wish me to make his excuses to the messenger?" asked Simone, as Togo trotted off to the Persian room.

"Yes, go," said the Duke, no doubt anxious for an instant with the hidden one; and the maid hurried back to Defasquelle. In order to ingratiate herself, rather than exonerate her mistress's husband, she threw all her charm into the explanation. In five minutes—no more!—His Grace would receive Monsieur. Meanwhile, was there any information, any aid, she could give—she who had known New York for years? By the time Togo appeared to conduct the messenger, Defasquelle and Simone had discovered that they were both of the south; he, no farther from Nice than Marseilles. It was when the very invitation she had wished for hovered on the Frenchman's lips that the Japanese intervened, and Simone hated Togo more violently than before.

CHAPTER VI
BEHIND THE BOOKSHELF

"Captain Manners, this is Monsieur Defasquelle, private secretary to Monsieur Mayen, of whom you have heard me speak," Claremanagh introduced the two men, as the messenger came in. He shook Defasquelle's hand and gave him one of the delightful smiles which helped to make him popular with all types and classes.

Jack tried not to hear what Juliet's husband and the Frenchman said to each other. Not that there was any special reason why he shouldn't hear, for he'd heard Pat groan over the pawned pearls till he was sick of the subject; and he had been drawn into the business of trying to get them for Juliet after Claremanagh left France. But his part in the affair was ended, and he felt that Pat would rather be alone with Defasquelle; that he had been asked to make a third on the scene entirely through politeness. Besides, he was grimly conscious that the three men were not the only persons present. He was as sure as Simone had been that Lyda Pavoya listened from behind the Spanish screen, or the half-drawn green velvet curtains. He was angry for Juliet's sake that the woman should be in the house, and disgusted that she should be hidden. Never had he come so near disliking Pat, even on the day when Juliet broke the news of her engagement. But to his own annoyance, he could not dislike him whole-heartedly. He even found himself sneakingly half-sorry for the fellow. Wondering why this should be, he was roused from his thoughts by the raised voice of Defasquelle.

"But I must beg, Monsieur le Duc, that you open the box in my presence and verify the contents!" he exclaimed.

"I see how you feel, but I can't do that, and it's not necessary," returned Pat.

Jack Manners had seated himself on the club-fender that guarded the fine fireplace. He had taken an illustrated paper to occupy eyes and hands, but glanced up and saw on the table between Claremanagh and Defasquelle a box neatly packed in some waterproof-looking material, sealed with five fat crimson seals.

"It would spoil all the fun if I broke those seals," Pat went on, in a more human tone. "My wife must be the first to open the thing, and see the pearls. I'm extremely sorry she's out. But it can't be helped. If you care to wait——"

"When will Madame the Duchess return?" Defasquelle enquired.

"That's more than I know. Not till late, I'm afraid."

"I have made an engagement in a half hour from now," regretted the Frenchman, taking out his watch. "It is an appointment that cannot be put off, as the person is not free to change from one time to another. Monsieur, I urge you to open the box. It is only fair to the Purser of the Britannia, who kept it in his safe. It is only fair to me——"

Claremanagh laughed. "Oh, don't bother about that side of it! Those seals alone are a proof that the packet hasn't been tampered with since it left Mayen's hands. You're his secretary, Monsieur Defasquelle, and he trusts you completely, or he wouldn't have chosen you, above any one else, as his messenger. But I don't suppose he would take that seal ring I gave him off his finger to lend it even to you. He volunteered the promise to me that it should never leave his hand. In fact, when I pledged the pearls to him for two hundred thousand francs, it was he who suggested fastening them up in a box sealed with my own particular, private seal."

"You are right so far, Monsieur le Duc," admitted Defasquelle. "My employer has been true to his agreement. For one thing, the ring you had made for him with the facsimile of your seal happens to be rather small. I do not think he could remove it from his finger if he wished without having it sawed off by a jeweller."

"Very well, then!" said Pat. "There you are!"

"But I am not there," argued the Frenchman, unfamiliar with English idioms. "Seals can be taken off and fastened on again, I have heard, without the change leaving a trace. I am certain these are intact. But, putting aside myself and the Pursuer, Monsieur would not——"

"Rot, my dear fellow!" cut in the Duke. "I trust Mayen as I trust myself. Of course, I know—we all three know—the pearls are inside that box. You say you can't wait for my wife to come home. I say the seals shan't be broken by any hand but hers. Let's be sensible! Manners, come here, won't you, and reassure Monsier Defasquelle by examining these seals!" He snatched the box up from the table, and held it out to Jack. "You've got sharp eyes. I leave it to you. Can't you swear that those five red blobs have never been tampered with, even by the smartest expert alive?"

Reluctantly Jack came forward, and accepting the box, closely examined the seals. "I think I'd be prepared to swear that," he said. "All the same, Monsieur Defasquelle is right, in my opinion. You owe it to him—to everyone concerned, including the company who've insured the pearls—to open the box before you let it go out of your sight."

"You're no true friend of Juliet's, to give me such advice," Pat taunted him. "And I won't take it. That's flat. While as for the seals, look there!" As he retrieved the package, he nodded at a ring on the least finger of his right hand.

Both men's eyes went to it; Defasquelle's to note, perhaps, how precisely the raised design of the wax resembled the sunken design on the gold. But there was a different thought in Jack Manners' mind. He remembered what Juliet had written him about this ring. What had happened between her and Pat? was the question that flashed through his head. A few hours ago she had sealed her "secret letter" with her husband's ring, after some dispute concerning it. And now, here it was on Pat's finger again!

Claremanagh, unconscious of Jack's disparaging reflections, began to regain something like his old gaiety of manner. "Are you satisfied, Monsieur?" he asked. Then, seeing that Defasquelle screwed up his brilliant eyes in a near-sighted way, the Duke flung the box on the table, and pulled off the ring.

"Have a good look at it," he said, almost forcing it into the Frenchman's hand. "There's a safe in the wall of this room, made by my dead father-in-law, to keep such things as he didn't care to send to the bank. My wife and I are the only people alive who have keys to it, or know the combination. Besides, my own man is the one servant allowed in this room. So you see, Jack, I don't need to keep the box 'in sight' after Monsieur Defasquelle goes."

As he spoke, he walked toward an alcove at the left of the fireplace. It was fitted with bookshelves; and as Manners' eyes followed Claremanagh he remembered the secret of Silas Phayre's safe. Part of the top shelf had to be pulled out from the wall (after touching a spring) and then pushed up. Thus a small steel door was revealed, and could be unlocked only after a certain combination of letters had been made. Jack had not thought of the safe in years, or glanced in its direction on entering the room; but now, to his surprise, he saw that the bookshelf had already been pushed up, and the safe-door not only revealed, but opened.

Claremanagh's back was turned to him, and he could not see by a change of face whether Pat was vexed at his own forgetfulness, or indifferent. But Jack remembered the hidden fourth person in the room, and instinct told him that the safe had not been opened in readiness for the pearls. There had been some other motive. Claremanagh and the Polish woman had been interrupted in their tête-à-tête, and it would be characteristic of Pat if an unexpected rap on the door had caught him unawares. Could he have been in the act of giving Pavoya a jewel from the safe when he had been forced to answer a knock?

Luckily, no such suspicion could be in the Frenchman's head, for he had not seen Pavoya slip into the house. Jack glanced at him, and saw that he had laid the Duke's seal ring on the table beside the sealed packet. He was looking at the safe, but showed no surprise at finding it open. For him, it had been prepared to receive the pearls.

"There's a good little hidie-hole!" said Pat. "Now I'll sign the receipt, Monsieur, and you may go to your engagement with a light heart." He went back to the table, took the box, and tossed it into the aperture in the wall. Then he closed the steel door, did something to it which the eyes of neither man could follow, and pulled down the concealing bookshelf.

A moment later he was scrawling "Claremanagh" on the paper which Defasquelle rather sulkily put into his hand.

CHAPTER VII
WHAT JULIET TOLD JACK

At five minutes before five o'clock Jack Manners entered the Palm Room of the Hotel Lorne. This room adjoined the restaurant, and was crowded with small tables lit by pink-shaded electric candles. The Lorne was a good hotel, but too stodgily respectable to be amusing. As there was no band at meal times or tea time, its clients were mostly unmodern creatures with a strange preference for peace and quiet.

It was well that Jack had arrived before the hour fixed, for at five precisely Juliet appeared. He had already engaged a table in a secluded corner half screened by drooping, feather-like branches; but his eyes were on the door, and he sprang up as the tall, girlish figure drifted in between two palms.

At sight of his boyhood's love, his heart gave a bound. How lovely she was in her sheathlike grey dress, with dangling silvery things, like clouds of dawn filming a pale sunrise sky! Her hat was simple yet quaint, pushing forward her bright hair, and making her face look young as a child's—pathetically young. Yes, "pathetic" was the word, Jack thought as he went to meet her, and she came hastening to him as to a haven. And "pathetic" was a new word in connection with Juliet Phayre! She had been proud, fantastic, absurd, charming, obstinate, unaccountable, and a hundred other things, but never pathetic. Manners wondered if it could be the dip of her odd hat-brim which gave her that look of transparent pallor, and the blue shadows under her big eyes.

There were not many people in the room, as tea at the Lorne was far from a fashionable function. Those who were there seemed absorbed, in a tired, provincial-shoppers' way, in the muffin and tea business. Still, Juliet was too tall and beautiful not to be conspicuous even if unrecognized, and a few weeks ago no Sunday Supplement had been complete without her photograph. The two could do no more than gaze deep, eyes in eyes, for an instant, as they met near the door, and squeeze instead of shaking hands; but all prudence was Jack's. He saw by Juliet's face that the tea-drinkers were of no more importance to her than the chairs they sat in, and he could have kissed the face turned up affectionately to his—if he would. But he would not, and he did not even speak until he had her seated at their palm-screened table.

"Oh, Jack, it's great to see you!" Juliet said, when a too-attentive waiter had finished taking their order. Tears suddenly welled to her eyes. She dived into a gorgeous gold mesh bag for a handkerchief, which was not there. "Must be lost!" she sniffed. Hastily Jack passed his across the table, and had a heart-piercing impression that he had lived through this scene before, in happier days. But yes, of course! Often, when he was a big boy and she was a little girl, she had come to him for consolation. And she had always lost her "hanky!" It was then, when he was about sixteen, and she eleven, that he had first begun to love her, with a protecting love that had changed but never waned as the years passed. Now she belonged to another man. Yet she still called to him, across the gulf marriage had made, for help and comfort! Jack Manners wondered what had happened to his red blood, that the pain he suffered was not more acute.

"I'm too sorry for the child to think of myself just now," he diagnosed his feelings, with the picture of Pavoya in his mind. "The reaction will come by and by."

Juliet began at once to pour out her woes, forgetting to ask what had happened during Jack's visit to the house—what her husband had said, or whether the pearls had come.

"Pat doesn't love me," she broke out. "That's why I'm miserable. I don't know how to live. And I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me—except himself."

"You don't mean that Claremanagh says——" Jack began to blunder; but Juliet cut him short. "Not in words, of course. But I found a letter from that devil, Pavoya. It began, 'My Best and Dearest Friend'. Isn't that the same thing as telling me? The woman wouldn't write to him like that if he didn't encourage her."

Jack longed to comfort the girl; but after what he had seen, he was at a loss for consoling words. "How did you happen to find the letter?" he temporized.

"Why, it had to do with the fuss about Pat's seal ring," the girl confessed. "But first, I'd better explain that when I was being married, I made firm resolutions never to mention the name of Pavoya to Pat. Emmy West almost dared me to! And that alone was enough to show me it would be a silly mistake. But one night after we'd come to New York and were settling down happily, we had an exciting, intimate sort of talk about our pasts. It was a beautiful talk! And I felt so sure of Pat, I just couldn't resist asking if he'd ever loved Pavoya. He swore he hadn't; he'd only admired her a lot, and flirted a little. It was nothing at all beside what he felt for me. He was so dear that I burst out about how nasty Emmy West and other people had been—how unhappy they'd made me, more than once. Pat said 'Damn Emmy West and all the cats!' I loved that! And while the mood was on, I asked if he were willing to promise he'd not see Pavoya in New York.

"The minute those words were spoken, I saw a change in Pat. He said he couldn't make such a promise. There might be circumstances which would force him to see her. He wouldn't call on her, though. I had to be satisfied with that, and I was—almost, till one day when I'd teased him to lend me his seal ring. It's supposed to bring luck, you know. So I thought I'd try it, for bridge. I had to wear it on my thumb; it's too big for my fingers. I was playing that afternoon at Nancy Van Esten's. I had a Frenchwoman for a partner. I'd never met her before. Perhaps you knew her in Paris? A Comtesse de Saintville: her husband is on some mission here. She's a very impulsive woman—neurotic, I should think. I didn't feel drawn to her, because I'd heard she was a great pal of Lyda Pavoya's: that they went about together a lot. Suddenly she noticed the ring. She squeaked, 'Why, I know that eye! I saw it on a letter the other day.' Then she shut up and turned red. I could see her colour through inches of powder! Of course, I guessed where she'd seen the letter. And there was only one person who could have sent it. Maybe I turned red, too. But I pretended to take no interest, and Nancy Van Esten said 'Do let's play bridge!'

"I went home perfectly wretched. Pat thought I was ill. I didn't contradict him. I hadn't made up my mind what to do. But one thing I did—I kept the ring. Day before yesterday he asked me for it. I knew what that meant! He wanted to write to her again—perhaps had a letter to answer. I showed quite plainly that I hated giving up the ring. But he didn't care. He would have it. The only sort of 'concession' he made was to say he'd give it back next day—after he'd finished a batch of correspondence. Well, the next day came, and he didn't give the ring back, though I saw he wasn't wearing it. You know how forgetful and careless he often is! I was sure he'd left the ring where he sealed his letters. He'd promised I should have it again. I suppose I had a right to take it, hadn't I?"

Juliet paused, her eyes dry now, challenging Jack. But he did not speak, and she hurried on to defend herself. "I felt I had the right," she persisted, without conviction. "So yesterday I went into the room that used to be Dad's den. It's Pat's den now. He wasn't in——"

"Did you think he would be?"

"No-o. As a matter of fact, he'd gone to the bank. You know he works there. He's quite keen. He'd been late about getting off, so he'd started in a hurry. His desk wasn't locked. I don't know whether he ever locks it, because I never tried the drawers before. Anyhow, in the top drawer a lot of letters were tumbled in—letters he'd received, and letters he'd written—not in envelopes yet. All sorts of things were there in disorder—fountain pens, sealing wax, and—the ring! It was on an open letter that lay face up, a letter with a purple monogram of L.P. A perfume came up from the paper—a queer perfume, and the writing—in purple ink—was queer, too. I saw the beginning I told you about: 'My Best and Dearest Friend'—in French. Oh, Jack, I thought I should have died. I almost wish I had!"

"Nonsense!" Jack scouted her grief. "If the letter had had anything in it Pat was ashamed to have you see, you may be sure even he wouldn't have been so careless."

"It wasn't exactly carelessness made him leave it," Juliet said, sadly. "It was trust in me. He didn't dream that I—would do such a thing as read a letter of his. And I didn't read it. I didn't read another word, Jack. One side of me wanted to, horribly. The other side was disgusted at the idea—the stronger side, it turned out."

"Good girl!" cried Jack.

"Yes, I do think I was a saint. But virtue never has any reward except its own. I left the ring and the letter. But I felt half dead. I decided things couldn't go on as they were. I meant to speak to Pat when he came home."

"And did you?"

"No, because he was ill—had a bad headache—the beginning of a cold. Or else he was pretending. I can't trust him now! But he looked pale and odd, so I nobly left him alone till this morning. Then I went to the study, and asked him to keep his promise about the ring. He pulled open the drawer. There it was on the letter, as I saw it yesterday. That gave me my chance. I said, 'Pavoya has been writing to you. I see her monogram.' And I pretended to read, 'My Best and Dearest Friend', for the first time."

"By George!" exclaimed Jack, as Juliet stopped for breath.

"By George, indeed!" she echoed. "Pat accused me of being suspicious. I accused him of being untrue. We had a scene! I never thought I could say such things to Pat as I said. The way he took them made me worse. He just looked at me in silence, with his mouth shut like a steel trap. I suppose he hates me now. If he hadn't deserved every word I said, I should deserve to be hated for saying them. If he'd loved me, he would have boxed my ears! I half expected he would. But seeing him stand like a graven image, I turned to leave the room. He opened the door for me to go out, and handed me the ring."

"You took it!"

"I had to, or fling it in his face. I went straight off and wrote that letter to you, which I sealed with the ring. Then I sent it back to him by Old Nick. I haven't seen Pat, of course, since he shut the door on me. And I don't know how we are going to behave to each other when we meet next."

"You will behave as if nothing had happened, of course," Jack said with decision.

"That's your advice?"

"Certainly. And nothing has really happened, so far as you know. You have no proof that Claremanagh has broken his word about calling on Pavoya. And you've seen no letter from him to her——"

"Someone else saw his seal!"

"The most innocent words may have been under it. And you can't blame a man if a woman chooses to address him as her 'dearest friend'. At least you've no right to do so."

"Don't you think I have? That's because you're a man, always ready to defend another man. And you don't understand women."

"Good heavens, I don't claim to! And I do not defend Claremanagh. I merely say, give him the benefit of the doubt. Only men and women in melodrama refuse to hear any defense from the suspected one. You asked for my advice. There it is, my child, whether it pleases you or not."

"Well, if you want me to be as cool and reasonable as you are, you've got to stand by me, and see me through."

"I'm neither cool nor reasonable where you're concerned, Juliet. But you know I'll stand by you."

"You mean, you'll not go to Long Island? You'll stay in New York, and be our guest?"

"I'll not go to Long Island—at present. I'll stay in New York. But I won't be your guest."

"You're cruel, Jack! You're selfish!" Juliet cried, as she had often unjustly cried before.

"You know better," he said. "It is the outsider who sees the game. I ought to see it—if I'm to help. And I wouldn't be an outsider if I were your guest. I've taken rooms at the Hotel Tarascon, only one street away from your house and Pat's."

Juliet was silent for a moment. She had a hideous fear that, in her anger, she had flung Her house, Her money, Her everything, at Claremanagh's stone pale face.

CHAPTER VIII
JULIET BREAKS THE SEALS

At six forty-two the Duchess of Claremanagh descended from a plebeian taxicab in front of her pretentious home. She had sent away her own car, before going to the Lorne, and though there was no wrong in her secret, she was weighed down by a sense of guilt as she went to her room. This annoyed her, because the one guilty person in the house was Pat!

She had heard, toward the end of her conversation with Jack, that the pearls had come while he was with the Duke; but the girl was too wretched to care. How did she know that the story about Monsieur Mayen was not a "fake"? It was quite possible that Pavoya had had the pearls for months, and had only now given them up, under cover of Mayen's name, and his messenger on the Britannia. Juliet felt as Emmy West had expected her to feel: She hated the pearls! Whatever the truth was, she could take no pleasure in wearing them. All the same, she would wear them, to show curiosity-mongers that they were not in Lyda Pavoya's hands. She would wear them this very night.

She and Claremanagh were engaged to dine at the Van Estens', and he had insisted in the morning that he would be well enough to go. Now, for all she could tell, he might have changed his mind, and 'phoned that his cold would keep him at home. That excuse should not affect her, however. If he did not bring or send the pearls to her room, Simone should take him a note. In this, Juliet would say, not that Jack had told her, but that she "supposed the messenger had arrived," and she would ask for the pearls to wear at Nancy's dinner party—ask for them not as a favour, but because of the right she had, as Duchess of Claremanagh.

"Madame is very late!" were Simone's first words as Juliet flung open her bedroom door. "I began to be anxious."

The Great Pearl Secret

THE GREAT PEARLSECRET

THE GREAT PEARL SECRET

CHAPTER IIN JULIET'S SITTING ROOM

CHAPTER IITHE EXPLANATION

CHAPTER III"TO MEET THE DUCHESS"

CHAPTER IVTHE LETTER WITH THE TSARINA'S SEAL

CHAPTER VTHE THIRD RINGER OF THE BELL

CHAPTER VIBEHIND THE BOOKSHELF

CHAPTER VIIWHAT JULIET TOLD JACK

CHAPTER VIIIJULIET BREAKS THE SEALS