The Great Pearl Secret

								

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