The Great Pearl Secret

								

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