The Great Pearl Secret

								

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