The Great Pearl Secret

								

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