"You were not very kind to me this morning," he said, looking down at her, his face graver than she had ever seen it before this day. "I may as well tell you I was a good deal hurt, and angry, too--though I haven't deserved too well of you, perhaps. But to see you as you are now makes me forget everything, except that we've been dear lovers, and that you're the most beautiful girl on earth--_my_ girl! You look just as you looked that evening at Harridge's, a million miles away, in old London--the night before our wedding when I came in suddenly, and you'd been washing your hair. Do you still hate your poor Romeo, _Giullietta mia_, or do you feel like forgetting, too, and beginning all over again?" "I never hated you--not for a minute!" cried Juliet. "I thought you hated _me_!" "Then you were jolly well mistaken," said Pat. They gazed at each other like two fencers, for a moment; then Juliet sprang up, and held out her arms. He clasped her, and kissed her hair, her face, her bare white neck. Something he held in his hand, out of her sight behind his back, fell to the floor. She started at the sound, and he let her go, laughing like his old self. "'History repeats'!" he exclaimed. "Do you remember the little box I brought you, with its blobby seals? Well, I have another sealed box for you to-night. You're to open it as you opened that one, and you will find the same thing inside. Only, it will be the same thing with a difference." He picked up the packet from the floor, and handed it to Juliet with a flourish. "_Voilà, Madame! Les plus belles chases, pour la plus belle dame_." "The pearls!" Juliet breathed. "The pearls!" echoed Pat. The girl was thrilled. How could she have hated the things so angrily an hour ago? Her whole mood concerning them and concerning life had changed under Pat's kisses. She was going to _love_ his pearls for his sake, and the sake of their own romance! "Why, the seals haven't been broken!" she exclaimed, as she took the box. "No, I was determined you and you alone should do the breaking." "But--didn't the messenger insist?" "He did. Two can play at that game, though!" "What about the receipt? I should have thought he'd object----" "'Object' is a mild word. I convinced him in the end, however--if not that I was right, anyhow that I meant to have my own way. Darling, this is a happy moment for me--though I didn't expect to be happy to-night. Break the seals. Open the box. And I shall know by your eyes what you think of its contents."