So saying, she sat down tailor-fashion on a long, fat velvet cushion which lay in front of the low fender. "Evidently you're not expecting the Duke," laughed Lady West. "No-o," said the girl. "But I'm expecting a letter from him--or something." "You haven't got the pearls on show with your other presents, I see," remarked her friend. "I don't blame you! Of course, Parker is doing the watch-dog act outside; and only your _bestest_ pals come up. Still, the pearls are frightfully valuable. And you can never tell! But do, _do_ let me see them. I'm dying to!" "I haven't got them yet," Juliet confessed. "Not got them?" gasped the elder woman. "You're joking. Why"--and she laughed with great gaiety--"one _marries_ Claremanagh for his pearls!" "Does one?" Juliet took her up. "I know whole populations of females who'd give _their_ pearls to marry him, for--himself!" This told Emmy West that the bride-to-be knew she had been scratched, and was ready to scratch back. For an instant Emmy hesitated whether to be sweet or sharp, and decided to compromise. "By Jove, you _are_ in love, aren't you?" she said. "I am," Juliet admitted. "I don't care a rap about being a duchess. That sort of thing seems--somehow old-fashioned since the war. And I don't think I ever was a snob, thank goodness." Emmy wondered if this were another "dig." She had been a Chicago girl, 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?"