"About divorce? No. I haven't exactly given them up. But they seem far off now--when I'm so afraid for Pat. I've thought of a thousand things that might have happened to him. Suppose he _does_ love me really, and Pavoya is jealous? She'd be capable of _anything_. She may have had him stabbed! That reminds me: you've met her?" "Yes." "Well?" "What do you want me to say?" "To tell me what she was like, of course! How you got on--what have you got out of her?" Jack felt suddenly antagonistic to Juliet. "I was with Mademoiselle Pavoya about twenty minutes at most, and her manager was there, too," he said. "I got nothing out of her. What did you expect? All the same you may take it from me, Juliet, you'll make a big mistake if you imagine she has anything to do with Pat's not showing up. I'm sure she hasn't." "Oh! She's hypnotized you, too, has she?" snapped Juliet. "Pat wanted to make me believe she was a _good woman_! Come with me into his study, and I'll show you something. Then perhaps you won't be so quick to defend her!" This was worse than Jack's fears. He couldn't refuse to follow his cousin. From everyone's point of view, that would be poor policy. But he hated to go to Pat's study. He did not wish to see anything Juliet had to show him there. "If it's a letter, I won't----" he had begun when she cut him short. "It isn't a letter! After the scolding you gave me at the Lorne, I wouldn't glance at the _wildest_ love-letter of Pavoya's even if she'd _printed_ it so large I could read every word across the room." "I didn't give you a scolding," Jack defended himself. "I only said a _man_ wouldn't do what you did--or some such thing as that." "Yes. That's just what you did say." Juliet was unlocking the door of Pat's study, of which she had the key. "I never knew you not to do what you wanted to do because I or any one else scolded you!" "How hard you are to me, Jack!" she reproached him. "This is different. And _I_ am different. I don't want to do anything a man would think mean. I want to be fair to Pat, whatever happens. But about the pearls I can't be fair to him and Pavoya both. I'm going to show you why not." As she spoke she went to Pat's desk, where things were wildly scattered, as in his notorious carelessness he had left them. Jack Manners' heart beat rather thickly as he remembered his last visit to this room: how Defasquelle had come in; how he, Jack, had sat on the club fender, very conscious during the scene which followed that Lyda Pavoya must be hidden behind the curtains or the screen; how he had advised Pat to do what Defasquelle asked; how Pat refused, and showed the safe in the wall which was already open. "Here's his seal ring," Juliet was saying. "I found it lying on the desk. This is what I brought you in to see. Now take the ring in your hand, please. Look at it closely, and tell me if you notice anything odd."