next morning jack manners was hideously jerked from sleep before eight by the jangle of a telephone bell close to his bed. in self-defence he reached out and grabbed the receiver, in haste to stop the din.
"hello!" his voice said: but his tone said "damn!" and he was astounded when juliet answered. juliet! 'phoning at this hour! juliet, who had been at the opera last night, as he happened to know, and who had always loved her beauty sleep, as a young bird loves its nest!
"i'm sorry to disturb you, jack," she was saying. "i suppose you were fast asleep, and you'll wish you hadn't told me you were going to stop at the tarascon. but i can't help it! do you mind getting up and dressing in a hurry, and letting me come round to see you?"
"shan't i call at your house instead?" jack suggested, wide awake now.
"no, i must come to you. have you a private sitting room?"
"i haven't."
"then take one at once, and be ready to receive me in it. will half an hour be too soon for you?"
"not a bit," jack assured her. he spoke with the warmth of affection, and felt it. but that was all he felt. the reaction he'd been expecting yesterday hadn't come yet!
he 'phoned downstairs that he wanted a private sitting room, and breakfast for two, with flowers on the table, in half an hour. then he plunged into his bath, and as he shaved and dressed with the haste that knows how not to waste a single step or gesture (this was characteristic of him) he wondered, as he had wondered yesterday, about himself and juliet.
funny, how he had dreaded meeting her married, for fear the boiling lava should break through the cooled crust! and the lava hadn't broken through. he couldn't even feel it boil. juliet had her old sweetness, and charm—even more. she was prettier than ever, too.
he still loved her, of course, only the love didn't hurt like a wound with someone twisting a knife in it, as it had hurt when she told him she was engaged, and on the day of her wedding. there was just a gentle, rather interesting pain, like the pain of remembering a beautiful dream which had broken off in the midst; and it was no sharper this morning than when she came to tea with him yesterday.
just to test himself he had gone to the opera, and stood up (because there wasn't a seat to be had) in order to have juliet burst upon him in all her glory, wearing the pearls, and, perhaps, beaming with recovered happiness at claremanagh's side. well, she had come late into her box, and made a sensation. everyone had stared at her—and the pearls—through levelled glasses. she had been just as glorious as he'd expected, though she hadn't exactly beamed. and he—jack—had not turned a hair! he hardly knew whether to attribute this to his superhuman self-control, or the strong moral barrier set up between his thoughts and his love by her marriage.
anyhow, there it was! he was enduring no calvary, and his heart played none of the tricks it would have played once at being awakened by juliet's voice, with the request for a meeting alone with him. all he felt was sympathetic interest, and a fear that the girl was coming to say she'd made a hash of things, in spite of his advice.
in precisely twenty-five minutes after the first call of the telephone bell in his ear, he was dressed, and criticising the arrangement of la france roses on the table in his new sitting room. sharp on the half hour, again came the jangling call.
"lady for you, sir. says she's your cousin, and it's not necessary to give her name. you're expecting her."
"quite right," manners answered. "send her up at once. i'll meet her at the lift." which he did, and got rather a shock at seeing juliet all in black—even a black veil.
"i don't think i ever saw you dressed like that before," he began, leading her to the sitting room. "i thought you always hated black clothes."
"so i did. so i do. that's the reason i'm wearing them to-day," the girl almost breathlessly explained. "i suppose you'll think it's melodramatic of me, and maybe it is, though i don't feel so. i wanted to put on mourning."
"good heavens! what for?"
"my happiness."
if she had been less beautiful, that announcement certainly would have sounded a melodramatic note—or else it would have been funny. but she was so white, so big eyed, so like a broken lily in her black draperies, that jack's heart yearned over her. she leaned to him wistfully, as they stood just inside the closed door, her hands in his; and the man knew suddenly that it would be perfectly safe and good for him to take her in his arms. he held them out, having dropped her hands, and the girl flung herself on his breast as she used to do when she was ten, if a finger had been cut or a knee bruised. the next moment she was crying on his shoulder as though her heart would break, her slim young body an incarnate sob as it heaved and shook in his clasp.
"oh, jack, you're the only one i have in the world now!" she gasped.
"nonsense, nonsense, child. you've got claremanagh. you'll always have him," he soothed her. "this is some passing trouble. it will blow over. tell me all about it. but no, first you must have breakfast. you haven't had bite or sup, i'll bet!"
history repeated itself. again his handkerchief was out. he wiped her eyes with it. he mopped them. how long and dark her lashes were, wet and clinging together! he bent over her, and kissed her forehead. it was hot, and she smelled like a ripe, delicious peach. but his pulses hardly tingled. he was too sorry for her, however, to analyze his own feelings much, or even think of himself, although after years the adored one—married, and belonging to another man—was in his arms!
of course she hadn't had breakfast, she said. she didn't want breakfast. the very idea of it made her sick. she had been awake all night, and had been dressed—without a maid to help her—since seven. she was just one bunch of raw, aching nerves! but somehow jack was able to soothe her a little, as pat, at his best, could never have done, because she loved him too wildly. jack got her to the sofa, her back to the door, so that the waiter bustling in with breakfast should not see the tear-stained face. soon there were cushions behind her shoulders; the blinds were pulled half down; there was a cool, dewy rose in her hand. then, when the waiter had gone, she was sipping hot coffee with cream in it and (on one knee beside the sofa) jack was feeding her with bits of toasted and buttered roll. in spite of herself, juliet felt better. she didn't want to feel better, but she did! and she had drunk nearly a cupful of coffee before jack let her begin to talk.
having begun, however, she told him everything. it all came out with a rush, and jack listened in silence. not once did he interrupt, and, fast as she spoke (she could not control her speech to slowness), she thought that he was judging, classifying each incident, considering how one bore upon another.
he did not give away his own secret of yesterday: that he had seen lyda pavoya go into the house, and that he had known she must be hidden somewhere in the room while he and defasquelle were in claremanagh's study. there was nothing to be gained by telling the poor girl that. she might even be aggravated, by the additional proof against pavoya, into accusing the woman as a thief! and the more he thought, the more inclined he was to advise against an open scandal.
"so you see why i wanted to put on mourning for my dead happiness," juliet finished. "you said this was a 'passing trouble.' but you can't say that now, can you?"
"yes. i can and do," jack maintained stoutly, for her sake wholly, not for claremanagh's. he began to believe, in his heart, that this generous, loving girl had been badly "let down," between the duke and the polish dancer. nevertheless, it was still only fair to give "pat" (as juliet called him) the benefit of the doubt, just as he had urged yesterday. "you say yourself that, judging from his manner when the box was opened, and when you spoke about the clasp, claremanagh was as surprised as you were at the false pearls being there."
"yes. of course i don't accuse him of 'stealing' the real ones himself, as he so cruelly pretended i did. but he must have had this copy made for pavoya. probably she thought at first that she had the true pearls, and when she found out how she'd been tricked, she made up her mind to turn the tables on pat. or else she saw a way to humble me—his wife. yes, that must be it! i'm glad—glad i wore the horrid imitation rope last night. i hardly knew why i did it, unless it was for a kind of bluff. but i see now, it was more like inspiration. if i choose to stick to it that i have the real pearls, she can't get much fun out of wearing them, can she? people will believe me, instead of her, if it comes to open defiance."
"it won't come to that, from pavoya, and it oughtn't from you, i think," said jack. "my theory is rather different from yours."
"what is it, for heaven's sake?"
"it's rather scrappy as yet. but so far, i should think pavoya might have been working in a much more subtle way than you suppose. i knew that once, long ago, and again later, there was a plot to steal the pearls. apparently both times it was got up by russians. and you know they were royal pearls, given by the tsarina of his day to claremanagh's great-great-grandfather. pavoya's a pole, i believe, but she may be in russian pay, or under bolshevik influence. it certainly looks, on circumstantial evidence, as if she'd somehow got hold of the pearls, either in paris, through louis mayen, unknown to his messenger; or else, yesterday by some amazing sleight of hand, while she was in claremanagh's study. if she could have worried out of him the combination of the safe—and if by some excuse she induced him to leave her in the room alone after defasquelle delivered up the box (we might assume she came at that time on purpose, perhaps not by pat's invitation) she might have managed the job. well—but that's about as far as my mind has worked, so far. except that claremanagh can't be expected to give the woman away so long as he isn't dead sure she's guilty—or which he hopes against hope that she isn't. he wouldn't accuse her, or have her accused if he could help it, even to save himself from your suspicions, which must make him writhe!"
"are you standing up for him?" juliet asked, quickly.
"no, not especially. but you've done him an injustice in one detail, to begin with. he did not have the copy of the tsarina pearls made for pavoya. he didn't have it made at all. it was done before his day—done by his mother's order. he told me the story in paris, where the everlasting subject was you—you and the pearls. it seems that the duchess—your pat's mother—soon after her marriage received an anonymous letter warning her of a plot to steal the tsarina pearls. it was signed 'a well wisher', and the writing looked foreign, but not ill spelt or uneducated. there was a hint that the plan was russian, and the thieves would not be 'ordinary thieves.' immediately after the duchess ordered a london jeweller to copy the rope, clasp and all. when it was ready she had the real thing locked up in the bank. the copy was so good that no one except an expert could tell the difference. but there had been one mistake. the eye of the design in the clasp looked the wrong way—to the right instead of the left. however, hardly any one knew which way the original eye turned, so the mistake didn't matter much, and the family didn't trouble to have it rectified. that was a long time ago. but years after there came another warning; and when it was compared with the first the handwriting appeared to be the same. this time the letter was addressed to claremanagh, who had come of age and had lent the pearls to some charitable exhibition. 'russia will try again to get back her own. take care,' the letter said—or something like that. i've forgotten the precise words pat used. and it was signed, as before: 'a well wisher'. now you see what my mind's working on."
"i do see," said juliet. "of course, in a way you make things look better for pat. at least, he wasn't infatuated enough with that woman to have a copy of those famous pearls actually made for her to wear. still, he must have given them to her—or lent them."
"i suppose so," jack admitted, "unless——"
"unless what?"
"well, i know nothing about the lady except what i've heard—and that she's a dream of a dancer. but right or wrong, she has the reputation of being a tigerish young person when her blood's up. and it's conceivable she may simply have annexed the imitation pearls: put them on to 'see how she looked,' and refused to disgorge! claremanagh isn't the sort of fellow who would be brutal with a pretty woman."
"he isn't, indeed! but, anyhow, he let her keep the things—and wear them, too; even if she never had the real ones. he receives her at the house when i'm out—when he pretends to be shut up with a cold. it must have been arranged that she should come then, and togo bribed to let her in. oh, it's all nearly as bad as it can be, if not quite! pat doesn't deserve that his mind should be eased as it must have been when he saw at the last minute that i was wearing the horrid false beads last night. he'd been in such a state, for fear i'd 'make a scandal!' when he saw the rope on my neck, and heard me calmly accepting compliments on it, i suppose he thought, 'that settles that. she can't accuse dear lyda now!' but he forgets. i can find proof enough to divorce him, without bringing up a question of the pearls at all."
"is that what you intend to do?" asked jack.
juliet threw out her hands in a gesture of feverish weariness. "i don't know what i intend," she sighed, hopelessly, "i wish i could just die. then maybe pat would be sorry."
"that's what you used to say about your family when you were a kid. no doubt pat would be sorry if you died. but wouldn't you be sorry—when you'd divorced him?"
"i don't care whether i'm sorry or not," cried juliet. "i'm too miserable now to care about how i may feel then."
"that's the state of mind for jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire," said jack. "listen, my kid, did you come here to me to ask my advice?"
"yes, partly. though i wouldn't promise to take it if it was anything i didn't like. but mostly i came for something else."
"what?"
"to beg you to help me. help's better than advice."
"you ought to know i'll help you, in any way i jolly well can——"
"in any way?" she caught him up.
jack was slightly startled, knowing juliet as he did know her: impulsive, even unscrupulous, if a thing passionately wished for were to be obtained—like all spoiled young women, to whom life has refused nothing. "why not out with it at once, and not beat round the bush?" he asked. "you've some special thing in your mind——"
"i have," she cut him short. "but, truly, jack, i hadn't when i came. i was just going to ask for your advice and help, mixed up together. you were to advise me what to do; and then if i wanted to do it, you were to help get it done. i've no one except you to depend on, and you were my only hope—if i had any hope left—of making things somehow work out right in the end. it's you yourself who has given me the real idea—the inspiration: the thing to be done. and if you are the one person on earth who can do it, the question is—will you?"
"i can't suppose a 'question,'" manners said, "if the thing is a thing that will really help you."
"it will—it will, more than anything else. but you might think it—caddish."
"you wouldn't ask me to do it, i'm sure, if it were caddish."
"well—you see, i'm a girl—a woman. it doesn't seem caddish to me, as it may to a man. but, jack, it's to save me! it's the one hope to make life worth living—or to know the worst and not wear out my soul in suspense. i can't bear suspense."
"neither can i," jack reminded her.
he was sitting beside her on the sofa now, and juliet seized his hands. "the thing is—i want you to get acquainted with lyda pavoya," she ventured at last. "to contrive to be her friend, to win her confidence even if you must make love to her. stop at nothing, until she's told you the whole secret of the pearls. that secret means everything to me. wrapped up in it is the secret i care so much more for, the secret of pat's love—whether it's hers or mine. and his honour is bound up with it, too. will you do this for me, jack? or is it too much?"
never had jack manners thought that he could pull his hands away from juliet's clinging fingers, and push her off almost roughly, as she would have held him. but now he did both, before he had realized what he was doing. and he even felt a hot resentment against her, not unlike repulsion: juliet, whom he had worshipped for years—juliet, for whom his life would have been a small gift!
before he quite knew what had happened to him, he was standing at the window, staring out. he had not answered, had spoken no word. she ought to understand that no answer was the one safe answer a man could give ... "caddish!" ... she had wondered if he would "think it caddish!" perhaps women were cads—just naturally. he had heard it said that they didn't know the difference. but juliet!
standing there with his back to her, he began to gather his wits together to face her attack. she would reproach him with violence. he would try not to be harsh, because she wasn't herself, of course. he would explain that what she asked wasn't "too much"; it wasn't a question of quantity but quality. there were some things a man couldn't do....
but she wasn't reproaching him. she was crying. god! he had never heard a woman cry as that girl was crying! such sobs would tear her soul to pieces. they mustn't go on. they would kill her—and him!
he went back to her. he knelt on the floor, and drew into his arms the shaken figure, abandoned among the cushions.
"don't, don't, my dear—my sweet one!" he implored, awkwardly smoothing the ruffled gold of her hair. "trust old jack! i'll do something. i'll find out for you. i don't know how. goodness knows how! but i'll worm her secret from that pavoya girl!"
