The Priceless Pearl

by Alice Duer Miller

Mrs. Conway watched with sly amusement. The mocking quality in her question had not arisen, as Pearl half feared, from any doubt as to the new governess' identity, but rather from the suspicion that there was more between her brother and this lovely creature than had been confessed. Like many gentle sweet people, Edna Conway was extremely suspicious; her mind ran rapidly over a situation, examining though not necessarily believing all the darkest possibilities. She did not actually suspect her brother of finding a safe home for a dangerous girl during his absence, but she did say to herself—perhaps not unnaturally, "There's more in this than meets the eye."

A voice from the piazza called, "Did Anthony's pearl arrive?" And a woman in evening dress entered.

"Yes, Cora, this is she," said Mrs. Conway, and she added with a certain hint of malice, "You ought to know each other—both so consecrated to doing whatever Anthony wants done. Miss Exeter, Miss Wellington."

Miss Wellington's emotions were clearly written on her face. She had been in love with Anthony ever since he succeeded. This which sounds like a paradox was the simple truth. To her, success was not necessarily financial—though Wood's had had this agreeable aspect—but importance and preëminence were to her as essential elements in male attraction as feminine beauty is to most men. When she was eighteen and Anthony still in the School of Mines there had been sentimental scenes which had left her cold. She occasionally referred to them as "the time when you thought you wanted to marry me," and he did not contradict her. He had thought he did. He still admired her—she was elegant in appearance, beautifully dressed, competent in all the practical aspects of life. If she had married someone else he would have said to her, "Your marriage was a great blow to me, Cora. I had always fancied that some day you and I——" But he never would have said it until after she was safely married.

She had, however, no intention of marrying anyone else—for the simple reason that Anthony was by far the most attractive man of importance that she knew. Her feelings on discovering Pearl—the young person she had heard described as being of merely pleasing appearance—to be an exuberant beauty, and discovering her, moreover, staring sentimentally at Anthony's picture, were not suspicions; she had the conviction of disaster. She couldn't be cordial; and, Pearl, who had the kind of sensitiveness that comes from generosity, not from egotism, saw that the moment had come for her to go upstairs and write her first letter to the man whose face she liked so much.

She had always been a poor correspondent. She had never enjoyed writing before, but now the idea of pouring herself out—or rather not herself, but her observation of a situation in which he was vitally interested—delighted her. All of us, it has been said, can write well if we have something interesting to say. What Pearl had to say could not fail to be interesting to the man she was writing to. There was no motive for caution. At last she had found a man with whom she could be candid and natural. Late into the night the sound of a portable typewriter could be heard ticking from the room of the new governess.

It was not easy to put a routine into operation in the Conway household. At half past nine, the hour set for Antonia's lessons, Antonia was nowhere to be found. Pearl at last ventured to tap at Mrs. Conway's bedroom door. Mrs. Conway was sitting up in bed, in white satin and yellow lace, with her breakfast tray on her lap.

In response to the news that her youngest child was missing, she answered, "She's probably gone crabbing. I'm afraid that if you want to do lessons in summer you will have to get up a little earlier. She was out of the house by seven, I dare say." And she smiled maliciously.

Pearl saw that coöperation was unlikely, hostility probable, and withdrew.

Durland, her second pupil, presented himself a little ahead of time. He came downstairs at ten, drank a cup of black coffee and ate a peach. He was recklessly wearing his last pair of clean white trousers. He was paler and more like a young bird than usual. He, too, had his problems.