"Well, darling," he said, after a few seconds of waiting. "Don't the poor pearls come up to your hopes?"
"Oh, yes!" she forced herself to answer. "Aren't they big? Aren't they blue? I never saw any so-called 'blue pearls' so really blue as these."
"All the same, you are disappointed," Pat judged, his eyes on her face. "Don't you think by this time I know your tones and your expressions? Out with it, Jule! Bless you, I shan't be hurt. I didn't make the pearls, you know. And you're a spoiled pet of fortune, brought up from your babyhood to play with better toys than these. You could have had pearls as big as plums, in a rope to your feet, if you'd wanted 'em. Only your taste was too good. What's the matter with these baubles?"
"Why," the girl hesitated, "if I must say what I think you know I am supposed to be a bit of an expert, in my little amateur way, it seems to me these pearls aren't as lustrous as they ought to be. Perhaps they're 'sick'. They may need sea-water, or something. Yet they haven't the symptoms of 'dying' pearls. They haven't lost their colour. They've got almost too much—to look real."
"They're real enough!"
"Of course they must be. And the clasp is charming, isn't it? An eye made of a blue sapphire, set in white diamonds, rimmed with tiny black ones; an eye like the design of your seal, except that this one looks to the right, and——"
"To the right!" Pat caught the words from her mouth. "Impossible!"
Juliet stared. "But it does. You may see for yourself."
"Good God!" There was horror in his voice.
Juliet could not understand. This scene began to feel like a queer dream. "What is the matter?" she asked.