"Give me the thing!"
She handed him the rope.
He glared at the clasp as if the diamond and sapphire eye were a miniature head of Medusa. Then he turned to her with a dazed expression, still in silence.
"You frighten me," she faltered.
"You—you say you're an expert in pearls," he said. "How can you tell real ones from false?"
"One very simple way is to touch them to the tip of the tongue," Juliet explained, bewildered. "Real pearls are always cold. False ones can be warmish. Besides, the surface feels different. And even if the weight is right——"
"Test these," Pat said.
The girl took back the gleaming blue rope, and lifted the largest pearls to her lips.
"They are—false," she gasped, after an instant's pause.
"You are sure?"