So saying, she sat down tailor-fashion on a long, fat velvet cushion which lay in front of the low fender.
"Evidently you're not expecting the Duke," laughed Lady West.
"No-o," said the girl. "But I'm expecting a letter from him—or something."
"You haven't got the pearls on show with your other presents, I see," remarked her friend. "I don't blame you! Of course, Parker is doing the watch-dog act outside; and only your bestest pals come up. Still, the pearls are frightfully valuable. And you can never tell! But do, do let me see them. I'm dying to!"
"I haven't got them yet," Juliet confessed.
"Not got them?" gasped the elder woman. "You're joking. Why"—and she laughed with great gaiety—"one marries Claremanagh for his pearls!"
"Does one?" Juliet took her up. "I know whole populations of females who'd give their pearls to marry him, for—himself!"
This told Emmy West that the bride-to-be knew she had been scratched, and was ready to scratch back. For an instant Emmy hesitated whether to be sweet or sharp, and decided to compromise. "By Jove, you are in love, aren't you?" she said.
"I am," Juliet admitted. "I don't care a rap about being a duchess. That sort of thing seems—somehow old-fashioned since the war. And I don't think I ever was a snob, thank goodness."
Emmy wondered if this were another "dig." She had been a Chicago girl, and only a "tuppenny half-penny" heiress, compared to Juliet Phayre; but she had wanted a title, and had paid all she could afford for a mere baronet, such as her few hundred thousand dollars would buy. On the sofa once more facing her low-seated hostess, she looked Juliet full in the eyes; but Juliet's were innocent, even dreamy. "I'd have snapped at my Boy if he'd been just a Tommy when I met him Over There, instead of a perfectly gorgeous Guardsman," the girl went on. "But, of course, I do want the pearls! I wouldn't be human if I didn't; everyone talks about them so much, even my Cousin Jack Manners, and says they're so marvellous. I expect they are what Pat is sending around this evening."