It would not be pleasant to ask, but after all Simone was only a servant! Juliet rang the bell communicating with her maid's room, and soon the neat figure in black presented itself.
"Madame la Duchesse has rung?"
"Where is that horrid Inner Circle?" the Duchess inquired.
Simone looked self-conscious. She said that, Madame being souffrante, she had forgotten to buy the paper. It was of so little importance! But Juliet would not be put off. The Frenchwoman was sent out to get the Inner Circle, and when she had got it, was told that she would be needed no more for the moment. Therefore Claremanagh's wife was alone when she read the "Whisperer's" insinuations.
Strangely enough—or was it strange?—her anger turned in a torrent-flood against the man who ran the rag. None was left for Pat. Juliet burned for him to come home so that they could—even if "on official terms only"—join together in scotching this scandal. She felt that she must see her husband at once. But she could not send for him without being misunderstood. If she were able to reach him by 'phoning to one of his clubs, he would think that he was being called back to a scene of reconciliation because his wife was too much in love to live without him for more than a day. No! even though her rage was too concentrated in another direction to blaze upon Pat, she didn't wish him to think that he was forgiven.
Again Jack Manners seemed her best hope, and she 'phoned him at the Tarascon. He was out, the answer came, and Juliet asked that the Duchess of Claremanagh should be called up as soon as he came in.
An hour later the bell of her telephone jingled. Jack had returned to his suite at the Tarascon.
"I thought you'd never come!" she complained.
"But," he excused himself, "you gave me a mission. I've been doing my best to pave the way."
"You mean you've met Pavoya?'