THE EYE THAT LOOKED TO THE RIGHT
The two stared at each other in silence, and both were pale.
Juliet's mind was confused. "The pearls false!" She tried to hammer
the words into her brain, and understand fully what the thing would
mean for her and Pat. She thought of Louis Mayen, the "super
money-lender," who had kept the pearls for months, and supposed that
Claremanagh also must be thinking of him.
"What a treacherous, horrible man!" she broke out, at last. The Duke
stared, almost stupidly--if he could be stupid.
"_Who_ is treacherous--horrible?" he stammered.
"Why, your friend Mayen, of course!" she explained. "My poor Pat!"
Comprehension dawned in Claremanagh's eyes. "Oh, Mayen had nothing to
do with this!" he assured her.
"Who else, then?" Juliet persisted. "The purser on the ship, who had
the box in his safe, coming over? But he didn't have the seal. Mayen
had it. He--or his messenger could----"
"Put that idea out of your head, my darling," urged Claremanagh.
"Mayen had the seal, and of course it's on the cards that Defasquelle,
his messenger, might have stolen it or had an imitation one made. But
neither of them had the----"
Abruptly the Duke stopped. He had been talking fast and eagerly, and
he pulled himself up so short that it was as if he stumbled. Juliet
had been examining the quaint clasp of the false pearls, which she
still had in her hand, but that shocked pause brought her eyes to her
husband's face. It had been pale and strained, but now there was a
look upon it of physical suffering.
"You've thought of the one who did it!" she cried. "Someone you care
for!"
By an intense effort Claremanagh seemed to withdraw all expression from
his face. It became dull, like a handsome mask. "I wish I _had_
thought of any one," he said. "No such luck."
Juliet had pitied him unselfishly at first, for after all the pearls
were his, not hers, and the loss--sentimental and material--would be
very great if the Tsarina's pearls were gone. But his look, his
changed tone, and the cloud that seemed to rise between them like a
mist roused her vague resentment. She felt as if she had tried to
comfort him and he had pushed her away.
"Pat!" she exclaimed, sharply. "It's no use your trying to put me off.
You have thought who changed the pearls--or anyhow, of a person who
_might_ have done it. You've simply got to tell me. I have a right to
know."
"My dear child," he protested. "You do spring to the wildest
conclusions!"
Juliet's anger rose. "The whole thing is wild. Only wild conclusions
are of any use. If you don't want me to try and help you, I won't.
But I can't prevent myself from seeing one thing that perhaps you don't
see yet. If the real thief isn't soon found, and this story gets out,
there will be some horrid gossip about _you_."
Claremanagh flushed scarlet. "I do see," he said. "At least, I see
what you're hinting at. If I purloin my own pearls, and secretly sell
them, while getting credit at the same time for giving them to my wife,
I bring off a very neat coup. That's what you mean, isn't it?"
The thing sounded so crudely villainous when put into words that Juliet
was ashamed. But there was a fierce light in the eyes which until
to-day had never looked at her except in love--or seeming love. Juliet
would not let her husband fancy for an instant that he had made her
flinch. "Yes, that's what I mean," she answered. "One's dear friends
are capable of any insinuation."
"And even those dearer and nearer than friends!" Pat flung at her.
"Oh, I realize that I'm the classic target. A poor Irish peer--the
poorest of the lot!--who dares to marry America's richest girl. No
beastly trick too vile to believe of him! Of course a blighter like
that couldn't have married the girl for love."
To hear the words spoken, even in bitterest sarcasm, was like the prick
of a knife. Juliet had pushed them out of her own mind so often that
it was sharpest anguish to have them thrust into it by Pat's adored
lips. If he loved her, she could not see how it was possible for him
to speak like that! In thinking this, she pitied herself desperately,
and forgot her own words which had lashed him to retaliation. She
forgot, too, how that very morning her lips had flung this very taunt.
She had shown him sharply how much her own she considered her fortune,
her house, and everything he shared as her husband.
It seemed to her that now he was inadvertently confessing, rather than
sneering at possible accusers. Juliet defended her own attractions
pitifully, yet there was nothing pitiful in her look. She loomed tall
and aggressive, and cruelly beautiful, with blazing eyes and cheeks.
"A great many men have told me they loved me, and that no one could
_help_ loving me for myself, but I never believed any of them till I
met you; and then I was a conceited fool to think you could care for me
after Lyda Pavoya."
Pat started as if she had boxed his ears: and Juliet, too, was
surprised. She had not meant to say that. The thing had said itself.
For an instant his eyes flamed. Then their fire died out, and left
them cold. He looked disgusted. "I told you once that I had never
loved Mademoiselle Pavoya," he said. "One isn't used to having one's
word doubted. It's rather humiliating to have it happen with one's own
wife. But putting that aside, why not keep to the point? Why bring up
the lady's name when we are discussing quite a different affair--the
affair of these pearls?"
Out of Claremanagh's coldness a demon was born, and flew straight to
Juliet's heart. For an instant she lost all sense of her own love for
her husband. She hated him and wished to hurt him as much as she
could, because it seemed that he had gone out of his way to hurt her.
She tingled all over with indignant humiliation. It was as if Pat had
said, "I happen to be your husband, but you are only a commoner with no
traditions of fine breeding behind you, while I am a man whose
ancestors might have had yours for servants. No wonder you have no
intuitive idea of decent decorum."
"_Is_ it a different affair?" she cried. "Or is it one single
affair--the affair of Lyda Pavoya and your pearls?"
Again the words had spoken themselves, but a flare of enlightenment
came with them. Surely something had _made_ her speak. Something
which _knew_ what she hadn't thought of till this moment: that Lyda
Pavoya had taken the pearls.
How she could possibly have got them, if they had ever been in Louis
Mayen's keeping, Juliet could not see. But she had them--she had them!
That was clear: and the fact would account for Pat's sudden breaking
off of a sentence. He had begun to defend Mayen and Defasquelle. "But
neither one of them had the----" he had said, and stopped short, with
an awful look on his face--the look of seeing something which no one
else must be allowed to see. What thing was there that Mayen and his
messenger had not, which another person might have had? A thing which
would make theft possible? A person who must be protected at any price?
Juliet could not guess yet what the thing might be, but the second
guess was all too easy.
This time the Duke showed no sign of surprise, therefore he was _not_
surprised. He merely looked more disgusted than before, which made his
lack of love for his wife and his wish to defend the Polish dancer more
evident to Juliet's racked mind.
"When I gave you my word about not loving Mademoiselle Pavoya I gave it
also about the pearls," Claremanagh said. "I told you then that she
had never had them. I can only repeat the statement, since you seem to
have forgotten."
"I have forgotten nothing!" cried Juliet. "It's a man's code of
honour, I suppose, to defend a woman, no matter how. But if that's not
so--if you don't care enough for Lyda Pavoya to lie for her to your
wife, I'd like to know how you'll answer this question: Do you swear
that you don't suspect her of somehow stealing the real pearls, and
putting imitation ones in their place?"
Claremanagh's face changed. He had been frankly though coldly furious.
Now he looked stricken. "I would lie for no one on earth, except for
you, and then only to save your life," he said. "It's an insult from
you to me to ask that I should swear such a thing.
"Very well, then, your simple word is enough," said Juliet. "Give it
that you don't think Pavoya has the pearls."
Claremanagh was silent, his eyes upon her. And in that silence, short
as it was, Juliet heard a tiny voice speak. It whispered: "The thing
Pavoya had, which the other didn't have, was a _copy_. _She had a copy
of the pearls_."
"I could not believe such a thing," the Duke answered. "I have known
Mademoiselle Pavoya for years. She is a good woman."
Juliet laughed, and laughing flung the false pearls on the floor. "'A
good woman!' You _have_ original ideas! I've heard a lot of things
about her from a lot of people, but never that before."
"Because only malicious speeches are amusing, they are the ones 'a lot
of people'--the lot we know--mostly make."
"Pooh!" sneered Juliet. "I see the whole thing now--except how she got
the real pearls. But this imitation rope she _had_. You can't face
me, and say she hadn't."
"I'll say nothing more on the subject while you're in this mood,"
returned Claremanagh.
"All right, if you think prevarication more honourable than lying
straight out," panted Juliet, holding down sobs. "But you won't do her
any good with me--or yourself either. You were scared _blue_ when I
said the eye of the clasp looked to the right instead of to the left,
like the eye on your seal ring. You'd hardly believe it till you _had_
to. Then the whole thing grew clear to you, as it's growing for me
now. This copy existed. The clasp was made the wrong way, by mistake
or on purpose. As soon as I spoke, you _knew_ what had happened. Your
first thought--as soon as you could think--was to save that woman. But
you shan't save her! I----"
"Do you intend to make a scandal of this beastly business?" the Duke
cut her short with violence. "If you do, you will repent it all your
life."
Juliet quivered. "I don't care about my life now," she said. "You've
spoilt it. You couldn't punish me any more than you've punished me
already--for loving and trusting you. So it doesn't matter what I----"
"It matters immensely," he broke in again. "You are cruel to
yourself--to me--to a woman who has _never_ injured you. When I say
that you'll repent making a scandal, I don't mean because I'd try to
'punish' you. My God, no! You'll repent because you will be doing a
great injustice which can't possibly be repaired. And at heart, when
you're true to yourself, you are just."
"It's no use your trying to appeal to my sense of justice," Juliet
warned him. "That's the last thing for _you_ to bring up!"
He looked at her very sadly, very strangely, it seemed to his wife, as
if anger were dying out, and a great sorrow had taken its place. But
that was only his cleverness--his deadly, Irish cleverness, of course!
"What, then, do you intend to do?" he asked.
Once more confusion fogged the girl's brain, a desolate confusion like
chaos after ordered beauty; the end of all joy, all loveliness.
"I don't know yet," she said, dully. "I shall have to think."
As Juliet spoke, fingers tapped lightly on the door: Simone's fingers,
no doubt. Her fifteen minutes of banishment had passed.
"Come in!" Juliet spoke mechanically; and if she wished to withdraw
the words, it was too late. The Frenchwoman opened the door.
"_Madame la Duchesse_ is ready for me to finish dressing her?" she
asked.
Vaguely it struck Juliet that Simone's voice was not quite natural.
She had probably been listening at the keyhole, and had heard
everything. But, on second thoughts, what _did_ it matter? Juliet
told herself miserably that nothing could be the same as it had been.
She could not go on after this, living with Pat as his wife. All the
world would soon know that there was trouble between them, and Simone's
knowing first was of little importance. She was only a servant, and
luckily a loyal and discreet servant.
As Juliet paused a second before speaking, Claremanagh answered for
her: "The Duchess is feeling very tired, and as you know, I'm not well.
We've about decided to telephone that we can't go out," he said.
"But not _quite_ decided," his wife amended. "I think that if you
prefer to stay at home, I shall go and make your excuses in person."
Pat showed surprise. He had taken it completely for granted that she
would not dream of dining at the Van Estens'. "No," he decided, after
an instant's thought. "If you are equal to it, so am I."
"He's afraid to trust me alone," Juliet told herself, "for fear I shall
say something." "Very well," she said aloud. "You better hurry up and
get ready, then. We're late as it is."
Pat did not answer. Without another word or look he went to his room
and shut the door between. Evidently Nickson had not been with his
master to-night. Juliet wondered where the man was, and with a bitter
sense of amusement pictured "Old Nick's" emotions if she began a suit
for divorce against the Duke. She had always liked the queer fellow,
who had been as fine a soldier, Pat said, as he was an indifferent
valet: had liked him partly because of his thrilled admiration of her.
Deeply as he adored her at present, however, that love was nothing
beside what he felt for the Duke. It made Juliet a shade more
miserable than before to know that the worshipping Nick would soon
cease to worship. So far, she had kept back her tears, but they were
becoming irrepressible when Simone exclaimed: "Oh, the wonderful
pearls! _Madame la Duchesse_ has let them fall on the floor."
The current of Juliet's thoughts changed instantly, and the brimming
tears dried at their source.
"The wonderful pearls!" she repeated, with infinite bitterness, sure as
she was that Simone had been at the keyhole. But the look of pained
astonishment on the woman's face made her wonder if, after all, Simone
_had_ heard "everything." Perhaps she had caught parts only of the
conversation, and had been trying to find out "for sure" whether she
had heard aright.
Juliet had perfect trust in Simone, so far as discretion was concerned,
but it was within her estimate of the maid's character that she should
eavesdrop. People of her class did that sort of thing and thought it
no harm. It made the drama of their lives! Simone would keep her
knowledge or her suspicion to herself, of course, until whatever was
fated to happen had happened. Then, no doubt, she would tell her
friends that she'd "known all along." Still, Juliet suddenly disliked
the thought of being pitied even by her maid. Simone was aware that
her mistress had looked forward to getting the pearls. It was
humiliating that she should have instead a mere string of wax or
fish-scale beads! If Simone had heard, it couldn't be helped. If she
hadn't, however, she should remain in ignorance.
"They're not quite as glorious as I expected them to be," Juliet
remarked. "I suppose it's like that with everything in life."
"But they are very beautiful," ventured Simone with the privileged air
of the old and trusted servant which she put on like a sort of chain
armour at times. "Will _Madame la Duchesse_ wear them to-night?"
Juliet was taken aback. She had, of course, intended to wear the
Tsarina pearls. She had told herself that she would do so, if only
that everyone should see that she, not Pavoya, had them. But since
discovering the truth about them--why, it had not occurred to her that
she could wear the things! Rather would she have thrown them into the
fire. Suddenly, however, she saw the matter from another point of
view. Suppose she did appear wearing the rope? To do so would give
her time to think. And it would be interesting to see Pat's face when
he caught sight of them.
"Oh, yes, I'll wear the pearls," she said. "You know perfectly well I
had this shot blue and silver tissue made on purpose to go with them.
Why shouldn't I wear them, Simone?"
Simone did not answer, because she understood that no answer was
expected. She _had_ overheard something, and it was not her fault that
she had not overheard all. Unfortunately for her the room was large,
and the Duke and Duchess had stood talking at a good distance from the
door. The manner of her mistress, however, filled up several aching
gaps in Simone's curiosity; and putting together what she knew and what
she surmised, the maid changed her mind as to her own wisest course of
conduct.
She had intended to sacrifice inclination to prudence, and say nothing
to the Duchess about the Polish dancer's visit that afternoon. Now,
she decided that it would be best to mention it. How to work up to the
subject was the only doubt on that score left in her mind.
"_Madame la Duchesse_ is _merveilleuse--etíncilante!_" she cried, as
she held the rope of big blue beads over Juliet's head, and let it fall
gently upon the swans-down whiteness of the bare neck. "Madame was
perfect as a girl. Now she goes beyond perfection. Other women are
charming--the beautiful Pole, Mademoiselle Pavoya for instance, but----"
Juliet darted upon her a piercing, angry glance. "What makes you think
or speak of Pavoya just now?" she sharply questioned.
"Oh--I hardly know. Except that she _is_ of a great beauty, and--in
her way--of a strange attraction. And then, also, as no doubt Togo
told _Madame la Duchesse_, la Pavoya called to-day."
"Called to-day!" echoed Juliet. "You don't mean _here_?"
"But yes, Madame. Did not Madame know? I was about to go out with the
bulldog. Being permitted to pass down by the front stairs, I saw the
lady arrive. To be sure, she had on a thick embroidered veil through
which, perhaps, many people would not recognize the most famous
features. But my eyes are sharp. And then, her figure! There are not
two such. Though, to my taste, that of _Madame la Duchesse_ is more
alluring, more human. The dancer is a mere _sprite_! I said to
myself, 'It must be about the charity performance for the Armenians
that she is here to consult with my mistress'!"
As she thus interpreted her own impressions, Simone busied herself in
getting Juliet's ermine cloak, which previously she had laid ready on
the bed. Sometimes, when the Claremanaghs were going out together in
the evening, the Duke came in and took his wife's coat from Simone,
slipping it in a leisurely and loving way over the white arms, as if he
never tired of touching the adorable creature who belonged to him. But
Simone did not think he would come to perform that office to-night; and
besides, she wanted an excuse to escape from her mistress's great,
wide-open blue eyes. The maid had taken a tactful way of explaining
the dancer's (possible) motive for calling; because if she dared to
accuse the Duke by a hint, the Duchess would be bound to stop her.
Juliet was struck dumb for a moment. She would not have thought, after
what had passed between her and Pat, that she could be surprised by
anything concerning him and Pavoya, but now she knew that she could be
astounded.
Pavoya had called! Togo had let her in, the traitor! bribed by
Claremanagh, who had sunk low enough even for _that_! Still, had Togo
let the woman in? It was easy to make sure.
"A pity I was out," Juliet said. "I suppose she went away when she
heard that?"
"No, Madame, she came in," replied Simone with the innocence of a
child. "I do not know how long she stayed. _Monsieur le Duc_ will
tell Madame that. It was to his study that Togo took her."
"Oh, very well. I can ask him what message she left," Juliet promptly
cut short this confidence. She had no wish to learn more, and her
suppression of Simone was no triumph of honour over curiosity. She
felt a sick, languid repulsion against the whole subject, for she knew
the worst now, and any further information would be a kind of horrid
anti-climax.
"Oh, Pat, Pat!" her heart mourned. "How has my idol fallen! And he
talked so nobly about never lying!"
That night, when the Duke and Duchess of Claremanagh came into their
box in time for the second act of "Rigoletto," everyone "in the know"
said "Look! She's got the Tsarina pearls at _last_!"
And Claremanagh wondered at her. He wondered terribly, abysmally, why,
after their scene together, and her threats, she had worn the
abominable things. He had wondered about that ever since, the ermine
cloak removed, he had seen the blue beads on her neck at the Van
Estens'.
He ought, perhaps, to have rejoiced at the sight, for she could not
wear a rope of imitation pearls, and accuse Lyda Pavoya of stealing the
real ones. That would be to punish him less severely than herself.
Yet Pat was uneasy as well as unhappy. The only thing he understood
clearly in all the hideous affair was that--he understood Juliet not at
all. He asked himself over and over again a question he could not,
would not ask her--what, in God's name, she intended to do next?
All the way home, when at length they were again alone together in
their brilliantly lit limousine, she did not utter one word, nor once
look at him. She sat quite still, pretending to be asleep, but
Claremanagh knew that he was no wider awake than she. A dozen times he
longed to speak; but there are some things a man cannot do. She seemed
to have barricaded herself behind a transparent wall, through which he
could see, yet not touch, her--as if she had been a lovely statuette
under a glass case.
At the house she sprang past him quickly, without accepting his help to
alight, and ran up the two or three marble steps. Claremanagh had his
key, but before he could use it Juliet pressed the electric bell, and
Togo appeared. The girl did not look back at her husband, to see
whether he meant to follow. And suddenly he did not mean to do so. He
hadn't been sure, at first, what he would do: but he could not bear to
have her shut the door of her room upon him, as she surely would.
With a gesture he signed to Togo that he was not coming in. The car
waited, but he said to the chauffeur in the pleasant, courteous tone
which won the affection of servants, "I shan't want you--thanks."
In that mood, he could not make use of Juliet's car. He preferred the
poor independence of his own feet, even while he laughed at himself,
bitterly, for so petty a revolt. He walked to the "Grumblers," that
one of his several clubs at which he was likely to meet a man with whom
he had business--business important enough to remember even now.
"I won't keep the beastly money on me any longer," he thought. "The
fellow shall have it to-night."