"Sending around!" repeated the other. "You talk as if--as if they were a box of chocolates! Claremanagh is the careless-est creature on earth, I know. And he has been--er--very careless with the pearls. But I don't think even he would be as bad as that."
"Why not?" asked the girl to whom most jewels meant little. "If he sent them by Old Nick, that dear, quaint man of his, they'd be safer than if he brought them himself. I never knew before that he was superstitious. But he is. It's bad luck for a Claremanagh to see his bride the day before the wedding. _Creepy_ things have happened, it seems, according to an old story! So he said he wasn't running risks. For some reason, he couldn't give me his present before to-day. So that's why the thing is to come by messenger, you see."
"I see," echoed Emmy. "And you're sure the present _will_ be the pearls?"
This was rather an impudent question to ask, especially for one who knew the Duke's circumstances; but, for a wonder, Juliet did not seem to mind. She answered quite easily, "Oh, I suppose so. Don't the Claremanagh men always give them to their brides?"
"I believe they have dutifully handed them over _so far_--for several generations, since the pearls came into their family in that exciting way," said Lady West. "But you know, Peter--I mean Claremanagh--is very independent, and quite--er--a law unto himself."
"Why do you call him 'Peter'?" the girl branched off from the subject. "He has about a dozen names, I know, but I hadn't heard that 'Peter' was one. My selection from the lot is Pat!"
"Oh, 'Peter' was only a silly nickname I made up for him. 'Peter Pan', because he just isn't the sort who ever grows up!" Emmy explained elaborately. "Of course he was a lot with Algy and me the first year I married--before the war spoilt everything for everyone. And then, when I took up Red Cross work in France, after poor Algy---"
"I know," Juliet ruthlessly interrupted. "That was where and when _I_ came on the scene."
"It was," agreed Emmy, in a flat voice. "You came, you saw, you conquered. But we were talking of the Tsarina pearls. I do hope the Duke _is_ 'delivering the goods', as we say in our country. I don't mind confessing to you, my angel child, I dropped in hoping for a private view."