a moment they're real?"
She studied them a little, feeling them, turning them
round. "Mightn't they possibly be?"
"Of that size--stuck away with that trash?"
"I admit it isn't likely," Charlotte presently said. "And
pearls are so easily imitated."
"That's just what--to a person who knows--they're not.
These have no lustre, no play."
"No--they ARE dull. They're opaque."
"Besides," he lucidly enquired, "how could she ever have
come by them?"
"Mightn't they have been a present?"
Arthur stared at the question as if it were almost improper.
"Because actresses are exposed--?" He pulled up,
however, not saying to what, and before she could
supply the deficiency had, with the sharp ejaculation of
"No, they mightn't!" turned his back on her and walked
away. His manner made her feel she had probably been
wanting in tact, and before he returned to the subject,
the last thing that evening, she had satisfied herself of
the ground of his resentment. They had been talking
of her departure the next morning, the hour of her train
and the fly that would come for her, and it was precisely
these things that gave him his effective chance. "I really
10
HYLAND
