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"I don't want a new one," said my sister. "I want my old ball back. A week ago I longed for half the jewels in the Rue de la Paix. But now my desire has gone. I never knew the value I set upon what I had."

"That's right," said Adèle. "We shall replace them, of course. But it won't be the same. Mine were bought gradually. Each one was a precious extravagance which Boy and I couldn't afford. And how can Jill's pearls be replaced?"

"They can't," said Piers gloomily. "There'll be a row about that."

"Rot," said Berry. "If somebody steals an heirloom it's not your fault. You showed reasonable care. So did I and Boy and Jonah. It's the women that let us in."

A pregnant silence succeeded this monstrous charge. Then--

"'The women?'" said Daphne shakily. "What do you mean?"

"What I say," said her husband shortly. "Who picked up the Plazas? Who walked bung up to their table an' gave them a face full of teeth?"

"How dare you?" cried Daphne furiously. "And you know I spoke for us all. It was you who said, 'Ask them to dinner,' and slimed round that awful woman and----"