Diana now passed softly around the booth, interchanging a word with the other two girls, after which she returned to her own station.
Presently, while chatting with a group of acquaintances, she suddenly clasped her throat and assuming an expression of horror exclaimed: "My pearls!" "What, the Von Taer pearls ?" cried one.
"The Von Taer pearls," said Diana, as if dazed by her misfortune.
"And you've lost them, dear ?" "They're lost!" she echoed.
Well, there was excitement then, you may be sure.

One man hurried to notify the door-keeper and the private detective employed oh all such occasions, while others hastily searched the booth--of course in vain.
Diana seemed distracted and the news spread quickly through the assemblage.
"Have you left this booth at all ?" asked a quiet voice, that of the official whose business it was to investigate.
"I--I merely walked over to the floral booth opposite, and exchanged a word with Miss Merrick, and the others there," she explained.
The search was resumed, and Charlie Mershone sauntered over.
"What's this, Di?
Lost the big pearls, I hear," he said.
She took him aside and whispered something to him.

He nodded and returned at once to the flower booth, around which a crowd of searchers now gathered, much to the annoyance of Louise and her cousins.
"It's all foolishness, you know," said Uncle John, to the Major, confidentially.

"If the girl really dropped her pearls some one has picked them up, long ago." Young Mershone seemed searching the floral booth as earnestly as the others, and awkwardly knocked the Doulton vase from the shelf with his elbow.

It smashed to fragments and in the pool of water on the floor appeared the missing pearls.
There was an awkward silence for a moment, while all eyes turned curiously upon Louise, who served this side of the triangle.