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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, No. 13 Washington Square, by Leroy Scott
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: No. 13 Washington Square
+
+Author: Leroy Scott
+
+Release Date: October 24, 2004  [eBook #13844]
+[Date last updated: February 27, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Alison Hadwin, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
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+
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+
+
+
+NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
+
+by
+
+LEROY SCOTT
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+      I. THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
+
+     II. ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+    III. MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE
+
+     IV. A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT
+
+      V. THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+     VI. BEHIND THE BLINDS
+
+    VII. NOT IN THE PLAN
+
+   VIII. THE HONEYMOONERS
+
+     IX. THE FLIGHT
+
+      X. PEACE--OF A SORT
+
+     XI. THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
+
+    XII. HOME AGAIN
+
+   XIII. THE HAPPY FAMILY
+
+    XIV. THE ATTIC ROOM
+
+     XV. DOMESTIC SCENES
+
+    XVI. THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR
+
+   XVII. A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
+
+  XVIII. THE THIRD FLIGHT
+
+    XIX. A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
+
+     XX. MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY
+
+    XXI. THE VEILED LADY
+
+   XXII. A FAMILY REUNION
+
+  XXIII. MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  "I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"
+
+  "WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"
+
+  "IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"
+
+  MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR
+
+  "SAME PAPER--SAME HANDWRITING!"
+
+  "SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"
+
+
+
+
+NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
+
+
+It was a raw, ill-humored afternoon, yet too late in the spring for
+the ministration of steam heat, so the unseasonable May chill was
+banished from Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room by a wood fire that
+crackled in the grate; crackled most decorously, be it added, for
+Mrs. De Peyster's fire would no more have forgotten itself and shown
+a boisterous enthusiasm than would one of her admirably trained
+servants. Beside a small steel safe, whose outer shell of exquisite
+cabinet-work transformed that fortress against burglarious desire into
+an article of furniture that harmonized with the comfortable elegance
+of a lady's boudoir, sat Mrs. De Peyster herself--she was born a De
+Peyster--carefully transferring her jewels from the trays of the safe
+to leathern cases. She looked quite as Mrs. De Peyster should have
+looked: with an aura of high dignity that a sixty-year-old dowager of
+the first water could not surpass, yet with a freshness of person that
+(had it not been for her dignity) might have made her early forties
+seem a blossomy thirty-five.
+
+Before the well-bred fire sat a lady whose tears had long since
+dried that she had shed when she had bid good-bye to thirty. She
+was--begging the lady's pardon--a trifle spare, and a trifle pale,
+and though in a manner well enough dressed her clothes had an air
+of bewilderment, of general irresolution, as though each article was
+uncertain in its mind as to whether it purposed to remain where it had
+been put, or casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures.
+
+A dozen years before, Mrs. De Peyster, then in the fifth year of her
+widowhood, had graciously undertaken to manage and underwrite the
+début of her second cousin (not of the main line, be it said) and had
+tried to discharge her duty in the important matter of securing her
+a husband. But her efforts had been futile, and to say that Mrs. De
+Peyster had not succeeded was to admit that poor Olivetta Harmon
+was indeed a failure. She had lacked the fortune to attract the
+conservative investor who is looking for a sound business proposition
+in her he promises to support; she had lacked the good looks to lure
+on the lover who throws himself romantically away upon a penniless
+pretty face; and she had not been clever enough to attract the man
+so irrationally bold as to set sail upon the sea of matrimony with a
+woman of brains. And so, her brief summer at an end, she had receded
+to those remote and undiscovered shores on which dwell the poor
+relations of the Four Hundred; whereon she had lived respectably, as
+a lady (for that she should ever appear a lady was due the position
+of Mrs. De Peyster), upon an almost microscopic income; and from which
+bleak and distant land of second-cousindom she came in glad and
+proud obedience to fill an occasional vacant place at one of Mrs. De
+Peyster's second-best dinner parties.
+
+She had arrived but the moment before to bid her exalted cousin adieu
+and wish her _bon-voyage_, and was now silently gazing in unenvious
+admiration at the jewels Mrs. De Peyster was transferring to their
+traveling-cases--with never a guess that perturbation might exist
+beneath her kinswoman's composed exterior. As a matter of fact, under
+the trying circumstances which confronted Mrs. De Peyster, any other
+household would have been in confusion, any lesser woman might have
+been headed toward hysteria. But centuries of having had its own will
+had established the De Peyster habit of believing that things would
+eventuate according to the De Peyster wish; it was not in the De
+Peyster blood to give way. And yet, though self-control might restrain
+worry from the surface, it could not banish it from the private
+chambers of her being.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster glanced at the open door of her
+bedroom--hesitated--then called: "Miss Gardner!"
+
+A trim and pretty girl stepped in. "Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Will you please call up Judge Harvey's office once more, and inquire
+if there is any news about my son. And ask when Judge Harvey will be
+here."
+
+Miss Gardner crossed to Mrs. De Peyster's desk and took up the
+telephone.
+
+"Why, Cousin Caroline, has Jack--"
+
+"One moment, Olivetta,"--motioning toward the telephone,--"until Miss
+Gardner is through."
+
+They sat silent until the receiver was hung up. Mrs. De Peyster strove
+to keep anxiety from her voice.
+
+"Well, Miss Gardner,--any trace of my son yet?"
+
+"They have learned nothing whatever."
+
+"And--and Judge Harvey? When will he be here?"
+
+"His office said he was at a meeting of the directors of the New York
+and New England Railroad, and that he was coming here straight after
+the meeting."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Gardner. You may now go on with the packing. I'll
+have the jewels ready very shortly, and Matilda will be in to help you
+as soon as she is through arranging with the servants."
+
+"Why, Cousin Caroline, what is it about Jack?" burst out Olivetta with
+an excited flutter after Miss Gardner had gone into the bedroom. "I
+hadn't heard anything of it before! Has--has anything happened to
+him?"
+
+Olivetta, an intimate, a relative, and a worshipful inferior, was one
+of the few persons with whom Mrs. De Peyster could bring herself to
+unbend and be confidential. "That is what I do not know. About a week
+ago Jack suddenly disappeared--"
+
+"Disappeared!"
+
+"Oh, he left a note, telling me not to worry. But not a word has been
+heard from him since. Of course, it may only be some wild escapade,
+but then he knew we were going on shipboard this evening, and he
+should have been home long before this."
+
+"How terrible!" cried the sympathetic Olivetta, pushing into place a
+few of the inconstant hairpins that threatened to bestrew the floor.
+"Went a week ago!" And then suddenly: "Why, that was about the time
+that first rumor was printed of his engagement to Ethel Quintard. And
+again this morning--in the 'Record'--did you see it?"
+
+"I never give thought to the newspapers," was Mrs. De Peyster's
+somewhat stiff response.
+
+"You have--have told the police?"
+
+"The police, of course not! But I have advised with Judge Harvey, and
+he has a firm of private detectives on the case."
+
+"And they have clues?"
+
+"They have nothing, as you just heard Miss Gardner report."
+
+"Cousin Caroline! With all these--these thugs and hold-up men we read
+about--and all the accidents--"
+
+"Olivetta! Don't!" And then in a more composed voice: "I am hoping it
+is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he
+misses the boat."
+
+"Yes, I see. You told me about arranging with Mrs. Quintard also to
+sail on the Plutonia."
+
+"I had counted on the trip--Jack and Ethel being thrown together, you
+know."
+
+"Indeed, it was very clever of you!"
+
+"I am hoping it may be only some boyish prank," Mrs. De Peyster
+repeated. "You may not have noticed it, Olivetta," she continued,
+permitting a sigh to escape her, "but of late Jack has acted at
+times--well, rather queerly."
+
+"Queerly! How?"
+
+"He has been far from being himself. In fact, I have observed a number
+of things not at all natural to a De Peyster."
+
+"Caroline! What a worry he must be to you!"
+
+"Yes. But I am hoping for the best. And now, please, we will say no
+more about it."
+
+They were silent for a moment. Miss Gardner entered, took the jewels
+which in the mean time Mrs. De Peyster had finished putting in their
+cases, and went again into the bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her.
+
+"You are still pleased with Miss Gardner?"
+
+"Thus far she has proved herself competent. I consider myself very
+fortunate in finding a secretary who is not above some of the duties
+of a lady's maid. It is a very happy combination for traveling."
+
+"She seems almost too good to be true," mused Olivetta. "She's really
+very pretty. I hope Jack hasn't--"
+
+"Olivetta! How can you! Jack has never paid her the slightest
+attention, nor she him."
+
+"Pardon me, Caroline! But she's so pretty, and she's just the sort of
+girl who attracts men--and--and"--a bit wistfully--"gets engaged and
+gets married."
+
+"Nonsense, Olivetta. When she first came to me I asked her if she were
+in love or engaged. She said she was not, and I told her my rules. She
+is a very sensible girl."
+
+"At any rate, she must be a great relief after that Marie you had."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster flushed, as though at some disagreeable memory.
+
+"Have you learned yet whether Marie was actually a spy for Mrs.
+Allistair?" inquired Olivetta.
+
+"She confessed that she was getting money besides the wages I paid
+her. That is proof enough."
+
+"I believe it of Mrs. Allistair! She wouldn't stop at anything to win
+your place as social leader. But she could never fill it!"
+
+"She will never win it!" Mrs. De Peyster returned with calm
+confidence.
+
+At that moment the door from the hallway opened and there entered a
+woman of middle age, in respectable dull-hued black, with apron of
+black silk and a white cap.
+
+"Ah, Matilda," remarked Mrs. De Peyster. "The servants, are they all
+gone yet?"
+
+"The last one, the cook, is just going, ma'am. There's just William
+and me left. And the men have already come to board up the windows and
+the door."
+
+"You paid the servants board wages as I instructed, and made clear to
+them about coming to Newport when I send orders?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. And they all understand."
+
+"Good," said Mrs. De Peyster. "You have Mr. Jack's trunks packed?"
+
+"All except a few things he may want to put in himself."
+
+"Very well. You may now continue helping Miss Gardner with my things."
+
+But Matilda did not obey. She trembled--blinked her eyes--choked; then
+stammered:--
+
+"Please, ma'am, there's--there's something else."
+
+"Something else?" queried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. Downstairs there are six or seven young men from the
+newspapers. They want--"
+
+"Matilda," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster in stern reproof, "you are well
+enough acquainted with my invariable custom regarding reporters to
+have acted without referring this matter to me. It is a distinct
+annoyance," she added, "that one cannot make a single move without the
+newspapers following one!"
+
+"Indeed it is!" echoed the worshipful and indignant Olivetta. "But
+that is because of your position."
+
+"I tried to send them away," said Matilda hurriedly. "And I told them
+you were never interviewed. But," she ended helplessly, "it didn't do
+any good. They're all sitting downstairs waiting."
+
+"I shall not see them," Mrs. De Peyster declared firmly.
+
+"There was one," Matilda added timorously, "who drew me aside and
+whispered that he didn't want an interview. He wants your picture."
+
+"Wants my picture!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. He said the pictorial supplement of his paper a week from
+Sunday was going to have a page of pictures of prominent society women
+who were sailing for Europe. He said something about calling the page
+'Annual Exodus of Social Leaders.' He wants to print that painting of
+you by that new foreign artist in the center of the page." And Matilda
+pointed above the fireplace to a gold-framed likeness of Mrs.
+De Peyster--stately, aloof, remote, of an ineffable composure, a
+masterpiece of blue-bloodedness.
+
+"You know my invariable custom; give him my invariable answer," was
+Mrs. De Peyster's crisp response.
+
+"Pardon me, but--but, Cousin Caroline," put in Olivetta, with eager
+diffidence, "don't you think this is different?"
+
+"Different?" asked Mrs. De Peyster. "How?"
+
+"This isn't at all like the ordinary offensive newspaper thing. A
+group of the most prominent social leaders, with you in the center of
+the page--with you in the center of them all, where you belong! Why,
+Caroline,--why--why--" In her excitement for the just glorification of
+her cousin, Olivetta's power of speech went fluttering from her.
+
+"Perhaps it may not be quite the same," admitted Mrs. De Peyster. "But
+I see no reason for departing from my custom."
+
+"If not for your own sake, then--then for the artist's sake!" Olivetta
+pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more of diffidence in
+her eagerness. "You have taken up M. Dubois--you have been his
+most distinguished patron--you have been trying to get him properly
+started. To have his picture displayed like that, think how it will
+help M. Dubois!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned
+the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered
+an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a
+struggling fellow being that dictated her decision.
+
+"Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of the picture. And as I
+treat the papers without discrimination, you may give photographs
+to all the reporters who wish them. But on the understanding that M.
+Dubois is to have conspicuous credit."
+
+"Very well, ma'am."
+
+"And send all of them away."
+
+"I'll do what I can, ma'am." And Matilda went out.
+
+"What time does the Plutonia sail?" inquired Olivetta, with the haste
+of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.
+
+"At one to-night. Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I shall go
+aboard right after it."
+
+"How many times does this make that you've been over?"
+
+"I do not know," Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly. "Thirty or
+forty, I dare say."
+
+Olivetta's face was wistful with unenvious envy. "Oh, what a
+pleasure!"
+
+"Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure," corrected Mrs. De
+Peyster. "It is a duty one owes one's social position."
+
+"Yes, I know that's true with you, Cousin Caroline. But with me--what
+a joy! When you took me over with you that summer, we only did the
+watering-places. But now"--a note of ecstatic desire came into
+her voice, and she clasped her hands--"but now, to see Paris!--the
+Louvre!--the Luxembourg! It's the dream of my life!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.
+
+"Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any more
+attention?"
+
+"No, no,--of course not," cried Olivetta, and a sudden color tinted
+the too-early autumn of her cheeks. "Do you think, after what you
+said--"
+
+"M. Dubois is a very good artist, but--"
+
+"I understand, Cousin Caroline," Olivetta put in hastily. "I think
+too much of your position to think of such a thing. Since you--since
+then--I have not spoken to him, and have only bowed to him once."
+
+"We will say no more about it," returned Mrs. De Peyster; and she
+kissed Olivetta with her duchess-like kindness. "By the by, my dear,
+your comb is on the floor."
+
+"So it is. It's always falling out."
+
+Olivetta picked it up, put it into place, and with nervous hands tried
+to press into order loose-flying locks of her rather scanty hair.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster arose; her worry about her missing son prompted her
+to seek the relief of movement. "I think I shall take a turn about the
+house to see that everything is being properly closed. Would you like
+to come with me?"
+
+Olivetta would; and, talking, they went together down the stairs.
+As they neared the ground floor, Matilda's voice arose to them,
+expostulating, protesting.
+
+"What can that be about?" wondered Mrs. De Peyster, and following the
+voice toward its source she stepped into her reception-room. Instantly
+there sprang up and stood before her a young man with the bland,
+smiling, excessively polite manner of a gentleman-brigand. And around
+her crowded five or six other figures.
+
+Matilda, pressing through them, glared at these invaders in helpless
+wrath, then at her mistress in guilty terror.
+
+"I--I did my best, ma'am. But they wouldn't go." And before punishment
+could fall she discreetly fled.
+
+"Pardon this seeming intrusion, Mrs. De Peyster," the foremost young
+man said rapidly, smoothly, appeasingly. "But we could not go, as
+you requested. The sailing of Mrs. De Peyster, under the attendant
+circumstances, is a piece of news of first importance; in fact, almost
+a national event. We simply had to see you. I trust you perceive and
+appreciate our professional predicament."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was glaring at him with devastating majesty.
+
+"This--this is an outrage!"
+
+"Perhaps it may seem an outrage to you," said the young man swiftly,
+politely, and thoroughly undevastated. "But, really, it is only our
+duty. Our duty to our papers, and to the great reading public. And
+when newspaper men are doing their duty they must necessarily fail,
+to their great personal regret, in the observance of some of the nicer
+courtesies."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was almost inarticulate.
+
+"Who--who are you?"
+
+"Mayfair is my name. Of the 'Record.'"
+
+"The 'Record'! That yellow, radical paper!"
+
+Mr. Mayfair stepped nearer. His voice sank to an easy, confidential
+tone.
+
+"You are misled by appearances, Mrs. De Peyster. Every paper has got
+to have a policy; we're the common people's paper--big circulation,
+you know; and we so denounce the rich on our editorial page. But as
+a matter of fact we give our readers more live, entertaining, and
+respectful matter about society people than any other paper in New
+York. It's just what the common people love. And now"--easily shifting
+his base--"about this reported engagement of your son and Miss
+Quintard. As you know, it's the best 'romance in high life' story of
+the season. Will you either confirm or deny the report?"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say," flamed out Mrs. De Peyster. "And
+will you leave this house instantly!"
+
+"Ah, Miss Quintard's mother would not deny it either," commented Mr.
+Mayfair with his polite imperturbability. His sharp eyes glinted with
+satisfaction. Young Mr. Mayfair admired himself as being something of
+the human dynamo. Also it was his private opinion that he was of the
+order of the super-reporter; nothing ever "got by him." "And so,"
+he went on without a pause, "since the engagement is not denied,
+I suppose we may take it as a fact. And now"--again with his swift
+change of base--"may I ask, as a parting word before you sail, whether
+it is your intention next season to contest with Mrs. Allistair--"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say!"
+
+"Quite naturally you'd prefer not to say anything," appeasingly
+continued the high-geared Mr. Mayfair, "but of course you are going
+to fight her." Again his sharp, unfoilable eyes glinted. "'Duel for
+social leadership'--pardon me for speaking of it as such, but that's
+what it is; and most interesting, I assure you; and I, for one,
+trust that you will retain your supremacy, for I know--_I know_," he
+repeated with emphasis--"that Mrs. Allistair has used some methods not
+altogether--sportsmanlike, may I say? And now"--rapidly shifting once
+more--"I trust I will not seem indelicate if I inquire whether it is
+in the scope of your present plans, perhaps at house-parties at the
+estates of titled friends, to meet the Duke de--"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, glaring with
+consuming fury.
+
+"Naturally. We could hardly expect a categorical 'yes' or 'no.' We
+understand that your position requires you to be non-committal; and
+you, of course, understand that we newspaper men interpret a refusal
+to speak as an answer in the affirmative. Thank you very much for the
+interview you have given us. And I can assure you that we shall all
+handle the story with the utmost good taste. Good afternoon."
+
+He bowed. And the next moment the place where he had stood was vacant.
+
+"Of--of all the effrontery!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Isn't it terrible!" shudderingly gasped the sympathetic Olivetta. "I
+hope they won't really drag in that horrible Duke de Crécy!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de Crécy was
+still salt in an unhealed social wound. The Duke had been New York's
+most distinguished titled visitor the previous winter; Mrs. De
+Peyster, to the general envy, had led in his entertainment; there
+had been whispers of another international marriage. And then, after
+respectful adieus, the Duke had sailed away--and within a month
+the papers were giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a
+sensational Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. Whereupon the
+rumors of Mrs. De Peyster's previously gossiped-of marriage with the
+now notorious Duke were revived--by the subtle instigation, and as an
+act of social warfare, so Mrs. De Peyster believed, of her aspiring
+rival, Mrs. Allistair. And there was one faint rumor, still daringly
+breathed around, that the Duke had proposed--had been accepted--had
+run away: in blunt terms, had jilted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"We will not speak of this again, Olivetta," Mrs. De Peyster remarked
+with returning dignity, "but while the matter is up, I will mention
+that the Duke did propose to me, and that I refused him."
+
+With a gesture she silenced any comment from Olivetta. In a breath or
+two she was entirely her usual poiseful self. Too many generations
+had her blood been trained to ways of dignity, and too long had she
+herself been drilled in composure and self-esteem and in a perfect
+confidence in the thing that she was, for an invasion of newspaper
+creatures to disturb her for longer than a few moments.
+
+She was moving with stately tread toward the dining-room when Matilda
+came hurrying up from the nether regions of the house. "Did you know,
+ma'am," Matilda fluttered eagerly, "that Mr. Jack is home?"
+
+"My son back!" There was vast relief in Mrs. De Peyster's voice. "When
+did he come?"
+
+"A few minutes ago."
+
+"Did--did he say anything?"
+
+"I haven't seen him, ma'am. He came in the back way, through the
+stable. William told me about it."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's voice became composed, severe. "I shall see what he
+has to say for himself." Majestically, somewhat ominously, she turned
+and began to mount the stairs, followed by Olivetta and Matilda. But
+as she passed the library's closed door, she heard Miss Gardner's
+voice and a second voice--and the second voice was the voice of a man.
+
+Startled, she paused. She caught a few fragments of phrases.
+Indignation surged up within her. Resolutely she stepped to the door;
+but by instinct she was no eavesdropper, and she would not come upon
+people in compromising attitudes without giving them fair warning. So
+she knocked, waited a moment--then opened the door and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+Half an hour earlier, across in Washington Square, a young gentleman
+was sauntering about taking the crisp May air. He was fashionably but
+quietly dressed, and in his chamois-gloved hand he swung a jaunty wand
+of a cane; a slender, lithe young gentleman, with a keen face that
+had an oddly wide but yet attractive mouth: a young man emanating an
+essence of lightness both of body and of spirit. He might have been
+the very person of agreeable, irresponsible Spring, if Spring is ever
+of the male gender, out for a promenade.
+
+It seemed most casual, the saunter of this pleasant idler; the keenest
+observer would never have guessed purpose in his stroll. But never
+for longer than an instant were the frank gray eyes of this young
+gentleman away from the splendid stone steps, with their carved
+balustrade, and the fine old doorway of Mrs. De Peyster's house at No.
+13 Washington Square.
+
+Presently he noted three men turn up Mrs. De Peyster's steps. Swiftly,
+but without noticeable haste, he was across the street. The trio had
+no more than touched the bell when he was beside them.
+
+"What papers are you boys with?" he inquired easily, merging himself
+at once with the party.
+
+One man told him--and looked him up and down. "Thought I knew all the
+fellows," added the speaker, a middle-aged man, "but never ran into
+you before. What's your rag?"
+
+"'Town Gossip,'" replied the agreeable young gentleman.
+
+"'Town Gossip'!" The old reporter gave a grunt of contempt. "And
+you've come to interview Mrs. De Peyster?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"First time I ever knew that leprous scandal-scavenger and
+black-hander to send a man out in the open to get a story." Evidently
+the old reporter, whom the others addressed as "colonel," had by his
+long service acquired the privilege of surly out-spokenness. "Thought
+'Town Gossip' specialized in butlers and ladies' maids and such--or
+faked up its dope in the office."
+
+"This is something special." The young gentleman's smiling but
+unpresuming _camaraderie_ seemed unruffled by the colonel's blunt
+contempt, and though they all drew apart from him he seemed to be
+untroubled by his journalistic ostracism.
+
+The next moment the door was opened by a stout, short-breathed
+woman, hat, jacket, and black gloves on. All stepped in. The three
+late-arriving reporters, seeing in the reception-room beyond a group
+of newspapermen about a servant,--Matilda making her first futile
+effort to rid the house of this pestilential horde, generaled by Mr.
+Mayfair,--started quickly toward the members of their fraternity. But
+the young gentleman remained behind with their stout admitter.
+
+"Huh--thought that was really your size--tackling a servant!"
+commented the caustic colonel.
+
+But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply; and the
+three disappeared into the reception-room. The young gentleman,
+very politely, half pushed, half followed the stout woman out of the
+reception-room's range of vision.
+
+"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant
+matter-of-factness.
+
+"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the basement door. When I heard the
+ring, I just happened--"
+
+"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost all the
+regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say," smiling engagingly,
+"that you might be the cook, and a mighty good cook, too."
+
+He had such an "air," did this young man,--the human air of the real
+gentleman,--that, despite the unexpectedness of his overture, the
+stout woman, instead of taking offense, flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."
+
+"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.
+
+"Eighty," corrected the cook.
+
+"That's mighty good--twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs. Cook,"--again
+with his open, engaging smile,--"pardon me for not knowing your proper
+name,--could I induce you to enter my employment--at, say, twenty
+dollars a minute?"
+
+"What--what--"
+
+"For only a limited period," continued the young gentleman--"to
+be exact, say one minute. Light work," he added with a certain
+whimsicality, "short hours, seven days out--unusual opportunity."
+
+"But what--what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before she could
+gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two ten-dollar
+bills.
+
+"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner--alone. It's all right. She and I
+are old friends."
+
+"But--but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all
+non-intrigantes.
+
+"Isn't there some room where nobody will come in?"
+
+"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at a door.
+
+"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will know we're
+meeting."
+
+"But, sir, I don't see how--"
+
+"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want to bid
+Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in there with
+the reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to speak to her and
+will be waiting in the library. When you've said that, you've earned
+the money. Then just watch your chance until the somber lady isn't
+looking, and continue with your original plan of leaving the house."
+
+"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture in
+which there was no hesitation she slipped her minute's pay between the
+buttons of her waist.
+
+The young gentleman went lightly and swiftly up the stairs and through
+the mahogany door that had been pointed out to him. Curiously he
+looked about the spacious, dark-toned room of splendid dignity. He had
+the ease of the man to whom the world is home, and seemed not one
+whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur of the great chamber. With a
+watchful eye on the door, he glanced at the rows and rows of volumes:
+well-bred authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary
+"old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with
+a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing--and this he
+did absently, as one might do from habit--he tried the knob of a big
+safe, but it was locked.
+
+The next moment there was a sound at the door. Instantly he was out
+of sight behind the brown velvet hangings of a recessed French window.
+Miss Gardner entered, saw upon the embarrassed edges of none of the
+shrouded chairs a plump and short-breathed Susan. Surprised, she was
+turning to leave when a cautious but clear whisper floated across the
+room.
+
+"Clara!"
+
+She whirled about. At sight of the young gentleman, who had stepped
+forth, she went pale, then red, then pale again.
+
+"Eliot--Mr. Bradford!" she exclaimed. Then in a husky frightened
+whisper: "How did you get in here?"
+
+He sought to take one of her hands, but she put both behind her back.
+At this repulse the young gentleman winced, then smiled gravely, then
+pleasantly,--and then with a whimsical upward twist to his wide mouth.
+
+"Via the cook," he answered, and told her the rest.
+
+"Did any one else belonging to the house see you?"
+
+"Besides you and my excellent old friend, the cook, no one."
+
+"But don't you realize that this house is one of the most dangerous
+places in the world for you?" she cried in a low voice. "Why, Judge
+Harvey himself is expected here any minute!"
+
+"Judge Harvey!" The equable young man gave a start. But the next
+moment his poise came back.
+
+"And after what I saw only to-day in the papers about Thomas
+Preston--! Don't you know you are this moment standing on a volcano?"
+
+"Yes--but what of it?" he answered cheerfully. "It's the most
+diverting indoor or outdoor sport I've ever indulged in--dodging
+eruptions. Besides, in standing on this volcano I have the advantage
+of also standing near you."
+
+"Didn't I tell you I never wanted to see you again!" she flamed at
+him. "How dared you come here?"
+
+"I had to come, dear." His voice was pleading, yet imperturbably
+pleasant. "You refused to answer the letters I wrote you begging you
+to meet me somewhere to talk things over. I read that Mrs. De Peyster
+was sailing to-night, and I knew that you were sailing with her.
+Surely you understand, before she went, I had to see my wife."
+
+"I refuse to recognize myself as such!" cried Miss Gardner.
+
+"But, my dear, you married--"
+
+"Yes, after knowing you just two days! Oh, you can be charming and
+plausible, but that shows just how foolish a girl can be when she's a
+bit tired and lonesome, and then gets a bit of a holiday."
+
+"But, Clara, you really liked me!"
+
+"That was because I didn't know who you were and what you were!"
+
+"But, Clara," he went on easily--he could not help talking easily,
+though his tone had the true ring of sincerity. There seemed to be no
+bit of aggressive self-assurance about this young gentleman; he seemed
+to be just quietly, pleasantly, whimsically, unsubduably his natural
+self. "But, Clara, you must remember that it was as sudden with me as
+with you. I hardly thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank,
+I was afraid if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step a
+bit, that's a fact."
+
+"You admit this, and yet you expect me to accept as my husband a man
+who admits he is a crook!"
+
+"My dear Clara," he protested gently, "I never admitted I was such an
+undraped, uneuphonious, square-cornered word as that."
+
+"Well, if a forger isn't a crook, then who is? The business of those
+forged letters of Thomas Jefferson, do you think I can stand for
+that?"
+
+The young man was in earnest, deadly earnest; yet he could not help
+his wide mouth tilting slightly upward to the right. Plainly there was
+something here that amused him.
+
+"But, Clara, you don't seem to understand that business--and you don't
+seem to understand me."
+
+"No, I must say I don't!" she said caustically.
+
+"Well, perhaps I can't blame you," he admitted soothingly, "for I
+don't always understand myself. But really, my dear, you're not seeing
+this in the right light. Oh, I'm not going to defend myself. It's sad,
+very sad, but I'll confess I'm no chromo of sweet and haloed rectitude
+to be held up for the encouragement and beatification of young John D.
+Rockefeller's Bible Class. Still, I get my living quite as worthily as
+many of the guests who grace"--with a light wave of his hand about
+the great chamber--"this noble habitation. Though," in a grieved tone,
+"I'll confess some of my methods are not yet adequately recognized and
+protected by law."
+
+"Won't you ever take anything seriously?" she cried in exasperation.
+
+"Besides yourself, what is there to take seriously?"
+
+"Don't consider me in your calculations, if you please!" And then with
+sudden suspicion: "See here--you're not here to try any of your tricks
+on this house, or on Mrs. De Peyster!"
+
+"I was thinking," said he, smiling about the room, "that you might
+hide me here till the police become infatuated with some other party.
+A fashionable house closed for the summer--nothing could possibly be
+superior for my purposes."
+
+"I'd never do it! Besides, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper will be
+here."
+
+"But Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper would never know I was here."
+
+"I can't stand your talk another minute," she burst out. "Go!"
+
+He did not stir; continued to smile at her pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not
+really asking the favor, Clara. I'm pretty safe where I'm staying."
+
+"Go, I say! And if you don't care for your own danger, then at least
+consider mine."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"I've told you of Mrs. De Peyster's attitude toward married--"
+
+"Then leave her, my dear. Even though it wouldn't be safe for you to
+be with me till the police resume their interrupted nap--still, you
+can have your own flat and your own bank account. Nothing would make
+me happier."
+
+"Understand this, Mr. Bradford,--I'm going to have nothing to do with
+you!"
+
+For a moment he sobered. "Come, Clara: give me a chance to make
+good--"
+
+"Will you turn straight?" she caught him up sharply. "And will you fix
+up the affair of the Jefferson letters?"
+
+"That last is a pretty stiff proposition; I don't see how it's to
+be done. As to the first--but, really, Clara,"--smiling again
+appeasingly,--"really, you take this thing altogether too seriously."
+
+"Too seriously!" She almost choked. "Why--why--I'm through with you!
+That's final! And I don't dare stay here another minute! Good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Clara." He caught her hand as she turned to go, and spoke
+rapidly. "I don't think I'm so bad as you think I am--honest. You may
+change your mind; I hope you do, dear; and if you do, write me, 'phone
+me, telegraph me, cable me, wireless me. But, of course, not to me
+direct; the police, you know. Address me in care of the Reverend
+Mr. Pyecroft." Tense though the moment was to him, the young man
+could not restrain his odd whimsical smile. "The Reverend Mr.
+Pyecroft has taken an interest in me; like you he is trying to make
+me a better man. He'll see that I get your message. Herbert E.
+Pyecroft--P-y-e-c-r-o-f-t--remember his name. Here's a card of
+the boarding-house at which he is staying." He thrust the bit of
+pasteboard into her free hand. "Remember, dear, I really am your
+husband."
+
+With an outraged gesture she flung the card to the floor. "There'll be
+no message!" Her voice was raised; she trembled in fierce humiliation,
+and in scorn of him. "You ... my husband!"
+
+"Yes, your husband!" he said firmly. "And I'm going to make you love
+me!"
+
+It was at just this moment that Mrs. De Peyster, ascending from her
+scene with the reporters, was passing without, and it was these last
+words that she overheard. And it was at just this moment that her
+knock sounded upon the door.
+
+"Quick, you mustn't be seen here!" breathed Miss Gardner. "The French
+windows there, and out the back way through the stable!"
+
+With a cat's silent swiftness he was at the windows, Miss Gardner
+beside him. But in the back-yard stood William, the coachman, sunning
+himself. That way was closed.
+
+"Into the study," whispered Miss Gardner, pointing at a door, "and
+watch your chance to get out!"
+
+In the same instant the heavy sound-proof mahogany door closed softly
+behind him--leaving Miss Gardner in the middle of the room, with
+heightened color, breathing rapidly. Into the library swept Mrs. De
+Peyster, followed by Olivetta and Matilda.
+
+There was a lofty sternness in Mrs. De Peyster's manner. "Miss
+Gardner, I believe I heard you speaking with a man."
+
+"You did." Miss Gardner was stiff, proudly erect, for she sensed what
+might be coming.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He went out through the window," said Miss Gardner.
+
+"Ah, he did not want me to find out about you. But by chance I
+overheard him say he was your husband."
+
+"He is." Then with an effort: "But husband or no husband, Mrs. De
+Peyster, I believe I would be of equal value--"
+
+"I desire no scene, no argument," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster,
+dignified, not a strident note in her voice--for she never lost
+her self-possession or the true grand manner. "I believe you will
+remember, Miss Gardner, that when you applied for your present
+position two months ago, I told you that I made it a rule to have no
+servants or employees of any kind who were married. As I desired that
+you should understand my reasons, I informed you that I had once had a
+cook and a footman who were married, and who paid so much attention to
+one another that they had time to pay no attention to me. I then asked
+you if you were married. You informed me you were not."
+
+"And I was not, at that time."
+
+"Indeed! Then you have married since. That makes your deception
+all the worse. Remember, Miss Gardner, it was on the distinct
+understanding that you were unmarried that I employed you. I have
+no desire to pass judgment upon you. I try to be fair and just and
+generous with all my employees. If you had been what you declared
+yourself to be, and remained such, you could have stayed with me
+indefinitely. Matilda there came to me as my son's nurse over twenty
+years ago, and has been with me ever since--happy, as she will tell
+you, with no desire to change her state whatever."
+
+"N--no--none--none at all!"
+
+Matilda hastily dropped her eyes. Mechanically her eyes noted the
+rejected card Mr. Bradford had tendered Miss Gardner. Her long habit
+of perfect orderliness, and perhaps the impulse to hide the slight
+confusion that suddenly had seized upon her, prompted her to bend over
+and secure this bit of litter. She glanced at it, would have put it
+in the waste-basket had that receptacle not been across the room, then
+thrust it into the capacious slit-pocket of her black skirt.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster continued in her tone of exact justice: "Miss Gardner,
+you have the perfect right to be married or unmarried. I have the
+perfect right to have the sort of employees I prefer. But since you
+are not what you declared yourself to be, I no longer require your
+service."
+
+Miss Gardner bowed stiffly.
+
+"Matilda, see that Miss Gardner is paid in full to the end of her
+month; and also pay her one month in advance. And telephone about
+until you can find me a maid--do not bother about the secretary part
+of it--a maid who is _not_ married, and who can come at once. That is
+all."
+
+Matilda, still somewhat pale and agitated, started to follow out the
+proud Miss Gardner, who gave a swift glance at the study door--while
+Mrs. De Peyster looked on with her invariable calm majesty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE
+
+
+But at just this moment there was a smart rap at the library door, it
+was partly opened, and a cheery masculine voice called out:--
+
+"May I come in, mother?"
+
+"You, Jack. You may," was the somewhat eager response from Mrs. De
+Peyster.
+
+The door swung entirely open, Miss Gardner stepped out, and there
+entered a young man of twenty-two or three, good-natured confidence
+in his manner, flawlessly dressed, with hands that were swathed in
+bandages. He crossed limpingly to Mrs. De Peyster, who, her affection
+now under control, stood regarding him with reproving and sternly
+questioning eyes.
+
+"Good-morning, mother,--glad to get back," he said, imprinting an
+undaunted kiss upon her stately cheek.
+
+Her reply was a continuance of her reproving look. The young man
+turned to Mrs. De Peyster's faithful satellite.
+
+"Hello, Olivetta. Hands out of commission. You'll have to shake my
+elbow." And he held out his angled arm.
+
+"Good-morning, Jack," responded Olivetta, in trepidation, hardly
+daring to be gracious where Mrs. De Peyster had been cool.
+
+Jack slipped an arm across Matilda's shoulders. "How are you, Matilda?
+Glad to see you again."
+
+"And I'm glad to see you again, Mr. Jack," returned Matilda, with a
+look of stealthy affection.
+
+"Please go, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster crisply. "And now, Jack,"
+she continued with frigid dignity after Matilda had withdrawn, "I
+trust that you will explain your absence, and your long silence."
+
+"Certainly, mother," said Jack, pushing a slip-covered chair
+before the fireplace--for an open wood fire burned here as in her
+sitting-room above--and letting himself down into the chair slowly and
+with extreme care and crossing his legs. "I got a sudden invitation
+from Reggie Atwater to--"
+
+"You know I do not approve of that young scape-grace!"
+
+"I know you don't. I suppose that's one reason I didn't tell you
+beforehand what I was up to."
+
+"What have you been doing?"
+
+"Reggie asked me to go on a long trip to try out his new car. It's
+a hummer. Hundred-and-twenty horse-power--bloody-eyed, fire-spitting
+devil--"
+
+"Such cars are dangerous," severely commented Mrs. De Peyster, who
+still kept to her horses and carriage as better maintaining old-family
+distinction.
+
+"I know. That's another reason I didn't tell you--especially since we
+were planning a thousand-mile lark."
+
+"What's the matter with your hands?" suddenly demanded Mrs. De
+Peyster.
+
+Jack gazed meditatively at the bandaged members.
+
+"You were right about that car being dangerous, mother," said he.
+"I'll confess the whole business. We were whizzing around a corner
+coming into Yonkers this morning when the machine skidded. I did a
+loop-the-loop and lit on my hands. But the skin of my palms--"
+
+"Oh!" shuddered Olivetta.
+
+"Were you much hurt?" asked Mrs. De Peyster, for a moment forgetting
+her reproving manner in her affectionate concern.
+
+"Mother, with your love for old lace, you certainly would like the
+openwork effect of my skin. But--the patient will recover."
+
+"I trust this experience has been a lesson to you!" said Mrs. De
+Peyster with returned severity.
+
+"Oh, it has--a big lesson!" Jack heartily agreed.
+
+"Then I trust you will do nothing of the kind again."
+
+"I trust I won't have to!"
+
+There was rather an odd quality in Jack's tone.
+
+"Won't have to? What do you mean?"
+
+"You've questioned me a lot, mother. I'd like to put a few leading
+questions to you. And--u'm--alone. Olivetta," he remarked pleasantly,
+"do you know that Sherlock Holmes found it an instructive and valuable
+occupation to count the stair-steps in a house? Suppose you run out
+for five minutes and count 'em. I'll bet you a box of--"
+
+Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.
+
+"I never eat candy!"
+
+"A box of hairpins," continued Jack, clumsily picking up one from the
+floor, "that there aren't more than seventy-five."
+
+"Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!" said Olivetta,
+sticking the pin into place.
+
+"Here, is that your purse?" asked Jack, fishing an open purse from
+beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.
+
+"Yes, I'm always dropping it. I lost two--"
+
+"I must say, Olivetta," put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly, "that you
+really must not be so careless!"
+
+Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.
+
+"Hello! And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings of--"
+
+"Give it to me!" And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face, snatched
+purse and card from Jack's hands. "I'll wait up in your bedroom,
+Caroline, and look at your new gowns." And with a rapidity that
+approached instantaneity she disappeared.
+
+"Jack," his mother demanded suspiciously, "what was that card?"
+
+"Just an old admission ticket to varnishing day at the spring exhibit
+of the American Society of Painters," said Jack easily. And without
+giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue the matter
+further, he awkwardly pushed her favorite chair toward the fire to a
+place beside his own. "Come sit down, mother. There's a lot of things
+I want to tell you."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair. "Yes?"
+
+Jack's eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta. "Do you know, mother,
+that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she only had the
+right chance?"
+
+"The right chance?"
+
+"Yes. Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper little
+hotel--chuck full of primped and crimped and proud poor relations who
+don't dare draw a single full-sized breath without first considering
+whether such a daring act might not disturb the social standing of
+somebody over on Fifth Avenue or down here on Washington Square--Oh,
+I say, mother, five more years of that life and Olivetta will be
+choked--dessicated--salted away--a regular forever-and-ever-amen old
+maid. But if--" He hesitated.
+
+"Yes--if?"
+
+"If Olivetta were only to marry some one--some decent fellow--she'd
+blossom out, grow as young as she actually is--and, who knows, perhaps
+even her hairpins might stay in."
+
+"Marry, yes. But whom?"
+
+"I've seen a few things--there's a certain party--and--" He stumbled
+a bit, conscious that he was becoming indiscreet. "And, oh, well, just
+on general principles marriage is a good thing."
+
+"That is just the opinion I have been urging upon you in regard to
+yourself," returned his mother in her even, confident tone.
+
+"U'm--yes," Jack said hastily. "But that was not--not the first thing
+I wanted to speak about."
+
+"I believe you did say there were several matters."
+
+"So there are." He rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand;
+then smiled blandly at his mother. "Yes, there are a few."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, first of all, mother, I want to make a kick."
+
+She frowned. "How often must I request you not to use such common
+expressions!"
+
+"All right, all right," said he. "Suppose I say, then, that I'm
+dissatisfied."
+
+"Dissatisfied!" She straightened up. "Dissatisfied! What about? Do I
+not allow you all the money you want?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And have I not practically arranged a match between you and Ethel
+Quintard? Ethel will have three millions some day. And there is no
+better family to marry into; that is, except our own."
+
+"Yes, yes,--I know."
+
+"And yet you say you are dissatisfied!" She stared. "What more can you
+want?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, to go to school," was Jack's amiable response.
+
+"Go to school! Why--why, you've already had the best of educations!
+Exeter--Yale--not to speak of private tutors!"
+
+"And what did I learn? That is," he added, "over and above being a
+fairly decent half-back and learning how to spend money--u'm--pretty
+thoroughly."
+
+"I trust," said Mrs. De Peyster with all her dignity, "that you
+learned to be a gentleman!"
+
+"Oh, I suppose I learned that all right," Jack acquiesced. "And I've
+been working hard at the profession ever since--sixteen to twenty
+hours a day, no half-holidays and no Sundays off. I can't stand it any
+longer. So I've decided to go on strike."
+
+"Strike?" exclaimed his mother, bewildered.
+
+"Yes. For better conditions. I'm tired loafing such long hours. I'd
+like a little leisure in which to work."
+
+"Work!" repeated his mother--and human voice could hardly express
+amazement greater than did hers. "Work! Jack--you're not in earnest?"
+
+He held upon her a clear-eyed, humorous, but resolute face.
+
+"Don't I look in earnest?"
+
+He did; and his mother could only dazedly repeat, "Work! You go to
+work!"
+
+"Oh, not at once. No, thank you! I want to ask you to give me a little
+proper education first that will equip me to do something. You've
+spent--how much have you spent on my education, mother? Tens and tens
+of thousands, I know. Pretty big investment, on the whole. Now, how
+large returns do you suppose I can draw on that investment?"
+
+"I was not thinking about dividends; I was thinking about fitting you
+for your station," returned his mother stiffly.
+
+"Well, as for me, I've been thinking of late about how much I could
+get out of that investment. I've wanted to test myself and find what
+I was worth--as a worker." He leaned a little closer. "I say, mother,"
+he said confidentially, "you remember that little explanation I just
+gave you of my absence."
+
+"About your trip in that high-powered automobile?"
+
+"That was just a high-powered fib. Just a bit of diplomatic
+romance--for Olivetta's consumption."
+
+"Then where have you been?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Prospecting. Prospecting to find out just how much that hundred
+thousand or two or three you've sunk in me is worth. And I've found
+out. It's present value is not quite nine a week."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean," he said pleasantly, "I've been at work."
+
+"At work!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster slowly rose and looked down at him with staring,
+loose-fallen face.
+
+"At work!" she gasped again. "At work!"
+
+"Yes, mother. At work."
+
+"But--but that skidding automobile? Those hands?"
+
+"Blisters, mother dear. Most horrible blisters."
+
+"You've worked--you've worked--at what?"
+
+"Well, you see, mother, if I could have knocked out a home run, say
+a job as a railroad president, when I stepped up to the plate in the
+first inning, I suppose I wouldn't have backed away from the chance.
+But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore cheap clothes and kept
+clear of my friends. 'What could I do?' every one asked me. You know
+my answer. And _their_ answer! I thought only sub-way guards could
+say, 'Step lively,' like that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met
+a kind gentleman who gave me a chance."
+
+"A gentleman?"
+
+"About the size of your piano--only he had a red mustache and a
+red shirt and I should say his complexion needed re-decorating.
+Irish--foreman on a water-main trench."
+
+"And you--you took it?"
+
+"Took it? I grabbed it!"
+
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" his appalled mother slowly
+exclaimed--so slowly that each letter seemed to shiver out by itself
+in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any rate," she declared with
+returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had enough of it to bring you to
+your senses and bring you home!"
+
+"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache is--well,
+you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold so much discomfort.
+But that isn't the only thing that brought me home. It was--er--I
+might say, mother, that it was suggested to me."
+
+"Suggested? I do not understand."
+
+"If you will permit the use of so inelegant an expression, I was
+'fired.'"
+
+"Fired?"
+
+"Yes. The foreman intimated--I won't repeat his language, mother, but
+the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular knots--he intimated,
+in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning, that I was not quite up
+to the nine per week standard. I'll be honest with you and admit that
+I didn't lean against the pay-shed and weep. I still wanted to work,
+but I decided that I didn't want to start life at its pick-and-shovel
+end--if I could help it. So here I am, mother, asking you to give me
+a little real education--say as a mining engineer, or something like
+that."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was trembling with indignation.
+
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" again a letter at a time.
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r! I'm astounded at you!"
+
+"I thought you might be--a little," he admitted.
+
+"I think you might have some consideration for me! And my position!"
+
+"I suppose it is rather selfish of me to want to earn my own living.
+But you don't know what dreary hard work being a gentleman becomes."
+
+"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. De Peyster wrathfully. "This is what
+comes of your attending that Intercollegiate Socialist thing in
+college! I protested to the president against the college harboring
+such unsettling influences, and urged him to put it out."
+
+"Well, dear old prexy did his best to comply."
+
+"It's that Socialist thing! As for what you propose, I simply will not
+have it!"
+
+"No? I could have started in up at Columbia, and kept it from you. But
+I wanted to be all on the level--"
+
+"I won't have it!"
+
+"You really mean that you are not going to add a few thousand more to
+my hundred thousands' worth of education?"
+
+"I certainly shall not!"
+
+"Then," said Jack regretfully, "I suppose after all I've got to start
+in at the pick-and-shovel end."
+
+"No, you will not! I have reared you to be a gentleman! And you are
+going to be a gentleman!"
+
+"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed, "we'll drop
+the matter--temporarily."
+
+"We'll drop it permanently!" said Mrs. De Peyster decisively.
+"Besides, all this talk is utterly footless. You seem to forget that
+you are sailing with me to Europe to-morrow."
+
+"That brings me to the second point. I was hoping," Jack said mildly,
+"that you would consent to take my regrets to Europe. Don't you think
+Europe might be willing to overlook my negligence--just this once?"
+
+"Jack--I can't endure your facetiousness!"
+
+"I'm not facetious, mother dear. I'm most confoundedly and
+consummately serious. I really want you to let me off on this Europe
+business. Won't you--there's a dear?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"No?"
+
+"Why, your passage is paid for, and my plans--You know Ethel Quintard
+and her mother are sailing on the same boat. No, most certainly I
+shall not let you off!"
+
+"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed again, "perhaps
+we'd better drop this matter also--temporarily."
+
+"This matter we'll also drop permanently," his mother said, again with
+her calm, incontrovertible emphasis.
+
+"Well, that brings us to the third point." He drew a copy of the
+"Record" from his pocket and pointed to a paragraph. "Mother, this is
+the second time my engagement to Ethel Quintard has been in print. I
+must say that I don't think it's nice of Ethel and Mrs. Quintard to
+let those rumors stand. I would deny them myself, only it seems rather
+a raw thing for a fellow to do. Mother, you must deny them."
+
+"Jack, this marriage is bound to come!"
+
+"Mother, you are simply hypnotizing yourself into the belief that I am
+going to marry Ethel Quintard. When"--he painfully recrossed his legs,
+and smiled pleasantly at his mother--"when, as a matter of fact, what
+I have been trying to lead up to is to tell you that I shall never
+lead Ethel's three millions to the altar."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It's all off."
+
+"Off?"
+
+Jack slowly nodded his head. "Yes, all off."
+
+"And why, if you please?"
+
+"Oh, for several reasons," he returned mildly. "But one of the reasons
+is, that I happen to be engaged to someone else."
+
+"Engaged!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, falling back. "And without my
+knowing it! Who is she?"
+
+"Mary Morgan."
+
+"Mary Morgan! I never heard of her. Who's her father?"
+
+"First name Henry, I believe."
+
+"I don't mean his name. But who is he--what's his family--his
+financial affiliations?"
+
+"Oh, I see. Mary told me he runs a shoe store up in Buffalo."
+
+"A shoe store! A shoe store!"
+
+"Or perhaps," Jack corrected, "it was a grocery. I'm not certain."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh! And--and this--this--Mary person--"
+
+"She plays the piano, and is going to be a professional."
+
+For a moment Mrs. De Peyster's horror was inarticulate. Then it began
+to regain its power of speech.
+
+"What--you throw away--Ethel Quintard--for a little pianist! You
+compare a girl like--like that--to Ethel Quintard!"
+
+"Compare them? Not for one little minute, mother, dear! For Mary has
+brains and--"
+
+"Stop!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster, in majestic rage. "Young man, have
+you considered the social disgrace you are plunging us all into?
+But--but surely you cannot be in earnest!"
+
+He looked imperturbably up into her face. "Not in earnest, mother? I'm
+as earnest as a preacher on Sunday."
+
+"Then--then--"
+
+She choked with her words. Before she could get them out, Jack was on
+his feet and had an arm around her shoulders.
+
+"Come, mother, don't be angry--please!" he cried with warm boyish
+eagerness. "Before you say another word, let me bring Mary to see you.
+I can get her here before you go on board. The sight of her will show
+you how right I am. She is the dearest, sweetest--"
+
+"Stop!" She caught his arm. "I shall not see this--this Mary person!"
+
+"No?"
+
+She was the perfect figure of wrath and pride and confident power
+of domination. "I shall never see her! Never! And what is more,"
+she continued, with the energy of one who believes her will to be
+equivalent to the accomplished fact, "you are going to give up, yes,
+and entirely forget, all those foolish things you have just been
+speaking of!"
+
+He gazed squarely back into her flashing eyes. His face had tightened,
+and at that moment there was a remarkable likeness between the two
+faces, usually so dissimilar.
+
+"Pardon me, mother; you are mistaken," he said quietly. "I am going to
+give up nothing."
+
+"What, you defy me?" she gasped.
+
+"I am not defying you. I tried to tell you in as pleasant a way as I
+could what my plans are. But everything I said, I am going to do."
+
+"Then--then--" At first the words would not come forth; she stood
+trembling, clutching the back of her chair. "Then I beg to inform
+you," she was saying thickly in her outraged majesty, when Matilda
+opened the hall door and ushered in an erect, slender man of youngish
+middle age and with graying hair and dark mustache, and with a
+pleasant, distinguished face.
+
+"I beg pardon; I fear I come inopportunely," he said, as he sighted
+Mrs. De Peyster's militant attitude. "But I was told to come right up.
+I'll just wait--"
+
+"Do not go, Judge Harvey," Mrs. De Peyster commanded, as he started to
+withdraw. "On the other hand, your arrival is most opportune. Please
+come here."
+
+"Good-morning, Uncle Bob," Jack said cheerfully. "Excuse me for not
+shaking hands. Just a little automobile accident."
+
+"Jack, you home!" cried the Judge. "My boy, but you have given us
+all a scare!" And then in affectionate concern, noticing his hands:
+"Nothing serious, I hope?"
+
+"Nothing serious about the accident," said Jack, glancing at his
+mother.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster glared at her son, then crossed to the safe, larger
+and more formidable than the one above from which she had been
+removing her jewels, took out a document and returned to the two
+men. She had something of the ominous air of a tragedy queen who is
+foreshadowing an approaching climax.
+
+"Judge Harvey, I do not care to go into explanations," said she. "But
+I desire to give you an order and to have you be a witness to my act."
+
+"Of course, I am at your service, Caroline."
+
+"In the first place," she said, striving to speak calmly, "I beg to
+request my son to move such of his things as he may wish out of this
+house--and within the hour."
+
+"Certainly, mother," Jack said pleasantly.
+
+"And to you, Judge Harvey,--I wish my son's allowance, which is paid
+through your office, to be discontinued from this moment."
+
+"Why--of course--just as you say," said the astonished Judge. "But
+perhaps if the case were--"
+
+"This paper is my will," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster, holding up the
+document she had taken from the safe. "As my man of affairs, I believe
+you are acquainted with its contents."
+
+"I am."
+
+"It gives the bulk of my fortune to my son here."
+
+"Why, yes," admitted the Judge with increasing bewilderment.
+
+"His share amounts to two millions, or thereabouts."
+
+"Thereabouts."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster took two rustling, majestic steps toward her
+fireplace. "Until my son gives me very definite assurance that his
+conduct will be more suitable to me and my position, he is no longer
+my son." And so saying she tossed the will upon the fire. She allowed
+a moment of effective silence to elapse. "That is all, Jack. You are
+excused."
+
+Jack stood and watched the flaming will flicker down to a glowing ash.
+One bandaged hand slowly smoothed his blond hair.
+
+"Gee! I've seen people burning up money, and I've burnt up quite a bit
+myself, but I never saw two millions go as quick! Well, mother," he
+sighed, shaking his head, "I never suspected I'd end in such a little
+blaze. With such a pile I could have made a bigger bonfire than that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT
+
+
+For several moments after Jack had withdrawn, Mrs. De Peyster stood in
+majestic silence beside the mantelpiece.
+
+"We will forget this incident, Judge Harvey," she said at length. "Be
+seated, if you please."
+
+Judge Harvey took a chair, as ordered. Out in the world, Judge Harvey
+was a disconcerting personality, though a respected one; a judge who
+had resigned his judgeship, with the bold announcement that law-courts
+were in the main theaters for farces; a thinker who rejected all
+labels, who was daring enough to perceive and applaud what was good
+even in the conventional.
+
+"But, Caroline," he began hesitantly, "weren't you perhaps a little
+too stern with Jack?"
+
+"As I said, Judge Harvey, I do not care to explain the situation."
+
+"I understood it--a little--anyhow. See here, you don't want Jack to
+grow up to be a member of that geranium-cheeked, leather-chair brigade
+that stare out of Fifth Avenue Club windows, their heaviest labor
+lifting a whiskey-and-soda all the way up to their mouths?"
+
+"I certainly do not propose to accept the alternative he proposed!"
+she retorted. "I assure you, such severity as I used was necessary.
+Nothing will bring a young man to his senses so quickly and so surely
+as having his resources cut off." Her composure, her confidence in her
+judgment, were now fully returned. "Jack will come around all right.
+What I did was imperative to save myself; and certainly it was best
+for him."
+
+"I trust so. But I hope you don't mind if I'm a bit sorry for the
+boy, for, you know,"--in a lower voice, and with a stealthy look at
+her,--"Jack's the nearest thing to a son I've ever had."
+
+She did not answer. In the silence that ensued an uneasiness crept
+into his manner.
+
+"Caroline," bracing himself, "there is something--something you were
+perhaps not expecting to hear--that I must tell you."
+
+"I trust, Judge Harvey,"--somewhat stiffly,--"that you are not about
+to propose to me again."
+
+"I am not." His face flushed; then set grimly. "But I'm going to
+again, sometime, and I'd do it now if I thought it would do any good."
+
+"It will not."
+
+"Oh, I know I wouldn't fit into your present scheme of life."
+Bitterness and contempt had risen like a tide in the Judge's voice. "I
+know I'm no social figure; at least, not up to your dimensions. I know
+it would be a come-down to change from Mrs. De Peyster to Mrs. Harvey.
+Not that I'm so infernally humble, Caroline, that I don't consider
+myself a damned lot better than most of the men you might possibly
+think about marrying."
+
+He rose abruptly, and with a groaning burst of impatience that had
+a tinge of anger: "Oh, for God's sake, Caroline, why don't you throw
+overboard all this fashionable business, this striving to keep an
+empty position, and be--and be--"
+
+"And be what?" put in Mrs. De Peyster with glittering eye.
+
+"And be just yourself!" he cried defiantly, squarely facing her.
+"There, at last I've said it! And I'm going to say the rest of it.
+This Mrs. De Peyster that heads everything isn't at all the simple,
+natural gracious Carrie De Peyster that John De Peyster and I made
+love to! You're not the real Mrs. De Peyster; you only think you are.
+This Mrs. De Peyster the world knows is something that's been built
+by and out of the obligation which you accepted to maintain the De
+Peyster dignity. She's only a surface, a shell, a mask! If your mother
+hadn't died, and then your mother-in-law, and thrown upon you this
+whole infernal family business and this infernal social leadership,
+why, you'd have been an entirely different person--"
+
+"Judge Harvey!"
+
+"You'd then have been the real Mrs. De Peyster!" he rushed hotly on.
+"Oh, all this show, this struggle for place, this keeping up a front,
+I know it's only a part of the universal comedy of our pretending to
+be what we're not,--every one of us is doing the same, in a big way,
+or a little way,--but it makes me sick! For God's sake, Caroline,
+chuck it--chuck it all and be just the fine human woman that there is
+in you!"
+
+She was trembling with suppressed wrath. Never before--not to her
+face, at least--had such criticism been directed at her.
+
+"And ultimately be Mrs. Harvey--no, thank you!" she replied, in a
+choking, caustic voice. "But while you are at it, have you any further
+suggestions for my conduct?"
+
+"Yes," said he determinedly. "You have been spending too much
+money, and spending it on utterly worthless purposes. This social
+duel--that's just what it is--between you and Mrs. Allistair, besides
+being nonsense, will be absolutely ruinous if you keep it up. Mrs.
+Allistair is as unprincipled in a social way as her husband has been
+in a business way; her ambition will hesitate to use no means, you
+know that--and, don't forget this, she can spend fifty dollars to your
+one!"
+
+"I believe," with blazing hauteur, yet still controlled, "that I
+possess something superior to Mrs. Allistair's dollars."
+
+"Yes," groaned the Judge, "your confounded old-family business!"
+
+"And speaking of money," continued Mrs. De Peyster in her cuttingest,
+most withering, most annihilatory grand manner, "perhaps I should
+have spent my money worthily, like Judge Harvey, upon a gift of Thomas
+Jefferson letters to the American Historical Society."
+
+The shaft of sarcasm quivered into the center of Judge Harvey's sorest
+spot. Those recently discovered letters of Thomas Jefferson which
+Judge Harvey had presented to the Historical Society, and which had
+been so widely discussed as throwing new light upon the beginnings
+of the United States Republic, had a month before been pronounced and
+proved to be clever but arrant forgeries. The newspaper sensation
+and the praise that had attended the discovery and gift--warming and
+exalting Judge Harvey's very human pride--had been followed by an
+anti-climax of gibes and jeers at his gullibility. Whenever the hoax
+was spoken of, Judge Harvey writhed with personal humiliation, and
+with anger against the person who had recalled his discomfiture, and
+with a desire for vengeance against the perpetrator of the swindle.
+
+"Remember this, that the first experts pronounced those letters
+genuine," he retorted in a hot, trembling voice. "And I'm going to
+get that scoundrel--you see! Only to-day I had word from the Police
+Commissioner that his department at last had clues to that fellow
+Preston. And, besides," he ended cuttingly, "though I was deceived, I
+at least made an effort to spend my money upon a worthy object."
+
+They glared into one another's eyes; old friends now thoroughly
+aroused against each other. They might be sarcastic or out-spoken;
+but their self-respect, their good-breeding, would not permit them to
+become vituperative, to lose themselves in outbursts of wrath--though
+such might have been the healthier course. They knew how to plug the
+volcano. So for a space, though they quivered, they were silent.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster it was who first spoke. Her voice had recovered its
+most formal, frigid tone.
+
+"Please recall, Judge Harvey, that you are here at the present moment
+not as a friend but as my man of affairs."
+
+"All right," he said grimly. "But at least I've told you what I
+thought as a friend."
+
+"As my man of affairs," she continued with her magnificent iciness,
+"you may now tell me what you have been able to do for me about a
+cottage in Newport."
+
+"Very well, here goes as your man of affairs: You said you wished to
+be in Newport from the middle of July to early in September."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The house, of those available, which I thought would come nearest
+suiting you is 'The Heron's Nest.'"
+
+"You mean the cottage Mrs. Van der Grift had last season?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You need not describe it then. I know it perfectly. It is exactly
+what I desire; elegant, but not showy. And the terms?"
+
+"Ten thousand for the season."
+
+"Quite satisfactory. I hope you have taken a lease."
+
+"I have an option till to-morrow."
+
+"Then close it. I suppose you have brought my letters of credit?"
+
+"That," said he in formal lawyer tone, "brings me back to the news
+which, as your man of affairs, I was trying to break to you when you
+thought, as a friend, I was trying to propose."
+
+"What news?"
+
+"You will recall that the money with which I was to buy your letters
+of credit was money which I was to draw for you, to-day, as dividends
+on the stock you hold in the New York and New England Railroad."
+
+"Certainly--though I do not see the drift of your remarks."
+
+"And I hardly need remind you that the bulk of your fortune is
+invested in this railroad."
+
+"A perfectly good stock, I believe," Mrs. De Peyster commented.
+
+"Perfectly good--perfectly sound," Judge Harvey agreed. "But there has
+existed a certain possibility in the company's affairs for some time
+of which I hesitated to inform you. I did not wish to give you any
+unnecessary concern, which would have been the case if I had spoken to
+you and if the situation had terminated happily."
+
+"And what is the situation to which you refer?"
+
+"You are doubtless aware that all the railroads have been complaining
+about bad business, owing to increased wages on the one side and
+governmental regulation of rates on the other. That's the way the
+officers explain it; but the truth is, the roads have been abominably
+mismanaged."
+
+"Yes, I have vaguely heard something about bad business," said Mrs. De
+Peyster with a bored air. "But what does all this lead to?"
+
+"I am trying to lead you gently, Mrs. De Peyster, to realize the
+possibility that, in view of its alleged bad business, the New York
+and New England might decide to pass dividends for this quarter."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster started forward. "Do you mean to say, Judge Harvey,
+that such a possibility exists?"
+
+"It's rather more than a possibility."
+
+"More than a possibility?"
+
+"Yes. In fact, it's a--a fact."
+
+"A fact?"
+
+"I have just come from the meeting of the directors. They have voted
+to pay no dividends."
+
+"No dividends!" Mrs. De Peyster gazed stupefied into the face of Judge
+Harvey. "No dividends! Then--then--my income?"
+
+"I am very sorry," said Judge Harvey.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and laid one hand across her
+eyes. For a moment she was dazed by this undreamed-of disaster; so
+overwhelmed that she did not even hear Judge Harvey, whose anger had
+ere this begun to relax, try to reassure her with remarks about the
+company being perfectly solvent. But it was not befitting the De
+Peyster dignity to exhibit consternation. Instinct, habit, ruled. So,
+after a moment, she removed her hand, and, though all her senses were
+floundering, she remarked with an excellent imitation of calm:--
+
+"Thank you very much, Judge Harvey, for your information."
+
+Judge Harvey, though still resentful, was by now feeling contrite
+for his share of their quarrel and looked unusually handsome in his
+contrition. And in his concern he could not help pointing the way out.
+
+"I trust you have enough in your bank for your present plans. And if
+not, your bank will readily advance you what you need."
+
+"Of course," said she with her mechanical composure.
+
+"Or if there is any difficulty," he continued, desirous of making
+peace, "I shall be glad to arrange a loan for you."
+
+She was too blinded by disaster to think, to realize her needs. And
+dazed though she was by this reverse, her anger against Judge Harvey
+for daring to criticize burned as high as before. And then, too, she
+remembered the haughtiness with which she had just refused his advice
+and put him in his place. At that moment, the person of all persons
+in the world from whom it would have been most humiliating to her to
+accept even a finger's turn of assistance was Judge Harvey.
+
+"Thank you. I shall manage very well."
+
+"And the Newport house?"
+
+"I shall send you my instructions concerning it later."
+
+He hesitated, waiting for her to speak. But she did not.
+
+"Then that is all?" he queried.
+
+"Quite all," she replied.
+
+He still lingered. He was not to see her again for three months. And
+he didn't like to part like this; even if--
+
+"After all, Caroline," he said impulsively, holding out his hand,
+"let's forget what we said and be friends. At any rate, I certainly
+hope you have a most enjoyable time in Europe."
+
+"Thank you. I am sure I shall have."
+
+Her words were cool, calm; the hand she gave him was without pressure.
+Stiffening again, he made her the briefest of bows and angrily walked
+out.
+
+At the sound of the closing door, announcing that Judge Harvey's eyes
+were outside the room, Mrs. De Peyster unloosed the mantle of dignity,
+which with so great an effort she had kept folded about her person,
+let her face fall forward into her hands, and slumped down into her
+chair, a loose, inert bundle. Several lifeless minutes dragged by.
+
+A little before, during a silence between Judge Harvey and Mrs. De
+Peyster, the study door had slowly opened and there had appeared
+the reconnoitering face of the entrapped Mr. Bradford. Though their
+attention had apparently been too centered on each other for them to
+be observant of what happened beyond their very contracted horizon,
+that had seemed to him no promising moment to try for an escape. With
+high curiosity, eyes amused and alight with delectable danger, he
+had studied Judge Harvey a moment, and then the duchess-like Mrs. De
+Peyster in her most magnificent towering attitude of wrathful hauteur.
+Then quickly and soundlessly the heavy door had closed.
+
+Now again the heavy, sound-proof door of the study began to
+open--noiselessly, inch by inch. Again the light, humorous, but
+shrewd, very shrewd, face of Mr. Bradford appeared in the crack. This
+time the face did not withdraw. He watched the bowed figure of the
+solitary Mrs. De Peyster for several moments; considered; measured the
+distance to the door of escape; evaluated the silencing quality of the
+deep library rug; then slipped through the door, closed it, and with
+tread as soft as a bird's wing against the air started across the
+room.
+
+At Mrs. De Peyster's back curiosity checked him and he turned his
+whimsical face down upon the motionless figure. The great Mrs. De
+Peyster! He wondered what had thus changed her from the all-commanding
+presence of a few moments since; for within that perfection of a study
+he had overheard nothing. An instant he stood thus at her back, alert
+to disappear upon the warning of a changing breath--the two but an
+arm's reach apart, and apparently about to go their separate ways
+forever--she unconscious of him, and he equally unconscious of the
+seed of a common drama which their own acts had already sown--with
+never a thought that ships that pass in the night may possibly alter
+their courses and meet again in the morning.
+
+He slipped on out of the room, closing the door without a sound. In
+the hallway he paused. He wished to see Miss Gardner again, ignorant
+of the sudden fate that had befallen her. But he decided little would
+be gained by trying for another meeting. Certainly she must have
+relented sufficiently to have picked up the card he had given her; and
+perhaps she would change her mind and send him a message in care of
+the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. Anyhow, that was his best hope.
+
+Lightly, and with a light heart--for the presence of danger was to him
+a stimulant--he went down the stairs, eyes and ears on guard against
+unfortunate rencontres, and eyes also instinctively noting doors and
+passages and articles worth a gentleman's while. At the front door he
+waited a moment until the sidewalk was empty; then he let himself out,
+and went down Mrs. De Peyster's noble stone steps, his face pleasant
+and frank-gazing, and with the easy self-possession of departing from
+a call to wish a friend _bon-voyage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+
+After a time Mrs. De Peyster rose totteringly from the sheeted library
+chair, mounted weakly to the more intimate asylum of her private
+sitting-room, and sat down and stared into her fire. She was still
+dazed by Judge Harvey's announcement of the decision of the New York
+and New England to pay no dividends.
+
+She was not rich, as the rich count riches. Nor did she desire a
+greater wealth; at least not much greater. In fact, she looked down
+upon the possessors of those huge fortunes acquired during the last
+generation as upon beings of an inferior order. It was blood-discs
+that gave her her supremacy, not vulgar discs of gold. She had enough
+to maintain the De Peyster station, but just enough; and she had so
+adjusted her scale of living that her expenses exactly consumed her
+normal income--no more, no less.
+
+That is, had exactly consumed it, except during the last year or two.
+One reason she had so resented Judge Harvey's criticism of her manner
+of living was that the criticism had the unfortunate quality of being
+based on truth. Of late, the struggle to maintain her inherited and
+rightful leadership had involved her in greatly increased expenditure,
+and this excess she had met in ways best known to herself.
+
+The collapsed Mrs. De Peyster heard Matilda enter, pause, then
+pass into the bedroom, but did not look up; nor a moment later when
+Olivetta reëntered from the bedroom, did she at first raise her
+dejected head.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Cousin Caroline?" cried Olivetta.
+
+There was no occasion for maintaining an appearance before Olivetta,
+who was almost as faithful and devoted as though a very member of
+her body. So Mrs. De Peyster related her misfortune, interrupted by
+frequent interjections from her sympathetic cousin.
+
+"Do you realize what it means, Olivetta?" she concluded in a benumbed
+voice. "It means that, except for less than a thousand which I have
+on hand,--a mere nothing,--I am penniless until more dividends are
+due--perhaps months! I cannot go to Europe! I cannot go to Newport!"
+
+Olivetta was first stunned, then was ejaculative with consternation.
+
+"But, Caroline," she cried after a moment, "why not have Judge Harvey
+get you the money?"
+
+"Out of the question, Olivetta; I do not care to explain." She would
+never unbend to Judge Harvey! Never!
+
+"Then, why not borrow the money from the bank, as you say Judge Harvey
+suggested?"
+
+"Olivetta, you should know that that is against my principles." She
+tried to instill proud rebuke into her voice. But just here was the
+pinch--or one of them. To cover the excess in her expenses she had
+already borrowed--secretly, for she would never have had it come
+to Judge Harvey's knowledge--from her bank to the very limit of her
+personal credit.
+
+Olivetta's distressed eyes fell upon one of the jewel cases which
+Marie had left in the sitting-room.
+
+"There are your jewels, Caroline. But, of course you wouldn't consider
+raising money--"
+
+"On my jewels! How can you think of such a thing!"
+
+"Of course not, of course not," fluttered Olivetta. "Please forgive
+me, Caroline. I do so admire your strict principles!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster accepted apology and tribute with a forgiving nod. But
+just here was another of the pinches. The previous spring, while
+in Paris, she had had her jewels most confidentially replaced with
+excellent imitations; and the original stones were at this moment
+lying as pledges in the vaults of a Parisian banker.
+
+"But, Caroline," pursued the sympathetic Olivetta, "can't you cut down
+expenses and remain in town? What with your credit, you have enough
+for that!"
+
+"Remain in town, when everybody is leaving?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+"Are you out of your senses Olivetta? Why, people would never stop
+talking about it!"
+
+"Of course--you're right--forgive me," stammered Olivetta. "But you
+might go to some modest resort for the summer--or--or--go to Europe in
+a more modest way."
+
+"Olivetta, you grow more absurd every moment!" exclaimed Mrs. De
+Peyster. "You know it has long been my custom to spend the first half
+of the summer in Europe, in a style befitting me, and to spend the
+second half in Newport. To do less would set people talking, and might
+endanger my position."
+
+"Of course! Of course!" cried the humbled Olivetta.
+
+"I hope you fully realize my dilemma."
+
+"It is terrible--terrible!" Olivetta's tone was slow, and full of
+awed dismay. "You must maintain your social position and there is no
+money!"
+
+"Just so."
+
+Detailed horrors of the situation began to move in spasmodic
+procession through Olivetta's mind.
+
+"And your passage is taken on the Plutonia--and it has been widely
+announced that you are leaving for Europe--and that newspaper is going
+to print your picture among the social leaders who have sailed--and,
+oh, Caroline, all those reporters are going to fill the papers with
+long articles about your going!"
+
+A new horror, that till then had escaped Mrs. De Peyster's inventory,
+a horror out-climaxing any in Olivetta's tragic list, burst suddenly
+upon Mrs. De Peyster. Her face went pale, fell loose.
+
+"Mrs. Allistair!" she barely articulated.
+
+"Mrs. Allistair?" Olivetta repeated blankly.
+
+"Don't you see--if I stay at home--don't sail--Mrs. Allistair will use
+it as capital against me--and she'll ride over me to--"
+
+"Caroline!" gasped the appalled Olivetta.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood up, rigid with desperation.
+
+"I simply must sail!" she cried.
+
+"Of course you must! Can't you think of some way out of it? I never
+knew you unequal to an emergency!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, her brow knitted with agitated thought, walked slowly
+to one of her windows and stood looking down into the pleasant bustle
+of Washington Square. Olivetta watched her intently, waiting for the
+brilliant plan that would be the result of her cousin's cogitations.
+
+But the minutes passed, Mrs. De Peyster did not move, and Olivetta's
+gaze wandered about the large, luxurious sitting-room. Her mind roamed
+afar to the desolate realm which she inhabited, and she thought of her
+own sitting-room, dark and stingily furnished, and rather threadbare,
+in which she was expecting to spend the summer, save for a few weeks
+at a respectable, poor-relations' resort. She sighed.
+
+"If it wasn't for your social position," she said, half to herself,
+"it really wouldn't be so bad to spend the summer here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster must have heard, for she turned slowly about and gazed
+at Olivetta--gazed at her steadily. And gradually, as she gazed, her
+whole appearance changed. The consternation on her face was succeeded
+by calm resolution. Poise and dignity returned.
+
+"You have an idea, Caroline?" cried Olivetta, struck by her look.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood silent for yet a few more moments. Then,
+completely her dignified and composed self, she stepped toward
+her bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her in wondering, worshipful
+fascination.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster opened the door.
+
+"Matilda!"
+
+The housekeeper instantly appeared.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Matilda, call William and have him waiting in the hall till I summon
+him. Come back immediately."
+
+"But, Cousin Caroline, what is it?" asked Olivetta excitedly, as
+Matilda went out.
+
+"Wait!" said Mrs. De Peyster in a majestic tone.
+
+A minute passed, Mrs. De Peyster standing composedly by the fireplace,
+Olivetta gazing at her in throbbing suspense. Then Matilda returned.
+Her Mrs. De Peyster summoned to her side.
+
+"Matilda, you have proved your loyalty to me by twenty years of
+service," she began, "and you, Olivetta, I know are completely devoted
+to me. So I know you both will faithfully execute my requests. But
+I must ask you not to breathe a word of what I tell you, and what we
+do."
+
+"I?" cried Olivetta. "Never a syllable!"
+
+"Nor I, ma'am,--never!" declared Matilda.
+
+"But first, Matilda, I must acquaint you with a situation that
+has just arisen." And Mrs. De Peyster outlined such details of her
+predicament as she thought Matilda needed to know. "And now, here
+are my orders, Matilda. The house, of course, is being boarded up as
+usual. All the servants are sent away except William; and that order,
+if you have given it, for a maid for me is to be countermanded. You,
+Matilda, are to remain here alone in charge of the house as has been
+your custom. The report that I am sailing is to be allowed to stand.
+But in reality--"
+
+"Yes, in reality?" cried the excited Olivetta.
+
+"In reality," continued Mrs. De Peyster calmly, for she knew how a
+_dénouement_ is heightened by a quiet manner--"in reality, I shall,
+during the entire summer, stay here in my own house."
+
+"Stay here!" ejaculated Olivetta.
+
+"Stay here!" exclaimed Matilda.
+
+"Stay here. Chiefly in my suite. Secretly, of course. No one but you
+two will ever know of it. By staying here, I shall be practically at
+no expense. But the world will think I am in Europe, and my position
+will be saved."
+
+Staggered as she was, Olivetta had remaining a few fragments of
+reason.
+
+"But--but, Caroline! You cannot merely announce that you are going
+abroad! You are a person of importance--your every move is observed.
+People will see that you do not sail. How will you get around that?"
+
+It sounded a poser. But Mrs. De Peyster was unruffled.
+
+"Very simply, Olivetta. You shall sail in my stead."
+
+"Me!" cried Olivetta, yet more bewildered.
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"But--but, if you cannot afford Europe for yourself, how can you
+afford it for me?"
+
+"It would take a great many thousands for me to go in the manner that
+is expected of me. I cannot afford that. For you, Olivetta, since the
+passage is already paid, it would take but a few hundred--and that I
+can afford."
+
+"You--you mean that I am to pass for you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I never can! People will know the difference!"
+
+"People will never see you," returned the calm voice of Mrs. De
+Peyster. "The Plutonia sails at one to-night. You will go on board
+with my trunks late this evening, heavily veiled. Since no one must
+see you on the way over, you must of course, keep to your cabin. You
+must be seasick."
+
+"But I am never seasick!" cried Olivetta.
+
+"Then you must stay in your berth anyhow and pretend to be. You are to
+be too ill to receive any friends who may chance to be on board. Your
+stewardess will bring your meals to your stateroom. When the boat
+arrives, you must wait till every one else is off, and when you land
+you must again be heavily veiled and be too sick to speak to any one.
+Once you are in Paris--"
+
+"Yes, there's the difficulty!"
+
+"Not so great as you think. I shall give you full directions what to
+do. Once you are in Paris, you quietly disappear. It will become
+known that Mrs. De Peyster has gone off on a long motor trip through
+unvisited portions of Europe and will not return for the Newport
+season. With Mrs. De Peyster started on this trip, you become
+yourself, and you see Europe just as you please."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Olivetta, drawing in a deep breath.
+
+"But please, ma'am," put in Matilda, "why could you not go over
+yourself and then slip away to some modest resort?"
+
+"So many people know me I should be sure to be seen and recognized.
+And then think of the talk! No, that would never do. I have considered
+all possibilities. My plan is best."
+
+"Of course, you're right, ma'am," agreed Matilda.
+
+"On the way back, Olivetta, you are to preserve the same precautions
+as on the way over. And to avoid any possible difficulty in getting
+into the house, I shall provide you with a key to the house and one to
+my sitting-room."
+
+"But you, ma'am," objected Matilda, "in the mean time you cannot stay
+cooped up all summer in this room!"
+
+"I do not intend to," returned Mrs. De Peyster with her consummate
+calm, which assured her co-conspirators that they could lean
+untroubled upon her unblundering brain. "Matilda, will you now please
+have William come in?"
+
+Matilda, bewildered but obedient, stepped to the door and a
+moment later followed in the most clean-shaven, the most stiffly
+perpendicular, the most deferentially dignified, the most
+irreproachably expressionless of men-servants. He was the ultimate
+development of his kind. It seems almost a sacrilege to add that he
+was past man's perfect prime, and to hint that perhaps his scanty,
+unstreaked hair sought surreptitious rejuvenation in a drug-store
+bottle.
+
+"William, Matilda will acquaint you with certain alterations in my
+plans," began his mistress. "I desire to add that she will remain
+in the house alone during my absence; that you are to keep to your
+quarters in the stable and not enter the house; and that you are to
+arrange to take, at my expense, all your meals outside."
+
+William inclined his body slightly, as if to say, "Yes, my lady."
+
+"And in order to give the horses proper exercise, and to relieve
+Matilda's monotony, I desire you to take Matilda out driving every
+evening."
+
+Again William bowed a "Yes, my lady."
+
+"You understand this perfectly?"
+
+William's lips executed one of their rare movements.
+
+"Perfectly, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Very well."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and William
+made the exit of a minister from his queen.
+
+"You don't mean--" began Matilda, almost breathless.
+
+"Yes, I mean that I shall go out driving nightly in your clothes,"
+responded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"But--but--" gasped Matilda.
+
+"Have no fear. I shall, of course, be veiled, and William is the
+best-trained, the most incurious of servants."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, looking her most majestic, stood waiting for
+the outburst of approval, just tribute to one who has conceived a
+supernally clever and flawless scheme.
+
+"Well, now, Matilda," she prompted, "what do you think of the whole
+plan?"
+
+"Since you thought it out, I--I--suppose it's all right," stammered
+Matilda.
+
+"And you, Olivetta, what do you think?"
+
+"Me!" cried Olivetta, who for the last minute had with
+difficulty restrained her ecstasy. "Paris!--the Louvre!--the
+Luxembourg!--Versailles!" She flung her arms about Mrs. De Peyster's
+neck amid a shower of hairpins. "Oh, Caroline--Caroline. It's--it's
+simply glorious!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BEHIND THE BLINDS
+
+
+It was the next day.
+
+Olivetta had mailed a few hurried notes to friends about her sudden
+departure for a complete rest in the utter seclusion of an unnamed
+spot in Maine--Jack De Peyster had moved out--the front door way and
+the windows had been boarded up--the house wore the proper countenance
+of respectable desertion--and up in her sitting-room, lighted only
+by little diamond panes in her thick shutters, sat Mrs. De Peyster
+reading a newspaper. From this she gleaned that Mrs. De Peyster had
+sailed that morning on the Plutonia, having gone on board late the
+night before. Also she learned that Mrs. De Peyster would not be back
+as was her custom for the Newport season, but was going to make an
+extended motor trip off the main-traveled roads, perhaps penetrating
+as far as the beautiful but rarely visited Balkan States.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was well satisfied as she rested at ease in her
+favorite chair. It would not be too much to say that she was very
+proud; for hers was certainly a happy plan, a plan few intellects
+could have evolved. And thus far it had worked to perfection, and
+there was no doubt but that it would work so to the end; for, although
+Olivetta, to be sure, was rather careless, the instructions given her,
+the arrangements made in her behalf, were so admirable and complete
+that any miscarriage could not possibly have Olivetta for its source.
+
+Also Mrs. De Peyster was at heart honestly contented. She had spoken
+truly when she had told Olivetta that Europe was old to her and had
+become merely a social duty. Of that fatiguing obligation to her
+position she was glad to be relieved. The past season, with its
+struggle with Mrs. Allistair and that Duke de Crécy affair, had been
+a trying one, and she was tired. By the present arrangement, which she
+regarded as nothing short of an inspiration, her social prestige was
+secure, her financial difficulties were taken care of, and she herself
+would have the desired opportunity for a sorely needed rest. She would
+have her books, she would have the society of Matilda (for Matilda
+had in the long years grown to be more than a mere servant--she was a
+companion, a confidant)--her creature comforts would be well seen to
+by Matilda,--she would have the whole house to roam over at her will
+during the day, and every night she would have the pleasant relaxation
+of a drive behind the peerless William.
+
+It seemed to her, as she looked forward to it, the most desirable of
+vacations.
+
+Her mind was quite at ease concerning Jack. Severity, as she had said,
+had been necessary. A bit of privation would do him good, would bring
+him to his senses; she had no slightest doubt of that. And when
+they met again, he would be in a mood to fit into the place she had
+carefully prepared for him. Of course, she would let him off in the
+matter of Ethel Quintard, if he really didn't care for Ethel. There
+were other nice girls of good families. She wouldn't be hard on him.
+
+Also she felt easier in her mind in the matter of the quarrel with
+Judge Harvey. The sting and humiliation of his words she had now cast
+out of her system; she was really superior to such criticism.
+There remained only Judge Harvey's offense. Certainly he had been
+inexcusably outspoken and officious. Her resentment had settled down
+into a calm, implacable, changeless attitude. She would be polite to
+him, since they must continue to meet in the future. But she would
+keep him coldly at a distance. She would never unbend. She would never
+forgive.
+
+Next to the column recording her departure she had noted a few
+paragraphs giving the progress of the police in their search for James
+Preston, the forger of the Jefferson letters. What a fool Judge Harvey
+had been in that affair!...
+
+And yet, in a way, she was sorry. She had liked Judge Harvey; had
+liked him very much. In fact, there had been relaxed moods in which
+she had dallied pleasantly with the thought of marrying him. She
+might, indeed, have married him already had it not been for the
+obvious social descent.
+
+Also, she thought for a moment of Miss Gardner. In this matter she
+had likewise been quite right. However, aside from the deception Miss
+Gardner had practiced, she had seemed a nice girl; and Mrs. De Peyster
+was lenient enough to feel a very honest wish that the husband, who
+had so rapidly disappeared, was a decent sort of man. Perhaps later
+she might favor them with some trifling present.
+
+She had a light luncheon, for it was her custom to eat but little at
+midday, and spent part of the afternoon with a comfortable sense of
+improvement over one of John Fiske's volumes of colonial history;
+popular novels she abhorred as frivolities beneath her. And then she
+took upon her lap a large volume, weighing perhaps a dozen pounds,
+entitled "Historic Families in America," in which first place
+was given to an account of the glories of the De Peysters. Though
+premiership was no better than the family's due, she was secretly
+pleased with her forebears' place in the volume--in a sublimated way
+it was the equivalent of going in first to dinner among distinguished
+guests. She liked frequently to glance leisurely through the pages,
+tasting here and there; and now, as she did whenever she read the
+familiar text, she lingered over certain passages of the deferential
+genealogist--whom, hardly conscious of the act of imagination, she
+could almost see in tight satin breeches, postured on his knees,
+holding out these tributes to her on a golden salver:--
+
+"In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ... "From an early period of the
+fourteenth century the De Peysters were among the richest and most
+influential of the patrician families of Ghent" ... "The exact
+genealogical connection between the De Peysters of the fourteenth
+century and the above-noted sixteenth and seventeenth century
+ancestors of the American De Peysters has not been traced, as the work
+of translating and analyzing the records of the intervening period is
+still incompleted. Sufficient has been ascertained, however, to leave
+no doubt of the continual progress of the family in possessions,
+social dignity, and public consequence" ... "The first man in New
+Amsterdam who had a family carriage" ... "The chief people of the
+city and province, and stately visitors from the Old World, were often
+grouped together under this roof"....
+
+Such august and ample phrases could but nourish and exalt her sense
+of worthiness; could but add to her growing sense of satisfaction.
+She closed the ceremonious volume, and her eyes, lifting, rested for
+a gratifying moment on a framed steel engraving from the painting of
+Abraham De Peyster, Mayor of New York from 1691 to 1693. The picture
+pleased her, with its aristocratically hooked nose, its full wig, its
+smile of amiable condescension. But fortunately she had forgotten, or
+perhaps preferred not to learn, that when this ancestor was New York's
+foremost figure, the city had had within its domain somewhat less than
+one one-thousandth of its present subjects.
+
+And then her eyes wandered to the three-quarters portrait of herself
+by M. Dubois, hung temporarily in this room. Yes, it was good. M.
+Dubois had caught the peculiar De Peyster quality. One looked at it
+and instinctively thought of generations processioning back into a
+beginningless past. "In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ...
+
+Toward five o'clock she rose and, a stately figure in lavender
+dressing-gown, strolled through the velvet hush of the great darkened
+house: over foot-flattering rugs, through silken hangings that rustled
+discreet homage at her passing, by dark tapestries lit with threads of
+gold, among shadowy bronzes and family portraits and pier-glasses and
+glinting cut-glass candlesticks and chandeliers. So exaltative yet so
+soothing, this opulent silence, this spacious solitude!
+
+And for an almost perfect hour she sat in her rear drawing-room,
+lightly, ever so cautiously, touching bits of Grieg and Tschaikowsky
+out of her Steinway Grand--just dim whispers of music that did not
+breathe beyond the door. She played well, for she loved the piano and
+had a real gift for instrumentation. Often when she played for her
+friends, she had to hold herself in consciously, had to play below her
+ability; for to have allowed herself to play her best might have been
+to suggest that she was striving to be as good as a professional, and
+that would have caused comment and been in bad taste.
+
+Her piano was going to be another comfort to her.
+
+She was complacent--even happy--even exultant. It was all so restful.
+And before her were three months--three beautiful months--of this
+calm, this rest, this security.
+
+At seven o'clock Matilda announced that her dinner was ready, and
+she swept back into the great dining-room, high-ceilinged, surfaced
+completely with old paneling of Flemish oak. The room was dimly
+illuminated by a single shaded electric bulb. The other lighting had
+all been switched off; during the summer the illumination would,
+of course, have to be unsuspiciously meager. To a mortal of a less
+exalted sphere the repast would have seemed a banquet. Mrs. De
+Peyster, though an ascetic at noon, was something of an epicure at
+night; she liked a comfortable quantity, and that of many varieties,
+and these of the best. Under the ministrations of Matilda she
+pleasurably disposed of clear soup, whitebait, a pair of squabs on
+toast with asparagus tips, and an alligator pear salad.
+
+"Really, Matilda," she remarked with benign approval as she leisurely
+began on her iced strawberries, "I had quite forgotten that you were
+such a wonderful cook. Most excellent!"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," In her enjoyment Mrs. De Peyster had not noticed
+that throughout the meal her faithful attendant had worn a somewhat
+troubled look.
+
+"Just give me food up to this standard, and I shall be most happy,
+my dear. My summer may grow somewhat tedious toward the end; I shall
+count a great deal on good meals to keep it pleasant."
+
+"Of course--of course--" and then a salad plate slipped from Matilda's
+hands. "Oh, ma'am, I--I--"
+
+"What is the matter, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, a trifle
+stern at this ineptness.
+
+"Nothing, ma'am. Nothing at all. I'll see that you get it, b--but I
+don't know how I'll get it."
+
+"Don't know how?"
+
+"You see, ma'am, the butcher, the grocer, everybody thinks I'm the
+only person in the house. We've always traded with these same people,
+and I've stayed here alone now for fifteen summers, and they know I
+eat very little and care only for plain food. And so to-day when I
+ordered all these things, they--they grinned at me. And the butcher
+said, 'Living pretty high, while the missus is away.'"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had dropped her dessert spoon, and was staring at her
+confederate. "I never thought about food!" she exclaimed in dismay.
+
+"Nor did I, ma'am, till the butcher spoke. And, besides, William
+received the goods, and--and he smiled at me and said--"
+
+"It does look suspicious!" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I think it does, ma'am."
+
+"If you keep on having so much food sent in--"
+
+"And such high quality, ma'am."
+
+"Some one may suspect--become curious--and might find out--might find
+out--"
+
+"That's what I was thinking of, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had risen.
+
+"Matilda, we cannot run that risk!"
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps, ma'am, we'd better change our butcher and grocer."
+
+"That would do no good, for the new ones would find out that there was
+supposed to be only a single person here, No, such ordering has got to
+be stopped!"
+
+"If you can stand it, I think it would be safer, ma'am. But what will
+you eat?"
+
+There was a brief silence. Mrs. De Peyster's air grew almost tragic.
+
+"Matilda, do you realize that you and I have got to live for
+the summer, for the entire summer, upon the amount you have been
+accustomed to ordering for yourself!"
+
+"It looks that way, ma'am."
+
+The epicure in Mrs. De Peyster spoke out in a voice of even deeper
+poignancy.
+
+"Two persons--do you realize that, Matilda!--two adult persons will
+have to live for three months upon the rations of one person!"
+
+"And what's worse," added Matilda, "as I told you, I don't eat much.
+I've usually had just a little tea and now and then a chop."
+
+"A little tea and a chop!" Mrs. De Peyster looked as though she were
+going to faint. "A little tea and a chop!... For three months!...
+Matilda!"
+
+It seemed plain, however, that this was the only way out. But standing
+over the remains of the last genuine meal she expected to taste until
+the summer's end, her brow began slowly to clear.
+
+"Matilda," she said after a moment, in a rebuking tone, "I'm surprised
+you did not see the solution to this!"
+
+"Is there one, ma'am? What is it?"
+
+"You are so fixed in the habit of sending your orders to the
+tradespeople that your mind cannot conceive of any other procedure.
+You are to go out in person, at night, if you like, to shops where
+you are not known, pay cash for whatever you want, and carry your
+purchases home with you. It is really extremely simple."
+
+"Why, of course, ma'am," meekly agreed Matilda.
+
+With the specter of famine thus banished, confidence, good humor, and
+the luxurious expectancy of a reposeful summer returned to Mrs. De
+Peyster. Soon she was being further diverted by the mild excitement of
+being dressed in one of Matilda's sober housekeeper gowns, the twin
+of the dress Matilda now wore, for her evening ride with William. They
+were fortunately of nearly the same figure, though, of course, there
+was a universe of difference in how those two figures were carried.
+
+Matilda, the competent, skilled Matilda, was inexplicably incompetent
+at this function. So clumsy, so nervous was she, that Mrs. De Peyster
+was moved to ask with a little irritation what was the matter. Matilda
+hastily assured her mistress that there was nothing--nothing at
+all;--and buttoned a few more buttonholes over the wrong buttons. As
+she followed the fully garbed and thickly veiled Mrs. De Peyster, now
+looking the most stately of stately housekeepers, down the stairway,
+her nervousness increased.
+
+"I wish--I wish--" she began at the door. "What _is_ the matter with
+you, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster severely.
+
+"I--I rather wish you--you wouldn't go out, ma'am."
+
+"You are afraid I may be recognized?"
+
+"No, I wasn't thinking of that, ma'am. I--I--"
+
+"What else is there to be afraid of?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am, nothing. But I wish--"
+
+"I am going, Matilda; we will not discuss it," said Mrs. De Peyster,
+in a peremptory tone intended to silence Matilda. "You may first clear
+away the dishes," she ordered. "But I believe I left a squab and some
+asparagus. You might put them, and any other little thing you have, on
+the dining-room table; I shall probably be hungry on my return from my
+drive. And then put my rooms in order. I believe the tea-tray is still
+in my sitting-room; don't forget to bring it down."
+
+"Certainly, ma'am. But--but--" "Matilda"--very severely--"are you
+going to do as I bid you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am,"--very humbly. "But excuse me for presuming to advise
+you, ma'am, but if you want to pass for me you must remember to be
+very humble and--"
+
+"I believe I know how to play my part," Mrs. De Peyster interrupted
+with dignity. Then she softened; it was her instinct to be thoughtful
+of those who served her. "We shall both try to get to bed early, my
+dear. You especially need sleep after last night's strain in getting
+Olivetta away. We shall have a long, restful night."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster opened the door, unlocked the door in the boarding and
+locked it behind her, and stepped into her brougham, which had been
+ordered and was waiting at the curb. "Up Fifth Avenue and into the
+Park, William," she said. She settled back into the courtly embrace of
+the cushions; she breathed deep of the freedom of the soft May night.
+The carriage turned northward into the Avenue. Rolling along in such
+soothing ease--a crowd streaming on either side of her--yet such
+solitude--so entirely unknown.
+
+Restful, yes. And spiced with just the right pinch of mild adventure.
+
+It really could not possibly have been better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+NOT IN THE PLAN
+
+
+As she rolled northward behind the miraculously erect and rigid
+William, the emotion which had been so mildly exciting when she had
+left her door grew in potency like a swiftly fermenting liquor. It was
+both fearful and delightful. She was all a-flutter. This was a daring
+thing that she was doing--the nearest to a real adventure that she had
+engaged in since her girlhood. Suppose, just suppose, that some one
+should recognize her from the sidewalk!
+
+The thought sent a series of pricking shivers up and down her usually
+tranquil spine.
+
+Just as that fear thrummed through her, she saw, a few doors ahead, a
+man come out of a residence hotel. He sighted the De Peyster carriage,
+and paused. Mrs. De Peyster's heart stood still, for the man was Judge
+Harvey. If he should try to stop her and speak to her--!
+
+But Judge Harvey merely bowed, and the carriage rolled on past him.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's heart palpitated wildly for a block. Then she
+began to regain her courage. Judge Harvey had, of course, thought her
+Matilda. A few blocks, and she had completely reassured herself. There
+was no danger of her discovery. None. Almost every one she knew was
+out of town; she herself was known to be upon the high seas bound for
+Europe; Matilda's gown and veil were a most unsuspicious disguise;
+and William, her paragon of a William, so rigidly upright on the seat
+before her--William's statuesque, unapproachable figure diffused about
+her a sense of absolute security. She relaxed, sank back into the
+upholstery of the carriage, and began fully to enjoy the rare May
+night.
+
+But a surprise was lying in wait for her as she came into a
+comparatively secluded drive of Central Park. In itself the surprise
+was the most trifling of events--so slight a matter as a person
+twisting his vertebrae some hundred-odd degrees, and silently smiling.
+But that person was William!
+
+For a moment she gasped with amazed indignation. To think of William
+daring to smile at her! But quickly she recognized that William, of
+course, supposed her to be Matilda, and that the smile was no more
+than the friendly courtesy that would naturally pass between two
+fellow-servants. Her indignation subsided, but her wonderment
+remained. To think that William could smile, William in whose
+thoroughly ironed dignity she had never before detected a wrinkle!
+
+Just as she had re-composed herself, they rolled into another
+unpeopled stretch of the drive. Again William's vertebrae performed a
+semicircle and again William smiled.
+
+"Fine night, Matilda," he remarked in a pleasant voice.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shrank back into the cushions. She had the presence of
+mind to nod her head, and William faced about. To put it temperately,
+the situation was becoming very trying. Mrs. De Peyster now realized
+that she had been guilty of a lack of forethought. It had not occurred
+to her, in working out this plan of hers, that her frigidly proper
+William could entertain a friendliness toward any one. What she should
+have done was to have given William a vacation and secured an entirely
+strange coachman for the summer who would have had no friendly
+sentiments to give play to.
+
+But her desire was now all to escape from William's amiable
+attentions.
+
+"Take me home," she said presently, muffling her voice behind her hand
+and veil, and withdrawing from it its accustomed tone of authority.
+
+Half an hour later, to her great relief, the carriage turned again
+into Washington Square and drew up before her house. She stepped
+quickly out.
+
+"Good-night--thank you," she said in a smothered imitation of
+Matilda's voice, and hurried up her steps.
+
+She had unlocked the door in the boarding and had stepped into the
+dark entry, when she became aware that William had deserted his horses
+and was stepping in just behind her. As though it were a matter of
+long custom, William slipped an arm about her waist and imprinted a
+kiss upon her veil.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster let out a little gasping cry, and struggled to free
+herself.
+
+"Don't be scared, Matilda," William reassured her. "Nobody can see
+us in here." And he patted her on the shoulder with middle-aged
+affection.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, after her first outburst, realized that she dared not
+cry out, or rebuff William. To do so would reveal her identity. And
+horrified as she was, she realized that there must have long existed
+between William and Matilda a carefully concealed affair of the heart.
+
+"It's all right, dear," William again reassured her, with his staid
+ardor. "It's mighty good to be with you like this, Matilda!" He heaved
+a love-laden sigh. "We've had it mighty hard, haven't we, with only
+being able to steal a minute with each other now and then--always
+afraid of Mrs. De Peyster. It's been mighty hard for me. Hasn't it
+been hard for you?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.
+
+"Hasn't it been hard for you, dear?" William insisted tenderly.
+
+"Ye--yes," very huskily.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Matilda? I know; you're tired, dear; your
+nerves are all worn out with the strain of getting Mrs. De Peyster
+off." Again his voice became tenderly indignant. "Just see how she
+treated that Miss Gardner; and wouldn't she have done the same to us,
+if she'd found us out? To think, dear, that but for her attitude you
+and me might have been married and happy! I know you are devoted to
+her, and wouldn't leave her, and I know she's kind enough in her
+way, but I tell you, Matilda,"--William's voice, so superbly without
+expression when on duty, was alive with conviction,--"I tell you,
+Matilda, she's a regular female tyrant!"
+
+There was a mighty surging within Mrs. De Peyster, a premonition of
+eruption. But she choked it down. William, launched upon the placid
+sea of his elderly affection, did not heed that his supposed inamorata
+was making no replies.
+
+"She's a regular tyrant!" he repeated. "But now that she's away,"
+he added in a tender tone, "and left just us two here, Matilda dear,
+we'll have a lot of nice little times together." And urged by his
+welling love he again embraced her and again pressed a loverly kiss
+upon Matilda's veil.
+
+This was too much. The crater could be choked no longer. The eruption
+came.
+
+"Let me go!" Mrs. De Peyster cried, struggling; and her right hand,
+striking wildly out, fell full upon William's sacred cheek.
+
+He drew back amazed.
+
+"What's the matter?" he demanded.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster searched frantically for the keyhole to the inner
+door.
+
+"Matilda, I'm not the man to take that!" he declared irefully. "What
+do you mean?"
+
+"Go! Go!" she gasped.
+
+He drew back wrathfully, but with an awful dignity.
+
+"Very well, Miss Simpson. But I'm not a man that forgives. You'll be
+sorry for this!"
+
+As he started stiffly away Mrs. De Peyster found the keyhole. She
+turned her key, opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her.
+Gasping, shivering, she groped in the dusky hall until she found
+a chair. Into this she sank, half fainting, and sat shaking with
+astoundment, with horror, with wrath.
+
+Wrath swiftly became the ruling emotion. It began to fulminate. She
+would discharge William! She would send him flying the very next
+morning, bag and baggage!
+
+Then an appalling thought shot through her. She could not discharge
+William!
+
+She could not discharge William, because she was not there to
+discharge him! She was upon the Atlantic highroad, speeding for
+Europe, and would not be home for many a month! And during all those
+months, whenever she dared appear, she would be subject to William's
+loverly attention!
+
+She sat rigid with the horror of this new development. But she had not
+yet had time to realize its full possibilities--for hardly a minute
+had passed since she had entered--when she heard a key slide into
+the lock of the front door and saw a vague figure enter the unlighted
+hall. She arose in added terror. Had that William come back to--
+
+"Oh, there you are, Matilda," softly called a voice, and the vague
+figure came toward her.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's terror took suddenly a new turn. For the voice was
+not the voice of her coachman.
+
+"J-a-c-k!" she breathed wildly.
+
+Jack threw an arm about Mrs. De Peyster's shoulders.
+
+"Ho, ho, that's the time I caught you, Matilda," said he, in teasing
+reproof. "U'm, I saw those tender little love passages between you and
+William!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood a pillar of ice.
+
+"Better not let mother find it out," he advised. "If she got on to
+this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda." He patted her shoulder
+assuringly. "So don't worry."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's lips opened. If her voice sounded unlike Matilda's
+voice, the difference was unconsciously attributed by Jack to
+agitation due to his discovery.
+
+"How--how do you come here?" she asked.
+
+"With an almighty lot of trouble!" grumbled he. "Came around the
+corner an hour ago just in time to see you drive off with William.
+I've got a key to the inside door, but none to the door in the
+boarding; and as I knew there was nobody in the house I could rouse
+up, there was nothing for it but to wait till you and William came
+back. So we've been sitting out there on a park bench ever since."
+
+There was one particular word of Jack's explanation that drummed
+against Mrs. De Peyster's ear.
+
+"We?" she ejaculated. "We?" Then she noticed that another shadowy
+figure had drawn nearer in the dark. "Who--who's that?"
+
+"Mary," was Jack's prompt and joyous answer.
+
+"Mary! Not that--that Mary Morgan?"
+
+"She used to be. She's Mary de Peyster now."
+
+"You're not--not married?"
+
+"To-day," he cried in exultation. "We slipped out to Stamford;
+everything was done secretly there, and it's to be kept strictly on
+the quiet for a time." He bent down close to Mrs. De Peyster's ear.
+"Don't let Mary know how mother objected to her; I haven't told
+her, and she doesn't guess it. And oh, Matilda," he bubbled out
+enthusiastically, "she's the kind of a little sport that will stick
+by a chap through anything, and she's clever and full of fun, and a
+regular little dear!"
+
+He turned. "Come here, Mary," he called softly. "This is Matilda."
+
+The next instant a slight figure threw its arms about Mrs. De Peyster
+and kissed her warmly.
+
+"I'm so glad to meet you at last, Matilda!" exclaimed a low, clear
+voice. "Jack has told me how good you have been to him ever since he
+was a baby. I know we shall be the very, very best of friends!"
+
+"And so--you're--you're married!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Jack was too excited by his happiness to have noticed Mrs. De
+Peyster's voice had it been a dozen-fold more unlike Matilda's than
+it was. "Yes!" he cried. "And wouldn't it surprise mother if she knew!
+Mother, sailing so unsuspiciously along on the Plutonia!" He gave a
+chortle of delight. "But oh, I say, Matilda," he cried suddenly, "you
+mustn't write her!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not answer.
+
+"We don't want her to know yet," Jack insisted; "that's one reason
+we've done the whole thing so quietly." Then he added jocosely:
+"If you tell, there's a thing I might tell her about you.
+About--u'm--about you and William. Want me to do that--eh? Better
+promise not to tell."
+
+"I won't," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It's a bargain, then. But there's something else that would surprise
+her, too. I'm going to work."
+
+"But not at once," put in Mary de Peyster, _née_ Mary Morgan, in her
+soft contralto voice, that seemed to effervesce with mischief. "Tell
+Matilda what you're doing to do."
+
+"I've already told you, Matilda, about my little experiment in
+the pick-and-shovel line. I decided that I didn't care for that
+profession. I've saved a few hundred out of my allowance. Monday I'm
+going to enter the School of Mines at Columbia--am going to study
+straight through the summer--night and day till the money gives out.
+By that time I ought to be able to get a job that will support us. And
+then I'll study hard of nights till I become a real mining engineer!"
+
+"But we've got to live close! Oh, but we've got to live close!"
+exclaimed Mary joyously, as though living close were one of the
+chiefest pleasures of life.
+
+"Yes, we've certainly got to live close!" emphasized Jack. "That's why
+we're here."
+
+"Why you're here?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster in a low, dazed tone.
+
+"Yes." Jack gave a gleeful, excited laugh. "I had an inspiration how
+to economize. Says I to Mary, 'Mary, since mother is away, and this
+big house is empty except for you, Matilda, why pay rent?' So here
+we are, and here we're going to live all summer--on the '_q t_,' of
+course." He slipped an arm about Mary and one about Mrs. De Peyster,
+and again laughed his gleeful, excited laugh. "Just you, and Mary, and
+me--and, oh, say, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE HONEYMOONERS
+
+
+Again Jack's arm tightened about Mrs. De Peyster in his convulsive
+glee, and again he exclaimed, "Oh, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"
+
+Only the embrace of Jack's good left arm kept Mrs. De Peyster from
+subsiding into a jellied heap upon her parqueted floor. It had ever
+been her pride, and a saying of her admirers, that she always rose
+equal to every emergency. But at the present moment she had not a
+thought, had not a single distinct sensation. She was wildly, weakly,
+terrifyingly dizzy--that was all; and her only self-control, if the
+paralysis of an organ may be called controlling it, was that she held
+her tongue.
+
+Fortunately, at first, there was little necessity for her speaking.
+The bride and groom were too joyously loquacious to allow her much
+chance for words, and too bubbling over with their love and with the
+spirit of daring mischief to be observant of any strangeness in her
+demeanor that the darkness did not mask. As they chattered on, Mrs.
+De Peyster began to regain some slight steadiness--enough to consider
+spasmodically how she was to escape undiscovered from the pair, how
+she was to extricate herself from the predicament of the moment--for
+beyond that moment's danger she had not the power to think. She had
+decided that she must somehow get away from the couple at once; in the
+darkness slip unobserved into her sitting-room; lock the door; remain
+there noiseless;--she had decided so much, when suddenly her wits were
+sent spinning by a new fear.
+
+The real Matilda! Mrs. De Peyster's ears, at that moment frantically
+acute, registered dim movements of Matilda overhead.
+
+Suppose the real Matilda should hear their voices; suppose she should
+come walking down into the scene! With two Matildas simultaneously
+upon the stage--
+
+Mrs. De Peyster reached out and clutched the banister of the stairway
+with drowning hands.
+
+The pair talked on to her, answering themselves. They would take the
+rooms above Mrs. De Peyster's suite, they said--they would give her,
+Matilda, no trouble at all--they would attend to their own housework,
+everything--and so on, and so on, with Mrs. De Peyster hearing
+nothing, but reaching aurally out for Matilda's exposing tread. To
+forestall this exposure, she started weakly up the stairs, only to be
+halted by the slipping of Jack's arm around her shoulder. The couple
+chattered on about their household arrangements, and Mrs. De Peyster
+the prisoner of Jack's affectionate arm, stood gulping, as though her
+soul were trying to swallow itself, ready to sink through her floor at
+the faintest approach of her housekeeper's slippers.
+
+And then again the arm of the exuberant Jack tightened about her. "Oh,
+say, what a wild old time we're going to have! Won't we, Matilda?"
+
+"Ye--yes," Mrs. De Peyster felt constrained to answer.
+
+"But it's mighty dangerous!" cried the little figure, with a shivery
+laugh.
+
+"Dangerous!" chuckled Jack with his mischievous glee. "Well, rather!
+And that's half the fun. If the newspapers were to get on to the fact
+that the son of _the_ Mrs. De Peyster had secretly married without
+his mother's knowledge, and that the young scamp and his wife were
+secretly living in her house--can't you just see the reporters
+jimmying open every window to get at us!"
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster faintly.
+
+"Really, Jack," protested the girlish voice, "I think it's scandalous
+of us to be doing this!"
+
+"Come, now, Mary, nobody's going to be any the worse, or any the
+wiser, for it. We're just using something that would otherwise be
+wasted--and we'll vanish at the first news that mother's coming back.
+But, of course, Matilda, we've certainly got to be all-fired
+careful. I'll leave the house only in the early mornings--by the
+back way--through Washington Mews--either when the coast is clear
+or there's a crowd. There are so many artists and chauffeurs and
+stablemen coming and going through the Mews that I'm sure I can manage
+it without being noticed. And I'll come back in the same way; and our
+food I'll smuggle in of nights."
+
+"And I, Matilda, I shall not mind staying in at all," bubbled the Mary
+person. "It will give me a splendid chance to practice. You see, I
+hope to go on a concert tour this fall."
+
+"By the way, Matilda, about the row Mary'll be making on the piano.
+Couldn't you just casually mention to anybody you see that mother had
+bought one of these sixty-horse-power, steam-hammer piano-players and
+you were the engineer, running it a lot to while away the lonesome
+months?"
+
+"Do you want to intimate, sir," demanded Mary with mock hauteur, "that
+my playing sounds like a--"
+
+"What I want to intimate, madam, is that I'd like to avoid having our
+happy home raided by the police. Matilda, you could do that, couldn't
+you--just casually?"
+
+"Yes--M--Mr. Jack," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"There, everything's settled. We'll go up to our rooms. You wouldn't
+mind helping us a bit, Matilda?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had one supreme thought. If they went upstairs, they
+might run into the other Matilda. The frantic, drowning impulse to put
+off disaster every possible moment caused her to clutch Jack's arm.
+
+"There's--something to eat--in the dining-room. Perhaps you'd like--"
+
+"Great idea, Matilda! Lead on."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks that all the lights but one had been
+switched off. And fortunately the light from that one shaded bulb was
+almost lost in the great dining-room. Subconsciously Mrs. De Peyster
+recalled Matilda's injunction to "be humble," and she let her manner
+slump--though at that moment she had no particular excess of dignity
+to discard.
+
+Jack sighted the food Matilda had left upon the table. With a swoop he
+was upon it.
+
+"Oh, joy! Squabs! Asparagus!" And he seized a squab by the legs, with
+a hand that was still bandaged. "Here you are, my dear," tearing off a
+leg and handing it to Mary, who accepted it gingerly. With much gusto
+Jack took a bite of bird and a huge bite of bread. "Great little
+wedding supper, Matilda! Thanks. But I say, Matilda, you haven't yet
+spoken up about _meine liebe Frau_. Don't you think she'll do?"
+
+"Now, Jack dear, don't be a fool!"
+
+"Mrs. Jack de Peyster, I'll have you understand your husband can't be
+a fool! Come now, Matilda,--my bonny bride, look at her. Better lift
+your veil."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not lift her veil. But helplessly she gave a
+glance toward this new wife Jack had thus brought home: a glance so
+distracted that it could see nothing but vibrating blurs.
+
+"Well? Well?" prompted Jack. "Won't she do?"
+
+"Yes," in a husky whisper.
+
+"And don't you think, when mother sees her, she'll say the same?"
+
+"I'm sure--I'm sure--" her choking voice could get out no more.
+
+"Oh, but I shall be so afraid!" cried Mary, again with that shivery
+little laugh.
+
+"Nothing to be afraid of, Mary. Mother's really a good sort."
+
+"Jack! To call one's mother a 'good sort'!"
+
+"Why not? She's bug-house on this social position business, but aside
+from that she's perfectly human."
+
+"Jack!" in her scandalized tone. "Isn't he awful Matilda?"
+
+"Ye--yes, ma'am."
+
+"Don't call me 'ma'am,' Matilda. Since we're to be together constantly
+this summer, call me Mary."
+
+"Yes, ma'a--Mary."
+
+"That's right, Matilda," put in Jack. "We're going to run this place
+as a democracy. You're to have all your meals with us."
+
+"And I'll help you get them!" Mary cried excitedly. "You'll find me
+tagging around after you most of the time. For, think of it, you're
+the only woman I'm going to see in months!"
+
+"Ye--yes, Mary."
+
+"Jack, you run along, there's a dear," commanded Mary, "and unpack
+your things. Matilda and I want to have a little chat."
+
+"Married six hours, and bossed already," grumbled Jack happily. "All
+right. But that bit of a squab I ate was nothing. I'm starved. I'll
+be back in five minutes and then we'll get a real supper down in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Yes, all three of us," agreed Mary.
+
+Jack picked up his bag. Frantically Mrs. De Peyster tried to think of
+some way of holding him back from a possible damnatory encounter with
+Matilda upon the stairway. But she could think of nothing. Jack went
+out.
+
+Mary ordered Mrs. De Peyster into a chair, and sat down facing her.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster strained her ears for the surprised voices that would
+announce the disastrous meeting. But there sounded from above no
+startled cries. Jack must have got to his room, unnoticed by Matilda.
+Mrs. De Peyster breathed just a little easier. The evil moment was put
+off.
+
+"Matilda," began Mary, "I want you to tell me the honest truth about
+something. I think Jack's been trying to deceive me. To make me feel
+better, the dear boy, he's been telling me there'd not be the least
+doubt about his mother being reconciled to our marriage. Do you think
+she ever will be?"
+
+"Well--well--"
+
+"Please! Will she, or won't she?"
+
+"You can only--only hope--for the best."
+
+"I hope she will, for Jack's sake!" sighed Mary deeply. She picked
+up an evening paper Jack had brought in. "Did you know his mother was
+very ill at the time she sailed? This paper says she was so sick that
+she was unable to see a single one of her friends who came to see her
+off. That was too bad, wasn't it!" There was a great deal of genuine
+feeling in the voice of the small person.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.
+
+"Why, you don't seem at all sympathetic, Matilda!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster put a hand to her lips. "I'm--I'm very sorry, ma'am,"
+she mumbled between her fingers, trying to assume Matilda's humility.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with your voice? It seems husky."
+
+"It's just"--Mrs. De Peyster swallowed--a little summer cold I caught
+to-day. It's--it's nothing, ma'am."
+
+"I'm sorry!" exclaimed the little person. "But, Matilda, how many more
+times have I got to tell you I don't like your 'ma'aming' me. Call me
+Mary."
+
+"Very well--Mary."
+
+"That's right. And now, as to Jack's mother; the paper says society is
+very much concerned over her condition."
+
+On the whole, Mrs. De Peyster's concern over her condition was rather
+more acute than society's. But she had begun to recover in a degree,
+and was now, though palpitant within, making a furtive study of Mary.
+Such light as there was fell full upon that small person. Mrs. De
+Peyster saw a dark, piquant face, with features not regular, but ever
+in motion and quick with expression--eyes of a deep, deep brown, with
+a glimmer of red in them, eyes that gave out an ever-changing sparkle
+of sympathy and mischief and intelligence--and a mass of soft dark
+hair, most unstylishly, most charmingly arranged, that caught some of
+the muffled light and softly glowed with a reddish tone. If there was
+anything vulgar, or commonplace, about Jack's wife, the shaded bulb
+was too kindly disposed to betray it to Mrs. De Peyster's scrutiny.
+
+Suddenly Mary laughed--softly, musically.
+
+"If Jack's mother ever dreamed what Jack and I are doing here! Oh--oh!
+Some day, after she's forgiven us--if ever she does forgive us--You've
+said you're sure she'll forgive us, Matilda; do you honestly, truly,
+cross-your-heartly, believe she will?"
+
+"Y-e-s," said Mrs. De Peyster's numb lips.
+
+"I do hope so, for Jack's sake!" sighed the little person. "After she
+forgives us, I'm going to 'fess up everything. Of course she'll be
+scandalized--for what we're doing is simply awful!--but all the same
+I'll tell her. And after she's forgiven us, I'll make her forgive you,
+too, Matilda, for your part in harboring us here. We'll see that you
+do not suffer."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster realized that she should have expressed thanks at this
+point. But silence she considered better than valor.
+
+"This paper prints that picture of her by M. Dubois again. Really,
+Matilda, is she as terribly dignified as that makes her look?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had to speak. "I--I--hardly, ma'am."
+
+"There you go with that 'ma'am' again!"
+
+"Hardly, Mary," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Because if she looks anything like that picture, it must simply scare
+you to death to live with her. Did she ever bend her back?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Or smile?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Or forget that she was a De Peyster?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"The lady of that picture never did!" declared the little person
+with conviction. "She's just dignity and pride--calm, remote, lofty,
+icebergy pride. She can say her ancestors backwards. Why, she's her
+family tree, petrified!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to add to these remarks.
+
+"I don't see how she can possibly like me!" cried the little person.
+"Do you, Matilda?"
+
+"I suppose--you can--only wait--and see," replied Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I haven't got any dignity, or any money, or any ancestors; only a
+father and a couple of grandfathers--though I dare say there were some
+Morgans before them. No, she'll never care for me--never!" wailed the
+little person. "She couldn't! Why, she's carved out of a solid block
+of dignity! She never did an un-De-Peyster thing in her life!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster felt herself choking. She had to get out of the room,
+or die.
+
+Just then Jack walked back in. For a few moments she had forgotten
+Jack. The terror arising from the menace upstairs returned to her.
+But Jack's happy face was assurance that as yet he knew nothing of the
+second Matilda.
+
+Yes, she had to get out, or die. And Jack's reappearance gave her
+frantic mind a cue for an unbetraying exit.
+
+"I'll go to the kitchen--and start supper," she gulped, and hurried
+into the butler's pantry.
+
+"Jack," she heard Mary's perplexed voice, "Matilda, somehow, seems
+rather queer to me."
+
+"She doesn't seem quite herself," agreed Jack.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank into a chair beside the door, and sat there
+motionless, hardly daring to breathe--shattered by the narrowness of
+her escape, and appalled by this new situation that had risen around
+her--too appalled even to consider what might be the situation's
+natural developments. Soon amid the wild churning of various emotions,
+anger began to rise, and outraged pride. Such cool, dumbfounding
+impudence!
+
+Then curiosity began to stir. Instinct warned her, incoherently, for
+all her faculties were too demoralized to be articulate, that this was
+no place for her. But those two persons in there--her son, and
+this daughter-in-law who had burst out of a fair cloud upon her--a
+daughter-in-law whom she would never recognize--what were they doing?
+Cautiously, ever so cautiously, she pushed open the pantry door till
+there was a slight crack giving into the other room.
+
+Jack had his arms about Mary's shoulders.
+
+"Well, little lady," she heard him ask with tremulous fondness--the
+young fool!--"What do you think of our honeymoon?"
+
+"I think, sir, that it's something scandalous!" (Not such an
+unpleasant voice--but then!)
+
+"U'm! Has the fact occurred to you"--very solemnly--"that you haven't
+kissed me since we have been in this room?"
+
+"Was it written in the bond that I had to kiss you in every room?"
+
+"No matter about the bond. A kiss or a divorce. Take your choice."
+
+"It isn't worth divorcing you, since you may be too poor to pay
+alimony. So"--sighing and turning her face up to him.
+
+(Sentimental idiots!)
+
+"Mary"--after a moment of clinging lips--"you think you can really be
+happy with me?"
+
+"I know I shall be, dear!"
+
+"Even if things don't go right between mother and me, and even if for
+a long time I shall be awfully, awfully poor?"
+
+"It's just you I care for, Jack,--just you!"
+
+Jack stared at her; then suddenly:
+
+"Do you know what I feel like?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Like kissing you again."
+
+"Now don't be--"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+His voice was tremulous. Slowly their lips came together; they
+embraced; then drew apart, and holding hands, stood gazing at each
+other.
+
+"You're a dear, dear fool!" said Mary softly.
+
+"And you're a dear, dear another!" softly said Jack.
+
+(Outrageous fools, both! agreed Mrs. De Peyster.)
+
+They were still gazing at each other when in the wide doorway at their
+back appeared Matilda, carrying the tray of tea-things that had been
+in Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room. For the last few moments Mrs. De
+Peyster's danger had been forgotten in her indignation. But at sight
+of Matilda, regained its own.
+
+Matilda stopped short. The tea-things almost rattled from the tray.
+Jack wheeled about.
+
+"Hello, Matilda. Thought you'd gone down to the kitchen."
+
+"Why--why--if it isn't Mr. Jack!" stammered Matilda.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster trembled. What more likely than that Matilda, in her
+amazement, should reveal the house's secret? But the half-light of the
+room was a very obliging ally against such unsuspicion as her son's.
+
+"Of course, it's Jack," said he. "Who else did you suppose it was? But
+say, what's the matter, Matilda?"
+
+"Yes, what's the matter, Matilda?" asked Mary with great concern.
+
+"Ma'am--ma'am"--staring wildly at Mary--"I--I don't know, ma'am."
+
+"What, have you already forgotten what I told you about calling me
+Mary!"
+
+"Ma--Mary?" gasped Matilda blankly.
+
+"Jack," said Mary in a low voice, "I said awhile ago that she seemed
+queer."
+
+"Where have you put your head, Matilda? Yes--Mary!--Mary!--Mary! Mary
+De Peyster--Mrs. Jack De Peyster--my wedded wife--whom it cost me four
+thirty-nine to make my own. Understand?"
+
+"P-per-perfectly, Mr. Jack."
+
+"Well, that's happy news. What's that you're carrying?"
+
+"It's--ah--er--my breakfast," explained Matilda.
+
+"Your breakfast!" exclaimed Jack. "What are you doing with it here?"
+
+"I was--I was--er--was going to--to get it all ready to--to take up to
+myself to-morrow."
+
+Jack took the tray from Matilda's nerveless hands.
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"]
+
+"Sit down, Matilda," firmly pressing her into a chair. "Mary, have you
+some salts in that bag."
+
+"Yes, Jack." In an instant Mary had a bottle from her bag and was
+holding it beneath Matilda's nose. "You'll be all right in just a
+moment. Take it easy. The surprise must have been too much for you.
+For it was a big surprise, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied Matilda, for the first time speaking with no
+hesitancy.
+
+"Matilda, it's almost provoking the way you ignore my request to call
+me Mary."
+
+"Ah--er--" staring wildly--"yes, Mary."
+
+Jack moved to the wall near the door, where were several buttons.
+
+"Mary, I'm going to ring for William--we'd better take him into this
+thing straight off, or he may stumble on the fact that extra people
+are in the house and call in the police."
+
+At her crack in the pantry door, Mrs. De Peyster grew even more
+apprehensive.
+
+Jack and Mary cooed; Matilda sat all of a heap; and presently William
+walked in. To her other emotions, Mrs. De Peyster had added a new
+shock. For William the peerless--fit coachman for an emperor--William,
+whom till that night she could not have imagined, had she imagined
+about such things at all, other than as sleeping in a high collar and
+with all his brass buttons snugly buttoned--William was coatless, and
+collarless, and slouching from his mouth was an old pipe!
+
+He came in with a haughty glower, for he had supposed the ring to
+be Matilda's. But at sight of Jack and Mary his face went blank with
+amazement.
+
+"Why, why, Mr. Jack!" Hastily he jerked his pipe into his pocket and
+began buttoning the open collar of his shirt. "I--I beg pardon, sir."
+
+"Hello, William! This is Mrs. Jack, William. Just married. We've come
+to spend the summer with you."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But on the quiet, William. Understand? If you leak a word about our
+being here--well, I know about the heart-throb business between you
+and Matilda. If you drop one word--one single word, I put mother next
+to what's doing between you two."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Just wanted you to know we were here, William, so you wouldn't by any
+chance throw a surprise that would give us away. That's all. Keep mum
+about us"--with a sly wink at him and another at Matilda--"and you two
+can goo-goo at each other like a popular song. Good-night."
+
+Jack turned his back; and Mary, whose heart went out to all lovers,
+delicately turned hers.
+
+"William," fluttered Matilda, taking an eager, hesitating step toward
+him.
+
+He stared at her haughtily--as haughtily as is in the power of a mere
+mortal who has no collar on.
+
+"William," she cried bewildered, "what is it?"
+
+"I believe you know what it is, Miss Simpson," he replied witheringly,
+and stalked out under full majesty.
+
+She stood dumbfounded; but only for a moment.
+
+"Matilda," spoke up Jack, "have you got supper things started yet in
+the kitchen?"
+
+"Er--er--what?" stammered poor Matilda.
+
+"Say, see here--what the dickens _is_ the matter with you?" Jack
+exploded in exasperation. "You just promised to start supper in the
+kitchen, and now--"
+
+"Of course--of course," gulped Matilda, "I forgot. I'll do it right
+away."
+
+Matilda was reeling. But she perceived that here was her chance to
+get out of the room--and for the moment that was her supreme and only
+desire. She started for the door of the butler's pantry.
+
+"We'll be down with you in about five minutes," Jack called after her.
+
+In the darkness of the pantry a hand fell upon her arm. "Matilda,"
+breathed her mistress's voice, and Matilda had enough control not
+to cry out, or was too far gone. Clutching hands, they went down the
+winding stairs that led from the butler's pantry to the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, ma'am!" moaned Matilda in the darkness.
+
+"Matilda"--in awed breathlessness--"isn't this terrible?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am! ma'am!"
+
+"If Jack should learn that I am here--" She could not express the
+horror of it.
+
+"Oh, ma'am!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's voice rang out with wild desperation.
+
+"Matilda, there is only one thing to do! We must leave the house!"
+
+"I think we'd better, ma'am," Matilda snuffled hysterically, "for with
+all of you here, and this keeping up, I--I don't think I'd last a day,
+ma'am."
+
+"And we must leave at once! We've not a second to spare. They said
+they were coming right down. We must be out of the house before they
+come!"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, yes! This minute! But where--"
+
+"There's no time to think of anything now but getting out," cried Mrs.
+De Peyster with frantic energy. "Slip up the front stairway, Matilda,
+and get your hat. And here are my keys. Lock my sitting-room, so they
+can't see any one's been living in it. You can manage it without them
+seeing you. And for heaven's sake, hurry!"
+
+Two minutes later these things were done, and Matilda, bonneted, was
+hurrying forward hand in hand with Mrs. De Peyster through the black
+hallway of the basement. Behind them, descending the stairs from
+the butler's pantry, sounded the chatter and laughter of the larking
+honeymooners; and then from the kitchen came the surprised and
+exasperated call: "Hello, Matilda--See here, where the dickens are
+you?"
+
+But at just that moment the twin, unbreathing figures in black slipped
+through the servants' door and noiselessly closed it behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+The two dark figures stood an instant, breathless, in the dark mouth
+of the cavern beneath the marble balustraded stairway that ascended
+with chaste dignity to Mrs. De Peyster's noble front door. Swiftly
+they surveyed the scene. Not a policeman was in sight: no one save,
+across the way on Washington Square benches, a few plebeian lovers
+enjoying the soft calm of a May eleven o'clock.
+
+The pair, with veils down, each looking a plagiarism of the other,
+slipped out of the servants' entrance, through the gate of the low
+iron fence, and arm clutching arm hastened eastward to University
+Place. Thus far no one had challenged them. Here they turned and went
+rapidly northward: past the Lafayette, where Mrs. De Peyster's impulse
+to take a taxicab was instantly countermanded by the fear that so
+near her home there was danger of recognition: and onward, onward
+they went, swiftly, wordlessly, their one commanding impulse to get
+away--to get away.
+
+At Fourteenth Street they passed a policeman. Again they choked back
+their breath; shiveringly they felt his eyes upon them. And, indeed,
+his eyes were--interestedly; for to that Hibernian, with his native
+whimsicality, they suggested the somewhat unusual phenomenon of the
+same person out walking with herself. But he did not speak.
+
+At the head of Union Square they caught a roving taxicab. Their next
+thought, after bare escape, was necessarily concerned with shelter, a
+hiding-place. To the chauffeur's "Where to, ladies?" Mrs. De Peyster
+said, "Hotel Dauphin." The instinct, the Mrs. De Peyster of habit,
+which was beneath her surface of agitation, said the Dauphin because
+the Dauphin was quite the most select hotel in New York. In fact, six
+months before, when Mrs. De Peyster desired to introduce and honor the
+Duke de Crécy in a larger way than her residence permitted, it was at
+the Dauphin that she had elected to give the ball that had brought her
+so much deferential praise--which occasion was the first and only time
+she had departed from her strict old-family practice of limiting
+her social functions to such as could be accommodated within her own
+house. She had then been distinctly pleased; one could hardly
+have expected good breeding upon so large a scale. And her present
+subconscious impression of the Dauphin was that it was ducal, if not
+regal, in its reserved splendor, in its manner of subdued, punctilious
+ceremony.
+
+She could remain at the Dauphin, in seclusion, until she had time to
+think. Then she could act.
+
+As she sped smoothly up Fifth Avenue--her second ride on the Avenue
+that night--she began, in the cushioned privacy of the taxi, to
+recover somewhat from the panic of dire necessity that had driven them
+forth. Other matters began to flash spasmodically across the screen
+of her mind. One of these was William. And there the film stopped. The
+cold, withering look William had given Matilda a few minutes before
+remained fixed upon the screen. That look threatened her most
+unpleasantly as to the future. What if William should learn who was
+the real Matilda to whom he had made love!
+
+"Matilda," she began, calling up her dignity, "I desire to instruct
+you upon a certain matter."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," whispered Matilda.
+
+"I expressly instruct you not to mention or hint to any one,
+particularly William, that it was I and not you who went out driving
+with him to-night."
+
+"I'll not, ma'am."
+
+"You swear?"
+
+"I swear, ma'am. Never!"
+
+"Remember, Matilda. You have sworn." And relieved of that menace, she
+leaned back.
+
+The taxi drew up before the Dauphin. A grenadier-lackey, who seemed
+bulk and brass buttons and braid of gold, handed them out with august
+white gloves.
+
+"Pay the fare, Matilda," ordered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's bills, when she had a servant with her, were always
+paid by the attendant. Matilda did so, out of a square black leather
+bag that was never out of Matilda's fingers when Matilda was out of
+the house; it seemed almost a flattened extension of Matilda's hand.
+
+They entered the Dauphin, passing other white-gloved lackeys, each a
+separate perfection of punctiliousness; and passed through a marble
+hallway, muted with rugs of the Orient, and came into a vast high
+chamber, large as a theater--marble walls and ceiling, tapestries,
+moulded plaster and gilt in moderation, silken ropes instead of
+handrails on the stairways, electric lights so shaded that each looked
+a huge but softly unobtrusive pearl. The chamber was pervaded by, was
+dedicated to, splendid repose.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, Matilda trailing, headed for a booth of marble and
+railing of dull gold--the latter, possibly, only bronze, or gilded
+iron--within which stood a gentleman in evening dress, with the
+bearing of one no lower than the first secretary of an embassy.
+
+"A suite," Mrs. De Peyster remarked briefly across the counter, "with
+sitting-room, two bed-rooms and bath."
+
+"Certainly," said the distinguished gentleman. "I have a most
+desirable suite on the fifteenth floor, with a splendid outlook over
+the park."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"The name, please?" queried the gentleman, reaching for a pen.
+
+"Mrs. David Harrison," invented Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"When do your employers wish to occupy the suite?" pursued the courtly
+voice of the secretary of the embassy.
+
+"Our employers!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster. And then with wrathful
+hauteur: "The apartment is for ourselves. We desire to occupy it at
+once."
+
+The gentleman glanced her up and down; then up and down his eyes went
+over Matilda, just behind her. There was no doubting what Matilda was;
+and since the two were patently the same, there could be no doubt as
+to what Mrs. De Peyster was.
+
+"I'm sorry--but, after all, the suite is not available," he said
+courteously.
+
+"Not available?" cried Mrs. De Peyster. "Why not?"
+
+"I prefer to say no more."
+
+"But I insist!"
+
+"Since you insist--the Dauphin does not receive servants, even of the
+higher order, as regular guests." The hotel clerk's voice was silken
+with courtesy; there was no telling with what important families these
+two were connected; and it would not do to give offense. "We receive
+servants only when they accompany their employers, and then assign
+them to the servants' quarters. You yourself must perceive the
+necessity of this," he added hastily, seeing that Mrs. De Peyster was
+shaking, "to preserve the Dauphin's social tone--"
+
+"The servants' quarters!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "You mean--"
+
+"You'll excuse me, please," interrupted the clerk, and with a bow
+ended the scene and moved to the rear of the office where he plainly
+busied himself over nothing at all.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, quivering, gulping, glared through her veil at him. A
+hotel clerk had turned his back on her! And this mere clerk had dared
+refuse her a room! _Refuse her!_ Because she, _she_, Mrs. De Peyster
+had not the social tone!
+
+Nothing like it had ever happened to her before.
+
+Her desire to annihilate that clerk with the suave ambassadorial look,
+and the Dauphin, and all therein and all appertaining thereunto, was
+mounting toward explosion, when Matilda clutched her arm.
+
+"It's awful, ma'am,--but let's go," she whispered. "What else can we
+do?"
+
+Yes, what else could they do? Mrs. De Peyster's wrath was still at
+demolitory pressure, but she saw the sense in that question. The next
+moment the two figures, duplicates of somberness, one magnificently
+upright, the other shrinking, were re-passing over the muting rugs,
+through the corridor of noble marble, by the lackeys between whose
+common palms and the hands of patrician guests was the antiseptic
+intermediary of white thread gloves.
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well, ma'am," Matilda began tremulously as soon
+as they were in the street, before Mrs. De Peyster's black storm could
+burst. "How much would that suite have been?"
+
+"Perhaps fifty dollars a day."
+
+"I only just now thought about it--but--but please, ma'am, did you
+happen to bring your purse?"
+
+"My purse!" Mrs. De Peyster stopped short. "Matilda!"--in a voice
+chilled with dismay--"I never thought of my purse until this moment!
+There wasn't time! I haven't a cent!"
+
+"And after paying for the cab, ma'am, I have only a little over
+fifteen dollars."
+
+"Matilda!"
+
+"Perhaps, ma'am," repeated Matilda, "it was just as well they wouldn't
+take us."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not speak.
+
+"And what's worse," Matilda faltered, as though the blame was hers,
+"the hotels won't trust you unless you have baggage. And we have no
+baggage, ma'am."
+
+"Matilda!" There was now real tragedy in Mrs. De Peyster's voice.
+"What _are_ we going to do?"
+
+They walked along the Park, whispering over their unforeseen and
+unforeseeable predicament. It had many aspects, their situation; it
+was quickly clear to them that the most urgent aspect was the need of
+immediate refuge. Other troubles and developments could be handled as
+they arose, should any such arise. But a place to hide, to sleep, had
+to be secured within the hour. Also they needed two or three days in
+which to think matters over calmly, and to apply to them clear reason.
+And they had only the fifteen dollars in Matilda's black bag.
+
+"It seems to me, ma'am," ventured Matilda, "that a rooming-house or a
+boarding-house would be cheapest."
+
+"A boarding-house!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. "But where?"
+
+Matilda remembered and reached into her slit pocket. "Yesterday I
+happened to pick up the card of a boarding-house in the library--I've
+no idea how it came there. I saved it because my sister Angelica, who
+lives in Syracuse, wrote me to look up a place where she might stay."
+
+They examined the address upon the card, and twenty minutes later, now
+close upon midnight, Matilda was pressing the bell of a house on the
+West Side. Visible leadership Mrs. De Peyster had resigned to Matilda,
+for they were entering a remote and lowly world whose ways Mrs.
+De Peyster knew not. In all her life she had never been inside a
+boarding-house.
+
+The door opened slightly. A voice, female, interrogated Matilda. Then
+they were admitted into a small hall, lighted by an electric bulb in
+a lantern of stamped sheet-iron with vari-colored panes and portholes.
+From this hall a stairway ascended, and from it was a view into a
+small rear parlor, where sat a clergyman. The lady who had admitted
+them was the mistress; a Junoesque, superior, languid sort of
+personage, in a loose dressing-gown of pink silk with long train. To
+her Matilda made known their desire.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called to the clergyman. "So you and
+your friend want board and room," the landlady repeated in a drawling
+tone, yet studying them sharply with heavy-penciled eyes. "I run
+a select house, so I've got to be careful about whom I admit.
+Consequently you will not object to answering a few questions. You and
+your friend are working-women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The heavy eyes had concluded their inventory. "Perhaps both
+housekeepers?"
+
+"Ye--yes."
+
+Matilda had a double impulse to explain, first to clear Mrs. De
+Peyster of this unmerited indignity, and second to prevent their being
+once more turned away as servants. But something kept her still. And
+perhaps it was just as well. Mrs. Gilbert, considering the two,
+did have a moment's thought about refusing them; she, too, liked to
+maintain the social tone of her establishment, and certainly servants
+as guests did not help; but then the arid season for boarding-houses
+was at hand, and she was not one to sacrifice real money to mere
+principle.
+
+"How long do you want to stay?"
+
+"We don't know yet. Per--perhaps several months."
+
+This was agreeable news to Mrs. Gilbert. But it was not boarding-house
+policy to show it.
+
+"When would you want to come in?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"To-night!" The penciled eyebrows lifted in surprise. "And your
+baggage?"
+
+"We came to New York without any," Matilda lied desperately.
+"We're--we're going to buy some things here."
+
+"Naturally, then, you expect to pay in advance."
+
+"Ah--er--at least a deposit."
+
+"One room or two?"
+
+"One." One would come cheaper.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called again to the clergyman. "This
+way." And she collected her silken skirt, and swished up two flights
+of stairs and into a bedroom at the back, where she turned on the
+light. "A very comfortable room," she went on in the voice of a tired
+and very superior auctioneer. "Just vacated by a Wall Street broker
+and his wife; very well-connected people. Bed and couch; easy-chairs;
+running hot and cold water. And for it I'm making a special summer
+rate, with board, of only twenty-five dollars a week for two."
+
+"We'll take it," said Matilda.
+
+"Very well. Now the deposit--how much can you pay?"
+
+"Ah--er--say fifteen dollars?"
+
+Mrs. Gilbert's hands that tried to seem indifferent to money and that
+yet were remarkably prompt, took the bills Matilda held out and thrust
+them into the folds of her voluminous gown.
+
+"Thank you. Breakfast Sunday mornings from eight to ten. Good-night."
+And with that her large pink-tinted ladyship made a rustling exit.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank overcome into a chair, drew up her veil, and
+gazed about her. The other of Mrs. Gilbert's "easy"-chairs had a
+seat of faded and frayed cotton tapestry; there was a lumpy and
+unstable-looking couch; a yellow washstand with dandruffy varnish
+and cracked mirror; wall-paper with vast, uncataloguable flowers
+gangrenous in suggestion; on the ceiling a circle of over-plump
+dancing Cupids; and over against one wall a huge, broad, dark box
+that to Mrs. De Peyster's amazed vision suggested an upended coffin,
+contrived for the comfort of some deceased with remarkable width of
+shoulder.
+
+"Matilda!" she shiveringingly ejaculated. "I didn't know there was
+anything like it in the world!"
+
+"I know, ma'am, that it's not fit for you," grieved Matilda.
+"But--it's better than nothing."
+
+"And that thing there!" pointing a shaking finger at the abnormal
+coffin. "What's that?"
+
+"That's your bed, ma'am."
+
+"My bed!"
+
+"It lets down, ma'am. Like this."
+
+Whereupon Matilda proceeded to let down that _sine qua non_ of a
+profitable boarding-house, while Mrs. De Peyster, dismayed, looked
+for the first time in her life upon the miracle of the unfolding of a
+folding-bed. Her mistress's slumber prepared for Matilda then softened
+the inaccuracies of the couch's surface for her own more humble
+repose.
+
+Neither felt like talking; there was too much to talk about. So soon
+both were in their beds, the lights out. Mrs. De Peyster lay dazed
+upon this strange bed that operated like a lorgnette: tremulously
+existing, awake, yet hardly capable of coherent thought.
+
+For a space she heard Matilda toss about, draw long, tremulous
+breaths; then from the couch of that elderly virgin sounded the
+incontrovertible tocsin of deep sleep. But for Mrs. De Peyster there
+was no sleep; not yet.
+
+She now was thinking; casting up accounts. Exactly twenty-four hours
+since, she had officially sailed. Jack and that Mary person were now
+in sweet and undisturbed possession of her house; Olivetta, on board
+the Plutonia, was this minute reposing at ease amid the luxuries of
+her _cabin de luxe_; and she, herself, Mrs. De Peyster, was lying on
+a folding-bed, a most knobby bed,--the man who invented cobblestone
+paving must have got his idea from such a bed as this,--in a
+boarding-house the like of which till this night she had never
+imagined to exist.
+
+And only twenty-four hours!...
+
+She stared up toward where, in the dark, the corpulent Cupids were
+dancing their aerial May-ring ... and stared ... and stared....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PEACE--OF A SORT
+
+
+The next morning there was a long, whispered discussion as to whether
+Mrs. De Peyster should go down to breakfast or have all her meals sent
+up to this chamber of distempered green. In the end two considerations
+decided the matter. In the first place, meals sent to the room would
+undoubtedly be charged extra. In the second, it was possible that Mrs.
+De Peyster's remaining in her room might rouse suspicion. It seemed
+the cheaper and safer course to try to merge herself, an unnoticed
+figure, in the routine of the house.
+
+The dining-room was low-ceilinged and occupied the front basement and
+seemed to be ventilated solely through the kitchen. Mrs. De Peyster
+hazily saw perhaps a dozen people; from among whom a bare arm,
+slipping from the sleeve of a pink silk wrapper, languidly waved
+toward a small table. Into the two chairs Mrs. Gilbert indicated the
+twain sank.
+
+A colored maid who had omitted her collar dropped before Mrs. De
+Peyster a heavy saucer containing three shriveled black objects
+immured in a dark, forbidding liquor that suggested some wry tincture
+from a chemist's shop. In response to Mrs. De Peyster's glance of
+shrinking inquiry Matilda whispered that they were prunes. Next the
+casual-handed maid favored them with thin, underdone oatmeal, and with
+thin, bitter coffee; and last with two stacks of pancakes, which in
+hardly less substantial incarnation had previously been served them by
+every whiff of kitchen air.
+
+While she pretended to eat this uneatable usurper of her dainty
+breakfasts, Mrs. De Peyster glanced furtively at the company. Utterly
+common. And with such she had to associate--for months, perhaps!--she
+who had mixed and mingled only with the earth's best!
+
+Mrs. Gilbert--naturally Mrs. Gilbert was a widow--did not give Mrs.
+De Peyster a second glance. The other boarders, after their first
+scrutiny, hardly looked at her again. The effect was as if all had
+turned their backs upon her.
+
+Certainly this was odd behavior.
+
+Then, in a flash, she understood. They were snubbing her as a social
+inferior!
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to flame when the clergyman they
+had glimpsed the night before entered and pronounced a sonorous
+good-morning, all-inclusive, as though intended for a congregation. He
+seated himself at a small table just beyond Mrs. De Peyster's and was
+unfolding his napkin when his eyes fell upon Mrs. De Peyster. And
+then Mrs. De Peyster saw one of the oddest changes in a man's face
+imaginable. Mr. Pyecroft's eyes, which had been large with benedictory
+roundness, flashed with a smile. And then, at an instant's end, his
+face was once more grave and clerically benign.
+
+But that instant-long look made her shiver. What was in this
+clergyman's mind? She watched him, in spite of herself--strangely
+fascinated; stole looks at him during this meal, and the next, and
+when they passed upon the stairway. He had a confusingly contradictory
+face, had the Reverend Herbert E. Pyecroft--for such she learned
+was his full name; a face customarily sedate and elderish, and then,
+almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful;
+with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right
+corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden
+straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor
+had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate, gestureish, ample;
+giving the sense that in nothing less commodious than a church could
+he loose his person and his powers to their full expression. He was
+genially familiar; the church-man who is a good fellow. Yet never did
+he let one forget the respect that was due his cloth.
+
+He was at present without a charge, as she learned later. It was
+understood that he was waiting an almost certain call from a church in
+Kansas City.
+
+As Mrs. De Peyster came out of her room that first Sunday at
+supper-time, there emerged from the room in front of hers the Reverend
+Mr. Pyecroft. He held out his hand, and smiled parochially.
+
+"Ah, Miss Thompson,"--that was the name she had given the
+landlady,--"since we are neighbors we should also be friends." And on
+he went, voluminously, in his full, upholstered voice.
+
+Somehow Mrs. De Peyster got away from him. But thereafter he spoke to
+her whenever he could waylay her in the hallway or upon the stairs.
+And his attentions did not stop with words. Flowers, even edibles,
+were continuously found against her door, his card among them. The
+situation somehow recalled to her the queer gentleman in shorts who
+threw vegetables over Mrs. Nickleby's garden wall. Mrs. De Peyster
+felt outraged; she fumed; yet she dared not be outspokenly resentful.
+
+She had at first no inkling of the meaning of these attentions. It was
+Matilda who suggested the dismaying possibility.
+
+"Don't you think, ma'am, he's trying to make love to you?"
+
+"Make love to me!" rising in horror from one of Mrs. Gilbert's veteran
+"easy"-chairs.
+
+"I'm sure it's that, ma'am," said the troubled Matilda.
+
+"Matilda! Of all the effrontery!"
+
+"Indeed, it is an insult to you, ma'am. But that may not be the worst
+of it. For if he really falls in love with you, he may try to follow
+you when you get ready to leave."
+
+"Matilda!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Thereafter, whenever he tried to speak to her in the hallways she
+shrank from him in both fear and indignation. But her rebuffs did not
+lessen by one ray the smiling amicability of his bland countenance
+He tried to become confidential, tried to press toward intimacy; one
+evening he even had the unbelievable audacity to ask if he might call
+upon her! She flamed with the desire to destroy him with a look,
+a word; Mrs. De Peyster knew well how thus to snuff out presuming
+upstarts. But caution warned her that she dared not unloose her
+powers. So she merely turned and fled, choking.
+
+But the reverend gentleman's unperturbed overtures continued.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda did not speak of money at first; but
+it was constantly in both their minds as a problem of foremost
+importance. Their failure to buy fresh outfits, as they had told Mrs.
+Gilbert they intended doing, thus supplying "baggage" that would be
+security for their board, caused Mrs. Gilbert to regard them with
+hostile suspicion. Matilda saw eviction in their landlady's penciled
+eyes, and without a word as to her intention to Mrs. De Peyster, she
+slipped out on the third day, returned minus her two rings, and handed
+Mrs. Gilbert ten dollars.
+
+They were secure to the week's end. After that--?
+
+Fitfully Mrs. De Peyster pondered this matter of finances. She had
+money so near, yet utterly unreachable. Her house was filled with
+negotiable wealth, but she dared not go near it. Judge Harvey would
+secure her money gladly; but if the previous Friday she could not
+accept his aid, then a thousand times less could she accept it now. To
+ask his aid would be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but
+the series of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper
+and deeper. That humiliation was unthinkable.
+
+But on Thursday, locked in their room, they spoke of the matter
+openly.
+
+"Please, ma'am," said Matilda, who had been maturing a plan, "you
+might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you sailed, and
+I could get it cashed. They'd think it was for back wages."
+
+"I told you last Friday, when everything happened, that I had drawn
+out my balance."
+
+"But your bank won't mind your overdrawing for a hundred or two,"
+urged Matilda.
+
+"That," said Mrs. De Peyster with an air of noble principle, "is a
+thing I will not do."
+
+Matilda knew nothing of the secret of Mrs. De Peyster's exhausted
+credit at her bank.
+
+"My own money," Matilda remarked plaintively, "is all in a savings
+bank. I have to give thirty days' notice before I can draw a penny."
+
+There was a brief silence. Matilda's gaze, which had several times
+wandered to a point a few inches below Mrs. De Peyster's throat, now
+fixed themselves upon this spot. She spoke hesitantly.
+
+"There's your pearl pendant you forgot and kept on when you put on my
+dress to go out riding with William." It was not one of the world's
+famous jewels; yet was of sufficient importance to be known, in a
+limited circle, as "The De Peyster Pearl." "I know the chain wouldn't
+bring much; but you could raise a lot on the pearl from a pawnbroker."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster tried to look shocked. "What! I take my pearl to a
+pawnbroker!"
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't expect you to go to a pawnshop, ma'am," Matilda
+apologized. "I'd take it."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had a moment's picture of Matilda's laying the pearl
+before a pawnbroker and asking for a fraction of its worth, a
+mere thousand or two; and of the hard-eyed usurer glancing at it,
+announcing that the pearl was spoof, and offering fifty cents upon it.
+
+"Matilda, you should know that I would not part with such an
+heirloom," she said rebukingly.
+
+"But, ma'am, in a crisis like this--"
+
+"That will do, Matilda!"
+
+Matilda said no more about the pearl then. She went to her bank and
+gave due notice of her desire to withdraw her funds. That, however,
+was provision merely for the next month and thereafter. It did not
+help to-day.
+
+But all the rest of that day, and all of the following, Mrs. De
+Peyster felt Matilda's eyes, aggrieved, bitterly resentful, upon the
+spot where beneath her black housekeeper's dress hung the pearl she
+was unwilling to pawn to save them.
+
+It was most uncomfortable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
+
+
+The next evening, Friday, as they left the dining-room, draped with
+the heavy odor of a dark, mysterious viand which Matilda in a whisper
+had informed Mrs. De Peyster to be pot-roast, Mrs. Gilbert stopped
+them on the stairs. In her most casual, superior tone, she notified
+Mrs. De Peyster that she would thank them for another week's pay in
+advance the following day, or their room.
+
+Here was a crisis that had to be faced at once. Up in their room they
+discussed finance, going over and over their predicament, for two
+hours. There seemed no practical solution.
+
+A heavy rain had begun to fall. The night was hot, close. The
+unaccustomed high collar of Matilda's dress had seemed suffocating to
+Mrs. De Peyster, and she had loosened it, and also she had taken off
+the pearl pendant which had chafed her beneath the warm, heavy cloth.
+The pearl and its delicate chain of platinum were now lying on their
+center-table.
+
+Several times Matilda's eye had gone furtively toward the pendant.
+"I don't see why," she at length said doggedly, "you shouldn't let me
+pawn that pearl."
+
+"I believe I have requested you not to refer to this again." Mrs. De
+Peyster's tone was stiff.
+
+Matilda's face showed stubborn bitterness. But the habit of obedience
+was too old and strong for her to speak further.
+
+There was another silence. Both sat in desperate thought. Suddenly
+Mrs. De Peyster looked up. "Matilda, I think I have it."
+
+"What is it, ma'am?"--with faintly reviving hope.
+
+"You have the keys to my house. You slip back there to-night, find my
+purse, or bring something that you might sell."
+
+Matilda slumped down, aghast.
+
+"It's perfectly simple," Mrs. De Peyster reassured her. "We should
+have thought of it at first."
+
+"But, ma'am!" quaveringly protested Matilda. "Suppose a policeman
+should see me! They watch those closed houses. And suppose--suppose he
+should shoot!"
+
+"Nonsense, Matilda! No one will see you if you are careful."
+
+"But if--if--Mr. Jack should hear me and come down and see me--"
+
+"We shall prepare for such an emergency some kind of plausible
+explanation that will satisfy Jack."
+
+"But, ma'am, please! I don't think I could ever do it!"
+
+"Matilda, it is the only way"--in the voice of authority. And then
+more emphatically, and in some desperation: "Remember, we have got to
+do something! We have simply got to have money!"
+
+Matilda was beginning to whimper yieldingly, when a knock sounded at
+their door. They clutched each other, but did not answer.
+
+The knuckles rapped again.
+
+They continued silent.
+
+The knock sounded more loudly.
+
+"It's the landlady, come to throw us out," quaked Matilda.
+
+"Open the door," ordered Mrs. De Peyster, decorously rearranging the
+throat of her dress, "and tell her she shall have her money in the
+morning."
+
+Matilda unlocked the door, partially opened it, then fell back with
+a little cry. There entered the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. He smiled at
+them, put a finger to his lips. Then he locked the door behind him.
+
+"Please leave this instant!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It is not in my nature," he returned in his bland voice, "to go and
+leave behind me fellow creatures in distress."
+
+"Fellow creatures in distress?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I was passing," said he, "and chanced to overhear you say a moment
+since that you simply had to have money."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's face filled with suspicion. "You have been listening
+all the while?"
+
+"Possibly," said Mr. Pyecroft, with the same bland smile.
+
+"Eavesdropper!"
+
+His smile did not alter. "I did not hear very much, really. Miss
+Thompson, may I beg the favor of a few minutes with you alone?"
+
+"Most certainly not!"
+
+"I am sure when you learn what it is, Miss Thompson, you would prefer
+that it be between yourself and myself."
+
+"Matilda, don't go!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders pleasantly. "I had really hoped that the
+matter might be between just you and me, Miss Thompson. However, if
+you prefer Miss Perkins"--Matilda's name at Mrs. Gilbert's--"to be
+present, yours is the right to command. Shall we be seated?"
+
+Matilda had already subsided upon her couch. Mrs. De Peyster sank into
+one of the chairs. The Reverend Mr. Pyecroft drew the other up to face
+her and sat down.
+
+"Miss Thompson," he began, "I have a very serious proposition to lay
+before you."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shrank away. An awful premonition burst upon her. It
+was coming! This impudent, pompous, philandering clergyman was about
+to propose to her! To _her!_ She gave a swift horrified glance at
+Matilda, who gave back a look of sympathetic understanding.
+
+Then Mrs. De Peyster's horror at the indignity changed to horror
+of quite another sort; for the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft was leaning
+confidentially close to her, eyes into hers, and was saying in a low
+voice:--
+
+"I suppose, Miss Thompson, you are not aware how much you look like a
+certain great lady, a famous social leader? To be explicit, like Mrs.
+De Peyster?"
+
+She sank back, mere jelly with a human contour. So she was discovered!
+She rolled her eyes wildly toward Matilda; Matilda rolled wild eyes
+toward her.
+
+"It is really a remarkable likeness," went on the low voice of the
+Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "I've seen Mrs. De Peyster, you know; not more
+than six yards away; and the likeness struck me the very moment I
+saw you. You haven't the grand-duchess dignity she had on when I saw
+her--say, but you should have seen the figure she made!--but it's
+a wonderful coincidence. Dressed right, and with some lofty spirit
+pumped into you, you could pass anywhere as Mrs. De Peyster, provided
+they did not know Mrs. De Peyster too intimately. That likeness is the
+foundation of my proposition."
+
+[Illustration: "IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"]
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at him, and began to clutch at consciousness.
+After all, was it possible that he hadn't recognized her as Mrs. De
+Peyster? Perhaps he hadn't--for every one knew Mrs. De Peyster was
+abroad, and, furthermore, all the social world yawned inimitably
+between Mrs. De Peyster and this apparent nobody that she was, in an
+obscure boarding-house, and in a housekeeper's gown. But if he hadn't
+recognized her, then what was he driving at?
+
+While she gazed she became aware of an amazing change in his face, of
+the possibility of which she had previously had only hints. The bland,
+elderish, clerical look faded; the face grew strangely young, the
+right corner of his mouth twisted upward, and his right eyelid drooped
+in a prodigious, unreverend wink.
+
+"Friend," he remarked, "what's you two ladies' game?"
+
+"Our game?" Mrs. De Peyster repeated blankly.
+
+"Now don't try to come Miss Innocence over me," he said easily. "I
+sized you two up from the first minute, and I've been watching you
+ever since. The other one could get away with the housekeeper's part
+O.K., but any one could see through your makeup. What are the bulls
+after you for?"
+
+"The--the what?"
+
+"Oh, come,--you're dodging the police, or why the disguise?" he
+queried pleasantly. He picked up Mrs. De Peyster's pearl pendant.
+"Housekeepers don't sport this kind of jewelry. What are you?
+Housebreakers--sneak thieves--confidence game?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gaped at him. "I--I don't understand."
+
+"It's really a pretty fair front you're putting up," he commented with
+a dry indulgent smile. "But might as well drop it, for you see I'm on.
+But I think I understand." He nodded. "You don't want to admit
+anything until you feel you can trust me. That's about the size of it,
+isn't it, friends?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared, without speaking.
+
+"Now I know I can trust you," he went on easily, "for I've got
+something on you and I give you away if you give me away. Well,
+sisters, of course you know you're not the only people the police are
+after. That's why I am temporarily in the ministry."
+
+He grinned widely--a grin of huge enjoyment.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Well, you don't hesitate to ask, do you?" He laughed, lightly. "Say,
+it's too good to keep! I always was too confiding a lad; but I've got
+you where you won't squeal, and I suppose we've got to know each other
+if we're going to do business together. You must know, my dear ladies,
+that every proposition I've handled I've gone into it as much for the
+fun as for the coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element
+of conceit in his character. "Well, fair ones--ready?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
+
+"Ever heard of the American Historical Society's collection of
+recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster started.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that said
+Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters
+were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of
+an amanuensis of, so to say, the present generation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston, alleged
+to be said amanuensis?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to Mrs. De
+Peyster, then to Matilda.
+
+"It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies. Only
+for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak. So this was the man Judge
+Harvey was trying to hunt down! Her meeting him like this, it seemed
+an impossible coincidence--utterly impossible! She little dreamed that
+the laws of chance were not at all concerned in this adventure; that
+this meeting was but the natural outcome of Matilda's trifling act in
+picking up from the library rug a boarding-house card and slipping it
+into her slit-pocket.
+
+The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly delighted
+in the surprise he had created.
+
+"I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs," he went on
+gleefully--"these old boys who will come across with sky-high prices
+for old first editions and original manuscripts, and who don't care
+one little wheeze of a damn for what the author actually wrote. I'm
+sorry, though,"--in a tone of genuine contrition,--"that Judge Harvey
+was the man finally to be stung; they say he's the real thing."
+Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its unreverend wink.
+"There's a Raphael that the Metropolitan is solemnly proud of. It cost
+Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It cost me an even five
+hundred to have it made."
+
+He laughed again: that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh. Mrs. De
+Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first surprise.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward. "But this isn't getting down to our
+business. I've got a plan that's more fun than the Jefferson letters,
+and that will make us a lot of money, Miss Thompson. And it's easy and
+it's sure fire. It depends, as I said, upon the remarkable coincidence
+of your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Yes?" Mrs. De Peyster managed to say.
+
+"You've read of her, of course; stiffest swell of the lot," went
+on the young gentleman rapidly, in clipped phrases oddly unlike the
+sonorous sentences of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "Looks down on most
+of the Four Hundred as _hoi polloi_. She's in Europe now, and the
+papers say she won't be back until the very end of summer. We can't do
+a thing till then; have to lie low and wait. You need money, I heard
+you say; I suppose you're afraid to hock this twinkler"--touching the
+pearl pendant. "Police probably watching the pawnshops and would nab
+you. Well, I'll stake you till Mrs. De Peyster comes back."
+
+"Stake me?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes. Give you, both of you, what money you need."
+
+"And--and when--Mrs. De Peyster comes back?"
+
+Young Mr. Pyecroft chortled with delight.
+
+"Say, this scheme's the best ever! The day we learn Mrs. De Peyster
+has landed, we dress you up as a top-notcher--gad, but we can make you
+look the part!--we put you in a swell carriage, with her coat of arms
+painted on it--and you go around to Tiffany's and all the other swell
+shops where in the mean time I'll have learned Mrs. De Peyster has
+charge accounts. You select the most valuable articles in the shop,
+and then in the most casual, dignified manner,--I can coach you on how
+to put on the dignity,--you remark, 'Charge to my account, and I'll
+just take it along with me.' And off you go, with a diamond necklace
+under your arm. And same thing at all the shops. Then we duck before
+the thing breaks, and divide the fruits of our industry and superior
+intelligence, as the economists say. Isn't that one great little
+game!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at his face, grinning like an elated gargoyle;
+herself utterly limp, her every nerve a filament of icy horror.
+
+"Well, what do you say, girls?" prompted Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster at first could say nothing at all. Whereupon the young
+man, gleeful over his invention, prompted her again.
+
+"I--can't--can't do it," she gulped out.
+
+"Can't do it!" He stared at her, amazed. "Say, do you realize what
+you're passing up?"
+
+"I can't do it," repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Why?" he demanded.
+
+She did not reply.
+
+He stood up, smiling again. "I won't argue with you; it's bigger than
+anything you ever pulled off--so big, I guess it stuns you; I'll just
+let the matter soak in, and put up its own argument. You'll come in,
+all right," he continued confidently, "for you need money, and I'm the
+party that can supply you. And to make certain that you don't get the
+money elsewhere, I'll just take along this vault of the First National
+Bank as security"--with which he slipped Mrs. De Peyster's pearl
+pendant into his pocket. "Now, think the matter over, girls. I'll be
+back in half an hour. So-long for the present."
+
+The door closed behind him.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed wildly after him. The plan "soaked in," as
+he had said it would; and as it soaked in, her horror grew. She saw
+herself becoming involved, helpless to prevent it, in the plan Mr.
+Pyecroft considered so delectable; she saw herself later publicly
+exposed as engaged in this scheme to defraud herself; she could hear
+all New York laughing. Her whole being shivered and gasped. Of all the
+plans ever proposed to a woman--!
+
+And all the weeks and months this Mr. Pyecroft would be hovering about
+her!...
+
+Despairingly she sat upright.
+
+"Matilda, we can't stay in the same house with that man."
+
+"Oh, ma'am," breathed the appalled Matilda, "of course not!"
+
+"We've got to leave! And leave before he comes back!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am," cried Matilda. And then: "But--but where?"
+
+"Anywhere to get away from him!"
+
+"But, ma'am, the money?" said Matilda who had handled Mrs. De
+Peyster's petty cash account for twenty years, and whose business
+it had been to think of petty practicalities. "We've only got
+twenty-three cents left, and we can't possibly get any more soon, and
+no one will take us in without money or baggage. Don't you see? We
+can't stay here, and we can't go any place else."
+
+This certainly was a dilemma. The two gazed at each other, their faces
+momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then suddenly Mrs. De
+Peyster leaned forward, with desperate decision.
+
+"Matilda, we shall go back home!"
+
+"Go home, ma'am?" cried Matilda.
+
+"There's nothing else we can do. I'll slip into my sitting-room, lock
+the door, and live there quietly--and Jack will never know I'm in the
+house."
+
+"But, ma'am, won't that be dangerous?"
+
+"Danger is comparative. Anything is better than this!"
+
+"Just as you say; I suppose you're right, ma'am." And then with an
+hysterical snuffle: "But oh, ma'am, I wish I knew how this thing was
+ever going to turn out!"
+
+Five minutes later the two twin figures of somberness, their veils
+down, stole stealthily down the stairs and out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HOME AGAIN
+
+
+The two dark figures, giving a glance through the rain in either
+direction, stole down beneath the stately marble steps of No. 13
+Washington Square, and Matilda unlocked the servants' door. They
+slipped inside; the door was cautiously relocked. Breathless, they
+stood listening. A vast, noble silence pervaded the great house. They
+flung their arms about each other, and thus embraced tottered against
+the wall; and Mrs. De Peyster relaxed in an unspeakable relief.
+
+[Illustration: MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR]
+
+Home again! Her own home! Odorless of pot-roasts and frying
+batter-cakes. The phrase was rather common and sentimental--but, in
+truth, this was "home, sweet home."
+
+And free of that unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft!
+
+While Mrs. De Peyster leaned there in the blackness, gathering
+strength, her mind mounted in sweet expectancy to her suite. Only a
+few minutes of soft treading of stairways--certainly they could avoid
+arousing Jack--and she would be locked in her comfortable rooms. A
+cautious bath! Clean clothes! Her own bed! All of the luxuries she had
+been so long denied!
+
+Cautiously they crept through the basement hallway; cautiously crept
+up the butler's stairs and turned off through the door into the great
+hall of the first floor; cautiously they crept up to the drawing-room
+floor and trod ever so softly over woven treasures of the Orient,
+through the spacious ducal gloom. One more flight, then peace,
+security. With unbreathing care, Mrs. De Peyster set foot upon the
+first step of her journey's end.
+
+And then, suddenly, the servants' bell burst into ringing. And there
+was a terrific hammering against the servants' door and also against
+the door in the boarding.
+
+"Matilda--what's that?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"M--maybe the police saw us come in," breathed Matilda.
+
+They did not pause for discussion. Discarding caution, they plunged
+frantically and noisily up the stairs; until from out of the overhead
+blackness descended a voice:--
+
+"Stop! Or I'll shoot!"
+
+It was Jack's voice.
+
+They stopped.
+
+"Who are you?" the voice demanded.
+
+They clung to each other, wordless.
+
+"Who are you?" repeated Jack.
+
+Their voices were still palsied. They heard his feet begin
+determinedly to descend. Mrs. De Peyster loosed her grip on Matilda's
+arm and vanished noiselessly downward.
+
+"Speak up there," commanded Jack, "or I'll fire on the chance of
+getting you in the dark."
+
+"It's only me, Mr. Jack," trembled Matilda.
+
+"What, Matilda!" cried Jack; and from above, like an echo transposed
+an octave higher, sounded another, "What, Matilda!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Jack. Yes, ma'a--yes, Mary."
+
+"But where the devil have you been?" exclaimed Jack, coming to her
+side.
+
+Mary had also hurried down to her. "Matilda, the way you ran away from
+us!"
+
+"I got a--er--sudden message. There was no time--"
+
+"Never mind about explaining now," interrupted Jack. "Go down and stop
+that racket before they break in the doors. And thank God you're here
+just in time, Matilda! You're just the person to do it: housekeeper,
+caretaker. But be careful if they're reporters. Now, hurry."
+
+Jack and Mary scuttled back to the haven of upstairs, and Matilda
+shivered down through the blackness. As she passed through the lower
+hall, a hand reached out of the dark and touched her. She managed not
+to cry out.
+
+"Don't let them know about me!" implored Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'll--I'll do my best, ma'am," quavered Matilda, and glided weakly
+on.
+
+When she opened the servants' door, a dripping policeman caught her
+arm. "Down here, Bill," he called to the man battering at the door
+above; and a minute later two officers were inside, and the door was
+closed, and a light was flashing in Matilda's face.
+
+"Now, old girl," said the first officer, tightly gripping her arm and
+giving it that twist which if a policeman does not give an arm he is
+no policeman, "what's your little game, eh?"
+
+"I--I live here, sir. I'm the housekeeper."
+
+"Now don't try to put that over on us. You know you ain't."
+
+"You must be new policemen, in this neighborhood," trembled Matilda,
+"or you'd know I am."
+
+"We may be new cops, but we don't fall for old stuff like that. I was
+talkin' to Mrs. De Peyster's coachman only yesterday. He told me the
+housekeeper wasn't here no more. So better change your line o' dope.
+Where's the other one?"
+
+"Wha--what other one?"
+
+"The one what come in here with you."
+
+"I'm the only person in the house," Matilda tried to declare
+valiantly.
+
+"Drop it!" said the officer. "Didn't the boss tell us to keep our eyes
+on these here millionaires' closed houses; all kinds o' slick crooks
+likely to clean 'em out. An' didn't we see two women come in this
+house,--hey, Bill?"
+
+"Sure--I was a block off, but I seen 'em plain as day," said Bill.
+
+"So I guess," again the twist that proved him a policeman, "you'd
+better lead us to your pal."
+
+He pushed her before him, lighting the way with his flash-lantern, up
+stairways and back into the dining-room, where she turned on the one
+shaded electric bulb that had been left connected. In Matilda all hope
+was gone; resistance was useless; fate had conquered. And when the
+officer again demanded that she bring forth her accomplice, she dumbly
+and obediently made search; and finally brought Mrs. De Peyster forth
+from the china closet.
+
+The officer pulled up Mrs. De Peyster's veil, and closely scanned her
+features; which, to be just to the officer, were so distorted that
+they bore little semblance to the Mrs. De Peyster of her portraits.
+
+"Recognize her, Bill?" he queried.
+
+"Looks a bit like the pictures of Chicago Sal," said Bill. "But I
+ain't ever handled her. I guess she ain't worked none around New
+York."
+
+"Well, now," said the officer, with policial jocularity, "since you
+two ladies already got your hats on, I guess we'll just offer you our
+arms to the station."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave Matilda a look of frenzied appeal. But Matilda
+needed not the spur of another's desperation. For herself she saw a
+prison cell agape.
+
+"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper!"
+
+"If so, who's the other mourner?" inquired the humorous policeman.
+"And what's she doin' here?"
+
+"She's--she's"--and then Matilda plunged blindly at a lie--"she's my
+sister." And having started, she went on: "My sister Angelica, who
+lives in Syracuse. She's come to visit me awhile."
+
+The officer grinned. "Well, Matilda and Angelica, we'll give you a
+chance to tell that to the lieutenant. Come on."
+
+"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson!" cried Matilda. She was now
+thinking solely of her own imminent disgrace. Inspiration came to her.
+"You say you talked to William, the coachman. He'll tell you who I am.
+There's the bell--ring for him!"
+
+The officer scratched his chin. Then he eyed his co-laborer
+meditatively.
+
+"Not a bad idea, Bill. There's a chance she may be on the level, and
+there'd be hell to pay at headquarters if we got in bad with any of
+these swells. No harm tryin'."
+
+He pressed a big thumb against the bell Matilda had indicated.
+
+They all sat down, the two officers' oilskins guttering water all
+over Mrs. De Peyster's Kirmanshah rug and parquet floor. But Mrs. De
+Peyster was unconscious of this deluge. She gave Matilda a glance
+of reproachful dismay; then she edged into the dimmest corner of the
+dusky room and turned her chair away from the door through which this
+new disaster was about to stalk in upon her, and unnoticed drew down
+her veil.
+
+There was a long, sickening wait. Plainly William had gone to bed, and
+had to dress before he could answer the bell.
+
+At length, however, William appeared. He started at sight of the four
+figures; then his gaze fastened on Matilda and grew hard. Mrs. De
+Peyster tried to collapse within herself.
+
+"Friend," said the officer, "here's a lady as says she's Matilda
+Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper. How about it?"
+
+"She is," William affirmed coldly.
+
+"The devil!" said the officer; and then in a low voice apart to
+the other: "Lucky we didn't go no further--hey, Bill?" And again to
+William: "Miss Simpson says this other lady is her sister, visitin'
+her from Syracuse. Can you identify her?"
+
+William did not alter a line in his face.
+
+"Miss Simpson has a sister living near Syracuse. I have never seen
+her. I cannot identify her."
+
+"H'm," said the officer.
+
+"Is that all?" asked William.
+
+"Yes, that'll do. Thanks."
+
+With a cold blighting glare at Matilda, William withdrew.
+
+"Well, ladies," said the officer with ingratiating pleasantness, "I'm
+mighty glad it's all right. If you have occasion, Miss Simpson, to
+speak o' this here little incident to Mrs. De Peyster when she gets
+back from Europe, just explain it as due to over-zealousness, if
+you don't mind--desire to safeguard her interests. D'you get me?
+Headquarters is awful sensitive to kicks from you rich people; and the
+boss comes down on you like a ton o' bricks. It'll be mighty kind o'
+you. Good-night. Don't bother to come down with us. I noticed it was a
+spring lock. We can let ourselves out."
+
+When the two policemen were out of the room, Mrs. De Peyster and
+Matilda collapsed into each others' arms and their bodies sank limply
+forward from their chairs upon the dining-table. "Matilda, what
+an escape!" shivered Mrs. De Peyster; and she lay there, gathering
+breath, regathering strength, regathering poise, while the officers'
+steps grew dimmer and more dim. She was palpitant, yet able to think.
+Certainly it had been a narrow escape. But that danger was now over.
+There now remained only the feat of getting into her room, unnoticed
+by Jack. This they could manage when they were certain that Jack and
+Mary were asleep.
+
+Relief, hope, courage once more began to rise within her.
+
+Then suddenly she sat upright. Footsteps were sounding below--growing
+nearer--heavy footsteps--what sounded like more than two pairs of
+footsteps. She sat as one palsied; and before she could recover
+strength or faculties, there in the doorway were the two policemen.
+And with them was a gentleman in a cap and tan summer overcoat
+buttoned to the chin.
+
+The gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft; and the Mr. Pyecroft they
+had first seen: bland, oh, so bland, with that odd, elderish look of
+his.
+
+"Met him goin' down the servants' steps as we were goin' out, and he
+asked us--" the officer was beginning.
+
+But Mr. Pyecroft was already crossing toward Matilda, smiling
+affectionately.
+
+"My dear Matilda!" He kissed her upon the cheek. "I arrived in New
+York very unexpectedly less than half an hour ago, and could not delay
+coming to see you. How are you, sister?"
+
+"Wha--what?" stammered Matilda.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft with his bland affectionate smile crossed to Mrs. De
+Peyster, slipped an arm across her shoulders and kissed her veil
+somewhere about the forehead. "And how are you, dear sister?" he
+inquired with deep concern.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gasped and stiffened.
+
+"You ladies don't seem very glad to see him," put in the officer.
+"When we told him about you two bein' sisters, he said he was your
+brother. Is he?"
+
+"Of course I am," Mr. Pyecroft answered pleasantly. "They weren't
+expecting me; therefore this very natural surprise which you observe.
+Of course, I am your brother, am I not?"--patting Mrs. De Peyster's
+arm with the appearance of affection, and then closing on it
+warningly.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded her head.
+
+"Matilda," turning to her, in frank fraternal fashion, "you might tell
+these officers that I am not only your brother, but in fact the only
+brother you have. That is true, isn't it, sister?"
+
+"Yes," gulped Matilda.
+
+"Well," said the officer, "since everything is all right, we'll be
+leavin' you. But, believe me, this is certainly some sudden family
+reunion."
+
+When they had gone Mr. Pyecroft calmly removed cap and overcoat and
+stood forth in his clericals. Again he wore the youngish face of their
+interview of an hour before. Mrs. De Peyster watched him in sickening
+fear. What was he going to do? Surely he must now know her identity!
+
+He smiled at them amiably.
+
+"Well, my dears, so you tried to give me the slip. I rather thought
+you'd bear watching, so I followed you. And when I saw the officers
+come out without you I knew you had successfully entertained them with
+some sort of plausible explanation."
+
+His gaze fixed on Matilda. "So, my dear sister, you're really the
+housekeeper here." He shook his head chidingly. "And the usual
+crook of a housekeeper, eh--trying to make a safe clean-up while her
+mistress is away. You're deeper than I thought, Matilda. I understand
+the whole affair now. You and our sister Angelica had already been
+planning some kind of a game similar to the one I suggested. I just
+happened to think of the same thing. I don't blame you a lot for not
+wanting to take me into the game; it was quite natural for you to want
+all there is in it for yourselves. Not the least hard feeling in the
+world, my dears. But, of course,"--apologetically,--"you could hardly
+expect me to give up a rich thing like this, could you?"
+
+His easy, familiar, ironic talk had brought Mrs. De Peyster one large
+item of relief. Evidently he didn't suspect who she was--yet.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she managed to ask.
+
+"Stay right here with you, my sisters, and in due time we'll go ahead
+with our game as per previous specifications." He surveyed the high,
+paneled dining-room, sumptuous, distinguished even in the semi-dusk.
+"Cozy little flat, eh, my dears?"
+
+Suddenly that wide mouth of his slipped up to one side, and he laughed
+in exultant, impish glee.
+
+"Say, isn't this the funniest ever! Beats my plan a mile. We'll
+make ourselves at home--hang out together for the summer in Mrs. De
+Peyster's own house,--_her own house_,--and when we hear she's coming
+back we vacate and then do our little act of buying out the stores in
+Lady De Peyster's name. Was there ever such a lark!" For a moment
+his low laugh of wild glee cut off his speech. "What's more, it's the
+safest place in the world for us. Nobody'd ever think of our being
+here!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at Matilda, Matilda stared at Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"And it's just what I needed," continued Mr. Pyecroft in amicable
+confidence. "I just had a tip that the police were closing in on me,
+and I had to disappear quick. An hour ago, I'd never have dreamed
+of falling into such a safe little retreat as this. Luck favors the
+deserving."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed at him, faint.
+
+"And of course, Matilda," he went on, "if, say, any of the neighbors
+happen to drop in for a cup of tea and see me, or if the police should
+manage to trail me here,--and they may, you know,--of course, Matilda,
+you'll speak right up and say I'm your dear brother."
+
+At that moment it was beyond either of them to speak right up.
+
+"Remember, my dears, that we're all crooks together," he prompted in a
+soft voice, that had a steely suggestion beneath it. "And in case you
+fail to stand by me it would give me very great pain--very great pain,
+I assure you--to have to blow on you."
+
+Matilda gulped, blinked her eyes, and looked helplessly at Mrs. De
+Peyster. Mr. Pyecroft turned to the latter.
+
+"Of course, Angelica, dear, you're going to stand by me?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster hesitated, then breathed a barely audible "Yes."
+
+"And you, Matilda, who were always my favorite sister, you, too, will
+stand by me?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Matilda.
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Pyecroft, in a moved tone, "such family loyalty is
+truly touching. I foresee a most pleasant summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HAPPY FAMILY
+
+
+He nodded at the two with an air of deep fraternal affection. And
+again he gazed with satisfaction about the spacious apartment,
+indicative of numberless other rooms of corresponding comfort.
+
+His eyes came back to them.
+
+"And now, Matilda, my dear," he resumed, with his pleasant smile, "in
+the event we spoke of,--neighbors or police dropping in, you know,--in
+such a case I suppose I ought to be prepared with a correct history of
+myself. To begin with, might I inquire what our name is?--our family
+name, I mean."
+
+"Simpson."
+
+"Simpson. Ah, yes; very good. Matilda Simpson--Angelica Simpson--and,
+let us say, Archibald Simpson. And where was I born, Matilda?"
+
+"You weren't ever born," protested Matilda with frightened
+indignation.
+
+"Now don't be facetious or superfluous, sister dear," he said
+soothingly. "Granted for the sake of argument I wasn't ever born. But
+where might I have been born?"
+
+"I was born near Albany."
+
+"Near Albany is perfectly agreeable to me," said Mr. Pyecroft. "And
+how many are there in our family?"
+
+"Just Angelica and me."
+
+"Then there really is an authentical Angelica?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excellent. And our parents?"
+
+"They died when I was a child."
+
+"I'm grieved, indeed, to learn of it," said Mr. Pyecroft. "But I'll
+admit it simplifies matters; there's less to remember. Angelica,
+our sister here, who is also visiting you, lives near Syracuse I
+understood some one to say. Married or single?"
+
+"Married," Matilda choked out.
+
+"Her married name?"
+
+"Jones."
+
+"Angelica Simpson Jones. Good. Very euphonious. And how many little
+nieces and nephews am I the happy uncle of?"
+
+"She--she has no children."
+
+"That's too bad, for I have a particular fondness for children,"
+sorrowed Mr. Pyecroft. "Still, that also simplifies matters, lessening
+considerably the percentage of chances for regrettable lapses of
+memory."
+
+He pursued his genealogical inquiries into all possibly useful
+details. And then he sat meditative for a while, gazing amiably about
+his family circle. And it was while they were all thus sitting silent,
+in what in the dim light of the one shaded electric bulb might have
+seemed to an observer the silence of intimacy, that Jack, who had
+slipped cautiously downstairs, walked in, behind him Mary.
+
+"Matilda, what's this mean?" he demanded, with a bewildered look.
+"We've been wondering why you didn't come upstairs."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster turned in her chair, and held her breath, like one
+beneath the guillotine. Matilda arose, shaking.
+
+"Who's this man, Matilda?" Jack continued.
+
+"He--ah--er--he's--"
+
+"And, pray, Matilda, who is this?" politely inquired the arisen Mr.
+Pyecroft, blandly assuming command of the situation.
+
+"Who am I? Well, you certainly have nerve--" the astounded Jack was
+beginning.
+
+"He's Mr. Jack," Matilda put in. "Jack De Peyster."
+
+"Ah, young Mr. De Peyster!" Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up slightly
+and a shrewd light flashed into his rounded eyes and was at once gone,
+and again his face was blandly clerical. "It is, indeed, a pleasure
+to meet you, Mr. De Peyster. And, pray, who is this?" with a suave
+gesture toward Mary.
+
+"That, sir, is my wife!" Jack announced, stiff with anger.
+
+Again Mr. Pyecroft's eyes flashed shrewdly, and again were clerically
+rounded.
+
+"My dear sir, that is, indeed, surprising. I have seen no public
+notice of your marriage. And I watch the marriage announcements
+quite closely--which is rather natural, for, if I may be permitted
+to mention it, I myself am frequently called upon to perform the holy
+rites." His face clouded with what seemed a painful suspicion. "I
+trust, sir, that you are really married?"
+
+"Why, damn you--"
+
+"Sir, you must not thus address the cloth!" sternly interposed Mr.
+Pyecroft. "It is our duty to speak frankly, and to make due inquiry
+into the propriety of such relations. However, since you say so, I am
+sure the affair is strictly correct." His voice softened, became nobly
+apologetic. "No harm has been meant, and if any offense has been felt,
+I assure you of my deepest regrets."
+
+"See here, who the devil are you?" demanded Jack.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft turned to Matilda.
+
+"Matilda, my dear, will you kindly tell young Mr. De Peyster who I
+am."
+
+Matilda seemed about to choke. "He's--he's my--my brother."
+
+"Your brother!" exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know you had a brother. You
+never spoke of one."
+
+"Which was entirely natural," said Mr. Pyecroft, with an air of pious
+remorse. "Matilda has been ashamed to speak of me. To be utterly
+frank--and it is meet that one who has been what I have been should be
+humble and ready to confess--for many years I was the black sheep of
+the family, my name unmentioned. But sometime since I was snatched a
+brand from the burning; I have remained silent about myself until I
+could give to my family, which had properly disowned me, a long record
+to prove my reformation. I am now striving by my devotion to make some
+amends for my previous shortcomings."
+
+Jack stared incomprehensibly at this unexpected clerical brother of
+Matilda's, with his unquenchable volubility. Mr. Pyecroft gazed back
+with appropriate humility, yet with a lofty self-respect.
+
+Jack turned away with a shrug, and pointed at the dark figure of Mrs.
+De Peyster.
+
+"And who is that, Matilda?"
+
+"That, sir," put in Mr. Pyecroft quickly, easily, to forestall any
+blunder by the hapless Matilda--and deftly interposing himself between
+Jack and Mrs. De Peyster, "that is our sister."
+
+"The one who lives in Syracuse?"
+
+"Yes; and she is indisposed," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Our sister Angelica
+Simpson Jones," he elaborated. "Matilda is the eldest, I am the
+youngest; there are just us three children."
+
+"And might I ask, Matilda, without intending discourtesy," said Jack,
+eyeing Mr. Pyecroft with disfavor, "how long your brother and sister
+intend to remain?"
+
+"Matilda invited us for the summer," said Mr. Pyecroft apologetically.
+
+"For the summer!" repeated Jack in dismay. Then he spoke to Matilda,
+caustically: "I suppose it's all right, Matilda, but has it been your
+fixed custom, when we've been away for the summer, to fill the house
+with your family?"
+
+"Please, Mr. Jack, please," imploringly began Matilda, and could utter
+nothing further.
+
+"Great God!" Jack burst out in exasperation. "Not that I'd object
+ordinarily to your relatives being here, Matilda. But running this
+place just now as a hotel, who knows but it may let out the fact that
+we're here!"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up--ever so little.
+
+"Ah, I understand. You wish your presence in the house to be a
+secret."
+
+"Of course! Hasn't Matilda told you?"
+
+"I only just arrived. She hasn't had time. But of course she would
+have done so. You are--ah"--his tone was delicate--"evading the
+police?"
+
+"The police! We don't care a hang about the police, though, of course,
+we don't want them to know. It's the infernal reporters we care
+about."
+
+"The reporters?" softly pursued Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes, but one reporter in particular--a beast by the name of Mayfair,
+I've had a tip that he suspects something; already he's tried to get
+into the house as a gas-meter inspector."
+
+At the mention of that indomitable, remorseless, undeceivable
+newsgatherer, Mayfair, and the possibility of his gaining entrance
+into the house, Mrs. De Peyster experienced a new shudder.
+
+"What would be the harm if Mr. Mayfair did get in?" Imperceptibly
+prodded Mr. Pyecroft. "He would merely write a piece about you for his
+paper."
+
+"And his confounded piece, or the main facts in it, would be cabled to
+Europe!"
+
+"Ah, I think I see," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Mrs. De Peyster would read
+about your marriage in the Paris 'Herald' or some other European
+paper. You do not wish your mother to know of your marriage--yet."
+
+"I supposed Matilda had already told you that," said Jack.
+
+"Ah, so that is why you are here in hiding," said Mr. Pyecroft, very
+softly, chiefly to himself; and his eyes had another momentary flash,
+only brighter than any heretofore, and his mouth twitched upward, and
+he pleasantly rubbed his hands.
+
+At that moment, from the stairway, came the sound of descending steps.
+Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed. Mr. Pyecroft became taut, though
+no one could have observed a change, Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet
+deeper apprehension. Would the trials and tribulations and Pharaonic
+plagues never cease descending on her!
+
+Matilda gazed wildly at Jack. "Who's that?" she quavered.
+
+"Only Uncle Bob," Jack answered carelessly.
+
+Only Uncle Bob! Mrs. De Peyster, in her dim corner, tried to shrivel
+up into yet darker obscurity. Breathlessly she felt herself upon the
+precipitous edge of ultimate horror. For Judge Harvey--Judge Harvey
+of all persons--to be the one to discover her amid her humiliating
+circumstances!
+
+Dimly she heard Jack talk on, explaining in casual tone: "You know,
+Matilda, Uncle Bob has always had the general oversight of the house
+when it's been closed during summers; and he's always made it his
+business to drop in occasionally to see that everything's all right.
+I got him word we were here, and he dropped in this evening to call
+on us--and along came this awful rain and we coaxed him to stay the
+night. Uncle Bob and you are lucky, Matilda, you can both come and go
+without arousing any suspicion."
+
+Only the Judge!... Yet, for all her horror, a new phase of the general
+predicament filtered into such consciousness as she now possessed.
+Judge Harvey, irate purchaser of autograph letters, and Mr. Pyecroft,
+_alias_ Thomas Preston, profuse producer of the same, were under the
+same roof and were about to meet. What would happen when they came
+face to face?--for she remembered now that a bad likeness of Thomas
+Preston had several times appeared in the papers. She turned her head
+toward the doorway and peered through her veil, waiting.
+
+When Judge Harvey entered, Mr. Pyecroft started. Upon the instant
+he had recognized Judge Harvey. But the next moment Mr. Pyecroft was
+himself. Jack gave the necessary introductions, the one to Angelica
+Simpson Jones at long distance, and gave a brief explanation of the
+presence of the two guests. During this while Judge Harvey repeatedly
+glanced at Mr. Pyecroft, a puzzled look on his countenance.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Simpson," he remarked presently, "but your face seems
+elusively familiar to me. I seem to know it, yet I cannot place it.
+Haven't I met you somewhere?"
+
+"Perhaps you were a lay delegate to the recent Episcopal Convention in
+New York?" politely suggested Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"No. I did not even attend any of the sessions."
+
+"Then, of course, it could not have been there that you saw me," said
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Perhaps it will come to me," said Judge Harvey.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, for all her personal apprehension, could but marvel
+at this young man of the sea who had fastened himself upon her back.
+Most amazing of all, he seemed to like the taste of his danger.
+
+"Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster was remarking when you came in," Mr.
+Pyecroft continued without permitting a lull, "that he wished his
+presence in this house to remain unknown. Also I had just told him
+and his young wife that my earlier years were given over to a life
+for which I have been trying to atone by good works. Now I have a very
+humiliating further confession to make to you all. Recently there has
+been--may I call it a recrudescence?--an uncontrollable recrudescence
+of my former regrettable self. For a disastrous moment the Mr. Hyde
+element in me, which I thought I had stifled and cast out, arose
+and possessed me. In brief, I have been guilty of an error which the
+police consider serious; in fact, the police are this moment searching
+for me. So you see, I am in the same situation as Mr. De Peyster: I
+prefer my whereabouts to remain unknown. Since we are in each other's
+hands, and it is in our power each to betray the other, shall we not
+all, as a _quid pro quo_, agree to preserve Mr. De Peyster's and my
+presence in this house a secret? For my part, I promise."
+
+"I'm willing," said Jack.
+
+"And I," said Mary. "Anyhow, I never get a chance to tell, for I
+haven't been out of this house once."
+
+"And you, Judge Harvey? You will--ah--protect me?"
+
+Judge Harvey bit the end of his mustache. "I don't like this
+bargaining over a matter of justice. But--for Jack's sake, yes."
+
+"Thank you, Judge Harvey," Mr. Pyecroft said in a soft, grateful
+voice, and with a slight, dignified bow.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster drew a deep breath. He certainly was a cool one.
+
+"There's something that's just been occurring to me," spoke up Jack.
+"It's along of that infernal reporter Mayfair who's snooping around
+here. He's likely to get in here any time. If he were to find me here
+alone, there'd be nothing for him to write about. It's finding me
+here, married, that will give him one of his yellow stories, and
+that will put mother next. Matilda, since you already have so large
+a family visiting you, I suppose you wouldn't mind taking on one
+more and saying that Mary here was something or other of yours--say a
+niece?"
+
+"Oh, that would be delicious" laughed Mary.
+
+"Why, Mr. Jack,--I! I--" The flustered Matilda could get out no more.
+
+"Mr. Simpson, couldn't you say she was your daughter?" queried Jack.
+
+"I would be only too delighted to own her as such," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"But I am not married and I am obviously too young. However,"--moving
+closer to Mrs. De Peyster,--"our sister Angelica is married, and I am
+sure it will be a great pleasure to her to claim Mrs. De Peyster as
+her daughter. Angelica, my dear, of course you'll do it?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sat rigid, voiceless.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mary, in deep concern.
+
+"Our sister probably did not hear, she is slightly deaf," Mr. Pyecroft
+explained. He bent over Mrs. De Peyster, made a trumpet of one hand,
+and raised his voice. "Angelica, if any other person comes into the
+house, you are to say that young Mrs. De Peyster is your daughter. You
+understand?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
+
+"And of course you'll say it?"
+
+For a moment Mrs. De Peyster was again rigid. Then slowly she nodded.
+
+The spirit of the masquerade seized upon Mary. "Oh, mother dear,--what
+a comfort to have you!" she cried with mischievous glee; and arms wide
+as if for a daughterly embrace she swept toward Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shriveled back. She stopped living. In another
+moment--
+
+But the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft, _alias_ Archibald Simpson, _alias_
+Thomas Preston, _alias_ God knows what else, stepped quickly between
+her and the on-coming Mary, and with an air of brotherly concern held
+out an intercepting hand.
+
+"No excitement, please. The doctor's orders."
+
+"Is it anything serious?" Mary asked anxiously.
+
+"We hope not," in a grave voice. "It is chiefly nervous exhaustion due
+to a period of worry over a trying domestic situation."
+
+"That's too bad!" Very genuine sympathy was in Mary's soft contralto.
+"But if she's unwell, she ought to have more air. Why don't you draw
+up that heavy veil?"
+
+"S-s-h! Not so loud, I beg you. If she heard you speak of her veil, it
+would pain her greatly. You see," Mr. Pyecroft unhesitatingly went
+on in a low, compassionate tone, "our sister, while trying to light a
+gasoline stove--It was a gasoline stove, was it not, Matilda?"
+
+"Ah--er--ye-yes," corroborated Matilda.
+
+"A gasoline stove, yes," continued the grave voice of Mr. Pyecroft.
+"It was during the very first year after her marriage. The explosion
+that followed disfigured her face frightfully. She is extremely
+sensitive; so much so that she invariably wears a heavy veil when she
+goes out of her own house."
+
+"Why, how terrible!" cried Mary.
+
+"Yes, isn't it! All of our family have felt for poor Angelica most
+deeply. And furthermore, she is sensitive about her deafness--which, I
+may add, was caused by the same accident. And her various misfortunes
+have made her extremely shy, so the less attention that is paid to
+her, the happier the poor creature is."
+
+Mary withdrew among the others. Slowly Mrs. De Peyster returned once
+more to life. She hardly knew how she had escaped, save that it had
+been through some miracle of that awful Mr. Pyecroft's amazing tongue.
+
+"By the way, Matilda," she heard Mary remark, "did you read in
+to-night's papers about Mrs. De Peyster's voyage? You know she landed
+to-day."
+
+"No, ma'--Mary," said Matilda.
+
+"The paper said she was so ill all the way across that she wasn't able
+to leave her stateroom once." Mary's voice was very sympathetic. "Why,
+she was so ill she couldn't leave the boat until after dark, hours
+after all the other passengers had gone."
+
+"I never knew mother to be seasick before," said Jack, in deep
+concern.
+
+Judge Harvey said nothing, but his fine, handsome face was disturbed.
+Jack noted the look, and, suddenly catching the Judge's hand, said
+with a burst of boyish frankness:--
+
+"Uncle Bob, you're worried more than any of us! You know I've always
+liked you like a father--and--and here's hoping some day mother'll
+change her mind--and you'll be my father in reality!"
+
+"Thank you, Jack!" the Judge said huskily, gripping Jack's hand.
+
+Over in her corner, beneath her veil, Mrs. De Peyster flushed hotly.
+
+They talked on about the distant Mrs. De Peyster, and she
+listened with keenest ears. They were all so sympathetic about
+her--sick--alone--in far-off Europe. So sympathetic--so very, very
+sympathetic!
+
+As for Mr. Pyecroft, standing on guard beside her, he looked
+appropriately grave. But inside his gravity he was smiling. These
+people had no guess that in a way he was connected with the great
+Mrs. De Peyster of whom they talked--that "Miss Gardner" who was the
+companion to the ailing social leader in France was something more
+than just Miss Gardner. And he felt no reason for revealing his little
+secret.... Clara, the dear little Puritan, would be scandalized by
+this his wildest escapade--by his having used, after all and despite
+her prohibition, Mrs. De Peyster's closed house as a retreat; but when
+she came back from Europe, and he made her see in its proper light
+this gorgeous and profitable lark, she would relent and forgive him.
+Why, of course, she would forgive him.
+
+He was very optimistic, was Mr. Pyecroft; and the founder of his
+family must have been a certain pagan gentleman by the name of Pan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ATTIC ROOM
+
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks when at last, toward one o'clock Jack and
+Mary and Judge Harvey went back to bed, leaving Matilda, Mr. Pyecroft,
+and herself. It had previously been settled that Mr. Pyecroft was
+to have Jack's old room, Matilda was, of course, to have her
+usual quarters, and Mrs. De Peyster was to have the room adjoining
+Matilda's, that formerly was occupied by Mrs. De Peyster's second
+maid.
+
+"Say, that was certainly one close shave," Mr. Pyecroft whispered at
+the door of her room. "Perhaps we'd better beat it from here. If that
+Judge ever places me! And you, if those people ever get a fair look
+at your face, they'll see your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster and they'll
+guess what our game is--sure! You'll promise to be careful?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster promised.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, having been undressed by Matilda, she was
+lying in the dark on a narrow bed, hard, very hard, as hard as Mrs.
+Gilbert's folding contrivance--and once more, after this her second
+move, she was studying the items of her situation.
+
+She had daily to mix with, strive to avoid, Jack and Mary. And Jack
+had casually remarked that Judge Harvey would be frequently dropping
+in.
+
+And there was that bland, incorrigible Pyecroft, whom she seemed to
+have become hopelessly tied to; Pyecroft, irresistibly insisting that
+she should swindle herself, and whom she saw no way of denying.
+
+Suppose Pyecroft should find out? He might.
+
+Suppose Jack and Mary should find out? They might.
+
+Suppose Judge Harvey should find out? He might.
+
+And suppose all this business of her not going to Europe, but
+staying in her shuttered house--her flight from home--her humiliating
+experiences in an ordinary boarding-house where she passed as a
+housekeeper--her being forced into a plan to rob herself--suppose Mrs.
+Allistair should find out? And Mrs. Allistair, she well knew, might
+somehow stumble upon all this; for she remembered how Mrs. Allistair
+had tried, and perhaps was still trying, to get some piquant bit
+of evidence against her in that Duke de Crécy affair. And if Mrs.
+Allistair did find out--
+
+What a scandal!
+
+And since her fate had become so inextricably tied up with the fates
+of others, and since the exposure of others might involve the exposure
+of her, there were yet further sources of danger. For--
+
+There was that awful reporter watching the house, after Jack!
+
+There were the police, after Pyecroft!
+
+She shuddered. This was only the seventh day since her inspired idea
+had been born within her. And it was only that very day that she had
+landed at Cherbourg. Three months must pass before Olivetta, in
+the role of Mrs. De Peyster, would return, and she could be herself
+again--if they could ever, ever manage their expected re-exchange of
+personalities in this awful mess.
+
+Only seven days thus far. Three more months of this!
+
+Three ... more ... months!...
+
+But at length she slept; slept deeply, for she had the gift of sleep
+in its perfection; slept a complete and flawless oblivion. So that
+when she awoke Saturday, refreshed, and glanced blinking about from
+her thin pillow she did not at first remember where she was. This
+low room, four by seven feet, with a narrow bed penitentially hard, a
+stationary wash-basin, a row of iron clothes-hooks, a foot-high oblong
+window above her head--what was it? How had she come here? And had any
+one ever before lived in such a cell?
+
+Then memory came flooding back. This was her second maid's room.
+She was Angelica Simpson Jones, sister of Matilda, a poor, diffident
+creature with defective hearing and pitifully disfigured face. And in
+the house were Mr. Pyecroft, and Jack and Mary, and Judge Harvey was a
+frequent visitor. And besides these, there were all the other sources
+of danger!
+
+She was now poignantly awake.
+
+While she was still in this process of realization, there was a soft
+knock at her door and a whispered, "It's Matilda, ma'am," at her
+keyhole. She unlocked the door, admitted Matilda, and crept back
+into her second maid's bed. They gazed at each other a moment without
+speaking. Matilda's face was gray with awe and helpless woe.
+
+They whispered about their predicament. What should they do? Should
+they flee again?--and how?--and where?--and what good would flight do
+them, especially since Mr. Pyecroft might once more follow? Twice they
+had leaped from the frying-pan, and each time had landed in a fire
+hotter than the one preceding. A third flight might drop them into a
+fire worse even than this in which they now sizzled.
+
+And as for the specific plan which had brought them back--for Mrs. De
+Peyster to steal unnoticed into her suite and hide there--that seemed
+impossible of achievement with all these people circulating about the
+house, especially that all-observing Mr. Pyecroft. If Mr. Pyecroft
+should catch her in one suspicious move, then his quick mind would
+deduce the rest, and everything would be up--everything!
+
+There was, of course, yet another way--to give up and disclose her
+identity herself. But she was now far, far too deeply involved:
+to confess and thus by her own act bring limitless and appalling
+humiliation on herself, this was unthinkable! She must go on, on,
+blindly on--with the desperate hope that in some manner now unseen
+she might in the end disentangle herself and come out of the affair
+undiscovered and with dignity untarnished. The two were still
+whispering over their predicament, when at the door sounded another
+knock, loud and confident. They caught at each other. The knocking was
+repeated.
+
+"Who's that?" Matilda asked, at Mrs. De Peyster's prompting.
+
+"It's Archibald," answered a bland voice.
+
+"Ma'am, shall I let him in?" breathed Matilda.
+
+"We don't dare keep him out," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Matilda admitted him. Even in the semi-darkness of the room, due to
+the green shutters being closed, Mrs. De Peyster could see that he was
+admirably transformed from the raven Mr. Pyecroft of the night before.
+He had on a gray modish suit, with lavender tie and socks to match;
+and looked natty and young and spirited and quite prepared for
+anything.
+
+"Good morning, sisters," he greeted them pleasantly. "I see you are
+admiring my new spring outfit. Not at all bad, is it?" He turned
+slowly about, for their better observation; then grinned and lowered
+his voice: "It's young De Peyster's; found it in his room, and helped
+myself. Burned my clergyman's outfit in the kitchen range before any
+one was up; best to leave no clues lying around."
+
+He, too, had come to talk plans, and quickly Mr. Pyecroft settled
+them. This was a dangerous place for him, with Judge Harvey coming and
+going; but to stay here was a safer risk than to venture forth until
+the hue and cry of the police had quieted. It was a dangerous place
+also for his dear sister Angelica, but if on the plea of indisposition
+she would stay in this dusky room and would keep her disfigured face
+hidden when any member of the household chanced to come in (they would
+all understand, and sympathize with, her painful diffidence),
+why, there was an excellent chance of her pulling through without
+discovery. It was obvious that they dared not keep out Jack and Mary,
+and perhaps Judge Harvey, should these be inspired to make friendly
+calls. To forbid their visits would arouse suspicion. And if it were
+said Angelica was too ill to see any one, then they would demand that
+a doctor be called in--and a doctor would mean exposure. Their visits
+must be permitted; no doubt of that; but if dear Angelica were only
+careful, extremely careful, and kept her head, all would go well.
+
+Yes, summarized Mr. Pyecroft, the best plan for them was to remain
+here for the present. Then when the safe and appropriate moment
+arrived, they could make their get-away.
+
+From quite other reasons, Mrs. De Peyster accepted this plan. After
+the strain of the past week, particularly after the wild emotional
+oscillations of the preceding night, she wished just to lie there in
+the dusk, and breathe--and breathe--and breathe some more--and recover
+life.
+
+Matilda suggested that she bring up breakfast for Mrs. De Peyster, and
+Mr. Pyecroft begged her to discover and set out something below
+for him, for his stomach was a torturing vacuum. Matilda went down,
+leaving Mr. Pyecroft behind in the room, discussing further details of
+their immediate campaign; and presently she returned, trembling, with
+a tray, Jack and Mary just behind her. Mrs. De Peyster did not need
+to be prompted to turn her face toward the wall, and into the deeper
+shadow that there prevailed. Mr. Pyecroft casually sat down upon the
+bed near its head, making an excellent further screen.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft noted that Jack was observing his raiment. "I trust,
+Mr. De Peyster, you will pardon the liberty I have taken with your
+clothes. My own were still wet from last night."
+
+"That's all right," said Jack. "But, say, Matilda, have your sister
+eat her breakfast. What we've come to talk about can wait."
+
+But Matilda's sister, after all, wished no breakfast. And solicitation
+could not rouse in her an appetite.
+
+"Very well," said Jack. "Then to the point. I thought we'd better all
+get together on the matter at once. It's about food."
+
+"Food?" queried Mr. Pyecroft, a bit blankly.
+
+"Yes, and it's some problem, you bet. Here's a house that is supposed
+to be empty. And within this empty house are five adults. Do you get
+me?"
+
+"Isn't it terrible!" cried Mary.
+
+"Five adults," repeated Jack. "How are we going to get food in here
+for them without exciting suspicion?"
+
+"As you say," mused Mr. Pyecroft with a wry face, "that is certainly
+some problem. My own appetite is already one magnitudinous toothache."
+
+Jack enlarged upon their situation.
+
+"Since Judge Harvey tipped me off to the fact that the newspapers
+smelled a story, and since that reporter Mayfair and other reporters
+began to watch this house, I've had to give up going out. We two would
+have starved but for what Judge Harvey and William managed to slip
+in to us. Even with that, we've almost starved. In fact, we've
+been driven by hunger about to the point of giving in, going out,
+acknowledging our marriage and taking the consequences."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, face buried in the shadow, thrilled with a sudden
+rush of hope. If Jack and Mary should leave the house, then half her
+danger would be ended!
+
+"But, you see, since that news yesterday about mother being so sick
+in Europe," Jack continued solicitously, "I feel that, in her weakened
+condition, the news of our marriage might be a very severe shock for
+her. So for her sake we're going to keep the thing secret for a while
+yet, and stick it out here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster could hardly keep back a groan.
+
+"So, now," Jack again propounded, "what the dickens are the five of us
+going to do?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft rubbed his wide mouth for a meditative moment. Then he
+smiled upon Matilda.
+
+"It seems to me, sister dear, that we'll have to put it up to you."
+
+"Up to me?" cried Matilda.
+
+"Yes, Matilda. You belong here; you can come and go as a matter of
+course. You have a sister visiting you; also a brother, but as I have
+requested, the less said about his being here the better. But you can
+go out and openly order provisions for yourself and our sister. And
+you can give a good large order for nourishing canned goods, casually
+mentioning that you are laying in a supply so that you will not have
+to bother again soon with staples. That, with what Judge Harvey and
+William can smuggle in, should keep us provided for."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's suggestion was approved by the majority. As an addendum
+to his proposal Matilda was ordered to answer the bell whenever rung;
+if she did not, with the knowledge abroad that she was in the house,
+a dangerous suspicion might be aroused. But she should be careful when
+she went to the door, very careful.
+
+Matilda was driven forth to make the purchases; Mr. Pyecroft, under
+Jack's guidance, went below to forage for the anæsthetic of immediate
+crumbs; and Mary, tender-heartedly, remained behind to relieve the
+tedium of and give comfort to the invalid. She straightened up the
+room a bit; urged the patient to eat, to no avail; then went out of
+the room for a minute, and reappeared with a book.
+
+"I'm going to read to you, Angelica," she announced, in a loud yet
+nursey voice. "I suppose your taste in books is about the same as
+your sister's. Here's a story I found in Matilda's room. It's called
+'Wormwood.' I'm sure you'll like it."
+
+So placed that she could get all of the dim light that slanted through
+the tiny shuttered window, Mary began, her voice raised to meet the
+need of Mrs. De Peyster's aural handicap. Now Marie Corelli may have
+been the favorite novelist of a certain amiable queen, who somehow
+managed to continue to the age of eighty-two despite her preference.
+But Mrs. De Peyster liked no fiction; and the noble platitudes, the
+resounding moralizings, the prodigious melodrama, the vast caverns
+of words of the queen's favorite made Mrs. De Peyster writhe upon her
+second maid's undentable bed. If only she actually did possess the
+divine gift of defective hearing with which Mr. Pyecroft had afflicted
+her! But in the same loud voice, trying to conceal her own boredom,
+Mary read on, on, on--patiently on.
+
+At length Matilda returned. Mary closed the book with a sigh of
+relief, which on the instant she repressed.
+
+"I'll read to you for a while two or three times a day," she promised.
+"I know what a comfort it is to a sick person to hear a story she
+likes."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not even thank her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+DOMESTIC SCENES
+
+
+The provisions arrived; Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably
+competent and willing in the matter of their preparation; and such
+as had appetites gorged themselves. Also Mr. Pyecroft proved himself
+agreeably competent and willing to do his full share, and more, in the
+matter of cleaning up.
+
+Later in the forenoon, Mary again called on Mrs. De Peyster. "I hope
+you don't mind a little praise directed at your family, Angelica,"
+she said, in the loud voice she had adopted for that unfortunate.
+"At first Jack and I thought your brother Archibald was--well--too
+pompous. You know, clergymen are often that way. But the more we see
+of him, the better we like him. He's so pleasant, so helpful. I hope
+the little trouble he spoke of being in with the police isn't serious,
+for Jack and I think he's simply splendid!"
+
+Archibald's sister seemed indifferent to this praise of her brother.
+At least she said nothing. So Mary took up "Wormwood" and half-shouted
+another installment.
+
+The spirits of Jack and Mary, which during the previous evening and
+the earlier part of this morning had been subdued by concern over the
+illness of the distant Mrs. De Peyster, had, an hour before Mary's
+second visit, become suddenly hilarious. While Mary read, Mrs. De
+Peyster wondered over this change. When the book was closed upon the
+installment, she hesitatingly asked concerning this mystery.
+
+"It's news about Mrs. De Peyster," answered Mary. "But of course it
+could hardly interest you much, for you've never met her--at least I
+supposed not, Angelica."
+
+"I've--seen her," corrected Angelica. "What--what news?"
+
+"Why," cried Mary in her soft, happy contralto, "Judge Harvey just
+telephoned that the latest papers contain cables saying that Mrs. De
+Peyster has just left Paris on that long motor trip of hers to the
+Balkans. That means that Jack's mother must be quite well again. We
+all feel so relieved--so very, very relieved!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster also felt relief--and some badly needed courage flowed
+into her. Olivetta's part of the plan, at least, was working out as
+per schedule.
+
+Finally Mary went, Matilda brought in her lunch, and the afternoon
+began to wear itself away, Mrs. De Peyster keeping most of the time
+to the hard, narrow bed of the second maid. Twice, however, she got up
+while Matilda guarded her door, stood at her high, cell-like
+window, and peered through the slats of the closed shutter, past the
+purple-and-lavender plumes of the wistaria that climbed on up to the
+roof, and out upon the soft, green, sunny spaces of Washington Square.
+The Square, which she had been proud to live upon but rarely walked
+in,--only children and nursemaids and the commoner people actually
+walked in it,--the Square looked so expansive, so free, so inviting.
+And this tiny cell--these days of early May were unseasonably,
+hot--seemed to grow more narrow and more stifling every moment. How
+had any one ever, ever voluntarily endured it!
+
+Mrs. De Peyster learned that Jack was studying at home, and studying
+hard. With the return of Matilda to the house, Jack repeated his
+instruction concerning the piano: Matilda was to tell any inquisitive
+folk that Mrs. De Peyster had bought a player-piano shortly before
+she sailed, and that she, Matilda, was operating it to while away
+the tedious hours. This device made it possible for Mary to begin her
+neglected practice.
+
+With the certainty of being bored, yet with an irrepressible
+curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the morning
+and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the instrument. She would
+be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no poetic suavity of touch, no
+sense of interpretation.
+
+When from the rear drawing-room the grand piano sent upwards to Mrs.
+De Peyster its first strains, they were rapid, careless scales and
+runs. Quite as she'd expected. Then the player began Chopin's Ballade
+in G Minor. Mrs. De Peyster listened contemptuously; then with
+rebellious interest; then with complete absorption. That person below
+could certainly play the piano--brilliantly, feelingly, with the touch
+and insight of an artist. Mrs. De Peyster's soul rose and fell with
+the soul of the song, and when the piano, after its uprushing, almost
+human closing cry, fell sharply into silence, she was for the moment
+that piano's vassal.
+
+Then she remembered who was the player. Instinctively her emotions
+chilled; and she lay stiffly in bed, hostile, on guard, defying the
+charm of the further music.
+
+Suddenly the piano broke off in the very middle of Liszt's Rhapsodic
+Number Twelve. The way the music snapped off startled her. There was
+something inexplicably ominous about it. Intuitively she felt that
+something was happening below. She wondered what it could be.
+
+An hour passed; she continued wondering; then Matilda entered the
+attic room, behind her Mr. Pyecroft and Mary.
+
+"Sister"--such familiarity was difficult to Matilda, even though
+she knew this familiarity was necessary to maintain the roles
+circumstances and Mr. Pyecroft had forced upon them--"sister," she
+quavered, "I thought you might be interested to know that the bell
+rang awhile ago, and I went down, and there was a man--with a note to
+me from--from Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster, in an almost natural tone.
+
+"It--it's disturbed us all so much that I thought you might like to
+look at it. Here it is."
+
+Shakingly, Matilda held out a sheet of paper. Shakingly, but without
+turning to face her visitors, Mrs. De Peyster took it. There was
+enough light to see that the letter was written on heavy paper
+embossed at the top with a flag and "S.S. Plutonia," and was dated the
+evening she had supposedly gone on board. The note read:--
+
+  DEAR MATILDA:--
+
+  Just at this late moment I recall something which,
+  in the hurry of getting off, I forgot to tell you about.
+  This is that I left instructions with Mr. Howard, an
+  expert cabinet-maker, who has previously done
+  things for me under the supervision of the Tiffany
+  Studios, to go over all my furniture while I am abroad
+  and touch up and repair such pieces as may be out
+  of order. I am sending this letter to Mr. Howard
+  for him or his representative to present for identification
+  to you when he is ready to undertake the
+  work. See that he has every facility.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lay dizzily still. Such an order she had never given.
+But the writing was amazingly similar to her own.
+
+"Well, Matilda?" she managed to inquire, in a voice she tried to make
+like the sickly Angelica's.
+
+"When the man showed me the note, I tried to put him off; but he
+simply wouldn't go and he followed me in. His orders, he said. I
+showed the letter to Mary and Mr. Pyecroft. The man saw them. They
+said call up Judge Harvey and ask him what to do. I did and
+Judge Harvey came down and he examined the letter and said it was
+undoubtedly written by Mrs. De Peyster. And he called up the Tiffany
+Studios, and they said they'd had such a telephone order from Mrs. De
+Peyster."
+
+"Jack and I never dreamed that his mother might have left orders to
+have people in here to renovate the house!" cried Mary in dismay.
+
+"Then--then Judge Harvey asked the man to put off the work," Matilda
+went on. "The man was very polite, but he said his orders from Mrs.
+De Peyster had been strict, and if he wasn't allowed to go on with the
+work, he said, in order to protect himself, he'd have to cable Mrs.
+De Peyster that the people occupying her house wouldn't let him. Judge
+Harvey didn't want Mrs. De Peyster to find out about Mr. and Mrs.
+Jack, so he told the man to go ahead."
+
+"And the man?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Where is he?"
+
+"He's down in the drawing-room, beginning on the tables."
+
+"It seems to me," suggested Mr. Pyecroft, "that since this
+summer hotel is filling so rapidly, we might as well withdraw our
+advertisements from the papers."
+
+"I wonder, ma'--" Matilda checked herself just in time. "I wonder,
+Angelica," she exclaimed desperately, "who it'll be next?"
+
+"Isn't it simply awful!" cried Mary. "But Jack's gone into hiding and
+isn't going to stir--and the man didn't see him--and I'm your niece,
+you know. So Jack and I are in no danger. Anyhow, Judge Harvey gave
+the man a--a large fee not to mention any one being in the house
+besides Matilda, and the man promised. So I guess all of us are safe."
+
+But no such sentiment of security comforted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Who was the man?
+
+What was he here for?
+
+One thing was certain: he and those behind him had made clever and
+adequate preparations for his admission. And she dared not expose him,
+and order him out--for only that very morning she had left Paris on
+her motor trip! She could only lie on the second maid's narrow bed and
+await developments.
+
+Matilda went out to attend to her domestic duties below; Mr. Pyecroft
+withdrew; and Mary, the sympathetic Mary,--Mary who had no worry, for
+the cabinet-maker below would in due time complete his routine work
+and take himself away,--Mary remained behind to apply to the invalid
+the soothing mental poultice of "Wormwood." But "Wormwood" did not
+torment Mrs. De Peyster as it had done in the forenoon. She did
+not hear it. She was thinking of the cabinet-maker below. But Mary
+faithfully continued; she did not cease when Mr. Pyecroft reëntered.
+There was a slightly amused look in that gentleman's face, but he
+said nothing, and seated himself on the foot of the bed and gazed
+thoughtfully at the wall of scaling kalsomine--and Mary's loudly
+pitched voice went on, and on, and on.
+
+They were thus engaged when Matilda returned. She was all a-tremble.
+Behind her, holding her arm, was a smallish, sharp-faced young man.
+
+"He--he came in with the roast," Matilda stammered wildly.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft had sprung up from the bed.
+
+"And who is _he_?"
+
+"Mr. Mayfair, of the 'Record,'" answered the young man, loosing
+Matilda and stepping forward.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shivered frantically down beneath the bedclothes, her
+see-sawing hopes once more at the bottom. Mary leaned limply back in
+the shadow and hid her face.
+
+"He tried to question me--and he made me bring him--" Matilda was
+chattering.
+
+"May I inquire what it is you wish, Mr. Mayfair?" requested Mr.
+Pyecroft--and Matilda fled.
+
+"You may," rapidly said the undeceivable Mr. Mayfair. Mr. Mayfair
+had learned and made his own one of the main tricks of that method of
+police inquisition known as the "third degree": to hurl a fact, or
+a suspicion with all the air of its being the truth, with bomb-like
+suddenness into the face of the unprepared suspect. "I know Jack De
+Peyster has made a runaway marriage! I know he and his wife are living
+secretly in this house!"
+
+"Why, this news is simply astounding!" exclaimed Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Come, now. Bluffing won't work with me. You see, I'm on to it all!"
+
+"I presume it's a newspaper story you're after?" Mr. Pyecroft inquired
+politely.
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Then"--in the same polite tone--"if you know it all, why don't you
+print it?"
+
+"I want the heart-story of the runaway lovers," declared Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Mayfair," Mr. Pyecroft suggested gently, "that you
+are the one who is only bluffing. You have a suspicion, and are trying
+to find evidence to support it."
+
+"I know, I tell you!"
+
+"Then may I inquire to whom young Mr. De Peyster is married?"
+
+"I know all right!"
+
+"Ah, then, you don't really know," said Mr. Pyecroft mildly.
+
+"I know, I tell you!" Mr. Mayfair repeated in his sharp, third-degree
+manner.
+
+"Then why trouble us? Why not, as I have already suggested, print it?"
+
+"I'm here to see them!" Mr. Mayfair said peremptorily. Then his tone
+became soft, diplomatic. "The housekeeper spoke about referring me to
+her brother. You are her brother, I suppose?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Mr. Mayfair smiled persuasively. "If you would tell me what you know
+about them, and lead me to where they are, my paper would be quite
+willing to be liberal. Say twenty dollars."
+
+"I'd accept it gladly," said Mr. Pyecroft, "but I know nothing of the
+matter."
+
+"One hundred," bid Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"I would have done it for twenty, if I could. But I couldn't do it for
+a thousand. They are not here."
+
+"I know better!" snapped Mr. Mayfair, his manner sharp again. "Who's
+that?" he demanded suspiciously, pointing at Mary's shadow-veiled
+figure.
+
+"That? That is my niece. The daughter of my sister Angelica here."
+
+"Is she your mother?" demanded Mr. Mayfair of Mary.
+
+"Yes, sir," breathed Mary from her corner.
+
+"Madam, is she your daughter?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not reply.
+
+"Pardon me, my sister is ill, and somewhat deaf," put in Mr. Pyecroft.
+"Angelica, dear," he half shouted, "the gentleman wishes to know if
+this is your daughter."
+
+"Yes," from Mrs. De Peyster in smothered voice.
+
+"Well, I know they're here," doggedly insisted Mr. Mayfair, "and I'm
+going to see them! I have witnesses who saw them enter."
+
+"Indeed!" Mr. Pyecroft looked surprised and puzzled. "The witnesses
+can swear to seeing young Mr. De Peyster come in?"
+
+"They can swear to seeing a young man and woman come in. And I know
+they were Mr. De Peyster and his wife."
+
+"That's strange." Suddenly Mr. Pyecroft's face cleared. "I think I
+begin to understand! It was at night, wasn't it, when the witnesses
+saw them come in?"
+
+"At night, yes."
+
+"I'm sorry you have been caused all this trouble, Mr. Mayfair,"--in
+a tone of very genuine regret. "But there has been a blunder--a
+perfectly natural one, I now see. Undoubtedly the young couple your
+witnesses saw were my niece and myself."
+
+"What!" cried Mr. Mayfair. For a moment the undeflectable star
+reporter was all chagrin. Then he was all suspicion. "But why," he
+snapped out, "should you and your niece slip in at night? And why
+should you live here in hiding?"
+
+"You force me into a disagreeable and humiliating admission. The fact
+is, our family is in severe financial straits. We simply had no money
+to live on, and no prospects in sight. To help us out temporarily,
+my sister Matilda invited us to stay here while Mrs. De Peyster is in
+Europe. But for Mrs. De Peyster to know of our being here might cost
+my sister Matilda her position, which accounts for our attempt to get
+in unseen and to live here secretly. We had to protect Matilda against
+the facts leaking out."
+
+Mr. Mayfair stared searchingly at Mr. Pyecroft's face. It was
+confused, as was quite natural after the confession of a not very
+honorable, and certainly not very dignified, procedure. But it was
+candor itself.
+
+"Hell!" he burst out irefully. "Some one has certainly given me a bum
+steer. But I'll get that young couple yet, you see!"
+
+"I'm sorry about the story," said Mr. Pyecroft. And then with a
+slight smile, apologetic, as of one who knows he is taking liberties:
+"Perhaps, as compensation for the story you missed, you could write a
+society story about Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper entertaining for the
+summer her brother, sister, and niece."
+
+Mr. Mayfair grinned, ever so little. "You've got some sense of humor,
+old top," he approved dryly.
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Pyecroft, with a gratified air.
+
+He led Mr. Mayfair past the room within which Jack was hidden, down to
+the servants' door and courteously let him out. Two minutes later
+Mr. Pyecroft was again in the second maid's room. Mary eagerly sprang
+forward and caught his hand.
+
+"I waited to thank you--you were simply superb!" she cried
+enthusiastically. "I've been telling your sister how wonderful you
+are. She's got to forgive you--I'll make her! And Jack will die
+laughing when I tell him." She herself burst into excited merriment
+that half-choked her. "Just think of it--all the while he was
+looking--looking a big story straight in the face!"
+
+She was off to tell Jack.
+
+"One might add, looking two big stories straight in the face, eh,
+Angelica, my dear?" chuckled Mr. Pyecroft, _alias_ Mr. Preston.
+
+One might add, three big stories, shivered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+But she did not add this aloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR
+
+
+The amused smile which Mr. Pyecroft had worn when he had entered,
+and which he had subdued to thoughtful sobriety while "Wormwood" was
+assuaging the invalid's tribulations, began now to reappear. It grew.
+Mrs. De Peyster could but notice it, for he was smiling straight at
+her--that queer, whimsical, twisted smile of his.
+
+"What is it?" she felt forced to ask.
+
+"We three are not the only ones, my dear Angelica," he replied, "who
+are trying to slip one across on Mrs. De Peyster. Our friend the
+cabinet-maker is on the same job. I might remark, that he's about as
+much a cabinet-maker as yourself."
+
+"What is he?"
+
+"A detective, my dear."
+
+"A detective!"
+
+"The variety known as 'private,'" enlarged Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"What--what makes you think so?"
+
+"Well, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on our new
+guest--unobtrusively, of course. When I slipped out a little while
+ago it was to watch him. He was working in the library; entirely by
+accident, my dear Angelica, my eye chanced to be at the keyhole. He
+was examining the drawers of the big writing-table; and not paying so
+much attention to the drawers as to the letters in them. And from
+the rapidity with which he was examining the letters it was plain the
+cabinet-maker knew exactly what he was after."
+
+"What--do you think--it means?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Some person is trying to get something on Mrs. De Peyster," returned
+Mr. Pyecroft. "What, I don't know. But the detective party, I've
+got sized up. He's one of those gracious and indispensable
+noblest-works-of-God who dig up evidence for divorce trials--lay traps
+for the so-called 'guilty-parties,' ransack waste-paper baskets for
+incriminating scraps of letters, bribe servants--and if they find
+anything, willing to blackmail either side; remarkably impartial and
+above prejudice in this respect, one must admit. Altogether a most
+delectable breed of gentlemen. What would our best society do without
+them? And then again, what would they do without our best society?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural dilemma.
+
+"Twin and interdependent pillars of America's shining morality,"
+continued Mr. Pyecroft. "Now, like you, Angelica," he mused, "I wonder
+what the detective party is after; what the lofty Lady De Peyster can
+have been doing that is spicy? However," smiling at her, "Angelica, my
+dear, in the words of the great and good poet, 'We should worry.'"
+
+It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room and closed
+the door behind her. She was almost breathless.
+
+"He asked me for the key to"--"your" almost escaped Matilda--"to Mrs.
+De Peyster's suite. He'd been particularly ordered to touch up Mrs. De
+Peyster's private desk, he said."
+
+"And you gave him the key?" inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the very
+question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster's lips.
+
+"I told him I didn't have a key," said Matilda.
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"But," continued Matilda, "he said it didn't matter, for he said he'd
+been brought up a locksmith. And he picked the lock right before my
+eyes."
+
+"That's one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never properly
+instructed in," said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost plaintively. "I
+never could pick a lock."
+
+"And where--is he now?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"In Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room, retouching her desk."
+
+"He's certainly after something, and after it hot--and probably
+something big," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "Any idea what it can be,
+Matilda?"
+
+Matilda had none.
+
+"Any idea, Angelica?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified idea;
+but she likewise said she had none.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could give way
+to her feelings, talk with Matilda. But Mr. Pyecroft stretched out
+his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked
+thoughtfully at the ceiling. He had an intellectual interest in some
+imaginary escapade of the far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more;
+and he was obviously comfortable where he was.
+
+Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of imperative appeal
+from Mrs. De Peyster. And so the three sat on in silence for a time,
+Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft
+loungingly unconcerned.
+
+And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which Mr.
+Pyecroft answered. The cabinet-maker entered. He wore a slouching,
+ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made bow tie snapped
+by an elastic over his collar-button--the conventional garb of the
+artisan who aspires for the air of gentlemanliness while at work. His
+face, though fresh-shaven, was dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble
+of a heavy beard; his eyes were furtive, with that masked gleam of
+Olympian all-confidence which a detective can never entirely mask.
+
+"How are you, Miss Simpson?" he said to Matilda. "Your niece told me
+I'd find you here, so I came right up. Could I have a word with you
+outside?"
+
+"Couldn't you have it here just as well," suggested Mr. Pyecroft--who
+somehow had imperceptibly taken on an air of mediocrity. "We're all in
+the family, you know."
+
+"Mebbe it'd be better to have it here," agreed the cabinet-maker. "You
+other two are living in the house, so I understand, because you're
+hard up; so your needing money may help what I'm after." He suddenly
+and visibly expanded with importance. "When the time comes to put my
+cards on the table, I don't waste a minute in showing my hand. That
+cabinet-maker business was all con. I'm an officer of the law."
+
+"You don't say!" cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.
+
+"A detective. Brown's my name. I'm here hunting for something. I got
+part of what I wanted, but not all. What I want isn't here, or I'd
+have found it; there's only three or four places it'd have been locked
+up. I know," he ended, with driving confidence, "that a letter was
+written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de Crécy saying he couldn't
+marry her. That letter is what I'm after."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mr. Pyecroft. And then with his wide-eyed mediocrity,
+"I wonder whom you represent."
+
+"Mrs. Allistair!" exclaimed Matilda.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the same.
+
+"Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?" queried the
+futile-looking brother.
+
+"Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party," said Mr.
+Brown. "That letter is what I'm after, and I'm willing to pay for it.
+That's what ought to concern you folks."
+
+"But if there ever was such a letter," commented Mr. Pyecroft with his
+simple-minded manner, "perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed it."
+
+"Perhaps she did. But I found two others he wrote her. And if she
+didn't tear it up or burn it, I'm going to have it!"
+
+He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly, suggestively,
+impressively. "Confidential servants, who think a bit of number one,
+should be on the lookout for documents and letters that may be of
+future value to themselves. I guess you get me. For the original of
+the letter I'm willing to come across with five hundred dollars."
+
+"But I have no such letter!" cried Matilda.
+
+"I might make it a thousand," conceded the detective. "And," he added,
+"the money might come in very handy for your sick sister there."
+
+"But I tell you I have no such letter!"
+
+"Say fifteen hundred, then."
+
+"But I haven't got it!" cried Matilda.
+
+"Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is. Some of his
+letters he signed only with an initial. Here is a sample of the Duke's
+handwriting--one of his letters I found."
+
+"I tell you I have--"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Brown," interrupted the ineffectual-looking Mr.
+Pyecroft. "May I see the handwriting, please?"
+
+Firmly holding it in his own hands, the detective displayed the letter
+to Mr. Pyecroft--an odd, foreign hand, the paper of superfine quality,
+but without crest or any other embossing. Mr. Pyecroft studied it
+closely; his look grew puzzled; then he turned to Matilda.
+
+"I don't exactly remember, Matilda, but it seems to me that there was
+handwriting like this among the letters you sent to me to keep for
+you."
+
+Matilda gaped at Mr. Pyecroft. Mrs. De Peyster, half-rising on an
+elbow, peered in amazed stupefaction at her incalculable young man of
+the sea.
+
+"Why, of course, she'd have turned it over to some one else for
+safe-keeping!" the detective cried triumphantly. "Where is it?" he
+demanded of Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"I'm not so sure I have it," said the shallow Mr. Pyecroft
+apologetically. "It just seems to me that I saw writing like this.
+If I have, it's over in a little room I keep. But if I really do have
+it"--with the shrewd look of a small mind--"we couldn't sell it for
+fifteen hundred."
+
+"How much d'you want?"
+
+"Well"--Mr. Pyecroft hesitated--"say--say three thousand."
+
+"Good God, that's plain blackmail!"
+
+"It may be, but poor people like us don't often get a chance like
+this."
+
+"I won't pay it!"
+
+"Perhaps, then,"--apologetically,--"we'd better deal with Mrs.
+Allistair direct."
+
+"Oh, well,--if you've got the letter, we won't scrap about the price.
+I'll come across."
+
+"Cash?" shrewdly queried the doltish brother.
+
+"Sure. I don't run no risks with checks."
+
+"I--we--wouldn't let the letter go out of our hands until it's paid
+for. And we won't go to any office. You yourself can say whether it's
+what you want or not? And you can pay right here?"
+
+"Sure. I'm the judge of what I want. And when I go for a big thing,
+I go prepared." Mr. Brown opened his coat, and significantly patted a
+bulge on the right side of his vest.
+
+"Well, then, I'll go to my room and see if I have it. But you'll have
+to wait here, for"--again with the shrewd look of the ineffectual
+man--"you might follow me, and with some more detectives you might
+take the letter from me."
+
+"Soon wait here as anywhere else. Anyhow, I'll want your sister's
+word," nodding at Matilda, "that the letter is the same. But don't
+worry--nobody's going to take anything from you."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft started out, then paused.
+
+"I just happened to remember; you said the letter might not be signed.
+Hadn't you better let me have one of the Duke de Crécy's letters, so I
+can verify the handwriting?"
+
+"I don't mind; these don't tell much." And the detective handed over
+one letter.
+
+"It may be an hour or two before I can get back; the letters are
+packed away and I've got to go through them and compare them."
+
+He slipped out. Mr. Brown, as he watched him, could hardly conceal his
+contempt.
+
+The detective sat heavily down. Mrs. De Peyster was sick with
+apprehension as to what that incomprehensible Mr. Pyecroft was about
+to do. She wanted to talk to Matilda. But the two dared not speak with
+this confident, omniscient, detectorial presence between them. Mr.
+Brown condescendingly tried to make conversation by complimenting
+Matilda on her shrewdness; he'd helped a lot of clever servants like
+her to snug little fortunes.
+
+But Matilda proved a poor conversationalist.
+
+Close upon two hours passed before Mr. Pyecroft returned. He drew a
+letter from his pocket, firmly gripped its edges with both hands, and
+held it out to Mr. Brown.
+
+"Is this the one?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you not to be afraid; no one's going to steal it from
+you."
+
+He took the letter from Mr. Pyecroft's unwilling and untrustful hands
+and glanced it through. The next moment it was as though an arc light
+of excitement had been switched on within his ample person. With
+swift, expert fingers he compared the texture of the paper of the new
+letter and the earlier ones.
+
+"Great God!" he exulted. "Same paper--same handwriting--and it says
+just what I expected--and signed 'De Crécy'!"
+
+He held out the letter to Matilda.
+
+"Of course, you identify this as the letter you found?"
+
+But Matilda shrank away as though the letter was deadly poison.
+
+"I never saw the thing before!"
+
+"What's that?" cried the detective.
+
+"She's trying to hold out for more money," explained Mr. Pyecroft.
+From behind the detective's broad back he gave Matilda a warning look;
+then said softly: "Of course, it's the letter, isn't it, sister?"
+
+Matilda thought only of saving the hour. The day would have to save
+itself.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Might--might I see it?" huskily inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Sure. The more that corroborates it the better."
+
+Her face to the wall, the faint light slanting across her shoulder,
+she glanced at the letter. The Duke's own handwriting! And a jilting
+letter!--politely worded--but a jilting letter!... Mrs. De Peyster
+jilted!... If that were ever to come out--
+
+For a moment she lay enfeebled and overwhelmed with horror. Then
+convulsively she crushed the letter in her hands.
+
+"See here--wha' d' you mean?" cried the startled detective, springing
+forward; in a moment his powerful hands rescued the document.
+
+"Both of my sisters think we ought to stand out for more money,"
+apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "And I'm not so sure they're not right."
+
+"We've made our bargain already," quickly returned Mr. Brown. "And
+that's just how we'll settle."
+
+He started to slip the letter into a pocket. But Mr. Pyecroft caught
+hold of it.
+
+"How about the money?"
+
+"You mean you don't trust me?"
+
+"I'm not saying that," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "But this means a lot
+to us. We can't afford to run any risks."
+
+"All right, then."
+
+[Illustration: "SAME PAPER--SAME HANDWRITING!"]
+
+Mr. Brown released the letter, drew a leather wallet from inside his
+vest, counted off six five-hundred-dollar bills, returned the wallet
+and held out the bills. The exchange was made. The detective carefully
+put the letter into a thick manila envelope, which he licked and
+sealed and put inside his vest to keep company with the wallet.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft counted the bills, slowly, three or four times; then
+looked up.
+
+"I bet my sisters were right; you would have paid more," he said
+regretfully, greedily.
+
+"Never you mind what I would have paid!" retorted the detective,
+buttoning his coat over the letter.
+
+"You'd have paid twice that!" Mr. Pyecroft exclaimed disappointedly.
+
+The detective, triumphant, could not resist grinning confirmingly.
+
+"We've been outwitted!" cried Mr. Pyecroft. He turned to the two woman
+contritely. "If I'd only heeded you--let you have managed the affair!"
+
+"You people got a mighty good price," commented Detective Brown.
+
+"Well--perhaps so," sighed Mr. Pyecroft. Chagrin gave way to curiosity
+in his face. "I wonder, now, how Mrs. Allistair is going to use the
+letter?"
+
+"That's none of my business."
+
+"She must think she can do a lot with it," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "If
+the letter, or its substance, were printed, say in 'Town Gossip,' I
+suppose it would mean the end of Mrs. De Peyster's social leadership,
+and Mrs. Allistair would then have things her own way."
+
+"Can't say," said the detective. But he winked knowingly.
+
+When he had gone Mr. Pyecroft stood listening until the descending
+tread had thinned into silence. Then he turned about to Mrs. De
+Peyster and Matilda, and his wide mouth twisted up and rightward into
+that pagan, delighted smile of his. He laughed without noise; but
+every cell of him was laughing.
+
+"Well, sisters dear, we're cleaning up--eh! I had the devil's own time
+matching that letter-paper at Brentanos', and I ran a pretty big risk
+leaving the house--but, say, it was worth it!" For a moment he could
+only laugh. "First, let's split the pile. I told you I was always
+square with my pals. Here's a thousand for you, Angelica,"--slipping
+two bills under Mrs. De Peyster's pillow,--"and a thousand for you,
+Matilda,"--thrusting the amount into her hands,--"and a thousand for
+your dear brother Archibald,"--slipping his share into a vest pocket.
+
+Neither of the two women dared refuse the money.
+
+"But--but," Mrs. De Peyster gasped thickly, "it's an outrageous
+forgery!"
+
+"A forgery, I grant you, my dear Angelica," Mr. Pyecroft said
+good-humoredly. "But if by outrageous you mean crude or obvious, I
+beg to correct you. Even if I must say it myself, that forgery was
+strictly first-class."
+
+"But it's a forgery!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"My dears, don't you worry about that," he reassured them soothingly.
+"There'll be no comeback. That detective and his agency, and Mrs.
+Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then tried bribery.
+They're all in bad themselves. So stop worrying; you're in no danger
+at all from arrest for forgery or fraud. There'll never be a peep from
+any of them."
+
+This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not acknowledge
+herself comforted.
+
+"Besides," Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful
+contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to slip something
+over on it's those damned vermin of private detectives! And the swells
+that employ them! I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung good and
+plenty!"
+
+"But Mrs. De Peyster!" wailed that lady--she couldn't help it, though
+she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of complete annihilation.
+"When they publish that letter the damage will have been done. It's a
+forgery, but nobody will believe her when she says so, and she can't
+prove it! She'll be ruined!"
+
+"Well," Mr. Pyecroft commented casually, "I don't see where that
+bothers us. She's pretty much of a stiff, too, and I wouldn't mind
+handing her one while we're at it. But, Lord, this won't hurt her a
+bit."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sat suddenly upright.
+
+"Not hurt her?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" chortled Mr. Pyecroft. "Why, when our excellent
+friend, Mr. Brown, presents the Duke's letter to-morrow morning to his
+chief, or to Mrs. Allistair's agent,--if he ever gets that far,--he
+will turn triumphantly over one sheet of Brentanos' very best
+notepaper--blank."
+
+"Blank?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's right eyelid drooped in its remarkable wink; his mouth
+again tilted high to starboard in its impish smile.
+
+"You see," he remarked, "the Duke's letter was written in an ink of my
+own invention. One trifling idiosyncracy of that ink is that it fades
+completely and permanently in exactly twelve hours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
+
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's grin grew by degrees more delighted: became the smile
+of a whimsical genius of devil-may-care, of an exultantly mischievous
+Pan. But he offered not a word of comment upon his work. He was an
+artist who was, in the main, content to achieve his masterpieces and
+leave comment and blame and praise to his public and his critics.
+
+He stood up.
+
+"I believe I promised to peel the potatoes and put on the roast," he
+remarked, and went out.
+
+"Matilda," breathed Mrs. De Peyster, numbed and awed, still aghast,
+"did you ever dream there could be such a man?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am,--never!"--tragically, wildly.
+
+"Whatever _is_ he going to do next?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. Almost anything."
+
+"And whatever is going to happen to us next?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it's terrible to think about! I'm sure I can't even guess!
+Mr. Pyecroft, and all the others, and all these things happening--I'm
+sure they'll be the death of me, ma'am!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sprang from her bed. Despite Matilda's cheap
+dressing-gown which she wore as appropriate to her station, she made
+a splendid figure of raging majesty, hands clenched, eyes blazing,
+furiously erect.
+
+"That man is outrageous!" she stormed. "I cannot, and shall not, stand
+him any longer! We must, and shall, get rid of him!" Her voice rang
+with its accustomed tone of all-conquering determination. "Matilda, we
+are going to do it! I say we are going to do it!"
+
+Matilda gazed admiringly at her magnificently aroused mistress. "Of
+course, you'll do it, ma'am," she said with conviction.
+
+"I cannot endure him another minute!" Mrs. De Peyster raged on. "At
+once, he goes out of this house! Or we do!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am," repeated Matilda in her adoring voice. And then
+after a moment, she added quaveringly: "But please, ma'am,--how are we
+going to do it?"
+
+The outraged and annihilatory Mrs. De Peyster gazed at Matilda,
+utterer of practical common-places. As she gazed the splendid flames
+within her seemed slowly to flicker out, and she sank back upon her
+bed. Yes, how were they going to do it?
+
+In cooler mood they discussed that question, without discovering a
+solution; discussed it until it was time for Matilda to go downstairs
+to perform her share of the preparation of the communal dinner. Left
+alone, her fury now sunk to sober ashes, Mrs. De Peyster continued the
+exploration of possibilities, with the same negative result.
+
+Matilda brought up her dinner on a tray, then returned to the kitchen;
+for though the others were all doing fair tasks, to Matilda of twenty
+years' experience fell the oversight of the thousand details of the
+house. Presently Mary appeared, on one of her visits of mercy--full of
+relief that the cabinet-maker had ended his work so soon, thus setting
+Jack free.
+
+But before beginning the anodynous "Wormwood," she launched into
+another high-voltage eulogy of Angelica's brother. Even more than they
+had at first thought was he willing and competent and agreeable in the
+matter of their common household labor; he was not intrusive; he was
+rich with clever and well-informed talk when they all laid aside
+work to be sociable. In fact, as she had said before, he was simply
+splendid!
+
+"Now, I do hope, Angelica, that you are going to forgive your
+brother," Mary insisted. "He really means well. I think he's what he
+is because he has never had a fair chance." And then more boldly:
+"I think the fault is largely yours and Matilda's. Matilda says your
+parents died when you were all young; and he admitted that he does not
+even remember them. And he also admitted, when I pressed him, that you
+and Matilda had not given him very much attention during his boyhood.
+You and Matilda are older; you should have brought him up more
+carefully; you are both seriously to blame for what he is. So I hope,"
+she concluded, "that both of you will forgive him and help him."
+
+Once more Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to make response.
+
+"I have noted particularly that Matilda does not seem cordial and
+forgiving," Mary was continuing, when the prodigal brother himself
+dropped in. With her pretty, determined manner, Mary renewed her
+efforts at reconciliation in the estranged family. Mr. Pyecroft
+was penitent without being humble, and whenever a question was put
+directly to Mrs. De Peyster his was the tongue that answered; he was
+quite certain his sister Angelica would relent and receive him back
+into her respect and love once he had fully proved his worthiness.
+
+"I must say, Mr. Simpson, that I think you have an admirably forgiving
+nature," declared Mary. It was clear, though she was silent on the
+matter, that she considered his sisters to have cold, hard, New
+England hearts.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, in the high-pitched voice required by
+the invalid's misfortune, read "Wormwood" for an hour--until Jack came
+to the door and announced that Judge Harvey had again called on them.
+Alone, Mrs. De Peyster pondered her poignant problem, What should she
+do?--wishful that Matilda were present to talk the affair over with
+her. But Matilda was still busy in the kitchen with the odd jobs of
+night-end.
+
+Toward ten o'clock Mr. Pyecroft came in again. He stood and gazed
+silently down upon her. The one electric light showed her an odd, dry
+smile on Mr. Pyecroft's face.
+
+"What is it?" Mrs. De Peyster asked in fear.
+
+"Really, Angelica, you're not half so clever as I believed you."
+
+"What is it?" she repeated huskily.
+
+"This pearl." And from a pocket he drew out the pendant he had
+appropriated the night before in Mrs. Gilbert's boarding-house.
+"I thought we ought to be prepared with more cash in hand for our
+get-away when we decide to make it. So an hour ago I slipped out the
+back way, and made for a safe pawnbroker I know of. Angelica, you're
+easy. This pearl is nothing but imitation. And you fell for it!" He
+shook his head sorrowingly, chidingly. "Here's one case where remorse
+might be highly proper--and safest; better just mail it back to the
+party you lifted it from."
+
+With good-humored contempt he tossed the pendant upon the bed. Mrs. De
+Peyster clutched it and thrust it beneath her pillow.
+
+"I believe, Angelica, my dear," he commented, "that in view of the
+capacity this pearl incident has revealed, it is strictly up to me to
+assume charge of every detail of our plan."
+
+He sat down and in his fluent manner discussed the day's developments
+and their preparations for the future; and he was still talking when,
+fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Matilda entered. Her face,
+of late so often ashen, was ashen as though almost from habit.
+
+"Oh, oh," she quavered, "the servants' bell rang--and I answered it,
+like I'd been told to do--and in stepped four men--two of them the
+policemen we let in last night, and two men I never saw before--and
+they asked if they might speak to my brother who was visiting me. And
+I--I promised to call him down. Oh, ma'--Angelica--"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft, what does this mean?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's usual perfect composure was gone. His face was
+gleamingly alert; sharp as a razor's edge.
+
+"God knows how they've done it," he snapped out. "But it means they've
+tracked me here!"
+
+"As--as Thomas Preston?"
+
+"As Thomas Preston."
+
+"And if they take you--they--they may find me, and--"
+
+"Nothing more likely," grimly responded Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Then escape!" Mrs. De Peyster cried with frantic energy. "Run! For
+heaven's sake, run! You still have time!"
+
+"Running from the police is the surest way to get caught when they've
+got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've
+got every door watched--sure. Anyhow--Listen! Hear those steps? They
+haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've followed. Angelica, down with
+your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at it, be damned
+sick!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster obeyed. Mr. Pyecroft drew the room's one chair up
+beside the bed, sat down, picked up "Wormwood," and again, with the
+most natural manner in the world, he began to read in a loud voice.
+The next moment the two policemen of the previous night came in.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft arose.
+
+"I must beg your pardon, officers," he said pleasantly and with a
+slight tincture of his clerical manner. "My sister Matilda just
+told me you wished to see me, but I was almost at the end of a very
+interesting chapter which I was reading aloud to my other sister,
+who is ill, and so I thought I would conclude the scene before I came
+down. In what way can I serve you?"
+
+Neither of the officers replied. One closed the doorway with his bulk,
+and the other thumped heavily down a flight or two of stairs, from
+whence his shout ascended:--
+
+"We've got him up here, Lieutenant! Come on up!"
+
+Within the tiny room of the second maid no one spoke. Presently heavy
+footfalls mounted; the second policeman entered, and presently two
+solid men in civilian dress pushed through the door. The foremost, a
+dark-visaged man with heavy jaw, and a black derby which he did not
+remove, fixed on Mr. Pyecroft a triumphant, domineering gaze.
+
+"Well, Preston," he said, "so we've landed you at last."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft, his left forefinger still keeping the place in
+"Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.
+
+"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you are
+talking about."
+
+"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it," advised the
+lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he was something of
+a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure who you are, I'll
+put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the Jefferson letters,
+it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to yourself. Shake hands,
+gents."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began to break
+through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.
+
+"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston. I've read
+about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own way."
+
+He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities attributed
+to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those qualities to some more
+useful, and even more profitable, occupation."
+
+"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the lieutenant. "Only,
+you see, it don't go down."
+
+"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't going to
+be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas Preston."
+
+"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied the waggish lieutenant.
+"Not necessary at all. For you can't."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why,
+you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my
+two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister
+Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."
+
+That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at
+their superior dubiously.
+
+"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented
+dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."
+
+"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr.
+Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"
+
+"Y--yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four
+crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the
+stationary wash-bowl.
+
+"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.
+
+"There, now, you see."
+
+"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas
+Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers on him. And there's something
+queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and
+carry downstairs the party in bed. We'll call the police ambulance for
+her, and take the whole bunch over to the station."
+
+The party in bed suddenly stiffened as if from a stroke of some kind,
+and Matilda fairly wilted away. Mr. Pyecroft alone did not change by
+so much as a hair.
+
+"One moment, gentlemen," he interposed in his even voice, "before you
+go to regrettable extremes. I believe that an even better witness to
+my identity can easily be secured."
+
+"And who's that, Tommie?"
+
+"I refer to Judge Harvey."
+
+"Judge Harvey!" The lieutenant was startled out of his ironic
+exultation. "You mean the guy that was stung by them forged
+letters--the complainant who's making it so damned hot for Preston?"
+
+"The same," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey is at this moment in this
+house."
+
+"In this house!"
+
+"I believe he is downstairs some place going over some bills Mrs. De
+Peyster asked him to examine. Matilda, you doubtless know in what room
+the Judge is working. Will you kindly knock at his door and ask him to
+step up here for a moment?"
+
+The lieutenant frowned doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated, then
+nodded to Matilda. The latter, relieved of the pressure of much
+policial avoirdupois, slipped from the room. The lieutenant turned
+and silently held a penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr.
+Pyecroft continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four
+officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild visions of
+Mr. Pyecroft being the next moment exposed, and herself dragged forth
+to shame.
+
+Thus for a minute or two. Then Judge Harvey appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Lieutenant Sullivan! See here, what's the meaning of this?" he
+demanded sternly.
+
+"'Evening, Judge Harvey," began the lieutenant, for the first time
+since his entrance removing his derby. "It's like this--"
+
+"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey, these gentlemen
+here have been upon the point of making a blunder that would be
+ludicrous did it not have its serious side. That's why I had you
+called. The fact is, they desire to arrest me."
+
+"Arrest you!" exclaimed the Judge.
+
+"Yes, arrest me," Mr. Pyecroft went on, easily, yet under his easy
+words trying to suggest certain definite contingencies. "That would be
+bad enough in itself. But, as you know, Judge Harvey, my arrest would
+unfortunately but necessarily involve the arrest of several other
+quite innocent persons--bring about a great public scandal--and create
+a situation that would be deplorable in every particular. You see
+that, Judge?"
+
+Judge Harvey got the covered meaning.
+
+"I see. But what do they want to arrest you for?"
+
+"On a most absurd charge," answered Mr. Pyecroft, smiling,--but eyes
+straight into Judge Harvey's eyes. "They seem to think I am Thomas
+Preston."
+
+"Thomas Preston!" cried the Judge.
+
+"Yes, the man that forged those Jefferson letters you bought."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft saw the puzzled semi-recognition that he had observed in
+the Judge's face the night before flash into amazed, full recognition.
+Quickly but without appearance of haste, he stepped forward diverting
+attention from the Judge's face, and made himself the center of the
+party's eyes.
+
+"You see, lieutenant and officers," he said easily, filling in time to
+give Judge Harvey opportunity to recover and think--and still aiming
+his meaning at the Judge, "you see, I have here summoned before you
+the best possible witness to my identity. You threaten to arrest and
+expose me and two other persons in this house. Judge Harvey knows, as
+well as I know, how unfortunate it would be for these parties, and
+how displeasing to Mrs. De Peyster, if you should make the very great
+blunder of arresting me as Thomas Preston. Now, Judge Harvey,"--with
+a joking smile,--"you know who I am. Will you please inform the
+lieutenant whether I am the man you wish to have arrested?"
+
+Judge Harvey stared, silent, his face twitching.
+
+"Is what he says O.K., Judge?" queried Lieutenant Sullivan. "He ain't
+the man you want arrested?"
+
+"He is not," the Judge managed to get out.
+
+"From the way you hesitated--"
+
+"The Judge's hesitation, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft interrupted in his
+pleasant tone, "was due to his amazement at the utter grotesqueness
+of the situation. He was for a moment utterly taken aback. That's it,
+isn't it, Judge?"
+
+"Yes," said Judge Harvey.
+
+The lieutenant twisted his derby in chagrined, ireful hands.
+
+"Some of my men have been damned fools again!" he exploded. He got
+himself back under control. "Judge Harvey, I hope you'll excuse our
+buttin' in like this--and--and won't find it necessary to mention it
+to the heads of the department."
+
+"It's--it's all right," said the Judge.
+
+"And you, Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"Simpson--Archibald Simpson," supplied Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Mr. Simpson, I hope you don't mind this too much?"
+
+"No ill feeling at all, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft said graciously.
+"Such little mistakes must occasionally occur in the most careful
+police work."
+
+"And--and--there's another thing," said Lieutenant Sullivan with a
+note of gruff pleading. "You know how the papers are roasting the
+department just now. For every little slip, we get the harpoon or the
+laugh. I'll be obliged to you if you don't say anything that'll let
+this thing get into the papers."
+
+"Believe me, Lieutenant, I shall do everything in my power to
+protect you," Mr. Pyecroft assured him. "And now, since the matter
+is settled," he added pleasantly, "perhaps you'd like to have Matilda
+show you the way out. These upper hallways are really very confusing.
+Matilda, my dear,--if you don't mind."
+
+Wordlessly, Matilda obeyed, and four sets of policemen's feet went
+heavily down the stairs. Beneath her bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster began
+faintly, ever so faintly, to return to life. Judge Harvey glared at
+Mr. Pyecroft, hands spasmodically clutching and unclutching; his look
+grew darker and darker. Respectful, regretful, Mr. Pyecroft stood
+waiting.
+
+His left forefinger had not lost the place in "Wormwood."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE THIRD FLIGHT
+
+
+The storm broke.
+
+"You are a scoundrel, sir!" thundered the Judge.
+
+"I fear, sir, you are right," respectfully assented Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"And what's more, you've made me lie to the police!"
+
+"Not exactly, sir," Mr. Pyecroft corrected mildly. "I was careful
+about that. I did not ask you to deny that I was Thomas Preston. I
+merely asked you if I was the man you wished arrested. You answered
+that you did not want me arrested; under the circumstances I am
+certain you spoke the truth. And in explaining your hesitation to the
+lieutenant, when you said it was due to your utter amazement at the
+grotesqueness of the situation, I am certain you there also spoke the
+truth."
+
+"You are a quibbler!" fumed the outraged Judge. "You made me lie to
+the police!"
+
+"Well, even if I did," returned Mr. Pyecroft in his same mild tone,
+"is there any one else you would rather lie to?"
+
+The Judge glared, almost choking. "Have you no respect, man, for
+common decency--for order--for the law?"
+
+"For order and decency, yes,--but as for ordinary law, I fear I have
+no more respect than your honor has," Mr. Pyecroft admitted gravely.
+"And I acquired my irreverence toward law just as your honor did--from
+studying it."
+
+Judge Harvey stared.
+
+"What! You're a lawyer?"
+
+"I have been admitted to the bar, and have been a law clerk, but have
+never practiced for myself."
+
+"But last night you said you were a clergyman!"
+
+"I have gone no deeper into theology, sir, than the price of a
+clerical suit. And that was for its moral effect on the police."
+
+"Sir," exploded the Judge, "you are utterly incorrigible!"
+
+"I trust that I am not, sir," submitted Mr. Pyecroft gravely,
+hopefully.
+
+At that moment Jack and Mary appeared on tiptoe in the doorway, alive
+with curiosity; and directly behind them came Matilda. Upon the latter
+Judge Harvey turned.
+
+"Well, Matilda, I certainly want to compliment you on your brother!"
+he exclaimed with irate sarcasm.
+
+"My bro--bro--yes, sir, thank you," weakly returned poor Matilda.
+
+"No wonder, Mr. Simpson," the outraged Judge continued, "that your
+family disowned you!"
+
+"They were justified, certainly, as I told you at the very first,"
+soberly conceded Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Jack and Mary demanded enlightenment. To them Judge Harvey told of the
+visit of the four police officers, scathingly expounded the character
+of Matilda's brother, and explained how he, Judge Harvey, had been
+forced to protect the outrageous scape-grace. Through this recital,
+Mr. Pyecroft, though unbowed by shame, continued to wear his
+respectful, regretful look.
+
+"Perhaps you will not believe me, Judge Harvey," he returned
+courteously, and with the ring of sincerity, when the indictment was
+ended, "and even if you do believe me, perhaps my statement will mean
+nothing to you; but I desire none the less to state that I am sorry
+that you were the person to be deceived by those Jefferson letters. Of
+course, I had no idea to whom they were to be sold. I did them for the
+autograph dealer, so much for the job--and did them partly as a lark,
+though, of course, I do not expect you to appreciate the humor of the
+affair. It may be some consolation to you, however, to know that I
+profited very little from the transaction; the dealer got over ninety
+per cent of the price you paid."
+
+The Judge snorted, and stalked incredulously and wrathfully out, Jack
+and Mary behind him; and Mrs. De Peyster was left alone in the bosom
+of her family. Mr. Pyecroft sat silent on the foot of the bed for a
+space, grave but composed, gazing at a particular scale of the flaking
+kalsomine. Then he remarked something about its having been a somewhat
+trying day and that he believed that he'd be off to bed.
+
+When he was gone Mrs. De Peyster lay wordless, limp, all a-shiver.
+Beside her sat the limp and voiceless Matilda, gasping and staring
+wildly. How long Mrs. De Peyster lay in that condition she never
+knew. All her faculties were reeling. These crowding events seemed the
+wildest series of unrealities; seemed the frenzied, feverish phantasms
+of a nightmare. They never, never could possibly-have happened!
+
+But then ... they had happened! And this hard, narrow bed was real.
+And this low, narrow room was real. And Mr. Pyecroft was real. And so
+were Jack, and Mary, and Judge Harvey.
+
+These things could never have happened. But, then, they had. And would
+they ever, ever stop happening?
+
+This was only the eighth day since her promulgated sailing. Three more
+months, ninety days of twenty-four hours each, before Olivetta--
+
+"Matilda," she burst out in a despairing whisper, "I can't stand this
+another minute!"
+
+"Oh, ma'am!" wailed Matilda.
+
+"That Mr. Pyecroft--" Words failed her. "I've simply got to get out of
+this somehow!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am. But--but our changes haven't helped us much yet.
+If we tried to leave the house, that Mr. Pyecroft might follow and we
+might find ourselves even in a worse way than we are, ma'am."
+
+"Nothing can be worse than this!"
+
+"I'm not so sure, ma'am," tremulously doubted Matilda. "We never
+dreamed anything could be so bad as this, but here this is."
+
+There was a vague logic in what Matilda said; but logic none the less.
+Unbelievable, and yet so horribly actual as this was,--was what had
+thus far happened only the _legato_ and _pianissimo_ passages of their
+adventure, with _crescendo_ and _fortissimo_ still ahead? Mrs. De
+Peyster closed her eyes, and did not speak. She strove to regain some
+command over her routed faculties.
+
+Matilda waited.
+
+Presently Mrs. De Peyster's eyes opened. "It would be some
+relief"--weak hope was in her voice--"if only I could manage to get
+down into my own suite."
+
+"But, ma'am, with that Mr. Pyecroft--"
+
+"He's a risk we've got to run," Mrs. De Peyster cried desperately.
+"We've somehow got to manage to get me there without his knowing it."
+
+Suddenly she sat up. The hope that a moment before had shone faintly
+in her face began to become a more confident glow. Matilda saw that
+her mistress was thinking; therefore she remained silent, expectant.
+
+"Matilda, I think there's a chance!" Mrs. De Peyster exclaimed after a
+moment. "I'll get into my suite--I'll live there quiet as death. Since
+they believe the suite empty, since they know it is locked, they may
+never suspect any one is in it. Matilda, it's the only way!"
+
+"Yes--but, ma'am, how am I to explain your sudden disappearance?"
+
+"Say that your sister became homesick," said Mrs. De Peyster with
+mounting hope, "and decided suddenly, in the middle of the night, to
+return at once to her home in Syracuse."
+
+"That may satisfy all but Mr. Pyecroft, ma'am. But Mr. Pyecroft won't
+believe it."
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft will have to believe whatever he likes. It's the only
+way, and we're going to do it. And do it at once! Matilda, go down and
+see if they're all asleep yet, particularly Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+Matilda took off her shoes and in her stocking-feet went scouting
+forth; and stocking-footed presently returned, with the news that all
+seemed asleep, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Five minutes later, in Matilda's dress, and likewise in stocking-feet,
+Mrs. De Peyster stepped out of her second maid's room. Breathless, she
+listened. Not a sound. Then, Matilda at her heels, she began to creep
+down the stairway--slowly--slowly--putting each foot down with the
+softness of a closing lip--pausing with straining ears on every tread.
+With up-pressing feet she glided by the door within which Mr. Pyecroft
+lay in untroubled sleep, then started by the room that homed Jack and
+Mary, creeping with the footsteps of a disembodied spirit, fearful
+every second lest some door might spring open and wild alarms ring
+out.
+
+But she got safely by. Then, more rapidly, yet still as noiseless as
+a shadow's shadow, she crept on down--down--until she came to her own
+door. Here the attending Matilda silently vanished. With velvet
+touch Mrs. De Peyster slipped her key into the lock, stepped inside,
+noiselessly closed and locked the door behind her.
+
+Then she sank into a chair, and breathed. Just breathed ... back
+once more in the spacious suite wherein nine days ago--or was it nine
+thousand years?--inspiration had flowered within her and her great
+idea had been born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
+
+
+When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of perfect
+comfort. Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her. Ah! Once more she was
+in her own wide, gracious bed--of a different caste, of an entirely
+different race, from the second maid's paving-stone pallet, from
+that folding, punitive contrivance from whose output of anguish
+Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit. Also she was in sweet,
+ingratiating linen--the first fresh personal linen that had touched
+her in nine days.
+
+It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not
+too fervent benediction.
+
+About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond
+were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she
+lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom. And
+there were drawers and drawers of fresh _lingerie_; and there were her
+closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times
+more grateful after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive
+black. And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous
+implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.
+
+After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.
+
+But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and her
+dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed her. Then
+reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the night before had
+been hardly more than desperation began to take on the character of
+confidence. She saw possibilities. And the longer she considered, the
+more and greater the possibilities were. Her original plan began to
+re-present itself to her; modified, of course, to meet the altered
+conditions. If she could only remain here, undiscovered, then months
+hence, when it was announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a
+warm prayer for Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that
+unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before,
+and leave the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and
+herself of their several personalities.
+
+As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the extra-curled hair
+of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised version of her plan, in
+the first glow of its conception, seemed alluringly plausible. She
+had to be more careful, to be sure, but aside from this the new plan
+seemed quite as good as the original. In fact, in her reaction from
+the alarms of yesterday, it somehow seemed even better.
+
+Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to her
+predicament. And here it was--come unexpectedly to her aid, as was
+the way with things in life; and a very simple solution, too.
+Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and evaded her memory. What was
+it?--something about "a pleasant hermitage." That was just what this
+was: a pleasant hermitage.
+
+But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning wore
+on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable uncomfortable
+sensation. And presently the sensation became more definite; became
+localized; and she was aware that she was growing hungry. And in the
+same moment came the dismaying realization that, in their haste of
+the night before, she had not thought to plan with Matilda for the
+somewhat essential item of food!
+
+She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary
+confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have the
+sense to think of this, and if so would she have the adroitness to
+smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to be starved out?
+
+The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.
+
+She got up, and noiselessly foraged throughout her quarters. The total
+of her gleaning was a box of forgotten chocolate bon-bons and a box of
+half-length tallow candles. She had read that Esquimaux ate tallow, or
+its equivalent, and prospered famously upon it; but she deferred the
+candles in favor of the bon-bons, and breakfasted on half the box.
+
+Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate the
+second half of the bon-bons.
+
+Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying abed,
+which she had thought would be exhaustless, had inexplicably become
+transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared not move about, save with
+a caution that amounted almost to pain; for she had heard Jack and
+Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pass and re-pass her door, and she knew that any
+slight noise on her part might result in disastrous betrayal.
+
+Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew more
+wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for as has been
+remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long accustomed to
+being served sumptuously and with deferential promptitude. But she
+realized that Matilda would not dare come, if she remembered to come
+at all, until the household was fast asleep.
+
+Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it,
+cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....
+
+Ten o'clock came.
+
+She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the Esquimaux
+ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad that way....
+
+Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint, knocking
+sent her tiptoeing--for months she would dare move only on breathless
+tiptoe!--to the door of her sitting-room, where she stood and
+listened.
+
+Again the faint knocking sounded.
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated voice.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda slipped
+in and the door was softly closed upon her back.
+
+"Here's some food--just what I could grab in a second--I didn't
+dare take time to choose." Matilda held out a bundle wrapped in a
+newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare stay here a second."
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.
+
+"How did they take my going?"
+
+"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my sister, if she
+was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and asked me all sorts of
+questions--which--which I found it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,--and
+she is going to send you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft
+got me off into a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip
+again."
+
+"What is he going to do?"
+
+"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection. Outside
+some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps things might
+take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be able to help him.
+So he said he was going to stay on here till things blew over. Oh,
+please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were to hear me--"
+
+A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the door
+was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with the bundle
+of provisions on her exquisitely lacquered tea-table. In the newspaper
+was a small loaf of bread, a tin of salmon, and a kitchen knife. That
+was all. Not even butter! And, of course, no coffee--she who liked
+coffee, strong, three times a day. But when was she ever again to know
+the taste of coffee!
+
+Never before had she sat face to face with such an uninteresting menu.
+But she devoured it--opening the tin of salmon after great effort with
+the knife--devoured it every bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in
+which the provisions had been wrapped. It was part of that day's,
+Sunday's, "Record," and it was the illustrated supplement. This she
+unfolded, and before her eyes stood a big-lettered title, "Annual
+Exodus of Society Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of
+the page was her own portrait by M. Dubois.
+
+Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly illumined by
+the rays of her one candle. What poise, what breeding, what calm,
+imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came back to her be-crumbed
+tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the raggedly gaping can. She
+slipped rather limply down in her chair and covered her eyes.
+
+A day passed--and another--and another. Outside Mrs. De Peyster's
+suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity; within, they
+lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never to go, as is
+time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned. Mrs. De Peyster
+could hear Mary practicing, and practicing hard--and, yes,
+brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda told her on her later visits--and
+her later bundles contained a larger and more palatable supply of food
+than had the first package--Matilda said that Jack, too, was working
+hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the jolliest
+of honeymoons.
+
+And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive, after-midnight
+visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft, it seemed, was
+becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and Mary--particularly
+with Mary. He had confided to them that he was weary of his escapades,
+and wanted to settle down; in fact, there was a girl--the nicest girl
+in the world, begging Mary's pardon--who had promised to marry him as
+soon as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he
+knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible capacity,
+and so his last departures from strict rectitude had been for the
+purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in some small but
+independent way.
+
+His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.
+
+Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity, would on
+his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft. Nonetheless, Mr.
+Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite. Once or twice, Judge
+Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been drawn into discussions
+of points of law with Mr. Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew
+nothing about law, it had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as
+well as the Judge himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered
+himself, resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that Time stood
+still and taunted her,--each day exactly like the day before, a day
+of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless routine,--days in which she
+spoke not a word save a whisper or two at midnight at the food-bearing
+visit of the sad-visaged Matilda,--three dull, diabolic days dragged
+by their interminable length of hours. Such days!--such awful, awful
+days!
+
+On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings from the
+pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that disconsolate
+pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation--of a sort hardly
+ascribable to the danger of their situation: an agitation quite
+different from mere nervous fear. There were traces of recent crying
+in Matilda's face, and now and then she had difficulty in holding
+down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her as to the trouble; Matilda
+chokingly replied that there was nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted,
+and soon Matilda was weeping openly.
+
+"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's broke!"
+
+"Your heart broken! How?"
+
+"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserable Matilda, "I've got
+to make a confession. I've done--something awful! I've disobeyed you,
+ma'am! I've disobeyed and deceived you!"
+
+"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way I've
+trusted you for twenty years!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings one
+can't--"
+
+"But what have you done?"
+
+"I've--I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've been the same
+as engaged to William."
+
+"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect,
+reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.
+
+"Yes, ma'am,--to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, ma'am,--very
+sorry,--but I can't think about that now. For now," sobbed Matilda,
+"for now it's all off--and my heart is broke!"
+
+"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's all a
+mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken to him,
+since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me. I--I couldn't
+stand it any longer, and this evening I went out to the stable to see
+him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and as mad as--oh, William was
+never like that to me before, ma'am! I asked him what was the matter.
+'All right, if you want to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh,
+such a hard voice. 'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry, 'but,
+William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what you've done!'
+he said."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me and walked
+away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll never explain, he's
+such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man! And I love him so, Mrs. De
+Peyster,--I love him so! Oh, my heart is broke!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled dismay.
+She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but she quickly
+realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper to know that
+her coachman had made love to her, and had--had even kissed her. Every
+drop of De Peyster blood revolted against such a degradation.
+
+"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a shaking
+voice.
+
+"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She
+paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she
+faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I deceived you?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.
+
+"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY
+
+
+At two o'clock of the fifth night Matilda stole into Mrs. De Peyster
+with a face that would have been an apt cover for the Book of
+Lamentations. She opened her pages. That day she had had a telegram
+that her sister Angelica--the really and truly Angelica, who really
+and truly lived near Syracuse--that Angelica was seriously ill. She
+was sorry, but she felt that she must go.
+
+"Of course, you must go, Matilda!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. Then the
+significance to her of Matilda's absence flashed upon her. "But what
+will I do without any company at all?" she cried. "And without any
+food?"
+
+"I've seen to the food, ma'am." And Matilda explained that during the
+evening, in preparation for her going, she had been smuggling into the
+house from Sixth Avenue delicatessen stores boxes of crackers, cold
+meats, all varieties of canned goods--"enough to last you for a month,
+ma'am, and by that time I'll be back."
+
+Her explanation made, Matilda proceeded, with extremest caution,
+to carry the provisions up and stack them in one corner of Mrs. De
+Peyster's large, white-tiled bathroom. When the freightage was over,
+the bathroom, with its supply of crackers and zweibach, its bottles
+of olives and pickles, its cold tongue, cold roast beef, cold chicken,
+its cans of salmon, sardines, deviled ham, California peaches, and
+condensed milk--the bathroom was itself a delicatessen shop that many
+an ambitious young German would have regarded as a proud start in
+life.
+
+"But what about food for the others while you're gone?" inquired Mrs.
+De Peyster--with a sudden hope that the others would be starved into
+leaving.
+
+"I've attended to them, ma'am. I've bought a lot of things that will
+keep. And then I told the tradespeople that my niece was going to be
+here in my place, and they are to deliver milk and other fresh things
+for her every day in care of William."
+
+Matilda broke down at the last moment.
+
+"If it wasn't for you, ma'am, I wouldn't care if it was me that
+was sick, instead of my sister, and if I never got well. For with
+William--"
+
+She could say no more, and departed adrip with tears.
+
+Matilda's nightly visits were a loss; but Mrs. De Peyster had come
+to take her situation more and more philosophically. The life was
+unspeakably tedious, to be sure, and rather dangerous, too; but she
+had accepted the predicament--it had to be endured and could not be
+helped; and such a state of mind made her circumstances much easier
+to support. All in all, there was no reason, though, of course, it
+was most uncomfortable--there was no good reason, she kept assuring
+herself, why she might not safely withstand the siege and come out of
+the affair with none but her two confidants being the wiser.
+
+In this philosophic mood three more days passed--passed slowly
+and tediously, to be sure, but yet they did get by. There were
+relaxations, of course,--things to occupy her mind. She read a little
+each day; she listened to Mary's concert in the drawing-room below
+her--for Mary dared to continue playing despite Matilda's absence,
+since it was known that Matilda's niece was in the house, though Mary
+never showed her face; she listened for snatches of the conversation
+of Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft when they passed her door; at times
+she stood upon a chair at one of her windows and cautiously peered
+through the little panes in her shutters, like the lens of a camera,
+down into the sunny green of Washington Square.
+
+Also, of evenings, she found herself straining to hear the voice of
+Judge Harvey. When she surprised herself at this, she would flush
+slightly, and again raise her book close to her shaded candle.
+
+Then, of course, her meals were a diversion. She became quite expert
+with the can-opener and the corkscrew. The empty cans, since there was
+no way to get them out of her suite, she stacked on the side of the
+bathroom opposite her provisions; and daily the stack grew higher.
+
+The nearest approach to an incident during this solitary period came
+to pass on the third night after Matilda's departure. On that evening
+Mrs. De Peyster became aware of a new voice in the house--a voice with
+a French accent. It seemed familiar, yet for a time she was puzzled as
+to the identity of the voice's owner. Then suddenly she knew: the man
+below was M. Dubois, whom Olivetta, at her desire, had with unwilling
+but obedient frostiness sent about his business. She had known that
+Jack had taken up with M. Dubois at the time the artist was doing
+her portrait; but she had not known that Jack was so intimate as the
+artist's being admitted to Jack's secret seemed to indicate.
+
+Within herself, some formless, incomprehensible thing seemed about
+to happen. During these days of solitude--and this, too, even before
+Matilda had gone--a queer new something had begun to stir within
+her, almost as though threatening an eruption. It seemed a force, or
+spirit, rising darkly from hitherto unknown spaces of her being. It
+frightened her, with its amorphous, menacing strangeness. She tried to
+keep it down. She tried to keep her mental eyes away from it. And so,
+during all these days, she had no idea what the fearsome thing might
+be....
+
+And then something did happen. On the fifth day after Matilda's
+departure, and the eighteenth after the sailing of the Plutonia, Mrs.
+De Peyster observed a sudden change in the atmosphere of the house.
+Within an hour, from being filled with honeymoon hilarity, the house
+became filled with gloom. There was no more laughter--no more running
+up and down the stairs and through the hallways--the piano's song was
+silent. Mrs. De Peyster sought to gain some clue to this mysterious
+change by listening for the talk of Mary and Jack and Mr. Pyecroft
+as they passed her door. But whereas the trio had heretofore spoken
+freely and often in liveliest tones, they now were either wordless or
+their voices were solemnly hushed.
+
+What did it mean? Days passed--the solemn gloom continued
+unabated--and this question grew an ever more puzzling mystery to Mrs.
+De Peyster. What could it possibly, _possibly_, mean?
+
+But there was no way in which she could find out. Her only source of
+information was Matilda, and Matilda was gone for a month; and even if
+Matilda, by any chance, should know what was the matter, she would not
+dare write; and even if she wrote, the letter, of course, would never
+be delivered, but would doubtless be forwarded to the pretended Mrs.
+De Peyster in Europe. Mrs. De Peyster could only wonder--and read--and
+gaze furtively out of the little peep-holes of her prison--and
+eat--and stack the empty cans yet higher in her bathroom--and
+wait, impatiently wait, while the mystery grew daily and hourly in
+magnitude.
+
+Among the details that added to the mystery's bulk was the sound
+of another new but familiar voice--the voice of the competent Miss
+Gardner, her discharged secretary. And Miss Gardner's voice was not
+heard for an hour and then heard no more--but was heard day after
+day, and her tone was the tone of a person who is acquainted with the
+management of an establishment and who is giving necessary orders.
+And another detail was that William no longer kept to the stable, but
+seemed now constantly busy within the house. And another detail was
+that she became aware that Jack and Mary no longer tried to keep their
+presence in the house a secret, but went openly forth into the streets
+together. And Judge Harvey every day came openly to see them.
+
+But the most bewildering, and yet most clarifying, detail of all
+was one she observed on the twelfth day since Matilda's going, the
+twenty-fifth of her own official absence.
+
+On that afternoon she was standing on a chair entertaining herself
+by gazing through one of her shutters, when she saw Jack crossing
+Washington Square. He was walking very soberly, and about the left
+sleeve of a quiet gray summer suit was a band of crape.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stepped down from her chair. The mystery was lifting.
+Somebody was dead! But who? Who?
+
+Early the next morning, while the inmates of the house were occupied
+in the serving or the eating of breakfast, Mrs. De Peyster was
+startled by a soft knocking at her door. But instantly she was
+reassured by the tremulous accents without.
+
+"It's me, ma'am,--Matilda. Let me in--quick!"
+
+The next instant the door opened and Matilda half staggered, half
+fell, into the room. But such a Matilda! Shivering all over, eyes
+wildly staring.
+
+"What is it?" cried Mrs. De Peyster, seizing her housekeeper's arm.
+
+"Oh, ma--ma--ma'am," chattered Matilda. "It's--it's awful!"
+
+"But what is it?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, beginning to tremble with
+an unknown terror.
+
+"Oh, it's--it's awful! I couldn't get you word before--for I didn't
+dare write, and my sister wasn't well enough for me to leave her till
+last night."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shook the shaking Matilda.
+
+"Will you please tell me what's happened!"
+
+"Yes, ma--ma'am. Here's a copy of the first paper that had anything
+about it. The paper's over a week old. I brought it along to--to break
+the thing to you gently."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster seized the newspaper. In the center of its first page
+was a reproduction of M. Dubois's painting of herself, and across the
+paper's top ran the giant headline:--
+
+  MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUND
+  DEAD IN THE SEINE
+
+  _Face Disfigured by Water, but
+  Friends in Paris Identify Social
+  Leader by Clothes upon
+  the Body_
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank without a word into a chair, and her face
+duplicated the ashen hue of Matilda's.
+
+Matilda likewise collapsed into a chair. "Oh, isn't it awful, ma'am,"
+she moaned.
+
+"So--so it's I--that's--that's dead!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. But that isn't all. I--I thought I'd break it to you
+gently. That was over a week ago. Since then--"
+
+"You mean," breathed the marble lips of Mrs. De Peyster, "that there's
+something more?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. Oh, the papers have been full of it. It's been a
+tremendous sensation!"
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"And Mr. Jack, since you died without a will, is your heir. And, since
+he is now the head of the De Peyster family, the first thing he did on
+hearing the news was to arrange by cable to have your body sent here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, as though galvanized, half rose from her chair.
+
+"You mean--my body--is coming here?"
+
+"I said I was trying to break it to you gently," moaned Matilda.
+"It's--it's already here. The ship that brought it is now docking.
+Your funeral--"
+
+"My funeral!"
+
+"It takes place in the drawing-room, this morning. Oh, isn't it awful!
+But, perhaps, ma'am, if you could see what beautiful flowers your
+friends have sent--"
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster had very softly sunk back into her chair.
+
+[Illustration: "SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE VEILED LADY
+
+
+As soon as that huddled mass of womanhood that was Mrs. De Peyster had
+become sufficiently reanimated to be able to think, its first thought
+came in the form of an unuttered wail.
+
+She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home again!
+
+Or if she did come home, what a scandal! A scandal out-scandalizing
+anything of which she had ever dreamed! A scandal worse ten times than
+the very grave itself!
+
+With loose face and glazed eyes she stared at Matilda while the latter
+stammered out disjointed details of the past week's happenings. As
+for Mr. Jack's lark in dwelling surreptitiously with his wife in his
+mother's house, not a breath of that had reached the public. With Mr.
+Pyecroft's aid, and Judge Harvey's, he had managed this well. He had
+told the reporters that he had been quietly married over three weeks
+before, that he and his wife had been living in seclusion, and that on
+learning of his mother's demise they had come to the house to direct
+the obsequies.... Those Paris police were trying to solve the mystery
+of what had become of Mrs. De Peyster's trunks.... If Mrs. De Peyster
+could only see the beautiful floral tributes that were arriving,
+particularly the large wreath sent by Mrs. Allistair--
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster heard none of this. She was dead! She was to be
+buried! She could never come home again!
+
+At length her lips moved--slowly, stiffly, as might the lips of a dead
+person.
+
+"What are we going to do?"
+
+"I've been saying that same question to myself for days, ma'am,"
+quavered Matilda. "And I--I don't see any answer."
+
+No, there was nothing she could do. Mrs. De Peyster continued her
+glazed stare at her faithful serving-woman. In the first few minutes
+her mind had been able to take in the significance only to herself of
+this culminating disaster. But now its significance to another person
+shivered through that her being.
+
+Poor--poor Olivetta!
+
+For Olivetta, of course, it was. Mrs. De Peyster knew what was due
+the De Peyster corpuscles that moved in stately procession along the
+avenues of her blood, and was not neglectful to see that that due was
+properly observed; but the heart from which those corpuscles derived
+their impulse was, as Judge Harvey had once said, in its way the
+kindest sort of heart. And now, for a few minutes, all that her heart
+could feel was felt for Olivetta.
+
+But for a few minutes only. Then Olivetta, and all concerns beyond
+the immediate moment, were suddenly forgotten. For in the hall without
+soft footsteps were heard, and the instant after, upon her door, there
+sounded an ominous scratching--a sound like a key in an agitated hand
+searching for its appointed hole.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster rose up and clutched Matilda's arm, and stood in rigid
+terror.
+
+"Tha--that key?" chattered Matilda. "Can--can it fit?"
+
+"There were only two keys," breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Mine here, and
+the one I gave to Olivetta."
+
+"Then it can't fit, since Miss Olivetta's--"
+
+But the key gave Matilda the lie direct by slipping into the lock.
+The two women clung to one another, knowing that the end had come,
+wondering who was to be their exposer. The bolt clicked back, the door
+swung open, and--
+
+And into the dusky room there tottered a rather tall, heavily
+veiled, feminine figure. It did not gaze at the shrinking couple in
+astoundment. It did not launch into exclamation at its discovery.
+Instead, it sank weakly down into the nearest chair.
+
+"Oh!" it moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
+
+"Who--who are you?" huskily demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" moaned the figure. "Isn't it terrible! Isn't it terrible!
+But I didn't mean to do it--I didn't mean to do it, Caroline!"
+
+"It's not--not Olivetta?" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It was an accident!" the figure wailed on. "I couldn't help myself.
+And if you knew what I've gone through to get here, I know you'd
+forgive me."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had lifted the veil up over the hat.
+
+"Olivetta! Then--after all--you're not dead!"
+
+"No--if I only were!" sobbed Olivetta.
+
+"Then who is that--that person who's coming here this morning?"
+
+"I don't know!" Then Olivetta's quavering voice grew hard with
+indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral under
+false pretenses!"
+
+"But the papers said the body had on my clothes."
+
+"Yes--I suppose it must have had."
+
+"But how--" Mrs. De Peyster recalled their precarious position.
+"Matilda, lock the door. But, Olivetta, how could it ever, ever have
+happened?"
+
+"I followed your directions--and got to Paris all right--and
+everything was going splendid--and I was beginning to enjoy
+myself--when--when--Oh, Caroline, I--I--"
+
+"You what?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I lost my purse!" sobbed Olivetta.
+
+"Lost your purse?"
+
+"I left it in a cab when I went to the Louvre. And in it was all my
+money--my letter of credit--everything!"
+
+"Olivetta!"
+
+"And I didn't dare cable you for more. For if I had sent a cable to
+you here, it might have betrayed you."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"There was nothing for me to do but to--to--sell some of your gowns."
+
+"Oh!" Mrs. De Peyster was beginning dimly to see the drift of things.
+
+Olivetta's mind wandered to another phase of her tribulations.
+
+"And the price I got for them was a swindle, Caroline. It was--it was
+a tragedy! For your black chiffon, and your silver satin, and your
+spangled net--"
+
+"But this person they took for me?" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh, whoever she is, she must have bought one of them. She could have
+bought it for nothing--and that Frenchman who cheated me--would have
+doubled his money. And after she bought it--she--she"--Olivetta's
+voice rang out with hysterical resentment--"she got us all into this
+trouble by walking into the Seine. It's the most popular pastime
+in Paris, to walk into the Seine. But why," ended Olivetta with a
+spiteful burst,--"why couldn't she have amused herself in her own
+clothes? That's what I want to know!"
+
+"And then? What did you do?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"When it came out three days later that it was you, I was so--so
+frightened that I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare deny the
+report, for that would have been to expose you. And I didn't dare
+cable to you that it was all a mistake and that I was all right,
+for that would have been just as bad. Perhaps I might have acted
+differently, but I--well, I ran away. I crossed to London with your
+trunks. There I learned that--that they were sending your remains
+home. I realized I had to get you word somehow, and I realized the
+only way was for me to come and tell you. So I sold some more of your
+gowns, and just caught the Mauretania, and here I am."
+
+So ending, Olivetta, as though her bones had melted, subsided into
+a gelatinous heap of dejection, dabbing her crimson eyes with a
+handkerchief already saturated with liquid woe.
+
+"It's a relief to know it wasn't you," said Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'm sure--it's kind of you--to say so," snuffled Olivetta gratefully.
+
+"But, aside from your being safe, our situation is unchanged," said
+Mrs. De Peyster in tremulous, awe-stricken tone. "For that--that
+person is coming here just the same!"
+
+"I know. The horrid interloper!"
+
+"She may be here any minute," said Mrs. De Peyster. "What are we going
+to do?"
+
+"We must think of something quick," spoke up Matilda nervously. "For
+it's almost time for your funeral, ma'am, and after that--"
+
+"I've been thinking all the voyage over," broke in Olivetta. "And I
+could think of only one plan."
+
+"And that?" Mrs. De Peyster eagerly inquired.
+
+There was an excited, desperate light in Olivetta's flooding eyes.
+
+"Couldn't you manage, in some way, while nobody is looking, to slip
+into that Frenchwoman's place; and then, before the ceremony was over,
+you could sit up and say you'd been in a cataleptic fit. Such things
+have happened. I've read about them."
+
+"Absurd, Olivetta! Quite absurd!" quavered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I dare say it is," agreed Olivetta, subsiding again into her limp
+misery. "Oh, why did I ever go to Paris! I hate the place!"
+
+"Don't give way; think!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster, who was in a
+condition not far removed from Olivetta's. "Think, Matilda!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda obediently.
+
+"You think, Caroline," whimpered Olivetta. "You always had such a
+superior intellect, and were always so equal to every emergency."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster thus reminded of what was expected of her life-long
+leadership, tried to collect her scattered forces, and sat with
+pale, drawn, twitching face, staring at her predicament--and her two
+faithful subjects sat staring at her, waiting the inspired idea for
+escape that would fall from her never-failing lips. Moment after
+moment of deepest silence followed.
+
+At length Mrs. De Peyster spoke.
+
+"There are only two ways. First, for me to go down and disclose
+myself--"
+
+"But the scandal! The humiliation!" cried Olivetta.
+
+"Yes, that first way will never do," said Mrs. De Peyster. "The second
+way is not a solution; it is only a means to a possible solution. But
+before I state the way, I must ask you, Olivetta, if any one saw you
+come in?"
+
+"There were a number of people coming and going, people preparing for
+the funeral--but I watched my chance, and used my latch-key, and I'm
+sure no one connected with the house saw me."
+
+"That is good. If any outsiders saw you, they will merely believe that
+you also were some person concerned in the funeral. As for my plan, it
+is simple. You must both slip out of here unseen; you, Olivetta,
+will, of course, say that you have returned to the city to attend my
+funeral. From the outside you both must help me."
+
+"Yes. But you, Caroline?" said Olivetta.
+
+"As for me, I must stay here, quietly, just as I have done for the
+last three weeks. I still have some supplies left. After everything
+has quieted down, I shall watch my chance, and steal out of the house
+late some night. That's as far as I have planned, but once away I can
+work out some explanation for the terrible mistake and then come home.
+That seems the only way; that seems the only chance."
+
+"You always were a wonder!" cried Olivetta admiringly.
+
+"Then you agree to the plan?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"And you, Matilda?"
+
+"Of course, ma'am."
+
+Thus praised and seconded, Mrs. De Peyster resumed some faint shadow
+of her accustomed dignity.
+
+"Very well, then. You must both leave here this instant."
+
+Olivetta threw her arms about her cousin's neck.
+
+"Good-bye, Caroline," she quavered. "You really have no hard feelings
+against me?"
+
+"No, none. You must go!" said Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'm sure, with you in charge, it's all going to come out right!" said
+the clinging Olivetta hopefully.
+
+"You must really go!" And Mrs. De Peyster pressed her and Matilda
+toward the door.
+
+But midway to the door the trio halted suddenly. Coming up the
+stairway was the sound of hurried feet--of many pairs of feet.
+The footsteps came through the hall. The trio did not breathe. The
+footsteps paused before the sitting-room door. The confederates
+gripped each others' arms.
+
+"Are you sure you saw that person come in here?" they heard a voice
+ask--Jack's voice.
+
+"I'm certain." The voice that answered was Mary's.
+
+"I'll bet it was a sneak thief," said a third voice--Mr. Pyecroft's.
+"To slip into a house at a funeral, or a wedding, when a lot of people
+are coming and going--that's one of their oldest tricks." He turned
+the knob, and finding the door locked, shook it violently. "Open up,
+in there!" he called.
+
+The three clung to one another for support.
+
+"Better open up!" called a fourth voice--Judge Harvey's. "For we know
+you're in there!"
+
+Breathless, the trembling conspirators clung yet more desperately.
+
+"But how could she get in?" queried the excited voice of Mary. "I
+understood that Mrs. De Peyster locked the door before she went away."
+
+"Skeleton key," was Mr. Pyecroft's brief explanation. "Mrs. De
+Peyster, we three will watch the door to see she doesn't get
+out--there may have been more than one of her. You go and telephone
+for a locksmith and the police."
+
+"All right," said Mary.
+
+"It's--it's all over!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh, oh! What shall we ever do?" wailed Olivetta, collapsing into a
+chair.
+
+"The police!--she mustn't go!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Open the door,
+Matilda, quick!" Then in a weak, quavering voice she called to her
+besiegers:--
+
+"Wait!"
+
+After which she wilted away into the nearest chair--which chanced to
+be directly beneath the awesome, unbending, blue-blue-blooded Mrs.
+De Peyster of the golden frame, whose proud composure it was beyond
+things mortal to disturb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A FAMILY REUNION
+
+
+Matilda's shaking hand unlocked the door. Jack lunged in, behind him
+Mr. Pyecroft and Judge Harvey, and behind them Mary. On Jack's face
+was a look of menacing justice. But at sight of the trembling turnkey
+the invading party suddenly halted, and Jack's stern jaw relaxed and
+almost dropped from its sockets.
+
+"Matilda!" he exclaimed. And from behind him, like a triplicate echo,
+sounded the others' "Matilda!"
+
+"Good--good-morning, Mr. Jack," quavered Matilda, locking the door
+again.
+
+Then the four sighted Olivetta.
+
+"What, you, Olivetta!" Jack and Judge Harvey cried in unison.
+
+"Yes, it's I, Jack," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I just
+thought I'd call in to express--it's no more than is proper, my being
+her cousin, you know,--to express my sympathy to your mother."
+
+"Your sympathy to my mother?"
+
+"Yes. To--to tell her how--how sorry I am that she's dead," elucidated
+Olivetta.
+
+A little hand gripped Jack's arm.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+He turned his head and his eyes followed Mary's pointing finger.
+
+"Mother!" He walked amazedly up before Mrs. De Peyster's palsied
+figure. "Mother!"
+
+In the same instant Judge Harvey was beside her.
+
+"Caroline!" he breathed, like one seeing a ghost.
+
+"Ye-yes," she mumbled.
+
+"Then you're not dead?"
+
+"N-no," she mumbled.
+
+The Judge and Jack and Mary gazed down at her in uttermost
+astoundment. To them was added Mr. Pyecroft. His bewilderment, for the
+moment, was the greatest of the group; for the likeness between the
+black-garbed, fled Angelica, and this real Mrs. De Peyster in lavender
+dressing-gown, was more remarkable than he had ever dreamed.
+
+"Thank God!" quavered Judge Harvey. And then, voicing the general
+amazement: "But--but--I don't understand! What has happened? How do
+you come here?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, with a shivering glance at them all, and one of
+particular terror at her recent confederate, Mr. Pyecroft, made a last
+rally to save herself.
+
+"My explanation--that is, all I know about this affair--is really
+very simple. I--you see--I very unexpectedly returned home--and--and
+discovered this--this situation. That is all." She gathered a little
+more courage. "I do not need to inform you that I have been away."
+
+"Of course, we know you've been away!" said Jack. "But that Mrs. De
+Peyster at the pier--who is she?"
+
+"She's nothing--but a base--impostor!" cried Olivetta indignantly,
+lifting her face for a moment from her woe-soaked handkerchief. "Don't
+you believe a word she says!"
+
+"But we're all ready for the ceremony!" exclaimed Jack. "There are a
+dozen reporters downstairs, and no end of friends are coming from
+out of town to be present. And that person, whoever she is, will be
+here--"
+
+"I tell you she's an impostor!" cried Olivetta frantically. "Don't you
+let her in!"
+
+"Caroline, I can't tell you how--" Judge Harvey's voice, tremulous
+with relief at this unbelievably averted tragedy, broke off. "But what
+are we going to do?" he cried.
+
+"Yes, what are we going to do?" echoed Mary.
+
+Concern over this new, swiftly approaching crisis for a moment took
+precedence of all other emotions. Judge Harvey and Mary and Jack
+gazed at each other, bewildered, helpless. Something had to be done,
+quick--but what?
+
+"I tell you, don't let that impostor in!" repeated the frantic
+Olivetta.
+
+The three continued their interchange of helpless gaze.
+
+"Pardon me if I seem to intrude," spoke up the even voice of Mr.
+Pyecroft.
+
+Swiftly, but without appearing to hurry, he stepped to Mrs. De
+Peyster's writing-desk, and began running through the pages of the
+telephone book. With terrified apprehension, Mrs. De Peyster watched
+him: what--what was that terrible man going to do?
+
+The telephone was now in his hand, the receiver at his ear.
+
+"Central, give me Broad 4900.... Is this the French Line? Then connect
+me with the manager.... This the manager of the French Line?... I am
+speaking for Mr. Jack De Peyster, son of Mrs. De Peyster,--you know.
+Please give orders to the proper authorities to have Mrs. De Peyster
+held at the dock. Or if she has left, stop her at all cost. There must
+be no mistake! Further orders will follow. Understand?... Thank you
+very much. Good-bye."
+
+He turned about.
+
+"It will be all right," he said quietly.
+
+With a wild stare at him, Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and
+closed her eyes.
+
+"She's fainted!" cried Mary. "Her smelling-salts!"
+
+"A glass of water!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"No, no," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+But the pair had darted away, Mary into the bedroom, Jack into the
+bathroom. From the bathroom came a sudden, jangling din like the
+sheet-iron thunder of the stage.
+
+Mary reappeared, fresh amazement on her face.
+
+"Somebody's been using the bedroom! The bed's not made, and your
+clothes are all about!"
+
+The next moment Jack rushed in behind her.
+
+"What a stack of empty tin cans I kicked into in the bathroom! What
+the deuce has been going on here?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster looked weakly, hopelessly, at Olivetta.
+
+"There's no use trying to keep it up any longer. We--we might as well
+confess. You tell them, Olivetta."
+
+But Olivetta protested into her dripping handkerchief that she never,
+never could. So it fell to Mrs. De Peyster herself to be the historian
+of her plans and misadventures--and she was so far reduced that even
+the presence of Mr. Pyecroft made no difference to her; and as for Mr.
+Pyecroft, when the truth of the affair flashed upon him, that wide,
+flexible mouth twisted upward into its whimsicalest smile--but the
+next instant his face was gravity itself. With every word she grew
+less and less like the Mrs. De Peyster of M. Dubois's masterpiece. At
+the close of the long narrative, made longer by frequent outbursts of
+misery, she could have posed for a masterpiece of humiliation.
+
+"It's all been bad enough," she moaned at the end; "what's happened
+is all bad enough, but think what's yet to come! It's all coming out!
+Everybody will be laughing at me--oh!--oh!--oh!--"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was drifting away into inarticulate lamentations, when
+there came a tramping sound upon the stairway. She drew herself up.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+There was a loud rap upon the door.
+
+"I say, Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster," called out a voice. "What's all
+this delay about?"
+
+"Who is it?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"That infernal Mayfair, and the whole gang of reporters!" exclaimed
+Jack.
+
+"Oh, Jack,--Judge Harvey! Save me! Save me!"
+
+"The hour set for the funeral is passed," Mayfair continued to call,
+"the drawing-room is packed with people, and the body hasn't arrived
+yet. We don't want to make ourselves obnoxious, but it's almost
+press-time for the next edition, and we've got to know what's doing.
+You know what a big story this is. Understand--we've simply got to
+know!"
+
+"Judge--what the devil _are_ we going to do?" breathed Jack.
+
+"My God, Caroline, Jack,--this is awful!" Judge Harvey whispered
+desperately. "We simply can't keep this out of the papers, and when it
+does get out--"
+
+"Oh! Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Judge Harvey," called the impatient Mr. Mayfair, "you really must
+tell us what's up!"
+
+Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary regarded each other in blank
+desperation; Mrs. De Peyster and Olivetta and Matilda were merely
+different varieties of jellied helplessness.
+
+"Judge Harvey," Mr. Mayfair called again, "we simply must insist!"
+
+"Caroline," falteringly whispered Judge Harvey, "I don't see what
+we--"
+
+"Pardon me," whispered Mr. Pyecroft, gently stepping forward among
+them. Then he raised his voice: "Wait just one minute, gentlemen! You
+shall know everything!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pyecroft, don't, don't!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster. "Judge
+Harvey--Jack--don't let him! Send them away! Put it off! I can't stand
+it!"
+
+But Mr. Pyecroft, without heeding her protest, and unhampered by the
+others, stepped to Olivetta's side.
+
+"Miss Harmon," he whispered rapidly, "did you obey Mrs. De
+Peyster's instructions on your voyage home? About keeping to your
+stateroom--about keeping yourself veiled, and all the rest?"
+
+"Yes," said Olivetta.
+
+"And Mrs. De Peyster's trunks, where are they?"
+
+"At the Cunard pier,"
+
+"What name did you sail under?"
+
+"Miss Harriman."
+
+In the same instant Mr. Pyecroft had lifted Olivetta to her feet, had
+drawn from her boneless figure the long traveling-coat of pongee
+silk, and had drawn the pins from her traveling-hat. Released from his
+support, Olivetta re-collapsed. In the next instant Mr. Pyecroft had
+Mrs. De Peyster upon her feet, with firm, deft, resistless hands had
+slipped the long coat upon her, had put the hat upon her head and
+pushed in the pins, had drawn the thick veil down over her face--and
+had thrust her again down into her chair.
+
+"Matilda, not a word!" he ordered, in a quick, authoritative whisper.
+"Miss Harmon, not a word! Mrs. De Peyster, call up your nerve; you'll
+need it, for you know that Mayfair is the cleverest reporter in Park
+Row. And now, Mrs. Jack De Peyster,"--for Mary stood nearest the
+door,--"let them in."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster half-rose in ultimate consternation.
+
+"Oh, please--please--you're not going to let them in!"
+
+"We don't dare keep them out!" Mr. Pyecroft pressed Mrs. De Peyster
+firmly back into her chair. "Keep your nerve!" he repeated sharply.
+"Open the door, please,--quick!"
+
+Mary cast a questioning glance at Jack, who, bewildered, nodded his
+consent. She unlocked the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+The next moment a dozen reporters crowded into the room, the
+redoubtable Mr. Mayfair at their head; and behind them could be seen
+the pale, curious faces of William, Miss Gardner, and M. Dubois. Mrs.
+De Peyster, Olivetta, and Matilda sat in limp despair. Judge Harvey,
+Jack, and Mary gazed in breathless suspense and wonderment at Mr.
+Pyecroft. As for Mr. Pyecroft, he stood before Mrs. De Peyster,
+obscuring her, looking like one who has suffered a severe shock, yet
+withal grave and composed.
+
+"What's up?" demanded the keen-faced Mayfair.
+
+"Before I answer that," said Mr. Pyecroft, "permit me to preface what
+I have to say by touching upon two necessary personal details. First,
+I believe, at least, you, Mr. Mayfair, have known me as Mr. Simpson,
+brother of Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper. I am not her brother. This
+harmless deception was undertaken, for reasons not necessary to give,
+at the request of Judge Harvey; he wished me to remain in the house
+to arrange, and make abstracts of, certain private papers. The second
+detail is, that I am speaking at the request of Judge Harvey, as his
+associate and as the representative of the De Peyster family."
+
+Judge Harvey felt his collar; Jack stared. But fortunately the room
+was dim, and the reporters' eyes were all on the grave, candid face of
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes--yes," said the impatient Mayfair. "But out with the story!
+What's doing?"
+
+"Something that I think will surprise you," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"Something that has completely astounded all of us--particularly this
+lady who is Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper, and Miss Harmon, here, who
+has just returned from a quiet summer in Maine to attend her cousin's
+funeral. The fact is, gentlemen, to come right to the point, there is
+to be no funeral."
+
+"No funeral!" cried Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"No funeral!" ran through the crowd.
+
+"No funeral," repeated Mr. Pyecroft. "The reason, gentlemen, is that a
+great mistake has been made. Mrs. De Peyster is not dead."
+
+"Not dead!" exclaimed the reporters.
+
+"If you desire proof, here it is." Mr. Pyecroft, stepping aside,
+revealed the figure of Mrs. De Peyster. He put his right hand upon her
+shoulder, gripping it tightly and holding her in her chair, and with
+his left he lifted the thick veil above her face. "I believe that most
+of you know Mrs. De Peyster, at least from her pictures."
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster!" cried the staggered crowd. "Mrs. De Peyster
+herself!"
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster herself," repeated Mr. Pyecroft in his grave voice.
+"You are surprised, but not more so than the rest of us."
+
+"But that other Mrs. De Peyster--the one the funeral is for?" asked
+Mr. Mayfair. "Who is she?"
+
+"That, gentlemen, is as great a mystery to us as to any of you," said
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"But how the--but how did it all happen?" ejaculated Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"That is what I am going to tell you," Mr. Pyecroft answered.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster struggled up.
+
+"Don't--don't!" she besought him wildly.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft pressed her back into her chair, and held her there with
+an arm that was like a brace of steel.
+
+"You see, gentlemen," he remarked sympathetically, "how this business
+has upset her."
+
+"Yes! But the explanation?"
+
+"Immediately--word for word, as Mrs. De Peyster has just now told us,"
+said he.
+
+"Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Olivetta and Matilda gazed at Mr. Pyecroft with ghastly, loose-lipped
+faces; Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary stared at him with an amazed
+suspense which they could hardly mask; and Miss Gardner, with whom he
+had not yet made his peace, breathlessly awaited the next move of this
+incomprehensible husband of hers. Mr. Pyecroft kept his eyes, for
+the most part, upon the shrewd, fraud-penetrating features of the
+unfoilable Mr. Mayfair--his own countenance the most truthful that son
+of Adam ever wore.
+
+"What Mrs. De Peyster has said is really very simple. As you know,
+she left Paris two or three weeks ago on a long motor trip. During her
+brief stay in Paris, one of her trunks was either lost or stolen,
+she is not certain which. As she pays no personal attention to her
+baggage, she was not aware of her loss for several days. So much is
+fact. Now we come to mere conjecture. A plausible conjecture seems to
+be that the gowns in the trunk were sold to a second-hand dealer, and
+these gowns, being attractive, the dealer must have immediately resold
+to various purchasers, and one of these purchasers must have--"
+
+"Yes, yes! Plain as day!" exclaimed Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"The face was unrecognizable," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "but since the
+gown had sewn into it Mrs. De Peyster's name, of course--"
+
+"Of course! The most natural mistake in the world!" cried Mr. Mayfair
+excitedly. "Go on! Go on!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had slowly turned a dazed countenance upward and was
+gazing at the sober, plausible face of her young man of the sea.
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster did not learn of what had happened till the day the
+supposed Mrs. De Peyster was started homeward. The most sensible thing
+for her to have done would have been to declare the mistake, and saved
+her family and friends a great deal of grief. But the shock completely
+unbalanced her. I will not attempt to describe her psychological
+processes or explain her actions. You may call her course illogical,
+hysterical, what you like; I do not seek to defend it; I am only
+trying to give you the facts. She was so completely unnerved--But
+a mere look at Mrs. De Peyster will show you how the shock unnerved
+her."
+
+The group gazed at Mrs. De Peyster's face. A murmur of sympathy and
+understanding ran among them.
+
+"In her hysterical condition," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "she had but
+one thought, and that was to get home as quickly as she could. She
+crossed to England, sailed on the Mauretania, kept to her stateroom,
+and arrived here at the house heavily veiled about an hour ago. I may
+add the details that she sailed under the name of Miss Harriman and
+that her trunks are now at the Cunard pier. There you have the entire
+story, gentlemen."
+
+He looked down at Mrs. De Peyster. "I believe I have stated the matter
+just as you outlined it to us?"
+
+"Ye--yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"There is no detail you would like to add?"
+
+"N--none," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Then, gentlemen," said Mr. Pyecroft, turning to the reporters,
+"since you have all the facts, and since Mrs. De Peyster is in a state
+bordering on collapse, we would take it as a favor if--"
+
+"No need to dismiss us," put in Mr. Mayfair. "We're in a bigger hurry
+to leave than you are to have us go. God, boys," he ejaculated to his
+fellows, "what a peach of a story!"
+
+In a twinkling Mr. Mayfair and his fellows of the press had vanished,
+each in the direction of a telephone over which he could hurry this
+super-sensation into his office.
+
+Within the room, all were staring at Mr. Pyecroft, as though in each
+a whirling chaos were striving to shape itself into speech. But before
+they could become articulate, that sober young gentleman had stepped
+from out of their midst and, his back to them, was discreetly
+engrossing himself in the examination of the first object that came to
+his hands: which chanced to be something lying on top of the exquisite
+safe--a slender platinum chain with a pendant pearl.
+
+With him gone, all eyes fixed themselves upon Mrs. De Peyster, and
+there was a profound and motionless silence in the room, save at first
+for some very sincere and vigorous snuffling into the handkerchiefs
+of Olivetta and Matilda. As for Mrs. De Peyster, she sat below the
+awesome, imperturbable Mrs. De Peyster of the portrait, and oh, what
+a change was there in the one beneath!--huddled, shaking, not a
+duchess-like line to her person, her face dropped forward in her
+hands.
+
+"Mother--" Jack breathed at length.
+
+"Caroline!" breathed Judge Harvey. Then added: "I'm sure it--it'll
+never become known."
+
+"Oh, to think it's all over--and we're out of it!" Olivetta cried
+hysterically. "Oh! Oh!" And she limply pitched sidewise in her chair.
+
+"Mees Harmon--Olivetta!" exclaimed M. Dubois. He sprang forward, knelt
+at her side and supported her wilted figure against his bosom.
+Upon this poultice to her troubles Olivetta relaxed and sobbed
+unrestrainedly. And no one, particularly Mrs. De Peyster, paid the
+least heed to this little episode.
+
+William, the coachman, the irreproachable, irreplaceable, unbendable
+William, his clean-shaven mask of a face now somewhat pale--William
+took a few respectful paces toward his resurrected mistress.
+
+"If you will not regard it as a liberty," said he, with his cadence of
+a prime minister, "I should like to express my relief and happiness at
+your restoration among us."
+
+"Thank you--William," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+William, having delivered his felicitations, bowed slightly, and
+started to turn away. But Matilda had stepped forward behind him, an
+imploring look upon her face.
+
+"Please, ma'am,--please, ma'am!" said she, in a tone that left no
+doubt as to her meaning.
+
+"Wait, William," weakly commanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+William paused.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not yet know what she was doing; her words spoke
+themselves.
+
+"William, Matilda has--has just confessed your engagement. She has
+also confessed how, during my--my absence--one night, after driving
+with you, she--she lost control of herself and seriously offended you.
+She asks me to apologize to you and tell you how very, very sorry she
+is."
+
+"Indeed, I am, William!" put in Matilda fervently.
+
+"It is my wish, William," continued Mrs. De Peyster, "that you should
+forgive her--and make up things between you--and never speak of that
+incident again--and be happy and stay with me forever."
+
+Matilda timidly slipped an arm through William's.
+
+"Forgive me, William!" said she appealingly.
+
+William's graven face exhibited a strange phenomenon--it twitched
+slightly.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. De Peyster," said he. And bowing respectfully, with
+Matilda upon his arm, he went out.
+
+"Well, Mary, I guess we'd better be going, too," said Jack, taking his
+wife's hand. "Mother,"--respectfully, yet a little defiantly,--"I'm
+sorry that Mary and I have by our trespassing caused you so much
+inconvenience. But Mary and I and our things will be out of the house
+within an hour. Good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Jack!" Mrs. De Peyster reached up a trembling hand and caught
+his sleeve. "Olivetta," said she, "perhaps you and your--your fiancé
+could find--another place for your confidences."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Olivetta, starting up with a flush.
+
+"Cousin Caroline, do you mean--"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lifted an interrupting hand.
+
+"Do as you like, but tell me about it later."
+
+As the pair went out, Mrs. De Peyster slowly raised herself up and
+stood gazing for a moment at her son. And that strange new force which
+had menaced her with eruption during all the days of her hiding, and
+which these last few minutes had been pulsing upward toward orgasm,
+was now become resistless. It was as though a crust, a shell, were
+being burst and being violently shed. She thrilled with an amazing,
+undreamed-of, expanding warmth.
+
+"Do you really--want to--leave me, Jack?" she whispered.
+
+"I have been invited to leave," said he, "but I have never been
+invited to come back."
+
+With a timidity, shot through with tingling daring, she slipped an arm
+about his shoulders.
+
+"Then I invite you," she said tremulously. "Won't you stay, Jack?"
+
+"And Mary?" said he.
+
+She looked about at her dark-eyed daughter-in-law.
+
+"If Mary will stay, too, I'll--I'll try not to act like my petrified
+family tree."
+
+"What! Was that you that day?" gasped the horrified Mary.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster slipped her other arm about Mary, and daringly she
+kissed Mary's fresh young cheek, and she drew the two tightly, almost
+convulsively, to her. "Mother!" cried Jack; and the next instant the
+two pairs of arms were about her. And thus they stood for several
+moments; until--
+
+"Caroline," broke in the unsteady but determined voice of Judge
+Harvey, "I told you I was going to propose to you again. And I'm going
+to do it right now. Please consider yourself proposed to."
+
+She looked up--shamefaced, flushing.
+
+"What, after the foolish woman I've--"
+
+"If you were ever foolish, you were never less a fool than now!"
+
+"I don't know about that," she quavered, "but anyhow I want you to
+straighten out my affairs--and--and Allistair, for all I care, can
+have--can have--for I'm all through--"
+
+"Caroline!"
+
+The next moment Judge Harvey's arms had usurped complete possession of
+her. And she wilted away upon his shoulder, and sobbed there. And thus
+for several moments....
+
+They were aroused by a polite cough. Both looked up. Halfway to the
+door stood Mr. Pyecroft; and beside him was Miss Gardner, gazing at
+him, tremulously bewildered.
+
+"Pardon me," said he, in his grave manner; nothing was ever seen less
+suggestive of having ever smiled than his face--"pardon me, Judge
+Harvey, but I believe you failed to mention at what time your office
+opens."
+
+"What time my office opens?" Judge Harvey repeated blankly. "Why?"
+
+"Naturally," said Mr. Pyecroft, "I wish to know at what hour I am
+supposed to report for work."
+
+"Well--Well--"
+
+But for a moment Judge Harvey could get out no more. He just stared.
+
+Then in a voice of dryest sarcasm: "Would you consider it impudent on
+my part--I wouldn't be impudent for the world, you know--to inquire
+what might be your real name? I have heard you variously called Mr.
+Simpson, Mr. Preston, Mr. Pyecroft. Perhaps you have a few other
+_aliases_."
+
+"I have had--yes. My real name is Eliot Endicott Bradford. That name
+has the advantage of never having appeared in any complaint or police
+report. For that matter, I may add that under none of my names have
+I ever been arrested. Eliot Bradford is a man against whom no legal
+fault can be found."
+
+"A testimonial from you," exclaimed the Judge--"what could possibly be
+better!"
+
+"But the hour?" gently insisted the other.
+
+Judge Harvey stared; his eyes narrowed. Then, suddenly--
+
+"Nine-thirty," said he.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bradford; and slipped a hand through Miss
+Gardner's arm.
+
+But before he could turn to go, Mrs. De Peyster, from over the
+shoulder against which she leaned--Mrs. De Peyster, she couldn't help
+it ... smiled at him.
+
+And, suddenly, Judge Harvey--he couldn't help it, either ... was
+smiling, too.
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of No. 13 Washington Square, by Leroy Scott</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, No. 13 Washington Square, by Leroy Scott</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: No. 13 Washington Square</p>
+<p>Author: Leroy Scott</p>
+<p>Release Date: October 24, 2004  [eBook #13844]</p>
+<p>[Date last updated: February 27, 2005]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE***</p>
+<br /><br /><h4>E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Alison Hadwin,<br />
+                and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h4><br /><br />
+  <hr class="full" />
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="pagefr" id=
+  "pagefr"></a>[<i>Frontispiece</i>]</span>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-1.jpg"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-1.jpg" alt="I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE" /></a>
+
+    <h4>"I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE" (<i>p.
+    48</i>)</h4>
+  </div>
+
+  <h1>NO. 13</h1>
+
+  <h1>WASHINGTON</h1>
+
+  <h1>SQUARE</h1>
+
+  <h2>BY LEROY SCOTT</h2>
+
+  <h4>1914</h4>
+  <br /><br />
+  <h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">I. THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER <a href=
+      "#page1">1</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">II. ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN <a href=
+      "#page18">18</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">III. MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE <a href=
+      "#page32">32</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">IV. A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT <a href=
+      "#page49">49</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">V. THE HONOR OF THE NAME <a href=
+      "#page61">61</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">VI. BEHIND THE BLINDS <a href=
+      "#page73">73</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">VII. NOT IN THE PLAN <a href=
+      "#page85">85</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">VIII. THE HONEYMOONERS <a href=
+      "#page95">95</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">IX. THE FLIGHT <a href=
+      "#page114">114</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">X. PEACE&mdash;OF A SORT <a href=
+      "#page126">126</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XI. THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT <a href=
+      "#page133">133</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XII. HOME AGAIN <a href=
+      "#page146">146</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XIII. THE HAPPY FAMILY <a href=
+      "#page158">158</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XIV. THE ATTIC ROOM <a href=
+      "#page173">173</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XV. DOMESTIC SCENES <a href=
+      "#page183">183</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XVI. THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR <a href=
+      "#page196">196</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XVII. A QUESTION OF IDENTITY <a href=
+      "#page211">211</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XVIII. THE THIRD FLIGHT <a href=
+      "#page225">225</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XIX. A PLEASANT HERMITAGE <a href=
+      "#page232">232</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XX. MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY <a href=
+      "#page242">242</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XXI. THE VEILED LADY <a href=
+      "#page251">251</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XXII. A FAMILY REUNION <a href=
+      "#page262">262</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">XXIII. MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE <a href=
+      "#page270">270</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE" (page
+      48) <a href="#pagefr"><i>frontispiece</i></a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?" <a href=
+      "#pagea">108</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS" <a href="#pageb">
+      138</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR <a href=
+      "#pagec">146</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"SAME PAPER&mdash;SAME HANDWRITING!" <a href=
+      "#paged">206</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"SO&mdash;SO IT'S I&mdash;THAT'S&mdash;THAT'S DEAD!"
+      <a href="#pagee">248</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+    <br /><br />
+  </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>[pg
+  1]</span>
+  <hr />
+<br /><br />
+  <h1>NO. 13</h1>
+
+  <h1>WASHINGTON SQUARE</h1>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER</h3>
+
+  <p>It was a raw, ill-humored afternoon, yet too late in the
+  spring for the ministration of steam heat, so the unseasonable
+  May chill was banished from Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room by a
+  wood fire that crackled in the grate; crackled most decorously,
+  be it added, for Mrs. De Peyster's fire would no more have
+  forgotten itself and shown a boisterous enthusiasm than would one
+  of her admirably trained servants. Beside a small steel safe,
+  whose outer shell of exquisite cabinet-work transformed that
+  fortress against burglarious desire into an article of furniture
+  that harmonized with the comfortable elegance of a lady's
+  boudoir, sat Mrs. De Peyster herself&mdash;she was born a De
+  Peyster&mdash;carefully transferring her jewels from the trays of
+  the safe to leathern cases. She looked quite as Mrs. De Peyster
+  should have looked: with an aura of high dignity that a
+  sixty-year-old dowager of the first water could not surpass, yet
+  with a freshness of person that (had it not been for her dignity)
+  might have made her early forties seem a blossomy
+  thirty-five.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id=
+  "page2"></a>[pg 2]</span>
+
+  <p>Before the well-bred fire sat a lady whose tears had long
+  since dried that she had shed when she had bid good-bye to
+  thirty. She was&mdash;begging the lady's pardon&mdash;a trifle
+  spare, and a trifle pale, and though in a manner well enough
+  dressed her clothes had an air of bewilderment, of general
+  irresolution, as though each article was uncertain in its mind as
+  to whether it purposed to remain where it had been put, or
+  casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures.</p>
+
+  <p>A dozen years before, Mrs. De Peyster, then in the fifth year
+  of her widowhood, had graciously undertaken to manage and
+  underwrite the d&amp;#233;but of her second cousin (not of the
+  main line, be it said) and had tried to discharge her duty in the
+  important matter of securing her a husband. But her efforts had
+  been futile, and to say that Mrs. De Peyster had not succeeded
+  was to admit that poor Olivetta Harmon was indeed a failure. She
+  had lacked the fortune to attract the conservative investor who
+  is looking for a sound business proposition in her he promises to
+  support; she had lacked the good looks to lure on the lover who
+  throws himself romantically away upon a penniless pretty face;
+  and she had not been clever enough to attract the man so
+  irrationally bold as to set sail upon the sea of matrimony with a
+  woman of brains. And so, her brief summer at an end, she had
+  receded to those remote and undiscovered shores on which dwell
+  the poor relations of the Four Hundred; whereon she had lived
+  respectably, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id=
+  "page3"></a>[pg 3]</span> as a lady (for that she should ever
+  appear a lady was due the position of Mrs. De Peyster), upon an
+  almost microscopic income; and from which bleak and distant land
+  of second-cousindom she came in glad and proud obedience to fill
+  an occasional vacant place at one of Mrs. De Peyster's
+  second-best dinner parties.</p>
+
+  <p>She had arrived but the moment before to bid her exalted
+  cousin adieu and wish her <i>bon-voyage</i>, and was now silently
+  gazing in unenvious admiration at the jewels Mrs. De Peyster was
+  transferring to their traveling-cases&mdash;with never a guess
+  that perturbation might exist beneath her kinswoman's composed
+  exterior. As a matter of fact, under the trying circumstances
+  which confronted Mrs. De Peyster, any other household would have
+  been in confusion, any lesser woman might have been headed toward
+  hysteria. But centuries of having had its own will had
+  established the De Peyster habit of believing that things would
+  eventuate according to the De Peyster wish; it was not in the De
+  Peyster blood to give way. And yet, though self-control might
+  restrain worry from the surface, it could not banish it from the
+  private chambers of her being.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster glanced at the open door of her
+  bedroom&mdash;hesitated&mdash;then called: "Miss Gardner!"</p>
+
+  <p>A trim and pretty girl stepped in. "Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Will you please call up Judge Harvey's office <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>[pg 4]</span> once more,
+  and inquire if there is any news about my son. And ask when Judge
+  Harvey will be here."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Gardner crossed to Mrs. De Peyster's desk and took up the
+  telephone.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, Cousin Caroline, has Jack&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"One moment, Olivetta,"&mdash;motioning toward the
+  telephone,&mdash;"until Miss Gardner is through."</p>
+
+  <p>They sat silent until the receiver was hung up. Mrs. De
+  Peyster strove to keep anxiety from her voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Miss Gardner,&mdash;any trace of my son yet?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They have learned nothing whatever."</p>
+
+  <p>"And&mdash;and Judge Harvey? When will he be here?"</p>
+
+  <p>"His office said he was at a meeting of the directors of the
+  New York and New England Railroad, and that he was coming here
+  straight after the meeting."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, Miss Gardner. You may now go on with the packing.
+  I'll have the jewels ready very shortly, and Matilda will be in
+  to help you as soon as she is through arranging with the
+  servants."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, Cousin Caroline, what is it about Jack?" burst out
+  Olivetta with an excited flutter after Miss Gardner had gone into
+  the bedroom. "I hadn't heard anything of it before! Has&mdash;has
+  anything happened to him?"</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta, an intimate, a relative, and a worshipful inferior,
+  was one of the few persons with whom Mrs. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>[pg 5]</span> De Peyster
+  could bring herself to unbend and be confidential. "That is what
+  I do not know. About a week ago Jack suddenly
+  disappeared&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Disappeared!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, he left a note, telling me not to worry. But not a word
+  has been heard from him since. Of course, it may only be some
+  wild escapade, but then he knew we were going on shipboard this
+  evening, and he should have been home long before this."</p>
+
+  <p>"How terrible!" cried the sympathetic Olivetta, pushing into
+  place a few of the inconstant hairpins that threatened to bestrew
+  the floor. "Went a week ago!" And then suddenly: "Why, that was
+  about the time that first rumor was printed of his engagement to
+  Ethel Quintard. And again this morning&mdash;in the
+  'Record'&mdash;did you see it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I never give thought to the newspapers," was Mrs. De
+  Peyster's somewhat stiff response.</p>
+
+  <p>"You have&mdash;have told the police?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The police, of course not! But I have advised with Judge
+  Harvey, and he has a firm of private detectives on the case."</p>
+
+  <p>"And they have clues?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They have nothing, as you just heard Miss Gardner
+  report."</p>
+
+  <p>"Cousin Caroline! With all these&mdash;these thugs and hold-up
+  men we read about&mdash;and all the accidents&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta! Don't!" And then in a more composed voice: "I am
+  hoping it is merely some boyish <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page6" id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span> prank. But even that will be
+  bad enough, if he misses the boat."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I see. You told me about arranging with Mrs. Quintard
+  also to sail on the Plutonia."</p>
+
+  <p>"I had counted on the trip&mdash;Jack and Ethel being thrown
+  together, you know."</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed, it was very clever of you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am hoping it may be only some boyish prank," Mrs. De
+  Peyster repeated. "You may not have noticed it, Olivetta," she
+  continued, permitting a sigh to escape her, "but of late Jack has
+  acted at times&mdash;well, rather queerly."</p>
+
+  <p>"Queerly! How?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He has been far from being himself. In fact, I have observed
+  a number of things not at all natural to a De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline! What a worry he must be to you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. But I am hoping for the best. And now, please, we will
+  say no more about it."</p>
+
+  <p>They were silent for a moment. Miss Gardner entered, took the
+  jewels which in the mean time Mrs. De Peyster had finished
+  putting in their cases, and went again into the bedroom.
+  Olivetta's eyes followed her.</p>
+
+  <p>"You are still pleased with Miss Gardner?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Thus far she has proved herself competent. I consider myself
+  very fortunate in finding a secretary who is not above some of
+  the duties of a lady's maid. It is a very happy combination for
+  traveling."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id=
+  "page7"></a>[pg 7]</span>
+
+  <p>"She seems almost too good to be true," mused Olivetta. "She's
+  really very pretty. I hope Jack hasn't&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta! How can you! Jack has never paid her the slightest
+  attention, nor she him."</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, Caroline! But she's so pretty, and she's just the
+  sort of girl who attracts men&mdash;and&mdash;and"&mdash;a bit
+  wistfully&mdash;"gets engaged and gets married."</p>
+
+  <p>"Nonsense, Olivetta. When she first came to me I asked her if
+  she were in love or engaged. She said she was not, and I told her
+  my rules. She is a very sensible girl."</p>
+
+  <p>"At any rate, she must be a great relief after that Marie you
+  had."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster flushed, as though at some disagreeable
+  memory.</p>
+
+  <p>"Have you learned yet whether Marie was actually a spy for
+  Mrs. Allistair?" inquired Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"She confessed that she was getting money besides the wages I
+  paid her. That is proof enough."</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe it of Mrs. Allistair! She wouldn't stop at anything
+  to win your place as social leader. But she could never fill
+  it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"She will never win it!" Mrs. De Peyster returned with calm
+  confidence.</p>
+
+  <p>At that moment the door from the hallway opened and there
+  entered a woman of middle age, in respectable dull-hued black,
+  with apron of black silk and a white cap.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>[pg 8]</span>
+
+  <p>"Ah, Matilda," remarked Mrs. De Peyster. "The servants, are
+  they all gone yet?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The last one, the cook, is just going, ma'am. There's just
+  William and me left. And the men have already come to board up
+  the windows and the door."</p>
+
+  <p>"You paid the servants board wages as I instructed, and made
+  clear to them about coming to Newport when I send orders?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. And they all understand."</p>
+
+  <p>"Good," said Mrs. De Peyster. "You have Mr. Jack's trunks
+  packed?"</p>
+
+  <p>"All except a few things he may want to put in himself."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well. You may now continue helping Miss Gardner with my
+  things."</p>
+
+  <p>But Matilda did not obey. She trembled&mdash;blinked her
+  eyes&mdash;choked; then stammered:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Please, ma'am, there's&mdash;there's something else."</p>
+
+  <p>"Something else?" queried Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. Downstairs there are six or seven young men from
+  the newspapers. They want&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster in stern reproof, "you
+  are well enough acquainted with my invariable custom regarding
+  reporters to have acted without referring this matter to me. It
+  is a distinct annoyance," she added, "that one cannot make a
+  single move without the newspapers following one!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed it is!" echoed the worshipful and indignant
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>[pg
+  9]</span> Olivetta. "But that is because of your position."</p>
+
+  <p>"I tried to send them away," said Matilda hurriedly. "And I
+  told them you were never interviewed. But," she ended helplessly,
+  "it didn't do any good. They're all sitting downstairs
+  waiting."</p>
+
+  <p>"I shall not see them," Mrs. De Peyster declared firmly.</p>
+
+  <p>"There was one," Matilda added timorously, "who drew me aside
+  and whispered that he didn't want an interview. He wants your
+  picture."</p>
+
+  <p>"Wants my picture!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. He said the pictorial supplement of his paper a
+  week from Sunday was going to have a page of pictures of
+  prominent society women who were sailing for Europe. He said
+  something about calling the page 'Annual Exodus of Social
+  Leaders.' He wants to print that painting of you by that new
+  foreign artist in the center of the page." And Matilda pointed
+  above the fireplace to a gold-framed likeness of Mrs. De
+  Peyster&mdash;stately, aloof, remote, of an ineffable composure,
+  a masterpiece of blue-bloodedness.</p>
+
+  <p>"You know my invariable custom; give him my invariable
+  answer," was Mrs. De Peyster's crisp response.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, but&mdash;but, Cousin Caroline," put in Olivetta,
+  with eager diffidence, "don't you think this is
+  different?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id=
+  "page10"></a>[pg 10]</span>
+
+  <p>"Different?" asked Mrs. De Peyster. "How?"</p>
+
+  <p>"This isn't at all like the ordinary offensive newspaper
+  thing. A group of the most prominent social leaders, with you in
+  the center of the page&mdash;with you in the center of them all,
+  where you belong! Why, Caroline,&mdash;why&mdash;why&mdash;" In
+  her excitement for the just glorification of her cousin,
+  Olivetta's power of speech went fluttering from her.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps it may not be quite the same," admitted Mrs. De
+  Peyster. "But I see no reason for departing from my custom."</p>
+
+  <p>"If not for your own sake, then&mdash;then for the artist's
+  sake!" Olivetta pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more
+  of diffidence in her eagerness. "You have taken up M.
+  Dubois&mdash;you have been his most distinguished
+  patron&mdash;you have been trying to get him properly started. To
+  have his picture displayed like that, think how it will help M.
+  Dubois!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she
+  questioned the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then
+  she considered an instant; and in the main it was her human
+  instinct to help a struggling fellow being that dictated her
+  decision.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of the picture.
+  And as I treat the papers without discrimination, you may give
+  photographs to all the reporters who wish them. But on the
+  understanding that M. Dubois is to have conspicuous credit."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"And send all of them away."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span>
+
+  <p>"I'll do what I can, ma'am." And Matilda went out.</p>
+
+  <p>"What time does the Plutonia sail?" inquired Olivetta, with
+  the haste of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.</p>
+
+  <p>"At one to-night. Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I
+  shall go aboard right after it."</p>
+
+  <p>"How many times does this make that you've been over?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I do not know," Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly. "Thirty
+  or forty, I dare say."</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta's face was wistful with unenvious envy. "Oh, what a
+  pleasure!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure," corrected
+  Mrs. De Peyster. "It is a duty one owes one's social
+  position."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I know that's true with you, Cousin Caroline. But with
+  me&mdash;what a joy! When you took me over with you that summer,
+  we only did the watering-places. But now"&mdash;a note of
+  ecstatic desire came into her voice, and she clasped her
+  hands&mdash;"but now, to see Paris!&mdash;the Louvre!&mdash;the
+  Luxembourg! It's the dream of my life!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.</p>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any
+  more attention?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No, no,&mdash;of course not," cried Olivetta, and a sudden
+  color tinted the too-early autumn of her cheeks. "Do you think,
+  after what you said&mdash;"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page12" id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span>
+
+  <p>"M. Dubois is a very good artist, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I understand, Cousin Caroline," Olivetta put in hastily. "I
+  think too much of your position to think of such a thing. Since
+  you&mdash;since then&mdash;I have not spoken to him, and have
+  only bowed to him once."</p>
+
+  <p>"We will say no more about it," returned Mrs. De Peyster; and
+  she kissed Olivetta with her duchess-like kindness. "By the by,
+  my dear, your comb is on the floor."</p>
+
+  <p>"So it is. It's always falling out."</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta picked it up, put it into place, and with nervous
+  hands tried to press into order loose-flying locks of her rather
+  scanty hair.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster arose; her worry about her missing son
+  prompted her to seek the relief of movement. "I think I shall
+  take a turn about the house to see that everything is being
+  properly closed. Would you like to come with me?"</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta would; and, talking, they went together down the
+  stairs. As they neared the ground floor, Matilda's voice arose to
+  them, expostulating, protesting.</p>
+
+  <p>"What can that be about?" wondered Mrs. De Peyster, and
+  following the voice toward its source she stepped into her
+  reception-room. Instantly there sprang up and stood before her a
+  young man with the bland, smiling, excessively polite manner of a
+  gentleman-brigand. And around her crowded five or six other
+  figures.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id=
+  "page13"></a>[pg 13]</span>
+
+  <p>Matilda, pressing through them, glared at these invaders in
+  helpless wrath, then at her mistress in guilty terror.</p>
+
+  <p>"I&mdash;I did my best, ma'am. But they wouldn't go." And
+  before punishment could fall she discreetly fled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon this seeming intrusion, Mrs. De Peyster," the foremost
+  young man said rapidly, smoothly, appeasingly. "But we could not
+  go, as you requested. The sailing of Mrs. De Peyster, under the
+  attendant circumstances, is a piece of news of first importance;
+  in fact, almost a national event. We simply had to see you. I
+  trust you perceive and appreciate our professional
+  predicament."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was glaring at him with devastating
+  majesty.</p>
+
+  <p>"This&mdash;this is an outrage!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps it may seem an outrage to you," said the young man
+  swiftly, politely, and thoroughly undevastated. "But, really, it
+  is only our duty. Our duty to our papers, and to the great
+  reading public. And when newspaper men are doing their duty they
+  must necessarily fail, to their great personal regret, in the
+  observance of some of the nicer courtesies."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was almost inarticulate.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who&mdash;who are you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mayfair is my name. Of the 'Record.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"The 'Record'! That yellow, radical paper!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Mayfair stepped nearer. His voice sank to an easy,
+  confidential tone.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id=
+  "page14"></a>[pg 14]</span>
+
+  <p>"You are misled by appearances, Mrs. De Peyster. Every paper
+  has got to have a policy; we're the common people's
+  paper&mdash;big circulation, you know; and we so denounce the
+  rich on our editorial page. But as a matter of fact we give our
+  readers more live, entertaining, and respectful matter about
+  society people than any other paper in New York. It's just what
+  the common people love. And now"&mdash;easily shifting his
+  base&mdash;"about this reported engagement of your son and Miss
+  Quintard. As you know, it's the best 'romance in high life' story
+  of the season. Will you either confirm or deny the report?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have nothing whatever to say," flamed out Mrs. De Peyster.
+  "And will you leave this house instantly!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, Miss Quintard's mother would not deny it either,"
+  commented Mr. Mayfair with his polite imperturbability. His sharp
+  eyes glinted with satisfaction. Young Mr. Mayfair admired himself
+  as being something of the human dynamo. Also it was his private
+  opinion that he was of the order of the super-reporter; nothing
+  ever "got by him." "And so," he went on without a pause, "since
+  the engagement is not denied, I suppose we may take it as a fact.
+  And now"&mdash;again with his swift change of base&mdash;"may I
+  ask, as a parting word before you sail, whether it is your
+  intention next season to contest with Mrs. Allistair&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have nothing whatever to say!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Quite naturally you'd prefer not to say anything,"
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>[pg
+  15]</span> appeasingly continued the high-geared Mr. Mayfair,
+  "but of course you are going to fight her." Again his sharp,
+  unfoilable eyes glinted. "'Duel for social
+  leadership'&mdash;pardon me for speaking of it as such, but
+  that's what it is; and most interesting, I assure you; and I, for
+  one, trust that you will retain your supremacy, for I
+  know&mdash;<i>I know</i>," he repeated with emphasis&mdash;"that
+  Mrs. Allistair has used some methods not
+  altogether&mdash;sportsmanlike, may I say? And now"&mdash;rapidly
+  shifting once more&mdash;"I trust I will not seem indelicate if I
+  inquire whether it is in the scope of your present plans, perhaps
+  at house-parties at the estates of titled friends, to meet the
+  Duke de&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have nothing whatever to say!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster,
+  glaring with consuming fury.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naturally. We could hardly expect a categorical 'yes' or
+  'no.' We understand that your position requires you to be
+  non-committal; and you, of course, understand that we newspaper
+  men interpret a refusal to speak as an answer in the affirmative.
+  Thank you very much for the interview you have given us. And I
+  can assure you that we shall all handle the story with the utmost
+  good taste. Good afternoon."</p>
+
+  <p>He bowed. And the next moment the place where he had stood was
+  vacant.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of&mdash;of all the effrontery!" exploded Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Isn't it terrible!" shudderingly gasped the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span>
+  sympathetic Olivetta. "I hope they won't really drag in that
+  horrible Duke de Cr&amp;#233;cy!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de
+  Cr&amp;#233;cy was still salt in an unhealed social wound. The
+  Duke had been New York's most distinguished titled visitor the
+  previous winter; Mrs. De Peyster, to the general envy, had led in
+  his entertainment; there had been whispers of another
+  international marriage. And then, after respectful adieus, the
+  Duke had sailed away&mdash;and within a month the papers were
+  giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a sensational
+  Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. Whereupon the rumors of
+  Mrs. De Peyster's previously gossiped-of marriage with the now
+  notorious Duke were revived&mdash;by the subtle instigation, and
+  as an act of social warfare, so Mrs. De Peyster believed, of her
+  aspiring rival, Mrs. Allistair. And there was one faint rumor,
+  still daringly breathed around, that the Duke had
+  proposed&mdash;had been accepted&mdash;had run away: in blunt
+  terms, had jilted Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"We will not speak of this again, Olivetta," Mrs. De Peyster
+  remarked with returning dignity, "but while the matter is up, I
+  will mention that the Duke did propose to me, and that I refused
+  him."</p>
+
+  <p>With a gesture she silenced any comment from Olivetta. In a
+  breath or two she was entirely her usual poiseful self. Too many
+  generations had her blood been trained to ways of dignity, and
+  too long had she herself been drilled in composure and
+  self-esteem <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id=
+  "page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> and in a perfect confidence in the
+  thing that she was, for an invasion of newspaper creatures to
+  disturb her for longer than a few moments.</p>
+
+  <p>She was moving with stately tread toward the dining-room when
+  Matilda came hurrying up from the nether regions of the house.
+  "Did you know, ma'am," Matilda fluttered eagerly, "that Mr. Jack
+  is home?"</p>
+
+  <p>"My son back!" There was vast relief in Mrs. De Peyster's
+  voice. "When did he come?"</p>
+
+  <p>"A few minutes ago."</p>
+
+  <p>"Did&mdash;did he say anything?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I haven't seen him, ma'am. He came in the back way, through
+  the stable. William told me about it."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's voice became composed, severe. "I shall see
+  what he has to say for himself." Majestically, somewhat
+  ominously, she turned and began to mount the stairs, followed by
+  Olivetta and Matilda. But as she passed the library's closed
+  door, she heard Miss Gardner's voice and a second voice&mdash;and
+  the second voice was the voice of a man.</p>
+
+  <p>Startled, she paused. She caught a few fragments of phrases.
+  Indignation surged up within her. Resolutely she stepped to the
+  door; but by instinct she was no eavesdropper, and she would not
+  come upon people in compromising attitudes without giving them
+  fair warning. So she knocked, waited a moment&mdash;then opened
+  the door and entered.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"
+  id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+  <h3>ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN</h3>
+
+  <p>Half an hour earlier, across in Washington Square, a young
+  gentleman was sauntering about taking the crisp May air. He was
+  fashionably but quietly dressed, and in his chamois-gloved hand
+  he swung a jaunty wand of a cane; a slender, lithe young
+  gentleman, with a keen face that had an oddly wide but yet
+  attractive mouth: a young man emanating an essence of lightness
+  both of body and of spirit. He might have been the very person of
+  agreeable, irresponsible Spring, if Spring is ever of the male
+  gender, out for a promenade.</p>
+
+  <p>It seemed most casual, the saunter of this pleasant idler; the
+  keenest observer would never have guessed purpose in his stroll.
+  But never for longer than an instant were the frank gray eyes of
+  this young gentleman away from the splendid stone steps, with
+  their carved balustrade, and the fine old doorway of Mrs. De
+  Peyster's house at No. 13 Washington Square.</p>
+
+  <p>Presently he noted three men turn up Mrs. De Peyster's steps.
+  Swiftly, but without noticeable haste, he was across the street.
+  The trio had no more than touched the bell when he was beside
+  them.</p>
+
+  <p>"What papers are you boys with?" he inquired easily, merging
+  himself at once with the party.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page19" id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+  <p>One man told him&mdash;and looked him up and down. "Thought I
+  knew all the fellows," added the speaker, a middle-aged man, "but
+  never ran into you before. What's your rag?"</p>
+
+  <p>"'Town Gossip,'" replied the agreeable young gentleman.</p>
+
+  <p>"'Town Gossip'!" The old reporter gave a grunt of contempt.
+  "And you've come to interview Mrs. De Peyster?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"First time I ever knew that leprous scandal-scavenger and
+  black-hander to send a man out in the open to get a story."
+  Evidently the old reporter, whom the others addressed as
+  "colonel," had by his long service acquired the privilege of
+  surly out-spokenness. "Thought 'Town Gossip' specialized in
+  butlers and ladies' maids and such&mdash;or faked up its dope in
+  the office."</p>
+
+  <p>"This is something special." The young gentleman's smiling but
+  unpresuming <i>camaraderie</i> seemed unruffled by the colonel's
+  blunt contempt, and though they all drew apart from him he seemed
+  to be untroubled by his journalistic ostracism.</p>
+
+  <p>The next moment the door was opened by a stout, short-breathed
+  woman, hat, jacket, and black gloves on. All stepped in. The
+  three late-arriving reporters, seeing in the reception-room
+  beyond a group of newspapermen about a servant,&mdash;Matilda
+  making her first futile effort to rid the house of this
+  pestilential horde, generaled by Mr. Mayfair,&mdash;started
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>[pg
+  20]</span> quickly toward the members of their fraternity. But
+  the young gentleman remained behind with their stout
+  admitter.</p>
+
+  <p>"Huh&mdash;thought that was really your size&mdash;tackling a
+  servant!" commented the caustic colonel.</p>
+
+  <p>But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply;
+  and the three disappeared into the reception-room. The young
+  gentleman, very politely, half pushed, half followed the stout
+  woman out of the reception-room's range of vision.</p>
+
+  <p>"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant
+  matter-of-factness.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the basement door. When I heard
+  the ring, I just happened&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost
+  all the regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say,"
+  smiling engagingly, "that you might be the cook, and a mighty
+  good cook, too."</p>
+
+  <p>He had such an "air," did this young man,&mdash;the human air
+  of the real gentleman,&mdash;that, despite the unexpectedness of
+  his overture, the stout woman, instead of taking offense, flushed
+  with pleasure.</p>
+
+  <p>"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."</p>
+
+  <p>"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.</p>
+
+  <p>"Eighty," corrected the cook.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's mighty good&mdash;twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs.
+  Cook,"&mdash;again with his open, engaging smile,&mdash;"pardon
+  me for not knowing your proper <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page21" id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> name,&mdash;could I
+  induce you to enter my employment&mdash;at, say, twenty dollars a
+  minute?"</p>
+
+  <p>"What&mdash;what&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"For only a limited period," continued the young
+  gentleman&mdash;"to be exact, say one minute. Light work," he
+  added with a certain whimsicality, "short hours, seven days
+  out&mdash;unusual opportunity."</p>
+
+  <p>"But what&mdash;what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before
+  she could gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two
+  ten-dollar bills.</p>
+
+  <p>"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner&mdash;alone. It's all
+  right. She and I are old friends."</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all
+  non-intrigantes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Isn't there some room where nobody will come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at
+  a door.</p>
+
+  <p>"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will
+  know we're meeting."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, sir, I don't see how&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want
+  to bid Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in
+  there with the reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to
+  speak to her and will be waiting in the library. When you've said
+  that, you've earned the money. Then just watch your chance until
+  the somber lady isn't looking, and continue with your original
+  plan of leaving the house."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page22" id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture
+  in which there was no hesitation she slipped her minute's pay
+  between the buttons of her waist.</p>
+
+  <p>The young gentleman went lightly and swiftly up the stairs and
+  through the mahogany door that had been pointed out to him.
+  Curiously he looked about the spacious, dark-toned room of
+  splendid dignity. He had the ease of the man to whom the world is
+  home, and seemed not one whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur
+  of the great chamber. With a watchful eye on the door, he glanced
+  at the rows and rows of volumes: well-bred authors whom time had
+  elevated to a place among literary "old families." Also he
+  examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with a critical,
+  valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing&mdash;and this he did
+  absently, as one might do from habit&mdash;he tried the knob of a
+  big safe, but it was locked.</p>
+
+  <p>The next moment there was a sound at the door. Instantly he
+  was out of sight behind the brown velvet hangings of a recessed
+  French window. Miss Gardner entered, saw upon the embarrassed
+  edges of none of the shrouded chairs a plump and short-breathed
+  Susan. Surprised, she was turning to leave when a cautious but
+  clear whisper floated across the room.</p>
+
+  <p>"Clara!"</p>
+
+  <p>She whirled about. At sight of the young gentleman, who had
+  stepped forth, she went pale, then red, then pale
+  again.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id=
+  "page23"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+  <p>"Eliot&mdash;Mr. Bradford!" she exclaimed. Then in a husky
+  frightened whisper: "How did you get in here?"</p>
+
+  <p>He sought to take one of her hands, but she put both behind
+  her back. At this repulse the young gentleman winced, then smiled
+  gravely, then pleasantly,&mdash;and then with a whimsical upward
+  twist to his wide mouth.</p>
+
+  <p>"Via the cook," he answered, and told her the rest.</p>
+
+  <p>"Did any one else belonging to the house see you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Besides you and my excellent old friend, the cook, no
+  one."</p>
+
+  <p>"But don't you realize that this house is one of the most
+  dangerous places in the world for you?" she cried in a low voice.
+  "Why, Judge Harvey himself is expected here any minute!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey!" The equable young man gave a start. But the
+  next moment his poise came back.</p>
+
+  <p>"And after what I saw only to-day in the papers about Thomas
+  Preston&mdash;! Don't you know you are this moment standing on a
+  volcano?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;but what of it?" he answered cheerfully. "It's the
+  most diverting indoor or outdoor sport I've ever indulged
+  in&mdash;dodging eruptions. Besides, in standing on this volcano
+  I have the advantage of also standing near you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Didn't I tell you I never wanted to see you again!" she
+  flamed at him. "How dared you come here?"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span>
+
+  <p>"I had to come, dear." His voice was pleading, yet
+  imperturbably pleasant. "You refused to answer the letters I
+  wrote you begging you to meet me somewhere to talk things over. I
+  read that Mrs. De Peyster was sailing to-night, and I knew that
+  you were sailing with her. Surely you understand, before she
+  went, I had to see my wife."</p>
+
+  <p>"I refuse to recognize myself as such!" cried Miss
+  Gardner.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, my dear, you married&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, after knowing you just two days! Oh, you can be charming
+  and plausible, but that shows just how foolish a girl can be when
+  she's a bit tired and lonesome, and then gets a bit of a
+  holiday."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Clara, you really liked me!"</p>
+
+  <p>"That was because I didn't know who you were and what you
+  were!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Clara," he went on easily&mdash;he could not help
+  talking easily, though his tone had the true ring of sincerity.
+  There seemed to be no bit of agressive self-assurance about this
+  young gentleman; he seemed to be just quietly, pleasantly,
+  whimsically, unsubduably his natural self. "But, Clara, you must
+  remember that it was as sudden with me as with you. I hardly
+  thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank, I was afraid
+  if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step a bit,
+  that's a fact."</p>
+
+  <p>"You admit this, and yet you expect me to accept as my husband
+  a man who admits he is a crook!"</p>
+
+  <p>"My dear Clara," he protested gently, "I never <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span>
+  admitted I was such an undraped, uneuphonious, square-cornered
+  word as that."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, if a forger isn't a crook, then who is? The business of
+  those forged letters of Thomas Jefferson, do you think I can
+  stand for that?"</p>
+
+  <p>The young man was in earnest, deadly earnest; yet he could not
+  help his wide mouth tilting slightly upward to the right. Plainly
+  there was something here that amused him.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Clara, you don't seem to understand that
+  business&mdash;and you don't seem to understand me."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, I must say I don't!" she said caustically.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, perhaps I can't blame you," he admitted soothingly,
+  "for I don't always understand myself. But really, my dear,
+  you're not seeing this in the right light. Oh, I'm not going to
+  defend myself. It's sad, very sad, but I'll confess I'm no chromo
+  of sweet and haloed rectitude to be held up for the encouragement
+  and beatification of young John D. Rockefeller's Bible Class.
+  Still, I get my living quite as worthily as many of the guests
+  who grace"&mdash;with a light wave of his hand about the great
+  chamber&mdash;"this noble habitation. Though," in a grieved tone,
+  "I'll confess some of my methods are not yet adequately
+  recognized and protected by law."</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't you ever take anything seriously?" she cried in
+  exasperation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Besides yourself, what is there to take
+  seriously?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id=
+  "page26"></a>[pg 26]</span>
+
+  <p>"Don't consider me in your calculations, if you please!" And
+  then with sudden suspicion: "See here&mdash;you're not here to
+  try any of your tricks on this house, or on Mrs. De Peyster!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was thinking," said he, smiling about the room, "that you
+  might hide me here till the police become infatuated with some
+  other party. A fashionable house closed for the
+  summer&mdash;nothing could possibly be superior for my
+  purposes."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd never do it! Besides, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper will
+  be here."</p>
+
+  <p>"But Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper would never know I was
+  here."</p>
+
+  <p>"I can't stand your talk another minute," she burst out.
+  "Go!"</p>
+
+  <p>He did not stir; continued to smile at her pleasantly. "Oh,
+  I'm not really asking the favor, Clara. I'm pretty safe where I'm
+  staying."</p>
+
+  <p>"Go, I say! And if you don't care for your own danger, then at
+  least consider mine."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yours?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've told you of Mrs. De Peyster's attitude toward
+  married&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then leave her, my dear. Even though it wouldn't be safe for
+  you to be with me till the police resume their interrupted
+  nap&mdash;still, you can have your own flat and your own bank
+  account. Nothing would make me happier."</p>
+
+  <p>"Understand this, Mr. Bradford,&mdash;I'm going to have
+  nothing to do with you!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page27" id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+  <p>For a moment he sobered. "Come, Clara: give me a chance to
+  make good&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Will you turn straight?" she caught him up sharply. "And will
+  you fix up the affair of the Jefferson letters?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That last is a pretty stiff proposition; I don't see how it's
+  to be done. As to the first&mdash;but, really,
+  Clara,"&mdash;smiling again appeasingly,&mdash;"really, you take
+  this thing altogether too seriously."</p>
+
+  <p>"Too seriously!" She almost choked. "Why&mdash;why&mdash;I'm
+  through with you! That's final! And I don't dare stay here
+  another minute! Good-bye."</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait, Clara." He caught her hand as she turned to go, and
+  spoke rapidly. "I don't think I'm so bad as you think I
+  am&mdash;honest. You may change your mind; I hope you do, dear;
+  and if you do, write me, 'phone me, telegraph me, cable me,
+  wireless me. But, of course, not to me direct; the police, you
+  know. Address me in care of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft." Tense
+  though the moment was to him, the young man could not restrain
+  his odd whimsical smile. "The Reverend Mr. Pyecroft has taken an
+  interest in me; like you he is trying to make me a better man.
+  He'll see that I get your message. Herbert E.
+  Pyecroft&mdash;P-y-e-c-r-o-f-t&mdash;remember his name. Here's a
+  card of the boarding-house at which he is staying." He thrust the
+  bit of pasteboard into her free hand. "Remember, dear, I really
+  am your husband."</p>
+
+  <p>With an outraged gesture she flung the card to the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>[pg
+  28]</span> floor. "There'll be no message!" Her voice was raised;
+  she trembled in fierce humiliation, and in scorn of him. "You ...
+  my husband!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, your husband!" he said firmly. "And I'm going to make
+  you love me!"</p>
+
+  <p>It was at just this moment that Mrs. De Peyster, ascending
+  from her scene with the reporters, was passing without, and it
+  was these last words that she overheard. And it was at just this
+  moment that her knock sounded upon the door.</p>
+
+  <p>"Quick, you mustn't be seen here!" breathed Miss Gardner. "The
+  French windows there, and out the back way through the
+  stable!"</p>
+
+  <p>With a cat's silent swiftness he was at the windows, Miss
+  Gardner beside him. But in the back-yard stood William, the
+  coachman, sunning himself. That way was closed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Into the study," whispered Miss Gardner, pointing at a door,
+  "and watch your chance to get out!"</p>
+
+  <p>In the same instant the heavy sound-proof mahogany door closed
+  softly behind him&mdash;leaving Miss Gardner in the middle of the
+  room, with heightened color, breathing rapidly. Into the library
+  swept Mrs. De Peyster, followed by Olivetta and Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>There was a lofty sternness in Mrs. De Peyster's manner. "Miss
+  Gardner, I believe I heard you speaking with a man."</p>
+
+  <p>"You did." Miss Gardner was stiff, proudly erect, for she
+  sensed what might be coming.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page29" id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span>
+
+  <p>"Where is he?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He went out through the window," said Miss Gardner.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, he did not want me to find out about you. But by chance I
+  overheard him say he was your husband."</p>
+
+  <p>"He is." Then with an effort: "But husband or no husband, Mrs.
+  De Peyster, I believe I would be of equal value&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I desire no scene, no argument," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster,
+  dignified, not a strident note in her voice&mdash;for she never
+  lost her self-possession or the true grand manner. "I believe you
+  will remember, Miss Gardner, that when you applied for your
+  present position two months ago, I told you that I made it a rule
+  to have no servants or employees of any kind who were married. As
+  I desired that you should understand my reasons, I informed you
+  that I had once had a cook and a footman who were married, and
+  who paid so much attention to one another that they had time to
+  pay no attention to me. I then asked you if you were married. You
+  informed me you were not."</p>
+
+  <p>"And I was not, at that time."</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed! Then you have married since. That makes your
+  deception all the worse. Remember, Miss Gardner, it was on the
+  distinct understanding that you were unmarried that I employed
+  you. I have no desire to pass judgment upon you. I try to be fair
+  and just and generous with all my employees. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span> If you
+  had been what you declared yourself to be, and remained such, you
+  could have stayed with me indefinitely. Matilda there came to me
+  as my son's nurse over twenty years ago, and has been with me
+  ever since&mdash;happy, as she will tell you, with no desire to
+  change her state whatever."</p>
+
+  <p>"N&mdash;no&mdash;none&mdash;none at all!"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda hastily dropped her eyes. Mechanically her eyes noted
+  the rejected card Mr. Bradford had tendered Miss Gardner. Her
+  long habit of perfect orderliness, and perhaps the impulse to
+  hide the slight confusion that suddenly had seized upon her,
+  prompted her to bend over and secure this bit of litter. She
+  glanced at it, would have put it in the waste-basket had that
+  receptacle not been across the room, then thrust it into the
+  capacious slit-pocket of her black skirt.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster continued in her tone of exact justice: "Miss
+  Gardner, you have the perfect right to be married or unmarried. I
+  have the perfect right to have the sort of employees I prefer.
+  But since you are not what you declared yourself to be, I no
+  longer require your service."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Gardner bowed stiffly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, see that Miss Gardner is paid in full to the end of
+  her month; and also pay her one month in advance. And telephone
+  about until you can find me a maid&mdash;do not bother about the
+  secretary part of it&mdash;a maid who is <i>not</i> married, and
+  who can come at once. That is all."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+  <p>Matilda, still somewhat pale and agitated, started to follow
+  out the proud Miss Gardner, who gave a swift glance at the study
+  door&mdash;while Mrs. De Peyster looked on with her invariable
+  calm majesty.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id=
+  "page32"></a>[pg 32]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+  <h3>MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE</h3>
+
+  <p>But at just this moment there was a smart rap at the library
+  door, it was partly opened, and a cheery masculine voice called
+  out:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"May I come in, mother?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You, Jack. You may," was the somewhat eager response from
+  Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>The door swung entirely open, Miss Gardner stepped out, and
+  there entered a young man of twenty-two or three, good-natured
+  confidence in his manner, flawlessly dressed, with hands that
+  were swathed in bandages. He crossed limpingly to Mrs. De
+  Peyster, who, her affection now under control, stood regarding
+  him with reproving and sternly questioning eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Good-morning, mother,&mdash;glad to get back," he said,
+  imprinting an undaunted kiss upon her stately cheek.</p>
+
+  <p>Her reply was a continuance of her reproving look. The young
+  man turned to Mrs. De Peyster's faithful satellite.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hello, Olivetta. Hands out of commission. You'll have to
+  shake my elbow." And he held out his angled arm.</p>
+
+  <p>"Good-morning, Jack," responded Olivetta, in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span>
+  trepidation, hardly daring to be gracious where Mrs. De Peyster
+  had been cool.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack slipped an arm across Matilda's shoulders. "How are you,
+  Matilda? Glad to see you again."</p>
+
+  <p>"And I'm glad to see you again, Mr. Jack," returned Matilda,
+  with a look of stealthy affection.</p>
+
+  <p>"Please go, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster crisply. "And now,
+  Jack," she continued with frigid dignity after Matilda had
+  withdrawn, "I trust that you will explain your absence, and your
+  long silence."</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly, mother," said Jack, pushing a slip-covered chair
+  before the fireplace&mdash;for an open wood fire burned here as
+  in her sitting-room above&mdash;and letting himself down into the
+  chair slowly and with extreme care and crossing his legs. "I got
+  a sudden invitation from Reggie Atwater to&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"You know I do not approve of that young scape-grace!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know you don't. I suppose that's one reason I didn't tell
+  you beforehand what I was up to."</p>
+
+  <p>"What have you been doing?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Reggie asked me to go on a long trip to try out his new car.
+  It's a hummer. Hundred-and-twenty horse-power&mdash;bloody-eyed,
+  fire-spitting devil&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Such cars are dangerous," severely commented Mrs. De Peyster,
+  who still kept to her horses and carriage as better maintaining
+  old-family distinction.</p>
+
+  <p>"I know. That's another reason I didn't tell
+  you&mdash;especially since we were planning a thousand-mile
+  lark."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id=
+  "page34"></a>[pg 34]</span>
+
+  <p>"What's the matter with your hands?" suddenly demanded Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack gazed meditatively at the bandaged members.</p>
+
+  <p>"You were right about that car being dangerous, mother," said
+  he. "I'll confess the whole business. We were whizzing around a
+  corner coming into Yonkers this morning when the machine skidded.
+  I did a loop-the-loop and lit on my hands. But the skin of my
+  palms&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" shuddered Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Were you much hurt?" asked Mrs. De Peyster, for a moment
+  forgetting her reproving manner in her affectionate concern.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mother, with your love for old lace, you certainly would like
+  the openwork effect of my skin. But&mdash;the patient will
+  recover."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust this experience has been a lesson to you!" said Mrs.
+  De Peyster with returned severity.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, it has&mdash;a big lesson!" Jack heartily agreed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then I trust you will do nothing of the kind again."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust I won't have to!"</p>
+
+  <p>There was rather an odd quality in Jack's tone.</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't have to? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You've questioned me a lot, mother. I'd like to put a few
+  leading questions to you. And&mdash;u'm&mdash;alone. Olivetta,"
+  he remarked pleasantly, "do you know that Sherlock Holmes found
+  it an instructive and valuable occupation to count the
+  stair-steps in a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id=
+  "page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> house? Suppose you run out for five
+  minutes and count 'em. I'll bet you a box of&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.</p>
+
+  <p>"I never eat candy!"</p>
+
+  <p>"A box of hairpins," continued Jack, clumsily picking up one
+  from the floor, "that there aren't more than seventy-five."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!" said Olivetta,
+  sticking the pin into place.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here, is that your purse?" asked Jack, fishing an open purse
+  from beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I'm always dropping it. I lost two&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I must say, Olivetta," put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly,
+  "that you really must not be so careless!"</p>
+
+  <p>Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hello! And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings
+  of&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Give it to me!" And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face,
+  snatched purse and card from Jack's hands. "I'll wait up in your
+  bedroom, Caroline, and look at your new gowns." And with a
+  rapidity that approached instantaneity she disappeared.</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack," his mother demanded suspiciously, "what was that
+  card?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Just an old admission ticket to varnishing day at the spring
+  exhibit of the American Society of Painters," said Jack easily.
+  And without giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue
+  the matter <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id=
+  "page36"></a>[pg 36]</span> further, he awkwardly pushed her
+  favorite chair toward the fire to a place beside his own. "Come
+  sit down, mother. There's a lot of things I want to tell
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair. "Yes?"</p>
+
+  <p>Jack's eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta. "Do you know,
+  mother, that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she
+  only had the right chance?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The right chance?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper
+  little hotel&mdash;chuck full of primped and crimped and proud
+  poor relations who don't dare draw a single full-sized breath
+  without first considering whether such a daring act might not
+  disturb the social standing of somebody over on Fifth Avenue or
+  down here on Washington Square&mdash;Oh, I say, mother, five more
+  years of that life and Olivetta will be
+  choked&mdash;dessicated&mdash;salted away&mdash;a regular
+  forever-and-ever-amen old maid. But if&mdash;" He hesitated.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;if?"</p>
+
+  <p>"If Olivetta were only to marry some one&mdash;some decent
+  fellow&mdash;she'd blossom out, grow as young as she actually
+  is&mdash;and, who knows, perhaps even her hairpins might stay
+  in."</p>
+
+  <p>"Marry, yes. But whom?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've seen a few things&mdash;there's a certain
+  party&mdash;and&mdash;" He stumbled a bit, conscious that he was
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>[pg
+  37]</span> becoming indiscreet. "And, oh, well, just on general
+  principles marriage is a good thing."</p>
+
+  <p>"That is just the opinion I have been urging upon you in
+  regard to yourself," returned his mother in her even, confident
+  tone.</p>
+
+  <p>"U'm&mdash;yes," Jack said hastily. "But that was
+  not&mdash;not the first thing I wanted to speak about."</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe you did say there were several matters."</p>
+
+  <p>"So there are." He rubbed his face tentatively with his
+  bandaged hand; then smiled blandly at his mother. "Yes, there are
+  a few."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, first of all, mother, I want to make a kick."</p>
+
+  <p>She frowned. "How often must I request you not to use such
+  common expressions!"</p>
+
+  <p>"All right, all right," said he. "Suppose I say, then, that
+  I'm dissatisfied."</p>
+
+  <p>"Dissatisfied!" She straightened up. "Dissatisfied! What
+  about? Do I not allow you all the money you want?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"And have I not practically arranged a match between you and
+  Ethel Quintard? Ethel will have three millions some day. And
+  there is no better family to marry into; that is, except our
+  own."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, yes,&mdash;I know."</p>
+
+  <p>"And yet you say you are dissatisfied!" She stared. "What more
+  can you want?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, for one thing, to go to school," was Jack's amiable
+  response.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id=
+  "page38"></a>[pg 38]</span>
+
+  <p>"Go to school! Why&mdash;why, you've already had the best of
+  educations! Exeter&mdash;Yale&mdash;not to speak of private
+  tutors!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And what did I learn? That is," he added, "over and above
+  being a fairly decent half-back and learning how to spend
+  money&mdash;u'm&mdash;pretty thoroughly."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust," said Mrs. De Peyster with all her dignity, "that
+  you learned to be a gentleman!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I suppose I learned that all right," Jack acquiesced.
+  "And I've been working hard at the profession ever
+  since&mdash;sixteen to twenty hours a day, no half-holidays and
+  no Sundays off. I can't stand it any longer. So I've decided to
+  go on strike."</p>
+
+  <p>"Strike?" exclaimed his mother, bewildered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. For better conditions. I'm tired loafing such long
+  hours. I'd like a little leisure in which to work."</p>
+
+  <p>"Work!" repeated his mother&mdash;and human voice could hardly
+  express amazement greater than did hers. "Work! Jack&mdash;you're
+  not in earnest?"</p>
+
+  <p>He held upon her a clear-eyed, humorous, but resolute
+  face.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't I look in earnest?"</p>
+
+  <p>He did; and his mother could only dazedly repeat, "Work! You
+  go to work!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, not at once. No, thank you! I want to ask you to give me
+  a little proper education first that will equip me to do
+  something. You've spent&mdash;how much have you spent on my
+  education, mother? <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id=
+  "page39"></a>[pg 39]</span> Tens and tens of thousands, I know.
+  Pretty big investment, on the whole. Now, how large returns do
+  you suppose I can draw on that investment?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was not thinking about dividends; I was thinking about
+  fitting you for your station," returned his mother stiffly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, as for me, I've been thinking of late about how much I
+  could get out of that investment. I've wanted to test myself and
+  find what I was worth&mdash;as a worker." He leaned a little
+  closer. "I say, mother," he said confidentially, "you remember
+  that little explanation I just gave you of my absence."</p>
+
+  <p>"About your trip in that high-powered automobile?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That was just a high-powered fib. Just a bit of diplomatic
+  romance&mdash;for Olivetta's consumption."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then where have you been?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Prospecting. Prospecting to find out just how much that
+  hundred thousand or two or three you've sunk in me is worth. And
+  I've found out. It's present value is not quite nine a week."</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I mean," he said pleasantly, "I've been at work."</p>
+
+  <p>"At work!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster slowly rose and looked down at him with
+  staring, loose-fallen face.</p>
+
+  <p>"At work!" she gasped again. "At work!"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span>
+
+  <p>"Yes, mother. At work."</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but that skidding automobile? Those hands?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Blisters, mother dear. Most horrible blisters."</p>
+
+  <p>"You've worked&mdash;you've worked&mdash;at what?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, you see, mother, if I could have knocked out a home
+  run, say a job as a railroad president, when I stepped up to the
+  plate in the first inning, I suppose I wouldn't have backed away
+  from the chance. But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore
+  cheap clothes and kept clear of my friends. 'What could I do?'
+  every one asked me. You know my answer. And <i>their</i> answer!
+  I thought only sub-way guards could say, 'Step lively,' like
+  that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met a kind gentleman
+  who gave me a chance."</p>
+
+  <p>"A gentleman?"</p>
+
+  <p>"About the size of your piano&mdash;only he had a red mustache
+  and a red shirt and I should say his complexion needed
+  re-decorating. Irish&mdash;foreman on a water-main trench."</p>
+
+  <p>"And you&mdash;you took it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Took it? I grabbed it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"J&mdash;a&mdash;c&mdash;k D&mdash;e
+  P&mdash;e&mdash;y&mdash;s&mdash;t&mdash;e&mdash;r!" his appalled
+  mother slowly exclaimed&mdash;so slowly that each letter seemed
+  to shiver out by itself in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any
+  rate," she declared with returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had
+  enough of it to bring you to your senses and bring you
+  home!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id=
+  "page41"></a>[pg 41]</span>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache
+  is&mdash;well, you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold
+  so much discomfort. But that isn't the only thing that brought me
+  home. It was&mdash;er&mdash;I might say, mother, that it was
+  suggested to me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Suggested? I do not understand."</p>
+
+  <p>"If you will permit the use of so inelegant an expression, I
+  was 'fired.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"Fired?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. The foreman intimated&mdash;I won't repeat his language,
+  mother, but the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular
+  knots&mdash;he intimated, in a way that left no doubt as to his
+  meaning, that I was not quite up to the nine per week standard.
+  I'll be honest with you and admit that I didn't lean against the
+  pay-shed and weep. I still wanted to work, but I decided that I
+  didn't want to start life at its pick-and-shovel end&mdash;if I
+  could help it. So here I am, mother, asking you to give me a
+  little real education&mdash;say as a mining engineer, or
+  something like that."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was trembling with indignation.</p>
+
+  <p>"J&mdash;a&mdash;c&mdash;k D&mdash;e
+  P&mdash;e&mdash;y&mdash;s&mdash;t&mdash;e&mdash;r!" again a
+  letter at a time. "J&mdash;a&mdash;c&mdash;k D&mdash;e
+  P&mdash;e&mdash;y&mdash;s&mdash;t&mdash;e&mdash;r! I'm astounded
+  at you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I thought you might be&mdash;a little," he admitted.</p>
+
+  <p>"I think you might have some consideration for me! And my
+  position!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose it is rather selfish of me to want to earn
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>[pg
+  42]</span> my own living. But you don't know what dreary hard
+  work being a gentleman becomes."</p>
+
+  <p>"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. De Peyster wrathfully. "This is
+  what comes of your attending that Intercollegiate Socialist thing
+  in college! I protested to the president against the college
+  harboring such unsettling influences, and urged him to put it
+  out."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, dear old prexy did his best to comply."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's that Socialist thing! As for what you propose, I simply
+  will not have it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"No? I could have started in up at Columbia, and kept it from
+  you. But I wanted to be all on the level&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I won't have it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You really mean that you are not going to add a few thousand
+  more to my hundred thousands' worth of education?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I certainly shall not!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then," said Jack regretfully, "I suppose after all I've got
+  to start in at the pick-and-shovel end."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, you will not! I have reared you to be a gentleman! And
+  you are going to be a gentleman!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed, "we'll
+  drop the matter&mdash;temporarily."</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll drop it permanently!" said Mrs. De Peyster decisively.
+  "Besides, all this talk is utterly footless. You seem to forget
+  that you are sailing with me to Europe to-morrow."</p>
+
+  <p>"That brings me to the second point. I was hoping," Jack said
+  mildly, "that you would consent to <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page43" id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span> take my regrets to
+  Europe. Don't you think Europe might be willing to overlook my
+  negligence&mdash;just this once?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack&mdash;I can't endure your facetiousness!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm not facetious, mother dear. I'm most confoundedly and
+  consummately serious. I really want you to let me off on this
+  Europe business. Won't you&mdash;there's a dear?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No!"</p>
+
+  <p>"No?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, your passage is paid for, and my plans&mdash;You know
+  Ethel Quintard and her mother are sailing on the same boat. No,
+  most certainly I shall not let you off!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed again,
+  "perhaps we'd better drop this matter
+  also&mdash;temporarily."</p>
+
+  <p>"This matter we'll also drop permanently," his mother said,
+  again with her calm, incontrovertible emphasis.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, that brings us to the third point." He drew a copy of
+  the "Record" from his pocket and pointed to a paragraph. "Mother,
+  this is the second time my engagement to Ethel Quintard has been
+  in print. I must say that I don't think it's nice of Ethel and
+  Mrs. Quintard to let those rumors stand. I would deny them
+  myself, only it seems rather a raw thing for a fellow to do.
+  Mother, you must deny them."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack, this marriage is bound to come!"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span>
+
+  <p>"Mother, you are simply hypnotizing yourself into the belief
+  that I am going to marry Ethel Quintard. When"&mdash;he painfully
+  recrossed his legs, and smiled pleasantly at his
+  mother&mdash;"when, as a matter of fact, what I have been trying
+  to lead up to is to tell you that I shall never lead Ethel's
+  three millions to the altar."</p>
+
+  <p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all off."</p>
+
+  <p>"Off?"</p>
+
+  <p>Jack slowly nodded his head. "Yes, all off."</p>
+
+  <p>"And why, if you please?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, for several reasons," he returned mildly. "But one of the
+  reasons is, that I happen to be engaged to someone else."</p>
+
+  <p>"Engaged!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, falling back. "And without
+  my knowing it! Who is she?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary Morgan."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary Morgan! I never heard of her. Who's her father?"</p>
+
+  <p>"First name Henry, I believe."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't mean his name. But who is he&mdash;what's his
+  family&mdash;his financial affiliations?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I see. Mary told me he runs a shoe store up in
+  Buffalo."</p>
+
+  <p>"A shoe store! A shoe store!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Or perhaps," Jack corrected, "it was a grocery. I'm not
+  certain."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh! And&mdash;and
+  this&mdash;this&mdash;Mary person&mdash;"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span>
+
+  <p>"She plays the piano, and is going to be a professional."</p>
+
+  <p>For a moment Mrs. De Peyster's horror was inarticulate. Then
+  it began to regain its power of speech.</p>
+
+  <p>"What&mdash;you throw away&mdash;Ethel Quintard&mdash;for a
+  little pianist! You compare a girl like&mdash;like that&mdash;to
+  Ethel Quintard!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Compare them? Not for one little minute, mother, dear! For
+  Mary has brains and&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Stop!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster, in majestic rage. "Young
+  man, have you considered the social disgrace you are plunging us
+  all into? But&mdash;but surely you cannot be in earnest!"</p>
+
+  <p>He looked imperturbably up into her face. "Not in earnest,
+  mother? I'm as earnest as a preacher on Sunday."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then&mdash;then&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>She choked with her words. Before she could get them out, Jack
+  was on his feet and had an arm around her shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come, mother, don't be angry&mdash;please!" he cried with
+  warm boyish eagerness. "Before you say another word, let me bring
+  Mary to see you. I can get her here before you go on board. The
+  sight of her will show you how right I am. She is the dearest,
+  sweetest&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Stop!" She caught his arm. "I shall not see this&mdash;this
+  Mary person!"</p>
+
+  <p>"No?"</p>
+
+  <p>She was the perfect figure of wrath and pride and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span>
+  confident power of domination. "I shall never see her! Never! And
+  what is more," she continued, with the energy of one who believes
+  her will to be equivalent to the accomplished fact, "you are
+  going to give up, yes, and entirely forget, all those foolish
+  things you have just been speaking of!"</p>
+
+  <p>He gazed squarely back into her flashing eyes. His face had
+  tightened, and at that moment there was a remarkable likeness
+  between the two faces, usually so dissimilar.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, mother; you are mistaken," he said quietly. "I am
+  going to give up nothing."</p>
+
+  <p>"What, you defy me?" she gasped.</p>
+
+  <p>"I am not defying you. I tried to tell you in as pleasant a
+  way as I could what my plans are. But everything I said, I am
+  going to do."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then&mdash;then&mdash;" At first the words would not come
+  forth; she stood trembling, clutching the back of her chair.
+  "Then I beg to inform you," she was saying thickly in her
+  outraged majesty, when Matilda opened the hall door and ushered
+  in an erect, slender man of youngish middle age and with graying
+  hair and dark mustache, and with a pleasant, distinguished
+  face.</p>
+
+  <p>"I beg pardon; I fear I come inopportunely," he said, as he
+  sighted Mrs. De Peyster's militant attitude. "But I was told to
+  come right up. I'll just wait&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Do not go, Judge Harvey," Mrs. De Peyster commanded, as he
+  started to withdraw. "On the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page47" id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span> other hand, your arrival
+  is most opportune. Please come here."</p>
+
+  <p>"Good-morning, Uncle Bob," Jack said cheerfully. "Excuse me
+  for not shaking hands. Just a little automobile accident."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack, you home!" cried the Judge. "My boy, but you have given
+  us all a scare!" And then in affectionate concern, noticing his
+  hands: "Nothing serious, I hope?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing serious about the accident," said Jack, glancing at
+  his mother.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster glared at her son, then crossed to the safe,
+  larger and more formidable than the one above from which she had
+  been removing her jewels, took out a document and returned to the
+  two men. She had something of the ominous air of a tragedy queen
+  who is foreshadowing an approaching climax.</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey, I do not care to go into explanations," said
+  she. "But I desire to give you an order and to have you be a
+  witness to my act."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, I am at your service, Caroline."</p>
+
+  <p>"In the first place," she said, striving to speak calmly, "I
+  beg to request my son to move such of his things as he may wish
+  out of this house&mdash;and within the hour."</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly, mother," Jack said pleasantly.</p>
+
+  <p>"And to you, Judge Harvey,&mdash;I wish my son's allowance,
+  which is paid through your office, to be discontinued from this
+  moment."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;of course&mdash;just as you say," said the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>[pg
+  48]</span> astonished Judge. "But perhaps if the case
+  were&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"This paper is my will," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster, holding
+  up the document she had taken from the safe. "As my man of
+  affairs, I believe you are acquainted with its contents."</p>
+
+  <p>"I am."</p>
+
+  <p>"It gives the bulk of my fortune to my son here."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, yes," admitted the Judge with increasing
+  bewilderment.</p>
+
+  <p>"His share amounts to two millions, or thereabouts."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thereabouts."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster took two rustling, majestic steps toward her
+  fireplace. "Until my son gives me very definite assurance that
+  his conduct will be more suitable to me and my position, he is no
+  longer my son." And so saying she tossed the will upon the fire.
+  She allowed a moment of effective silence to elapse. "That is
+  all, Jack. You are excused."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack stood and watched the flaming will flicker down to a
+  glowing ash. One bandaged hand slowly smoothed his blond
+  hair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Gee! I've seen people burning up money, and I've burnt up
+  quite a bit myself, but I never saw two millions go as quick!
+  Well, mother," he sighed, shaking his head, "I never suspected
+  I'd end in such a little blaze. With such a pile I could have
+  made a bigger bonfire than that."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+  <h3>A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT</h3>
+
+  <p>For several moments after Jack had withdrawn, Mrs. De Peyster
+  stood in majestic silence beside the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+  <p>"We will forget this incident, Judge Harvey," she said at
+  length. "Be seated, if you please."</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey took a chair, as ordered. Out in the world, Judge
+  Harvey was a disconcerting personality, though a respected one; a
+  judge who had resigned his judgeship, with the bold announcement
+  that law-courts were in the main theaters for farces; a thinker
+  who rejected all labels, who was daring enough to perceive and
+  applaud what was good even in the conventional.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Caroline," he began hesitantly, "weren't you perhaps a
+  little too stern with Jack?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As I said, Judge Harvey, I do not care to explain the
+  situation."</p>
+
+  <p>"I understood it&mdash;a little&mdash;anyhow. See here, you
+  don't want Jack to grow up to be a member of that
+  geranium-cheeked, leather-chair brigade that stare out of Fifth
+  Avenue Club windows, their heaviest labor lifting a
+  whiskey-and-soda all the way up to their mouths?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I certainly do not propose to accept the alternative
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>[pg
+  50]</span> he proposed!" she retorted. "I assure you, such
+  severity as I used was necessary. Nothing will bring a young man
+  to his senses so quickly and so surely as having his resources
+  cut off." Her composure, her confidence in her judgment, were now
+  fully returned. "Jack will come around all right. What I did was
+  imperative to save myself; and certainly it was best for
+  him."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust so. But I hope you don't mind if I'm a bit sorry for
+  the boy, for, you know,"&mdash;in a lower voice, and with a
+  stealthy look at her,&mdash;"Jack's the nearest thing to a son
+  I've ever had."</p>
+
+  <p>She did not answer. In the silence that ensued an uneasiness
+  crept into his manner.</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline," bracing himself, "there is
+  something&mdash;something you were perhaps not expecting to
+  hear&mdash;that I must tell you."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust, Judge Harvey,"&mdash;somewhat stiffly,&mdash;"that
+  you are not about to propose to me again."</p>
+
+  <p>"I am not." His face flushed; then set grimly. "But I'm going
+  to again, sometime, and I'd do it now if I thought it would do
+  any good."</p>
+
+  <p>"It will not."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I know I wouldn't fit into your present scheme of life."
+  Bitterness and contempt had risen like a tide in the Judge's
+  voice. "I know I'm no social figure; at least, not up to your
+  dimensions. I know it would be a come-down to change from Mrs. De
+  Peyster to Mrs. Harvey. Not that I'm so infernally humble,
+  Caroline, that I don't consider myself <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span> a
+  damned lot better than most of the men you might possibly think
+  about marrying."</p>
+
+  <p>He rose abruptly, and with a groaning burst of impatience that
+  had a tinge of anger: "Oh, for God's sake, Caroline, why don't
+  you throw overboard all this fashionable business, this striving
+  to keep an empty position, and be&mdash;and be&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"And be what?" put in Mrs. De Peyster with glittering eye.</p>
+
+  <p>"And be just yourself!" he cried defiantly, squarely facing
+  her. "There, at last I've said it! And I'm going to say the rest
+  of it. This Mrs. De Peyster that heads everything isn't at all
+  the simple, natural gracious Carrie De Peyster that John De
+  Peyster and I made love to! You're not the real Mrs. De Peyster;
+  you only think you are. This Mrs. De Peyster the world knows is
+  something that's been built by and out of the obligation which
+  you accepted to maintain the De Peyster dignity. She's only a
+  surface, a shell, a mask! If your mother hadn't died, and then
+  your mother-in-law, and thrown upon you this whole infernal
+  family business and this infernal social leadership, why, you'd
+  have been an entirely different person&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You'd then have been the real Mrs. De Peyster!" he rushed
+  hotly on. "Oh, all this show, this struggle for place, this
+  keeping up a front, I know it's only a part of the universal
+  comedy of our pretending to be what we're not,&mdash;every one of
+  us is doing the same, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id=
+  "page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> in a big way, or a little
+  way,&mdash;but it makes me sick! For God's sake, Caroline, chuck
+  it&mdash;chuck it all and be just the fine human woman that there
+  is in you!"</p>
+
+  <p>She was trembling with suppressed wrath. Never
+  before&mdash;not to her face, at least&mdash;had such criticism
+  been directed at her.</p>
+
+  <p>"And ultimately be Mrs. Harvey&mdash;no, thank you!" she
+  replied, in a choking, caustic voice. "But while you are at it,
+  have you any further suggestions for my conduct?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," said he determinedly. "You have been spending too much
+  money, and spending it on utterly worthless purposes. This social
+  duel&mdash;that's just what it is&mdash;between you and Mrs.
+  Allistair, besides being nonsense, will be absolutely ruinous if
+  you keep it up. Mrs. Allistair is as unprincipled in a social way
+  as her husband has been in a business way; her ambition will
+  hesitate to use no means, you know that&mdash;and, don't forget
+  this, she can spend fifty dollars to your one!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe," with blazing hauteur, yet still controlled, "that
+  I possess something superior to Mrs. Allistair's dollars."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," groaned the Judge, "your confounded old-family
+  business!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And speaking of money," continued Mrs. De Peyster in her
+  cuttingest, most withering, most annihilatory grand manner,
+  "perhaps I should have spent my money worthily, like Judge
+  Harvey, upon <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id=
+  "page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> a gift of Thomas Jefferson letters to
+  the American Historical Society."</p>
+
+  <p>The shaft of sarcasm quivered into the center of Judge
+  Harvey's sorest spot. Those recently discovered letters of Thomas
+  Jefferson which Judge Harvey had presented to the Historical
+  Society, and which had been so widely discussed as throwing new
+  light upon the beginnings of the United States Republic, had a
+  month before been pronounced and proved to be clever but arrant
+  forgeries. The newspaper sensation and the praise that had
+  attended the discovery and gift&mdash;warming and exalting Judge
+  Harvey's very human pride&mdash;had been followed by an
+  anti-climax of gibes and jeers at his gullibility. Whenever the
+  hoax was spoken of, Judge Harvey writhed with personal
+  humiliation, and with anger against the person who had recalled
+  his discomfiture, and with a desire for vengeance against the
+  perpetrator of the swindle.</p>
+
+  <p>"Remember this, that the first experts pronounced those
+  letters genuine," he retorted in a hot, trembling voice. "And I'm
+  going to get that scoundrel&mdash;you see! Only to-day I had word
+  from the Police Commissioner that his department at last had
+  clues to that fellow Preston. And, besides," he ended cuttingly,
+  "though I was deceived, I at least made an effort to spend my
+  money upon a worthy object."</p>
+
+  <p>They glared into one another's eyes; old friends now
+  thoroughly aroused against each other. They might be sarcastic or
+  out-spoken; but their self-respect, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span> their
+  good-breeding, would not permit them to become vituperative, to
+  lose themselves in outbursts of wrath&mdash;though such might
+  have been the healthier course. They knew how to plug the
+  volcano. So for a space, though they quivered, they were
+  silent.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster it was who first spoke. Her voice had
+  recovered its most formal, frigid tone.</p>
+
+  <p>"Please recall, Judge Harvey, that you are here at the present
+  moment not as a friend but as my man of affairs."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right," he said grimly. "But at least I've told you what
+  I thought as a friend."</p>
+
+  <p>"As my man of affairs," she continued with her magnificent
+  iciness, "you may now tell me what you have been able to do for
+  me about a cottage in Newport."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well, here goes as your man of affairs: You said you
+  wished to be in Newport from the middle of July to early in
+  September."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"The house, of those available, which I thought would come
+  nearest suiting you is 'The Heron's Nest.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean the cottage Mrs. Van der Grift had last season?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The same."</p>
+
+  <p>"You need not describe it then. I know it perfectly. It is
+  exactly what I desire; elegant, but not showy. And the
+  terms?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id=
+  "page55"></a>[pg 55]</span>
+
+  <p>"Ten thousand for the season."</p>
+
+  <p>"Quite satisfactory. I hope you have taken a lease."</p>
+
+  <p>"I have an option till to-morrow."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then close it. I suppose you have brought my letters of
+  credit?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That," said he in formal lawyer tone, "brings me back to the
+  news which, as your man of affairs, I was trying to break to you
+  when you thought, as a friend, I was trying to propose."</p>
+
+  <p>"What news?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You will recall that the money with which I was to buy your
+  letters of credit was money which I was to draw for you, to-day,
+  as dividends on the stock you hold in the New York and New
+  England Railroad."</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly&mdash;though I do not see the drift of your
+  remarks."</p>
+
+  <p>"And I hardly need remind you that the bulk of your fortune is
+  invested in this railroad."</p>
+
+  <p>"A perfectly good stock, I believe," Mrs. De Peyster
+  commented.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perfectly good&mdash;perfectly sound," Judge Harvey agreed.
+  "But there has existed a certain possibility in the company's
+  affairs for some time of which I hesitated to inform you. I did
+  not wish to give you any unnecessary concern, which would have
+  been the case if I had spoken to you and if the situation had
+  terminated happily."</p>
+
+  <p>"And what is the situation to which you
+  refer?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id=
+  "page56"></a>[pg 56]</span>
+
+  <p>"You are doubtless aware that all the railroads have been
+  complaining about bad business, owing to increased wages on the
+  one side and governmental regulation of rates on the other.
+  That's the way the officers explain it; but the truth is, the
+  roads have been abominably mismanaged."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I have vaguely heard something about bad business," said
+  Mrs. De Peyster with a bored air. "But what does all this lead
+  to?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am trying to lead you gently, Mrs. De Peyster, to realize
+  the possibility that, in view of its alleged bad business, the
+  New York and New England might decide to pass dividends for this
+  quarter."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster started forward. "Do you mean to say, Judge
+  Harvey, that such a possibility exists?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's rather more than a possibility."</p>
+
+  <p>"More than a possibility?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. In fact, it's a&mdash;a fact."</p>
+
+  <p>"A fact?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have just come from the meeting of the directors. They have
+  voted to pay no dividends."</p>
+
+  <p>"No dividends!" Mrs. De Peyster gazed stupefied into the face
+  of Judge Harvey. "No dividends! Then&mdash;then&mdash;my
+  income?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am very sorry," said Judge Harvey.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and laid one hand
+  across her eyes. For a moment she was dazed by this undreamed-of
+  disaster; so overwhelmed that she did not even hear Judge Harvey,
+  whose anger had ere this begun to relax, try to reassure
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>[pg
+  57]</span> her with remarks about the company being perfectly
+  solvent. But it was not befitting the De Peyster dignity to
+  exhibit consternation. Instinct, habit, ruled. So, after a
+  moment, she removed her hand, and, though all her senses were
+  floundering, she remarked with an excellent imitation of
+  calm:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you very much, Judge Harvey, for your information."</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey, though still resentful, was by now feeling
+  contrite for his share of their quarrel and looked unusually
+  handsome in his contrition. And in his concern he could not help
+  pointing the way out.</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust you have enough in your bank for your present plans.
+  And if not, your bank will readily advance you what you
+  need."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course," said she with her mechanical composure.</p>
+
+  <p>"Or if there is any difficulty," he continued, desirous of
+  making peace, "I shall be glad to arrange a loan for you."</p>
+
+  <p>She was too blinded by disaster to think, to realize her
+  needs. And dazed though she was by this reverse, her anger
+  against Judge Harvey for daring to criticize burned as high as
+  before. And then, too, she remembered the haughtiness with which
+  she had just refused his advice and put him in his place. At that
+  moment, the person of all persons in the world from whom it would
+  have been most humiliating to <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page58" id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> her to accept even a
+  finger's turn of assistance was Judge Harvey.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you. I shall manage very well."</p>
+
+  <p>"And the Newport house?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I shall send you my instructions concerning it later."</p>
+
+  <p>He hesitated, waiting for her to speak. But she did not.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then that is all?" he queried.</p>
+
+  <p>"Quite all," she replied.</p>
+
+  <p>He still lingered. He was not to see her again for three
+  months. And he didn't like to part like this; even if&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"After all, Caroline," he said impulsively, holding out his
+  hand, "let's forget what we said and be friends. At any rate, I
+  certainly hope you have a most enjoyable time in Europe."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you. I am sure I shall have."</p>
+
+  <p>Her words were cool, calm; the hand she gave him was without
+  pressure. Stiffening again, he made her the briefest of bows and
+  angrily walked out.</p>
+
+  <p>At the sound of the closing door, announcing that Judge
+  Harvey's eyes were outside the room, Mrs. De Peyster unloosed the
+  mantle of dignity, which with so great an effort she had kept
+  folded about her person, let her face fall forward into her
+  hands, and slumped down into her chair, a loose, inert bundle.
+  Several lifeless minutes dragged by.</p>
+
+  <p>A little before, during a silence between Judge <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span> Harvey
+  and Mrs. De Peyster, the study door had slowly opened and there
+  had appeared the reconnoitering face of the entrapped Mr.
+  Bradford. Though their attention had apparently been too centered
+  on each other for them to be observant of what happened beyond
+  their very contracted horizon, that had seemed to him no
+  promising moment to try for an escape. With high curiosity, eyes
+  amused and alight with delectable danger, he had studied Judge
+  Harvey a moment, and then the duchess-like Mrs. De Peyster in her
+  most magnificent towering attitude of wrathful hauteur. Then
+  quickly and soundlessly the heavy door had closed.</p>
+
+  <p>Now again the heavy, sound-proof door of the study began to
+  open&mdash;noiselessly, inch by inch. Again the light, humorous,
+  but shrewd, very shrewd, face of Mr. Bradford appeared in the
+  crack. This time the face did not withdraw. He watched the bowed
+  figure of the solitary Mrs. De Peyster for several moments;
+  considered; measured the distance to the door of escape;
+  evaluated the silencing quality of the deep library rug; then
+  slipped through the door, closed it, and with tread as soft as a
+  bird's wing against the air started across the room.</p>
+
+  <p>At Mrs. De Peyster's back curiosity checked him and he turned
+  his whimsical face down upon the motionless figure. The great
+  Mrs. De Peyster! He wondered what had thus changed her from the
+  all-commanding presence of a few moments since; for within that
+  perfection of a study he had overheard <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span>
+  nothing. An instant he stood thus at her back, alert to disappear
+  upon the warning of a changing breath&mdash;the two but an arm's
+  reach apart, and apparently about to go their separate ways
+  forever&mdash;she unconscious of him, and he equally unconscious
+  of the seed of a common drama which their own acts had already
+  sown&mdash;with never a thought that ships that pass in the night
+  may possibly alter their courses and meet again in the
+  morning.</p>
+
+  <p>He slipped on out of the room, closing the door without a
+  sound. In the hallway he paused. He wished to see Miss Gardner
+  again, ignorant of the sudden fate that had befallen her. But he
+  decided little would be gained by trying for another meeting.
+  Certainly she must have relented sufficiently to have picked up
+  the card he had given her; and perhaps she would change her mind
+  and send him a message in care of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft.
+  Anyhow, that was his best hope.</p>
+
+  <p>Lightly, and with a light heart&mdash;for the presence of
+  danger was to him a stimulant&mdash;he went down the stairs, eyes
+  and ears on guard against unfortunate rencontres, and eyes also
+  instinctively noting doors and passages and articles worth a
+  gentleman's while. At the front door he waited a moment until the
+  sidewalk was empty; then he let himself out, and went down Mrs.
+  De Peyster's noble stone steps, his face pleasant and
+  frank-gazing, and with the easy self-possession of departing from
+  a call to wish a friend <i>bon-voyage</i>.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE HONOR OF THE NAME</h3>
+
+  <p>After a time Mrs. De Peyster rose totteringly from the sheeted
+  library chair, mounted weakly to the more intimate asylum of her
+  private sitting-room, and sat down and stared into her fire. She
+  was still dazed by Judge Harvey's announcement of the decision of
+  the New York and New England to pay no dividends.</p>
+
+  <p>She was not rich, as the rich count riches. Nor did she desire
+  a greater wealth; at least not much greater. In fact, she looked
+  down upon the possessors of those huge fortunes acquired during
+  the last generation as upon beings of an inferior order. It was
+  blood-discs that gave her her supremacy, not vulgar discs of
+  gold. She had enough to maintain the De Peyster station, but just
+  enough; and she had so adjusted her scale of living that her
+  expenses exactly consumed her normal income&mdash;no more, no
+  less.</p>
+
+  <p>That is, had exactly consumed it, except during the last year
+  or two. One reason she had so resented Judge Harvey's criticism
+  of her manner of living was that the criticism had the
+  unfortunate quality of being based on truth. Of late, the
+  struggle to maintain her inherited and rightful leadership had
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>[pg
+  62]</span> involved her in greatly increased expenditure, and
+  this excess she had met in ways best known to herself.</p>
+
+  <p>The collapsed Mrs. De Peyster heard Matilda enter, pause, then
+  pass into the bedroom, but did not look up; nor a moment later
+  when Olivetta re&amp;#235;ntered from the bedroom, did she at
+  first raise her dejected head.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, what's the matter, Cousin Caroline?" cried Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>There was no occasion for maintaining an appearance before
+  Olivetta, who was almost as faithful and devoted as though a very
+  member of her body. So Mrs. De Peyster related her misfortune,
+  interrupted by frequent interjections from her sympathetic
+  cousin.</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you realize what it means, Olivetta?" she concluded in a
+  benumbed voice. "It means that, except for less than a thousand
+  which I have on hand,&mdash;a mere nothing,&mdash;I am penniless
+  until more dividends are due&mdash;perhaps months! I cannot go to
+  Europe! I cannot go to Newport!"</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta was first stunned, then was ejaculative with
+  consternation.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Caroline," she cried after a moment, "why not have Judge
+  Harvey get you the money?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Out of the question, Olivetta; I do not care to explain." She
+  would never unbend to Judge Harvey! Never!</p>
+
+  <p>"Then, why not borrow the money from the bank, as you say
+  Judge Harvey suggested?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page63" id="page63"></a>[pg 63]</span>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta, you should know that that is against my
+  principles." She tried to instill proud rebuke into her voice.
+  But just here was the pinch&mdash;or one of them. To cover the
+  excess in her expenses she had already borrowed&mdash;secretly,
+  for she would never have had it come to Judge Harvey's
+  knowledge&mdash;from her bank to the very limit of her personal
+  credit.</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta's distressed eyes fell upon one of the jewel cases
+  which Marie had left in the sitting-room.</p>
+
+  <p>"There are your jewels, Caroline. But, of course you wouldn't
+  consider raising money&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"On my jewels! How can you think of such a thing!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course not, of course not," fluttered Olivetta. "Please
+  forgive me, Caroline. I do so admire your strict principles!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster accepted apology and tribute with a forgiving
+  nod. But just here was another of the pinches. The previous
+  spring, while in Paris, she had had her jewels most
+  confidentially replaced with excellent imitations; and the
+  original stones were at this moment lying as pledges in the
+  vaults of a Parisian banker.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Caroline," pursued the sympathetic Olivetta, "can't you
+  cut down expenses and remain in town? What with your credit, you
+  have enough for that!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Remain in town, when everybody is leaving?" cried Mrs. De
+  Peyster. "Are you out of your senses <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span>
+  Olivetta? Why, people would never stop talking about it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course&mdash;you're right&mdash;forgive me," stammered
+  Olivetta. "But you might go to some modest resort for the
+  summer&mdash;or&mdash;or&mdash;go to Europe in a more modest
+  way."</p>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta, you grow more absurd every moment!" exclaimed Mrs.
+  De Peyster. "You know it has long been my custom to spend the
+  first half of the summer in Europe, in a style befitting me, and
+  to spend the second half in Newport. To do less would set people
+  talking, and might endanger my position."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course! Of course!" cried the humbled Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"I hope you fully realize my dilemma."</p>
+
+  <p>"It is terrible&mdash;terrible!" Olivetta's tone was slow, and
+  full of awed dismay. "You must maintain your social position and
+  there is no money!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Just so."</p>
+
+  <p>Detailed horrors of the situation began to move in spasmodic
+  procession through Olivetta's mind.</p>
+
+  <p>"And your passage is taken on the Plutonia&mdash;and it has
+  been widely announced that you are leaving for Europe&mdash;and
+  that newspaper is going to print your picture among the social
+  leaders who have sailed&mdash;and, oh, Caroline, all those
+  reporters are going to fill the papers with long articles about
+  your going!"</p>
+
+  <p>A new horror, that till then had escaped Mrs. De Peyster's
+  inventory, a horror out-climaxing any in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span>
+  Olivetta's tragic list, burst suddenly upon Mrs. De Peyster. Her
+  face went pale, fell loose.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. Allistair!" she barely articulated.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. Allistair?" Olivetta repeated blankly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you see&mdash;if I stay at home&mdash;don't
+  sail&mdash;Mrs. Allistair will use it as capital against
+  me&mdash;and she'll ride over me to&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline!" gasped the appalled Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stood up, rigid with desperation.</p>
+
+  <p>"I simply must sail!" she cried.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course you must! Can't you think of some way out of it? I
+  never knew you unequal to an emergency!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, her brow knitted with agitated thought,
+  walked slowly to one of her windows and stood looking down into
+  the pleasant bustle of Washington Square. Olivetta watched her
+  intently, waiting for the brilliant plan that would be the result
+  of her cousin's cogitations.</p>
+
+  <p>But the minutes passed, Mrs. De Peyster did not move, and
+  Olivetta's gaze wandered about the large, luxurious sitting-room.
+  Her mind roamed afar to the desolate realm which she inhabited,
+  and she thought of her own sitting-room, dark and stingily
+  furnished, and rather threadbare, in which she was expecting to
+  spend the summer, save for a few weeks at a respectable,
+  poor-relations' resort. She sighed.</p>
+
+  <p>"If it wasn't for your social position," she said, half to
+  herself, "it really wouldn't be so bad to spend the summer
+  here."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id=
+  "page66"></a>[pg 66]</span>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster must have heard, for she turned slowly about
+  and gazed at Olivetta&mdash;gazed at her steadily. And gradually,
+  as she gazed, her whole appearance changed. The consternation on
+  her face was succeeded by calm resolution. Poise and dignity
+  returned.</p>
+
+  <p>"You have an idea, Caroline?" cried Olivetta, struck by her
+  look.</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stood silent for yet a few more moments. Then,
+  completely her dignified and composed self, she stepped toward
+  her bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her in wondering,
+  worshipful fascination.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster opened the door.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>The housekeeper instantly appeared.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, call William and have him waiting in the hall till I
+  summon him. Come back immediately."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Cousin Caroline, what is it?" asked Olivetta excitedly,
+  as Matilda went out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait!" said Mrs. De Peyster in a majestic tone.</p>
+
+  <p>A minute passed, Mrs. De Peyster standing composedly by the
+  fireplace, Olivetta gazing at her in throbbing suspense. Then
+  Matilda returned. Her Mrs. De Peyster summoned to her side.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, you have proved your loyalty to me by twenty years
+  of service," she began, "and you, Olivetta, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> I know
+  are completely devoted to me. So I know you both will faithfully
+  execute my requests. But I must ask you not to breathe a word of
+  what I tell you, and what we do."</p>
+
+  <p>"I?" cried Olivetta. "Never a syllable!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nor I, ma'am,&mdash;never!" declared Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"But first, Matilda, I must acquaint you with a situation that
+  has just arisen." And Mrs. De Peyster outlined such details of
+  her predicament as she thought Matilda needed to know. "And now,
+  here are my orders, Matilda. The house, of course, is being
+  boarded up as usual. All the servants are sent away except
+  William; and that order, if you have given it, for a maid for me
+  is to be countermanded. You, Matilda, are to remain here alone in
+  charge of the house as has been your custom. The report that I am
+  sailing is to be allowed to stand. But in reality&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, in reality?" cried the excited Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"In reality," continued Mrs. De Peyster calmly, for she knew
+  how a <i>d&amp;#233;nouement</i> is heightened by a quiet
+  manner&mdash;"in reality, I shall, during the entire summer, stay
+  here in my own house."</p>
+
+  <p>"Stay here!" ejaculated Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Stay here!" exclaimed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Stay here. Chiefly in my suite. Secretly, of course. No one
+  but you two will ever know of it. By staying here, I shall be
+  practically at no expense. But the world will think I am in
+  Europe, and my position will be saved."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span>
+
+  <p>Staggered as she was, Olivetta had remaining a few fragments
+  of reason.</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but, Caroline! You cannot merely announce that you
+  are going abroad! You are a person of importance&mdash;your every
+  move is observed. People will see that you do not sail. How will
+  you get around that?"</p>
+
+  <p>It sounded a poser. But Mrs. De Peyster was unruffled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Very simply, Olivetta. You shall sail in my stead."</p>
+
+  <p>"Me!" cried Olivetta, yet more bewildered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, you."</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but, if you cannot afford Europe for yourself, how
+  can you afford it for me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It would take a great many thousands for me to go in the
+  manner that is expected of me. I cannot afford that. For you,
+  Olivetta, since the passage is already paid, it would take but a
+  few hundred&mdash;and that I can afford."</p>
+
+  <p>"You&mdash;you mean that I am to pass for you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I never can! People will know the difference!"</p>
+
+  <p>"People will never see you," returned the calm voice of Mrs.
+  De Peyster. "The Plutonia sails at one to-night. You will go on
+  board with my trunks late this evening, heavily veiled. Since no
+  one must see you on the way over, you must of course, keep to
+  your cabin. You must be seasick."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span>
+
+  <p>"But I am never seasick!" cried Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you must stay in your berth anyhow and pretend to be.
+  You are to be too ill to receive any friends who may chance to be
+  on board. Your stewardess will bring your meals to your
+  stateroom. When the boat arrives, you must wait till every one
+  else is off, and when you land you must again be heavily veiled
+  and be too sick to speak to any one. Once you are in
+  Paris&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, there's the difficulty!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Not so great as you think. I shall give you full directions
+  what to do. Once you are in Paris, you quietly disappear. It will
+  become known that Mrs. De Peyster has gone off on a long motor
+  trip through unvisited portions of Europe and will not return for
+  the Newport season. With Mrs. De Peyster started on this trip,
+  you become yourself, and you see Europe just as you please."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" ejaculated Olivetta, drawing in a deep breath.</p>
+
+  <p>"But please, ma'am," put in Matilda, "why could you not go
+  over yourself and then slip away to some modest resort?"</p>
+
+  <p>"So many people know me I should be sure to be seen and
+  recognized. And then think of the talk! No, that would never do.
+  I have considered all possibilities. My plan is best."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, you're right, ma'am," agreed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"On the way back, Olivetta, you are to preserve the same
+  precautions as on the way over. And to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> avoid
+  any possible difficulty in getting into the house, I shall
+  provide you with a key to the house and one to my
+  sitting-room."</p>
+
+  <p>"But you, ma'am," objected Matilda, "in the mean time you
+  cannot stay cooped up all summer in this room!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I do not intend to," returned Mrs. De Peyster with her
+  consummate calm, which assured her co-conspirators that they
+  could lean untroubled upon her unblundering brain. "Matilda, will
+  you now please have William come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda, bewildered but obedient, stepped to the door and a
+  moment later followed in the most clean-shaven, the most stiffly
+  perpendicular, the most deferentially dignified, the most
+  irreproachably expressionless of men-servants. He was the
+  ultimate development of his kind. It seems almost a sacrilege to
+  add that he was past man's perfect prime, and to hint that
+  perhaps his scanty, unstreaked hair sought surreptitious
+  rejuvenation in a drug-store bottle.</p>
+
+  <p>"William, Matilda will acquaint you with certain alterations
+  in my plans," began his mistress. "I desire to add that she will
+  remain in the house alone during my absence; that you are to keep
+  to your quarters in the stable and not enter the house; and that
+  you are to arrange to take, at my expense, all your meals
+  outside."</p>
+
+  <p>William inclined his body slightly, as if to say, "Yes, my
+  lady."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id=
+  "page71"></a>[pg 71]</span>
+
+  <p>"And in order to give the horses proper exercise, and to
+  relieve Matilda's monotony, I desire you to take Matilda out
+  driving every evening."</p>
+
+  <p>Again William bowed a "Yes, my lady."</p>
+
+  <p>"You understand this perfectly?"</p>
+
+  <p>William's lips executed one of their rare movements.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perfectly, Mrs. De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and
+  William made the exit of a minister from his queen.</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't mean&mdash;" began Matilda, almost breathless.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I mean that I shall go out driving nightly in your
+  clothes," responded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;" gasped Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Have no fear. I shall, of course, be veiled, and William is
+  the best-trained, the most incurious of servants."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, looking her most majestic, stood waiting for
+  the outburst of approval, just tribute to one who has conceived a
+  supernally clever and flawless scheme.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, now, Matilda," she prompted, "what do you think of the
+  whole plan?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Since you thought it out, I&mdash;I&mdash;suppose it's all
+  right," stammered Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Olivetta, what do you think?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Me!" cried Olivetta, who for the last minute had <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> with
+  difficulty restrained her ecstasy. "Paris!&mdash;the
+  Louvre!&mdash;the Luxembourg!&mdash;Versailles!" She flung her
+  arms about Mrs. De Peyster's neck amid a shower of hairpins. "Oh,
+  Caroline&mdash;Caroline. It's&mdash;it's simply
+  glorious!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id=
+  "page73"></a>[pg 73]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+  <h3>BEHIND THE BLINDS</h3>
+
+  <p>It was the next day.</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta had mailed a few hurried notes to friends about her
+  sudden departure for a complete rest in the utter seclusion of an
+  unnamed spot in Maine&mdash;Jack De Peyster had moved
+  out&mdash;the front door way and the windows had been boarded
+  up&mdash;the house wore the proper countenance of respectable
+  desertion&mdash;and up in her sitting-room, lighted only by
+  little diamond panes in her thick shutters, sat Mrs. De Peyster
+  reading a newspaper. From this she gleaned that Mrs. De Peyster
+  had sailed that morning on the Plutonia, having gone on board
+  late the night before. Also she learned that Mrs. De Peyster
+  would not be back as was her custom for the Newport season, but
+  was going to make an extended motor trip off the main-traveled
+  roads, perhaps penetrating as far as the beautiful but rarely
+  visited Balkan States.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was well satisfied as she rested at ease in
+  her favorite chair. It would not be too much to say that she was
+  very proud; for hers was certainly a happy plan, a plan few
+  intellects could have evolved. And thus far it had worked to
+  perfection, and there was no doubt but that it would work so
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>[pg
+  74]</span> to the end; for, although Olivetta, to be sure, was
+  rather careless, the instructions given her, the arrangements
+  made in her behalf, were so admirable and complete that any
+  miscarriage could not possibly have Olivetta for its source.</p>
+
+  <p>Also Mrs. De Peyster was at heart honestly contented. She had
+  spoken truly when she had told Olivetta that Europe was old to
+  her and had become merely a social duty. Of that fatiguing
+  obligation to her position she was glad to be relieved. The past
+  season, with its struggle with Mrs. Allistair and that Duke de
+  Cr&amp;#233;cy affair, had been a trying one, and she was tired.
+  By the present arrangement, which she regarded as nothing short
+  of an inspiration, her social prestige was secure, her financial
+  difficulties were taken care of, and she herself would have the
+  desired opportunity for a sorely needed rest. She would have her
+  books, she would have the society of Matilda (for Matilda had in
+  the long years grown to be more than a mere servant&mdash;she was
+  a companion, a confidant)&mdash;her creature comforts would be
+  well seen to by Matilda,&mdash;she would have the whole house to
+  roam over at her will during the day, and every night she would
+  have the pleasant relaxation of a drive behind the peerless
+  William.</p>
+
+  <p>It seemed to her, as she looked forward to it, the most
+  desirable of vacations.</p>
+
+  <p>Her mind was quite at ease concerning Jack. Severity, as she
+  had said, had been necessary. A bit of privation would do him
+  good, would bring him <span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id=
+  "page75"></a>[pg 75]</span> to his senses; she had no slightest
+  doubt of that. And when they met again, he would be in a mood to
+  fit into the place she had carefully prepared for him. Of course,
+  she would let him off in the matter of Ethel Quintard, if he
+  really didn't care for Ethel. There were other nice girls of good
+  families. She wouldn't be hard on him.</p>
+
+  <p>Also she felt easier in her mind in the matter of the quarrel
+  with Judge Harvey. The sting and humiliation of his words she had
+  now cast out of her system; she was really superior to such
+  criticism. There remained only Judge Harvey's offense. Certainly
+  he had been inexcusably outspoken and officious. Her resentment
+  had settled down into a calm, implacable, changeless attitude.
+  She would be polite to him, since they must continue to meet in
+  the future. But she would keep him coldly at a distance. She
+  would never unbend. She would never forgive.</p>
+
+  <p>Next to the column recording her departure she had noted a few
+  paragraphs giving the progress of the police in their search for
+  James Preston, the forger of the Jefferson letters. What a fool
+  Judge Harvey had been in that affair!...</p>
+
+  <p>And yet, in a way, she was sorry. She had liked Judge Harvey;
+  had liked him very much. In fact, there had been relaxed moods in
+  which she had dallied pleasantly with the thought of marrying
+  him. She might, indeed, have married him already had it not been
+  for the obvious social descent.</p>
+
+  <p>Also, she thought for a moment of Miss Gardner. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span> In this
+  matter she had likewise been quite right. However, aside from the
+  deception Miss Gardner had practiced, she had seemed a nice girl;
+  and Mrs. De Peyster was lenient enough to feel a very honest wish
+  that the husband, who had so rapidly disappeared, was a decent
+  sort of man. Perhaps later she might favor them with some
+  trifling present.</p>
+
+  <p>She had a light luncheon, for it was her custom to eat but
+  little at midday, and spent part of the afternoon with a
+  comfortable sense of improvement over one of John Fiske's volumes
+  of colonial history; popular novels she abhorred as frivolities
+  beneath her. And then she took upon her lap a large volume,
+  weighing perhaps a dozen pounds, entitled "Historic Families in
+  America," in which first place was given to an account of the
+  glories of the De Peysters. Though premiership was no better than
+  the family's due, she was secretly pleased with her forebears'
+  place in the volume&mdash;in a sublimated way it was the
+  equivalent of going in first to dinner among distinguished
+  guests. She liked frequently to glance leisurely through the
+  pages, tasting here and there; and now, as she did whenever she
+  read the familiar text, she lingered over certain passages of the
+  deferential genealogist&mdash;whom, hardly conscious of the act
+  of imagination, she could almost see in tight satin breeches,
+  postured on his knees, holding out these tributes to her on a
+  golden salver:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ... "From an early period of
+  the fourteenth century the De Peysters <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>[pg 77]</span> were
+  among the richest and most influential of the patrician families
+  of Ghent" ... "The exact genealogical connection between the De
+  Peysters of the fourteenth century and the above-noted sixteenth
+  and seventeenth century ancestors of the American De Peysters has
+  not been traced, as the work of translating and analyzing the
+  records of the intervening period is still incompleted.
+  Sufficient has been ascertained, however, to leave no doubt of
+  the continual progress of the family in possessions, social
+  dignity, and public consequence" ... "The first man in New
+  Amsterdam who had a family carriage" ... "The chief people of the
+  city and province, and stately visitors from the Old World, were
+  often grouped together under this roof"....</p>
+
+  <p>Such august and ample phrases could but nourish and exalt her
+  sense of worthiness; could but add to her growing sense of
+  satisfaction. She closed the ceremonious volume, and her eyes,
+  lifting, rested for a gratifying moment on a framed steel
+  engraving from the painting of Abraham De Peyster, Mayor of New
+  York from 1691 to 1693. The picture pleased her, with its
+  aristocratically hooked nose, its full wig, its smile of amiable
+  condescension. But fortunately she had forgotten, or perhaps
+  preferred not to learn, that when this ancestor was New York's
+  foremost figure, the city had had within its domain somewhat less
+  than one one-thousandth of its present subjects.</p>
+
+  <p>And then her eyes wandered to the three-quarters portrait of
+  herself by M. Dubois, hung temporarily <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>[pg 78]</span> in this
+  room. Yes, it was good. M. Dubois had caught the peculiar De
+  Peyster quality. One looked at it and instinctively thought of
+  generations processioning back into a beginningless past. "In
+  1148 Archambaud de Paster" ...</p>
+
+  <p>Toward five o'clock she rose and, a stately figure in lavender
+  dressing-gown, strolled through the velvet hush of the great
+  darkened house: over foot-flattering rugs, through silken
+  hangings that rustled discreet homage at her passing, by dark
+  tapestries lit with threads of gold, among shadowy bronzes and
+  family portraits and pier-glasses and glinting cut-glass
+  candlesticks and chandeliers. So exaltative yet so soothing, this
+  opulent silence, this spacious solitude!</p>
+
+  <p>And for an almost perfect hour she sat in her rear
+  drawing-room, lightly, ever so cautiously, touching bits of Grieg
+  and Tschaikowsky out of her Steinway Grand&mdash;just dim
+  whispers of music that did not breathe beyond the door. She
+  played well, for she loved the piano and had a real gift for
+  instrumentation. Often when she played for her friends, she had
+  to hold herself in consciously, had to play below her ability;
+  for to have allowed herself to play her best might have been to
+  suggest that she was striving to be as good as a professional,
+  and that would have caused comment and been in bad taste.</p>
+
+  <p>Her piano was going to be another comfort to her.</p>
+
+  <p>She was complacent&mdash;even happy&mdash;even exultant. It
+  was all so restful. And before her were three <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span>
+  months&mdash;three beautiful months&mdash;of this calm, this
+  rest, this security.</p>
+
+  <p>At seven o'clock Matilda announced that her dinner was ready,
+  and she swept back into the great dining-room, high-ceilinged,
+  surfaced completely with old paneling of Flemish oak. The room
+  was dimly illuminated by a single shaded electric bulb. The other
+  lighting had all been switched off; during the summer the
+  illumination would, of course, have to be unsuspiciously meager.
+  To a mortal of a less exalted sphere the repast would have seemed
+  a banquet. Mrs. De Peyster, though an ascetic at noon, was
+  something of an epicure at night; she liked a comfortable
+  quantity, and that of many varieties, and these of the best.
+  Under the ministrations of Matilda she pleasurably disposed of
+  clear soup, whitebait, a pair of squabs on toast with asparagus
+  tips, and an alligator pear salad.</p>
+
+  <p>"Really, Matilda," she remarked with benign approval as she
+  leisurely began on her iced strawberries, "I had quite forgotten
+  that you were such a wonderful cook. Most excellent!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, ma'am," In her enjoyment Mrs. De Peyster had not
+  noticed that throughout the meal her faithful attendant had worn
+  a somewhat troubled look.</p>
+
+  <p>"Just give me food up to this standard, and I shall be most
+  happy, my dear. My summer may grow somewhat tedious toward the
+  end; I shall count a great deal on good meals to keep it
+  pleasant."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id=
+  "page80"></a>[pg 80]</span>
+
+  <p>"Of course&mdash;of course&mdash;" and then a salad plate
+  slipped from Matilda's hands. "Oh, ma'am, I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"What is the matter, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, a
+  trifle stern at this ineptness.</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing, ma'am. Nothing at all. I'll see that you get it,
+  b&mdash;but I don't know how I'll get it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't know how?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You see, ma'am, the butcher, the grocer, everybody thinks I'm
+  the only person in the house. We've always traded with these same
+  people, and I've stayed here alone now for fifteen summers, and
+  they know I eat very little and care only for plain food. And so
+  to-day when I ordered all these things, they&mdash;they grinned
+  at me. And the butcher said, 'Living pretty high, while the
+  missus is away.'"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had dropped her dessert spoon, and was staring
+  at her confederate. "I never thought about food!" she exclaimed
+  in dismay.</p>
+
+  <p>"Nor did I, ma'am, till the butcher spoke. And, besides,
+  William received the goods, and&mdash;and he smiled at me and
+  said&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"It does look suspicious!" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I think it does, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"If you keep on having so much food sent in&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"And such high quality, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"Some one may suspect&mdash;become curious&mdash;and might
+  find out&mdash;might find out&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"That's what I was thinking of, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had risen.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page81" id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, we cannot run that risk!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps&mdash;perhaps, ma'am, we'd better change our butcher
+  and grocer."</p>
+
+  <p>"That would do no good, for the new ones would find out that
+  there was supposed to be only a single person here, No, such
+  ordering has got to be stopped!"</p>
+
+  <p>"If you can stand it, I think it would be safer, ma'am. But
+  what will you eat?"</p>
+
+  <p>There was a brief silence. Mrs. De Peyster's air grew almost
+  tragic.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, do you realize that you and I have got to live for
+  the summer, for the entire summer, upon the amount you have been
+  accustomed to ordering for yourself!"</p>
+
+  <p>"It looks that way, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>The epicure in Mrs. De Peyster spoke out in a voice of even
+  deeper poignancy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Two persons&mdash;do you realize that, Matilda!&mdash;two
+  adult persons will have to live for three months upon the rations
+  of one person!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And what's worse," added Matilda, "as I told you, I don't eat
+  much. I've usually had just a little tea and now and then a
+  chop."</p>
+
+  <p>"A little tea and a chop!" Mrs. De Peyster looked as though
+  she were going to faint. "A little tea and a chop!... For three
+  months!... Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>It seemed plain, however, that this was the only way out. But
+  standing over the remains of the last <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span> genuine
+  meal she expected to taste until the summer's end, her brow began
+  slowly to clear.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," she said after a moment, in a rebuking tone, "I'm
+  surprised you did not see the solution to this!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Is there one, ma'am? What is it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You are so fixed in the habit of sending your orders to the
+  tradespeople that your mind cannot conceive of any other
+  procedure. You are to go out in person, at night, if you like, to
+  shops where you are not known, pay cash for whatever you want,
+  and carry your purchases home with you. It is really extremely
+  simple."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, of course, ma'am," meekly agreed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>With the specter of famine thus banished, confidence, good
+  humor, and the luxurious expectancy of a reposeful summer
+  returned to Mrs. De Peyster. Soon she was being further diverted
+  by the mild excitement of being dressed in one of Matilda's sober
+  housekeeper gowns, the twin of the dress Matilda now wore, for
+  her evening ride with William. They were fortunately of nearly
+  the same figure, though, of course, there was a universe of
+  difference in how those two figures were carried.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda, the competent, skilled Matilda, was inexplicably
+  incompetent at this function. So clumsy, so nervous was she, that
+  Mrs. De Peyster was moved to ask with a little irritation what
+  was the matter. Matilda hastily assured her mistress that there
+  was <span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>[pg
+  83]</span> nothing&mdash;nothing at all;&mdash;and buttoned a few
+  more buttonholes over the wrong buttons. As she followed the
+  fully garbed and thickly veiled Mrs. De Peyster, now looking the
+  most stately of stately housekeepers, down the stairway, her
+  nervousness increased.</p>
+
+  <p>"I wish&mdash;I wish&mdash;" she began at the door. "What
+  <i>is</i> the matter with you, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster
+  severely.</p>
+
+  <p>"I&mdash;I rather wish you&mdash;you wouldn't go out,
+  ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"You are afraid I may be recognized?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No, I wasn't thinking of that, ma'am. I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"What else is there to be afraid of?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing, ma'am, nothing. But I wish&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am going, Matilda; we will not discuss it," said Mrs. De
+  Peyster, in a peremptory tone intended to silence Matilda. "You
+  may first clear away the dishes," she ordered. "But I believe I
+  left a squab and some asparagus. You might put them, and any
+  other little thing you have, on the dining-room table; I shall
+  probably be hungry on my return from my drive. And then put my
+  rooms in order. I believe the tea-tray is still in my
+  sitting-room; don't forget to bring it down."</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly, ma'am. But&mdash;but&mdash;" "Matilda"&mdash;very
+  severely&mdash;"are you going to do as I bid you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am,"&mdash;very humbly. "But excuse me for presuming
+  to advise you, ma'am, but if you want <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span> to pass
+  for me you must remember to be very humble and&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe I know how to play my part," Mrs. De Peyster
+  interrupted with dignity. Then she softened; it was her instinct
+  to be thoughtful of those who served her. "We shall both try to
+  get to bed early, my dear. You especially need sleep after last
+  night's strain in getting Olivetta away. We shall have a long,
+  restful night."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster opened the door, unlocked the door in the
+  boarding and locked it behind her, and stepped into her brougham,
+  which had been ordered and was waiting at the curb. "Up Fifth
+  Avenue and into the Park, William," she said. She settled back
+  into the courtly embrace of the cushions; she breathed deep of
+  the freedom of the soft May night. The carriage turned northward
+  into the Avenue. Rolling along in such soothing ease&mdash;a
+  crowd streaming on either side of her&mdash;yet such
+  solitude&mdash;so entirely unknown.</p>
+
+  <p>Restful, yes. And spiced with just the right pinch of mild
+  adventure.</p>
+
+  <p>It really could not possibly have been better.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+  <h3>NOT IN THE PLAN</h3>
+
+  <p>As she rolled northward behind the miraculously erect and
+  rigid William, the emotion which had been so mildly exciting when
+  she had left her door grew in potency like a swiftly fermenting
+  liquor. It was both fearful and delightful. She was all
+  a-flutter. This was a daring thing that she was doing&mdash;the
+  nearest to a real adventure that she had engaged in since her
+  girlhood. Suppose, just suppose, that some one should recognize
+  her from the sidewalk!</p>
+
+  <p>The thought sent a series of pricking shivers up and down her
+  usually tranquil spine.</p>
+
+  <p>Just as that fear thrummed through her, she saw, a few doors
+  ahead, a man come out of a residence hotel. He sighted the De
+  Peyster carriage, and paused. Mrs. De Peyster's heart stood
+  still, for the man was Judge Harvey. If he should try to stop her
+  and speak to her&mdash;!</p>
+
+  <p>But Judge Harvey merely bowed, and the carriage rolled on past
+  him.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's heart palpitated wildly for a block. Then
+  she began to regain her courage. Judge Harvey had, of course,
+  thought her Matilda. A few blocks, and she had completely
+  reassured herself. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id=
+  "page86"></a>[pg 86]</span> There was no danger of her discovery.
+  None. Almost every one she knew was out of town; she herself was
+  known to be upon the high seas bound for Europe; Matilda's gown
+  and veil were a most unsuspicious disguise; and William, her
+  paragon of a William, so rigidly upright on the seat before
+  her&mdash;William's statuesque, unapproachable figure diffused
+  about her a sense of absolute security. She relaxed, sank back
+  into the upholstery of the carriage, and began fully to enjoy the
+  rare May night.</p>
+
+  <p>But a surprise was lying in wait for her as she came into a
+  comparatively secluded drive of Central Park. In itself the
+  surprise was the most trifling of events&mdash;so slight a matter
+  as a person twisting his vertebrae some hundred-odd degrees, and
+  silently smiling. But that person was William!</p>
+
+  <p>For a moment she gasped with amazed indignation. To think of
+  William daring to smile at her! But quickly she recognized that
+  William, of course, supposed her to be Matilda, and that the
+  smile was no more than the friendly courtesy that would naturally
+  pass between two fellow-servants. Her indignation subsided, but
+  her wonderment remained. To think that William could smile,
+  William in whose thoroughly ironed dignity she had never before
+  detected a wrinkle!</p>
+
+  <p>Just as she had re-composed herself, they rolled into another
+  unpeopled stretch of the drive. Again William's vertebrae
+  performed a semicircle and again William smiled.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span>
+
+  <p>"Fine night, Matilda," he remarked in a pleasant voice.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shrank back into the cushions. She had the
+  presence of mind to nod her head, and William faced about. To put
+  it temperately, the situation was becoming very trying. Mrs. De
+  Peyster now realized that she had been guilty of a lack of
+  forethought. It had not occurred to her, in working out this plan
+  of hers, that her frigidly proper William could entertain a
+  friendliness toward any one. What she should have done was to
+  have given William a vacation and secured an entirely strange
+  coachman for the summer who would have had no friendly sentiments
+  to give play to.</p>
+
+  <p>But her desire was now all to escape from William's amiable
+  attentions.</p>
+
+  <p>"Take me home," she said presently, muffling her voice behind
+  her hand and veil, and withdrawing from it its accustomed tone of
+  authority.</p>
+
+  <p>Half an hour later, to her great relief, the carriage turned
+  again into Washington Square and drew up before her house. She
+  stepped quickly out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Good-night&mdash;thank you," she said in a smothered
+  imitation of Matilda's voice, and hurried up her steps.</p>
+
+  <p>She had unlocked the door in the boarding and had stepped into
+  the dark entry, when she became aware that William had deserted
+  his horses and was stepping in just behind her. As though it were
+  a matter of long custom, William slipped an arm <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span> about
+  her waist and imprinted a kiss upon her veil.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster let out a little gasping cry, and struggled to
+  free herself.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't be scared, Matilda," William reassured her. "Nobody can
+  see us in here." And he patted her on the shoulder with
+  middle-aged affection.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, after her first outburst, realized that she
+  dared not cry out, or rebuff William. To do so would reveal her
+  identity. And horrified as she was, she realized that there must
+  have long existed between William and Matilda a carefully
+  concealed affair of the heart.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all right, dear," William again reassured her, with his
+  staid ardor. "It's mighty good to be with you like this,
+  Matilda!" He heaved a love-laden sigh. "We've had it mighty hard,
+  haven't we, with only being able to steal a minute with each
+  other now and then&mdash;always afraid of Mrs. De Peyster. It's
+  been mighty hard for me. Hasn't it been hard for you?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hasn't it been hard for you, dear?" William insisted
+  tenderly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes," very huskily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, what's the matter, Matilda? I know; you're tired, dear;
+  your nerves are all worn out with the strain of getting Mrs. De
+  Peyster off." Again his voice became tenderly indignant. "Just
+  see how <span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id=
+  "page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> she treated that Miss Gardner; and
+  wouldn't she have done the same to us, if she'd found us out? To
+  think, dear, that but for her attitude you and me might have been
+  married and happy! I know you are devoted to her, and wouldn't
+  leave her, and I know she's kind enough in her way, but I tell
+  you, Matilda,"&mdash;William's voice, so superbly without
+  expression when on duty, was alive with conviction,&mdash;"I tell
+  you, Matilda, she's a regular female tyrant!"</p>
+
+  <p>There was a mighty surging within Mrs. De Peyster, a
+  premonition of eruption. But she choked it down. William,
+  launched upon the placid sea of his elderly affection, did not
+  heed that his supposed inamorata was making no replies.</p>
+
+  <p>"She's a regular tyrant!" he repeated. "But now that she's
+  away," he added in a tender tone, "and left just us two here,
+  Matilda dear, we'll have a lot of nice little times together."
+  And urged by his welling love he again embraced her and again
+  pressed a loverly kiss upon Matilda's veil.</p>
+
+  <p>This was too much. The crater could be choked no longer. The
+  eruption came.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let me go!" Mrs. De Peyster cried, struggling; and her right
+  hand, striking wildly out, fell full upon William's sacred
+  cheek.</p>
+
+  <p>He drew back amazed.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's the matter?" he demanded.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster searched frantically for the keyhole to the
+  inner door.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id=
+  "page90"></a>[pg 90]</span>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, I'm not the man to take that!" he declared irefully.
+  "What do you mean?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Go! Go!" she gasped.</p>
+
+  <p>He drew back wrathfully, but with an awful dignity.</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well, Miss Simpson. But I'm not a man that forgives.
+  You'll be sorry for this!"</p>
+
+  <p>As he started stiffly away Mrs. De Peyster found the keyhole.
+  She turned her key, opened the door, and closed it quickly behind
+  her. Gasping, shivering, she groped in the dusky hall until she
+  found a chair. Into this she sank, half fainting, and sat shaking
+  with astoundment, with horror, with wrath.</p>
+
+  <p>Wrath swiftly became the ruling emotion. It began to
+  fulminate. She would discharge William! She would send him flying
+  the very next morning, bag and baggage!</p>
+
+  <p>Then an appalling thought shot through her. She could not
+  discharge William!</p>
+
+  <p>She could not discharge William, because she was not there to
+  discharge him! She was upon the Atlantic highroad, speeding for
+  Europe, and would not be home for many a month! And during all
+  those months, whenever she dared appear, she would be subject to
+  William's loverly attention!</p>
+
+  <p>She sat rigid with the horror of this new development. But she
+  had not yet had time to realize its full possibilities&mdash;for
+  hardly a minute had passed since she had entered&mdash;when she
+  heard a key slide into the lock of the front door and saw a vague
+  figure <span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>[pg
+  91]</span> enter the unlighted hall. She arose in added terror.
+  Had that William come back to&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, there you are, Matilda," softly called a voice, and the
+  vague figure came toward her.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's terror took suddenly a new turn. For the
+  voice was not the voice of her coachman.</p>
+
+  <p>"J-a-c-k!" she breathed wildly.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack threw an arm about Mrs. De Peyster's shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ho, ho, that's the time I caught you, Matilda," said he, in
+  teasing reproof. "U'm, I saw those tender little love passages
+  between you and William!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stood a pillar of ice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Better not let mother find it out," he advised. "If she got
+  on to this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda." He patted her
+  shoulder assuringly. "So don't worry."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's lips opened. If her voice sounded unlike
+  Matilda's voice, the difference was unconsciously attributed by
+  Jack to agitation due to his discovery.</p>
+
+  <p>"How&mdash;how do you come here?" she asked.</p>
+
+  <p>"With an almighty lot of trouble!" grumbled he. "Came around
+  the corner an hour ago just in time to see you drive off with
+  William. I've got a key to the inside door, but none to the door
+  in the boarding; and as I knew there was nobody in the house I
+  could rouse up, there was nothing for it but to wait till you
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>[pg
+  92]</span> and William came back. So we've been sitting out there
+  on a park bench ever since."</p>
+
+  <p>There was one particular word of Jack's explanation that
+  drummed against Mrs. De Peyster's ear.</p>
+
+  <p>"We?" she ejaculated. "We?" Then she noticed that another
+  shadowy figure had drawn nearer in the dark. "Who&mdash;who's
+  that?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary," was Jack's prompt and joyous answer.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary! Not that&mdash;that Mary Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She used to be. She's Mary de Peyster now."</p>
+
+  <p>"You're not&mdash;not married?"</p>
+
+  <p>"To-day," he cried in exultation. "We slipped out to Stamford;
+  everything was done secretly there, and it's to be kept strictly
+  on the quiet for a time." He bent down close to Mrs. De Peyster's
+  ear. "Don't let Mary know how mother objected to her; I have n't
+  told her, and she doesn't guess it. And oh, Matilda," he bubbled
+  out enthusiastically, "she's the kind of a little sport that will
+  stick by a chap through anything, and she's clever and full of
+  fun, and a regular little dear!"</p>
+
+  <p>He turned. "Come here, Mary," he called softly. "This is
+  Matilda."</p>
+
+  <p>The next instant a slight figure threw its arms about Mrs. De
+  Peyster and kissed her warmly.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm so glad to meet you at last, Matilda!" exclaimed a low,
+  clear voice. "Jack has told me how good you have been to him ever
+  since he was a baby. I know we shall be the very, very best of
+  friends!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id=
+  "page93"></a>[pg 93]</span>
+
+  <p>"And so&mdash;you're&mdash;you're married!" mumbled Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack was too excited by his happiness to have noticed Mrs. De
+  Peyster's voice had it been a dozen-fold more unlike Matilda's
+  than it was. "Yes!" he cried. "And wouldn't it surprise mother if
+  she knew! Mother, sailing so unsuspiciously along on the
+  Plutonia!" He gave a chortle of delight. "But oh, I say,
+  Matilda," he cried suddenly, "you mustn't write her!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not answer.</p>
+
+  <p>"We don't want her to know yet," Jack insisted; "that's one
+  reason we've done the whole thing so quietly." Then he added
+  jocosely: "If you tell, there's a thing I might tell her about
+  you. About&mdash;u'm&mdash;about you and William. Want me to do
+  that&mdash;eh? Better promise not to tell."</p>
+
+  <p>"I won't," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's a bargain, then. But there's something else that would
+  surprise her, too. I'm going to work."</p>
+
+  <p>"But not at once," put in Mary de Peyster, <i>n&amp;#233;e</i>
+  Mary Morgan, in her soft contralto voice, that seemed to
+  effervesce with mischief. "Tell Matilda what you're doing to
+  do."</p>
+
+  <p>"I've already told you, Matilda, about my little experiment in
+  the pick-and-shovel line. I decided that I didn't care for that
+  profession. I've saved a few hundred out of my allowance. Monday
+  I'm going to enter the School of Mines at Columbia&mdash;am going
+  to study straight through the summer&mdash;night <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span> and day
+  till the money gives out. By that time I ought to be able to get
+  a job that will support us. And then I'll study hard of nights
+  till I become a real mining engineer!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But we've got to live close! Oh, but we've got to live
+  close!" exclaimed Mary joyously, as though living close were one
+  of the chiefest pleasures of life.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, we've certainly got to live close!" emphasized Jack.
+  "That's why we're here."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why you're here?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster in a low, dazed
+  tone.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes." Jack gave a gleeful, excited laugh. "I had an
+  inspiration how to economize. Says I to Mary, 'Mary, since mother
+  is away, and this big house is empty except for you, Matilda, why
+  pay rent?' So here we are, and here we're going to live all
+  summer&mdash;on the '<i>q t</i>,' of course." He slipped an arm
+  about Mary and one about Mrs. De Peyster, and again laughed his
+  gleeful, excited laugh. "Just you, and Mary, and me&mdash;and,
+  oh, say, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE HONEYMOONERS</h3>
+
+  <p>Again Jack's arm tightened about Mrs. De Peyster in his
+  convulsive glee, and again he exclaimed, "Oh, Matilda, won't it
+  be a lark!"</p>
+
+  <p>Only the embrace of Jack's good left arm kept Mrs. De Peyster
+  from subsiding into a jellied heap upon her parqueted floor. It
+  had ever been her pride, and a saying of her admirers, that she
+  always rose equal to every emergency. But at the present moment
+  she had not a thought, had not a single distinct sensation. She
+  was wildly, weakly, terrifyingly dizzy&mdash;that was all; and
+  her only self-control, if the paralysis of an organ may be called
+  controlling it, was that she held her tongue.</p>
+
+  <p>Fortunately, at first, there was little necessity for her
+  speaking. The bride and groom were too joyously loquacious to
+  allow her much chance for words, and too bubbling over with their
+  love and with the spirit of daring mischief to be observant of
+  any strangeness in her demeanor that the darkness did not mask.
+  As they chattered on, Mrs. De Peyster began to regain some slight
+  steadiness&mdash;enough to consider spasmodically how she was to
+  escape undiscovered from the pair, how she was to extricate
+  herself <span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id=
+  "page96"></a>[pg 96]</span> from the predicament of the
+  moment&mdash;for beyond that moment's danger she had not the
+  power to think. She had decided that she must somehow get away
+  from the couple at once; in the darkness slip unobserved into her
+  sitting-room; lock the door; remain there noiseless;&mdash;she
+  had decided so much, when suddenly her wits were sent spinning by
+  a new fear.</p>
+
+  <p>The real Matilda! Mrs. De Peyster's ears, at that moment
+  frantically acute, registered dim movements of Matilda
+  overhead.</p>
+
+  <p>Suppose the real Matilda should hear their voices; suppose she
+  should come walking down into the scene! With two Matildas
+  simultaneously upon the stage&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster reached out and clutched the banister of the
+  stairway with drowning hands.</p>
+
+  <p>The pair talked on to her, answering themselves. They would
+  take the rooms above Mrs. De Peyster's suite, they
+  said&mdash;they would give her, Matilda, no trouble at
+  all&mdash;they would attend to their own housework,
+  everything&mdash;and so on, and so on, with Mrs. De Peyster
+  hearing nothing, but reaching aurally out for Matilda's exposing
+  tread. To forestall this exposure, she started weakly up the
+  stairs, only to be halted by the slipping of Jack's arm around
+  her shoulder. The couple chattered on about their household
+  arrangements, and Mrs. De Peyster the prisoner of Jack's
+  affectionate arm, stood gulping, as though her soul were trying
+  to swallow itself, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id=
+  "page97"></a>[pg 97]</span> ready to sink through her floor at
+  the faintest approach of her housekeeper's slippers.</p>
+
+  <p>And then again the arm of the exuberant Jack tightened about
+  her. "Oh, say, what a wild old time we're going to have! Won't
+  we, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes," Mrs. De Peyster felt constrained to
+  answer.</p>
+
+  <p>"But it's mighty dangerous!" cried the little figure, with a
+  shivery laugh.</p>
+
+  <p>"Dangerous!" chuckled Jack with his mischievous glee. "Well,
+  rather! And that's half the fun. If the newspapers were to get on
+  to the fact that the son of <i>the</i> Mrs. De Peyster had
+  secretly married without his mother's knowledge, and that the
+  young scamp and his wife were secretly living in her
+  house&mdash;can't you just see the reporters jimmying open every
+  window to get at us!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster faintly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Really, Jack," protested the girlish voice, "I think it's
+  scandalous of us to be doing this!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Come, now, Mary, nobody's going to be any the worse, or any
+  the wiser, for it. We're just using something that would
+  otherwise be wasted&mdash;and we'll vanish at the first news that
+  mother's coming back. But, of course, Matilda, we've certainly
+  got to be all-fired careful. I'll leave the house only in the
+  early mornings&mdash;by the back way&mdash;through Washington
+  Mews&mdash;either when the coast is clear or there's a crowd.
+  There are so many artists and chauffeurs and stablemen coming and
+  going through <span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id=
+  "page98"></a>[pg 98]</span> the Mews that I'm sure I can manage
+  it without being noticed. And I'll come back in the same way; and
+  our food I'll smuggle in of nights."</p>
+
+  <p>"And I, Matilda, I shall not mind staying in at all," bubbled
+  the Mary person. "It will give me a splendid chance to practice.
+  You see, I hope to go on a concert tour this fall."</p>
+
+  <p>"By the way, Matilda, about the row Mary'll be making on the
+  piano. Couldn't you just casually mention to anybody you see that
+  mother had bought one of these sixty-horse-power, steam-hammer
+  piano-players and you were the engineer, running it a lot to
+  while away the lonesome months?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you want to intimate, sir," demanded Mary with mock
+  hauteur, "that my playing sounds like a&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"What I want to intimate, madam, is that I'd like to avoid
+  having our happy home raided by the police. Matilda, you could do
+  that, couldn't you&mdash;just casually?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;M&mdash;Mr. Jack," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"There, everything's settled. We'll go up to our rooms. You
+  wouldn't mind helping us a bit, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had one supreme thought. If they went
+  upstairs, they might run into the other Matilda. The frantic,
+  drowning impulse to put off disaster every possible moment caused
+  her to clutch Jack's arm.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page99" id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span>
+
+  <p>"There's&mdash;something to eat&mdash;in the dining-room.
+  Perhaps you'd like&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Great idea, Matilda! Lead on."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks that all the lights but one had
+  been switched off. And fortunately the light from that one shaded
+  bulb was almost lost in the great dining-room. Subconsciously
+  Mrs. De Peyster recalled Matilda's injunction to "be humble," and
+  she let her manner slump&mdash;though at that moment she had no
+  particular excess of dignity to discard.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack sighted the food Matilda had left upon the table. With a
+  swoop he was upon it.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, joy! Squabs! Asparagus!" And he seized a squab by the
+  legs, with a hand that was still bandaged. "Here you are, my
+  dear," tearing off a leg and handing it to Mary, who accepted it
+  gingerly. With much gusto Jack took a bite of bird and a huge
+  bite of bread. "Great little wedding supper, Matilda! Thanks. But
+  I say, Matilda, you haven't yet spoken up about <i>meine liebe
+  Frau</i>. Don't you think she'll do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, Jack dear, don't be a fool!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. Jack de Peyster, I'll have you understand your husband
+  can't be a fool! Come now, Matilda,&mdash;my bonny bride, look at
+  her. Better lift your veil."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not lift her veil. But helplessly she gave
+  a glance toward this new wife Jack had thus brought home: a
+  glance so distracted that it could see nothing but vibrating
+  blurs.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id=
+  "page100"></a>[pg 100]</span>
+
+  <p>"Well? Well?" prompted Jack. "Won't she do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," in a husky whisper.</p>
+
+  <p>"And don't you think, when mother sees her, she'll say the
+  same?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sure&mdash;I'm sure&mdash;" her choking voice could get
+  out no more.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, but I shall be so afraid!" cried Mary, again with that
+  shivery little laugh.</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing to be afraid of, Mary. Mother's really a good
+  sort."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack! To call one's mother a 'good sort'!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why not? She's bug-house on this social position business,
+  but aside from that she's perfectly human."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack!" in her scandalized tone. "Isn't he awful Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't call me 'ma'am,' Matilda. Since we're to be together
+  constantly this summer, call me Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'a&mdash;Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's right, Matilda," put in Jack. "We're going to run this
+  place as a democracy. You're to have all your meals with us."</p>
+
+  <p>"And I'll help you get them!" Mary cried excitedly. "You'll
+  find me tagging around after you most of the time. For, think of
+  it, you're the only woman I'm going to see in months!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes, Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack, you run along, there's a dear," commanded <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span>
+  Mary, "and unpack your things. Matilda and I want to have a
+  little chat."</p>
+
+  <p>"Married six hours, and bossed already," grumbled Jack
+  happily. "All right. But that bit of a squab I ate was nothing.
+  I'm starved. I'll be back in five minutes and then we'll get a
+  real supper down in the kitchen."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, all three of us," agreed Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack picked up his bag. Frantically Mrs. De Peyster tried to
+  think of some way of holding him back from a possible damnatory
+  encounter with Matilda upon the stairway. But she could think of
+  nothing. Jack went out.</p>
+
+  <p>Mary ordered Mrs. De Peyster into a chair, and sat down facing
+  her.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster strained her ears for the surprised voices
+  that would announce the disastrous meeting. But there sounded
+  from above no startled cries. Jack must have got to his room,
+  unnoticed by Matilda. Mrs. De Peyster breathed just a little
+  easier. The evil moment was put off.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," began Mary, "I want you to tell me the honest truth
+  about something. I think Jack's been trying to deceive me. To
+  make me feel better, the dear boy, he's been telling me there'd
+  not be the least doubt about his mother being reconciled to our
+  marriage. Do you think she ever will be?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well&mdash;well&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Please! Will she, or won't she?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You can only&mdash;only hope&mdash;for the
+  best."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id=
+  "page102"></a>[pg 102]</span>
+
+  <p>"I hope she will, for Jack's sake!" sighed Mary deeply. She
+  picked up an evening paper Jack had brought in. "Did you know his
+  mother was very ill at the time she sailed? This paper says she
+  was so sick that she was unable to see a single one of her
+  friends who came to see her off. That was too bad, wasn't it!"
+  There was a great deal of genuine feeling in the voice of the
+  small person.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, you don't seem at all sympathetic, Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster put a hand to her lips. "I'm&mdash;I'm very
+  sorry, ma'am," she mumbled between her fingers, trying to assume
+  Matilda's humility.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, what's the matter with your voice? It seems husky."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's just"&mdash;Mrs. De Peyster swallowed&mdash;a little
+  summer cold I caught to-day. It's&mdash;it's nothing, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sorry!" exclaimed the little person. "But, Matilda, how
+  many more times have I got to tell you I don't like your
+  'ma'aming' me. Call me Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well&mdash;Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's right. And now, as to Jack's mother; the paper says
+  society is very much concerned over her condition."</p>
+
+  <p>On the whole, Mrs. De Peyster's concern over her condition was
+  rather more acute than society's. But she had begun to recover in
+  a degree, and was now, though palpitant within, making a furtive
+  study of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id=
+  "page103"></a>[pg 103]</span> Mary. Such light as there was fell
+  full upon that small person. Mrs. De Peyster saw a dark, piquant
+  face, with features not regular, but ever in motion and quick
+  with expression&mdash;eyes of a deep, deep brown, with a glimmer
+  of red in them, eyes that gave out an ever-changing sparkle of
+  sympathy and mischief and intelligence&mdash;and a mass of soft
+  dark hair, most unstylishly, most charmingly arranged, that
+  caught some of the muffled light and softly glowed with a reddish
+  tone. If there was anything vulgar, or commonplace, about Jack's
+  wife, the shaded bulb was too kindly disposed to betray it to
+  Mrs. De Peyster's scrutiny.</p>
+
+  <p>Suddenly Mary laughed&mdash;softly, musically.</p>
+
+  <p>"If Jack's mother ever dreamed what Jack and I are doing here!
+  Oh&mdash;oh! Some day, after she's forgiven us&mdash;if ever she
+  does forgive us&mdash;You've said you're sure she'll forgive us,
+  Matilda; do you honestly, truly, cross-your-heartly, believe she
+  will?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Y-e-s," said Mrs. De Peyster's numb lips.</p>
+
+  <p>"I do hope so, for Jack's sake!" sighed the little person.
+  "After she forgives us, I'm going to 'fess up everything. Of
+  course she'll be scandalized&mdash;for what we're doing is simply
+  awful!&mdash;but all the same I'll tell her. And after she's
+  forgiven us, I'll make her forgive you, too, Matilda, for your
+  part in harboring us here. We'll see that you do not suffer."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster realized that she should have expressed thanks
+  at this point. But silence she considered better than
+  valor.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id=
+  "page104"></a>[pg 104]</span>
+
+  <p>"This paper prints that picture of her by M. Dubois again.
+  Really, Matilda, is she as terribly dignified as that makes her
+  look?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had to speak. "I&mdash;I&mdash;hardly,
+  ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"There you go with that 'ma'am' again!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Hardly, Mary," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Because if she looks anything like that picture, it must
+  simply scare you to death to live with her. Did she ever bend her
+  back?"</p>
+
+  <p>Silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"Or smile?"</p>
+
+  <p>Silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"Or forget that she was a De Peyster?"</p>
+
+  <p>Silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"The lady of that picture never did!" declared the little
+  person with conviction. "She's just dignity and pride&mdash;calm,
+  remote, lofty, icebergy pride. She can say her ancestors
+  backwards. Why, she's her family tree, petrified!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to add to these
+  remarks.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't see how she can possibly like me!" cried the little
+  person. "Do you, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose&mdash;you can&mdash;only wait&mdash;and see,"
+  replied Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I haven't got any dignity, or any money, or any ancestors;
+  only a father and a couple of grandfathers&mdash;though I dare
+  say there were some Morgans before them. No, she'll never care
+  for me&mdash;never!" wailed <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page105" id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span> the little person.
+  "She couldn't! Why, she's carved out of a solid block of dignity!
+  She never did an un-De-Peyster thing in her life!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster felt herself choking. She had to get out of
+  the room, or die.</p>
+
+  <p>Just then Jack walked back in. For a few moments she had
+  forgotten Jack. The terror arising from the menace upstairs
+  returned to her. But Jack's happy face was assurance that as yet
+  he knew nothing of the second Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>Yes, she had to get out, or die. And Jack's reappearance gave
+  her frantic mind a cue for an unbetraying exit.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll go to the kitchen&mdash;and start supper," she gulped,
+  and hurried into the butler's pantry.</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack," she heard Mary's perplexed voice, "Matilda, somehow,
+  seems rather queer to me."</p>
+
+  <p>"She doesn't seem quite herself," agreed Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sank into a chair beside the door, and sat
+  there motionless, hardly daring to breathe&mdash;shattered by the
+  narrowness of her escape, and appalled by this new situation that
+  had risen around her&mdash;too appalled even to consider what
+  might be the situation's natural developments. Soon amid the wild
+  churning of various emotions, anger began to rise, and outraged
+  pride. Such cool, dumbfounding impudence!</p>
+
+  <p>Then curiosity began to stir. Instinct warned her,
+  incoherently, for all her faculties were too demoralized to be
+  articulate, that this was no place for her. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>[pg 106]</span> But
+  those two persons in there&mdash;her son, and this
+  daughter-in-law who had burst out of a fair cloud upon
+  her&mdash;a daughter-in-law whom she would never
+  recognize&mdash;what were they doing? Cautiously, ever so
+  cautiously, she pushed open the pantry door till there was a
+  slight crack giving into the other room.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack had his arms about Mary's shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, little lady," she heard him ask with tremulous
+  fondness&mdash;the young fool!&mdash;"What do you think of our
+  honeymoon?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I think, sir, that it's something scandalous!" (Not such an
+  unpleasant voice&mdash;but then!)</p>
+
+  <p>"U'm! Has the fact occurred to you"&mdash;very
+  solemnly&mdash;"that you haven't kissed me since we have been in
+  this room?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Was it written in the bond that I had to kiss you in every
+  room?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No matter about the bond. A kiss or a divorce. Take your
+  choice."</p>
+
+  <p>"It isn't worth divorcing you, since you may be too poor to
+  pay alimony. So"&mdash;sighing and turning her face up to
+  him.</p>
+
+  <p>(Sentimental idiots!)</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary"&mdash;after a moment of clinging lips&mdash;"you think
+  you can really be happy with me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know I shall be, dear!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Even if things don't go right between mother and me, and even
+  if for a long time I shall be awfully, awfully poor?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's just you I care for, Jack,&mdash;just
+  you!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id=
+  "page107"></a>[pg 107]</span>
+
+  <p>Jack stared at her; then suddenly:</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you know what I feel like?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No."</p>
+
+  <p>"Like kissing you again."</p>
+
+  <p>"Now don't be&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary!"</p>
+
+  <p>His voice was tremulous. Slowly their lips came together; they
+  embraced; then drew apart, and holding hands, stood gazing at
+  each other.</p>
+
+  <p>"You're a dear, dear fool!" said Mary softly.</p>
+
+  <p>"And you're a dear, dear another!" softly said Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>(Outrageous fools, both! agreed Mrs. De Peyster.)</p>
+
+  <p>They were still gazing at each other when in the wide doorway
+  at their back appeared Matilda, carrying the tray of tea-things
+  that had been in Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room. For the last few
+  moments Mrs. De Peyster's danger had been forgotten in her
+  indignation. But at sight of Matilda, regained its own.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda stopped short. The tea-things almost rattled from the
+  tray. Jack wheeled about.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hello, Matilda. Thought you'd gone down to the kitchen."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;if it isn't Mr. Jack!" stammered
+  Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster trembled. What more likely than that Matilda,
+  in her amazement, should reveal the house's secret? But the
+  half-light of the room was a <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page108" id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span> very obliging ally
+  against such unsuspicion as her son's.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, it's Jack," said he. "Who else did you suppose it
+  was? But say, what's the matter, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, what's the matter, Matilda?" asked Mary with great
+  concern.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ma'am&mdash;ma'am"&mdash;staring wildly at
+  Mary&mdash;"I&mdash;I don't know, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"What, have you already forgotten what I told you about
+  calling me Mary!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ma&mdash;Mary?" gasped Matilda blankly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack," said Mary in a low voice, "I said awhile ago that she
+  seemed queer."</p>
+
+  <p>"Where have you put your head, Matilda?
+  Yes&mdash;Mary!&mdash;Mary!&mdash;Mary! Mary De
+  Peyster&mdash;Mrs. Jack De Peyster&mdash;my wedded
+  wife&mdash;whom it cost me four thirty-nine to make my own.
+  Understand?"</p>
+
+  <p>"P-per-perfectly, Mr. Jack."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, that's happy news. What's that you're carrying?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's&mdash;ah&mdash;er&mdash;my breakfast," explained
+  Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Your breakfast!" exclaimed Jack. "What are you doing with it
+  here?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was&mdash;I was&mdash;er&mdash;was going to&mdash;to get it
+  all ready to&mdash;to take up to myself to-morrow."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack took the tray from Matilda's nerveless
+  hands.</p><span class="pagenum"></span>
+  <hr />
+<a name="pagea" id="pagea"></a>
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-2.jpg" alt="WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?" /></a>
+
+    <h4>"WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"</h4>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>[pg
+  109]</span>
+
+  <p>"Sit down, Matilda," firmly pressing her into a chair. "Mary,
+  have you some salts in that bag."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Jack." In an instant Mary had a bottle from her bag and
+  was holding it beneath Matilda's nose. "You'll be all right in
+  just a moment. Take it easy. The surprise must have been too much
+  for you. For it was a big surprise, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am," replied Matilda, for the first time speaking
+  with no hesitancy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, it's almost provoking the way you ignore my request
+  to call me Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah&mdash;er&mdash;" staring wildly&mdash;"yes, Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack moved to the wall near the door, where were several
+  buttons.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mary, I'm going to ring for William&mdash;we'd better take
+  him into this thing straight off, or he may stumble on the fact
+  that extra people are in the house and call in the police."</p>
+
+  <p>At her crack in the pantry door, Mrs. De Peyster grew even
+  more apprehensive.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack and Mary cooed; Matilda sat all of a heap; and presently
+  William walked in. To her other emotions, Mrs. De Peyster had
+  added a new shock. For William the peerless&mdash;fit coachman
+  for an emperor&mdash;William, whom till that night she could not
+  have imagined, had she imagined about such things at all, other
+  than as sleeping in a high collar and with all his brass buttons
+  snugly buttoned&mdash;William was coatless, and collarless, and
+  slouching from his mouth was an old pipe!</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span>
+
+  <p>He came in with a haughty glower, for he had supposed the ring
+  to be Matilda's. But at sight of Jack and Mary his face went
+  blank with amazement.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, why, Mr. Jack!" Hastily he jerked his pipe into his
+  pocket and began buttoning the open collar of his shirt.
+  "I&mdash;I beg pardon, sir."</p>
+
+  <p>"Hello, William! This is Mrs. Jack, William. Just married.
+  We've come to spend the summer with you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+  <p>"But on the quiet, William. Understand? If you leak a word
+  about our being here&mdash;well, I know about the heart-throb
+  business between you and Matilda. If you drop one word&mdash;one
+  single word, I put mother next to what's doing between you
+  two."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+  <p>"Just wanted you to know we were here, William, so you
+  wouldn't by any chance throw a surprise that would give us away.
+  That's all. Keep mum about us"&mdash;with a sly wink at him and
+  another at Matilda&mdash;"and you two can goo-goo at each other
+  like a popular song. Good-night."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack turned his back; and Mary, whose heart went out to all
+  lovers, delicately turned hers.</p>
+
+  <p>"William," fluttered Matilda, taking an eager, hesitating step
+  toward him.</p>
+
+  <p>He stared at her haughtily&mdash;as haughtily as is in the
+  power of a mere mortal who has no collar on.</p>
+
+  <p>"William," she cried bewildered, "what is it?"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>[pg 111]</span>
+
+  <p>"I believe you know what it is, Miss Simpson," he replied
+  witheringly, and stalked out under full majesty.</p>
+
+  <p>She stood dumbfounded; but only for a moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," spoke up Jack, "have you got supper things started
+  yet in the kitchen?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Er&mdash;er&mdash;what?" stammered poor Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, see here&mdash;what the dickens <i>is</i> the matter
+  with you?" Jack exploded in exasperation. "You just promised to
+  start supper in the kitchen, and now&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course&mdash;of course," gulped Matilda, "I forgot. I'll
+  do it right away."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda was reeling. But she perceived that here was her
+  chance to get out of the room&mdash;and for the moment that was
+  her supreme and only desire. She started for the door of the
+  butler's pantry.</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll be down with you in about five minutes," Jack called
+  after her.</p>
+
+  <p>In the darkness of the pantry a hand fell upon her arm.
+  "Matilda," breathed her mistress's voice, and Matilda had enough
+  control not to cry out, or was too far gone. Clutching hands,
+  they went down the winding stairs that led from the butler's
+  pantry to the kitchen.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am, ma'am!" moaned Matilda in the darkness.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda"&mdash;in awed breathlessness&mdash;"isn't this
+  terrible?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am! ma'am!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"
+  id="page112"></a>[pg 112]</span>
+
+  <p>"If Jack should learn that I am here&mdash;" She could not
+  express the horror of it.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's voice rang out with wild desperation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, there is only one thing to do! We must leave the
+  house!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I think we'd better, ma'am," Matilda snuffled hysterically,
+  "for with all of you here, and this keeping up, I&mdash;I don't
+  think I'd last a day, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"And we must leave at once! We've not a second to spare. They
+  said they were coming right down. We must be out of the house
+  before they come!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am, yes! This minute! But where&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"There's no time to think of anything now but getting out,"
+  cried Mrs. De Peyster with frantic energy. "Slip up the front
+  stairway, Matilda, and get your hat. And here are my keys. Lock
+  my sitting-room, so they can't see any one's been living in it.
+  You can manage it without them seeing you. And for heaven's sake,
+  hurry!"</p>
+
+  <p>Two minutes later these things were done, and Matilda,
+  bonneted, was hurrying forward hand in hand with Mrs. De Peyster
+  through the black hallway of the basement. Behind them,
+  descending the stairs from the butler's pantry, sounded the
+  chatter and laughter of the larking honeymooners; and then from
+  the kitchen came the surprised and exasperated <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span>
+  call: "Hello, Matilda&mdash;See here, where the dickens are
+  you?"</p>
+
+  <p>But at just that moment the twin, unbreathing figures in black
+  slipped through the servants' door and noiselessly closed it
+  behind them.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id=
+  "page114"></a>[pg 114]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE FLIGHT</h3>
+
+  <p>The two dark figures stood an instant, breathless, in the dark
+  mouth of the cavern beneath the marble balustraded stairway that
+  ascended with chaste dignity to Mrs. De Peyster's noble front
+  door. Swiftly they surveyed the scene. Not a policeman was in
+  sight: no one save, across the way on Washington Square benches,
+  a few plebeian lovers enjoying the soft calm of a May eleven
+  o'clock.</p>
+
+  <p>The pair, with veils down, each looking a plagiarism of the
+  other, slipped out of the servants' entrance, through the gate of
+  the low iron fence, and arm clutching arm hastened eastward to
+  University Place. Thus far no one had challenged them. Here they
+  turned and went rapidly northward: past the Lafayette, where Mrs.
+  De Peyster's impulse to take a taxicab was instantly
+  countermanded by the fear that so near her home there was danger
+  of recognition: and onward, onward they went, swiftly,
+  wordlessly, their one commanding impulse to get away&mdash;to get
+  away.</p>
+
+  <p>At Fourteenth Street they passed a policeman. Again they
+  choked back their breath; shiveringly they felt his eyes upon
+  them. And, indeed, his eyes were&mdash;interestedly; for to that
+  Hibernian, with his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id=
+  "page115"></a>[pg 115]</span> native whimsicality, they suggested
+  the somewhat unusual phenomenon of the same person out walking
+  with herself. But he did not speak.</p>
+
+  <p>At the head of Union Square they caught a roving taxicab.
+  Their next thought, after bare escape, was necessarily concerned
+  with shelter, a hiding-place. To the chauffeur's "Where to,
+  ladies?" Mrs. De Peyster said, "Hotel Dauphin." The instinct, the
+  Mrs. De Peyster of habit, which was beneath her surface of
+  agitation, said the Dauphin because the Dauphin was quite the
+  most select hotel in New York. In fact, six months before, when
+  Mrs. De Peyster desired to introduce and honor the Duke de
+  Cr&amp;#233;cy in a larger way than her residence permitted, it
+  was at the Dauphin that she had elected to give the ball that had
+  brought her so much deferential praise&mdash;which occasion was
+  the first and only time she had departed from her strict
+  old-family practice of limiting her social functions to such as
+  could be accommodated within her own house. She had then been
+  distinctly pleased; one could hardly have expected good breeding
+  upon so large a scale. And her present subconscious impression of
+  the Dauphin was that it was ducal, if not regal, in its reserved
+  splendor, in its manner of subdued, punctilious ceremony.</p>
+
+  <p>She could remain at the Dauphin, in seclusion, until she had
+  time to think. Then she could act.</p>
+
+  <p>As she sped smoothly up Fifth Avenue&mdash;her second ride on
+  the Avenue that night&mdash;she began, in the cushioned privacy
+  of the taxi, to recover somewhat <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page116" id="page116"></a>[pg 116]</span> from the panic of dire
+  necessity that had driven them forth. Other matters began to
+  flash spasmodically across the screen of her mind. One of these
+  was William. And there the film stopped. The cold, withering look
+  William had given Matilda a few minutes before remained fixed
+  upon the screen. That look threatened her most unpleasantly as to
+  the future. What if William should learn who was the real Matilda
+  to whom he had made love!</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," she began, calling up her dignity, "I desire to
+  instruct you upon a certain matter."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am," whispered Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"I expressly instruct you not to mention or hint to any one,
+  particularly William, that it was I and not you who went out
+  driving with him to-night."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll not, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"You swear?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I swear, ma'am. Never!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Remember, Matilda. You have sworn." And relieved of that
+  menace, she leaned back.</p>
+
+  <p>The taxi drew up before the Dauphin. A grenadier-lackey, who
+  seemed bulk and brass buttons and braid of gold, handed them out
+  with august white gloves.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pay the fare, Matilda," ordered Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's bills, when she had a servant with her, were
+  always paid by the attendant. Matilda did so, out of a square
+  black leather bag that was never out of Matilda's fingers when
+  Matilda was <span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id=
+  "page117"></a>[pg 117]</span> out of the house; it seemed almost
+  a flattened extension of Matilda's hand.</p>
+
+  <p>They entered the Dauphin, passing other white-gloved lackeys,
+  each a separate perfection of punctiliousness; and passed through
+  a marble hallway, muted with rugs of the Orient, and came into a
+  vast high chamber, large as a theater&mdash;marble walls and
+  ceiling, tapestries, moulded plaster and gilt in moderation,
+  silken ropes instead of handrails on the stairways, electric
+  lights so shaded that each looked a huge but softly unobtrusive
+  pearl. The chamber was pervaded by, was dedicated to, splendid
+  repose.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, Matilda trailing, headed for a booth of
+  marble and railing of dull gold&mdash;the latter, possibly, only
+  bronze, or gilded iron&mdash;within which stood a gentleman in
+  evening dress, with the bearing of one no lower than the first
+  secretary of an embassy.</p>
+
+  <p>"A suite," Mrs. De Peyster remarked briefly across the
+  counter, "with sitting-room, two bed-rooms and bath."</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly," said the distinguished gentleman. "I have a most
+  desirable suite on the fifteenth floor, with a splendid outlook
+  over the park."</p>
+
+  <p>"That will do."</p>
+
+  <p>"The name, please?" queried the gentleman, reaching for a
+  pen.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. David Harrison," invented Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"When do your employers wish to occupy the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span>
+  suite?" pursued the courtly voice of the secretary of the
+  embassy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Our employers!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster. And then with
+  wrathful hauteur: "The apartment is for ourselves. We desire to
+  occupy it at once."</p>
+
+  <p>The gentleman glanced her up and down; then up and down his
+  eyes went over Matilda, just behind her. There was no doubting
+  what Matilda was; and since the two were patently the same, there
+  could be no doubt as to what Mrs. De Peyster was.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sorry&mdash;but, after all, the suite is not available,"
+  he said courteously.</p>
+
+  <p>"Not available?" cried Mrs. De Peyster. "Why not?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I prefer to say no more."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I insist!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Since you insist&mdash;the Dauphin does not receive servants,
+  even of the higher order, as regular guests." The hotel clerk's
+  voice was silken with courtesy; there was no telling with what
+  important families these two were connected; and it would not do
+  to give offense. "We receive servants only when they accompany
+  their employers, and then assign them to the servants' quarters.
+  You yourself must perceive the necessity of this," he added
+  hastily, seeing that Mrs. De Peyster was shaking, "to preserve
+  the Dauphin's social tone&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"The servants' quarters!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "You
+  mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"You'll excuse me, please," interrupted the clerk,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>[pg
+  119]</span> and with a bow ended the scene and moved to the rear
+  of the office where he plainly busied himself over nothing at
+  all.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, quivering, gulping, glared through her veil
+  at him. A hotel clerk had turned his back on her! And this mere
+  clerk had dared refuse her a room! <i>Refuse her!</i> Because
+  she, <i>she</i>, Mrs. De Peyster had not the social tone!</p>
+
+  <p>Nothing like it had ever happened to her before.</p>
+
+  <p>Her desire to annihilate that clerk with the suave
+  ambassadorial look, and the Dauphin, and all therein and all
+  appertaining thereunto, was mounting toward explosion, when
+  Matilda clutched her arm.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's awful, ma'am,&mdash;but let's go," she whispered. "What
+  else can we do?"</p>
+
+  <p>Yes, what else could they do? Mrs. De Peyster's wrath was
+  still at demolitory pressure, but she saw the sense in that
+  question. The next moment the two figures, duplicates of
+  somberness, one magnificently upright, the other shrinking, were
+  re-passing over the muting rugs, through the corridor of noble
+  marble, by the lackeys between whose common palms and the hands
+  of patrician guests was the antiseptic intermediary of white
+  thread gloves.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps it's just as well, ma'am," Matilda began tremulously
+  as soon as they were in the street, before Mrs. De Peyster's
+  black storm could burst. "How much would that suite have
+  been?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps fifty dollars a day."</p>
+
+  <p>"I only just now thought about it&mdash;but&mdash;but
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>[pg
+  120]</span> please, ma'am, did you happen to bring your
+  purse?"</p>
+
+  <p>"My purse!" Mrs. De Peyster stopped short. "Matilda!"&mdash;in
+  a voice chilled with dismay&mdash;"I never thought of my purse
+  until this moment! There wasn't time! I haven't a cent!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And after paying for the cab, ma'am, I have only a little
+  over fifteen dollars."</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps, ma'am," repeated Matilda, "it was just as well they
+  wouldn't take us."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not speak.</p>
+
+  <p>"And what's worse," Matilda faltered, as though the blame was
+  hers, "the hotels won't trust you unless you have baggage. And we
+  have no baggage, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!" There was now real tragedy in Mrs. De Peyster's
+  voice. "What <i>are</i> we going to do?"</p>
+
+  <p>They walked along the Park, whispering over their unforeseen
+  and unforeseeable predicament. It had many aspects, their
+  situation; it was quickly clear to them that the most urgent
+  aspect was the need of immediate refuge. Other troubles and
+  developments could be handled as they arose, should any such
+  arise. But a place to hide, to sleep, had to be secured within
+  the hour. Also they needed two or three days in which to think
+  matters over calmly, and to apply to them clear reason. And they
+  had only the fifteen dollars in Matilda's black bag.</p>
+
+  <p>"It seems to me, ma'am," ventured Matilda, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>[pg 121]</span>
+  "that a rooming-house or a boarding-house would be cheapest."</p>
+
+  <p>"A boarding-house!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. "But
+  where?"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda remembered and reached into her slit pocket.
+  "Yesterday I happened to pick up the card of a boarding-house in
+  the library&mdash;I've no idea how it came there. I saved it
+  because my sister Angelica, who lives in Syracuse, wrote me to
+  look up a place where she might stay."</p>
+
+  <p>They examined the address upon the card, and twenty minutes
+  later, now close upon midnight, Matilda was pressing the bell of
+  a house on the West Side. Visible leadership Mrs. De Peyster had
+  resigned to Matilda, for they were entering a remote and lowly
+  world whose ways Mrs. De Peyster knew not. In all her life she
+  had never been inside a boarding-house.</p>
+
+  <p>The door opened slightly. A voice, female, interrogated
+  Matilda. Then they were admitted into a small hall, lighted by an
+  electric bulb in a lantern of stamped sheet-iron with
+  vari-colored panes and portholes. From this hall a stairway
+  ascended, and from it was a view into a small rear parlor, where
+  sat a clergyman. The lady who had admitted them was the mistress;
+  a Junoesque, superior, languid sort of personage, in a loose
+  dressing-gown of pink silk with long train. To her Matilda made
+  known their desire.</p>
+
+  <p>"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called to the clergyman. "So
+  you and your friend want board <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page122" id="page122"></a>[pg 122]</span> and room," the
+  landlady repeated in a drawling tone, yet studying them sharply
+  with heavy-penciled eyes. "I run a select house, so I've got to
+  be careful about whom I admit. Consequently you will not object
+  to answering a few questions. You and your friend are
+  working-women?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>The heavy eyes had concluded their inventory. "Perhaps both
+  housekeepers?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda had a double impulse to explain, first to clear Mrs.
+  De Peyster of this unmerited indignity, and second to prevent
+  their being once more turned away as servants. But something kept
+  her still. And perhaps it was just as well. Mrs. Gilbert,
+  considering the two, did have a moment's thought about refusing
+  them; she, too, liked to maintain the social tone of her
+  establishment, and certainly servants as guests did not help; but
+  then the arid season for boarding-houses was at hand, and she was
+  not one to sacrifice real money to mere principle.</p>
+
+  <p>"How long do you want to stay?"</p>
+
+  <p>"We don't know yet. Per&mdash;perhaps several months."</p>
+
+  <p>This was agreeable news to Mrs. Gilbert. But it was not
+  boarding-house policy to show it.</p>
+
+  <p>"When would you want to come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Now."</p>
+
+  <p>"To-night!" The penciled eyebrows lifted in surprise. "And
+  your baggage?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id=
+  "page123"></a>[pg 123]</span>
+
+  <p>"We came to New York without any," Matilda lied desperately.
+  "We're&mdash;we're going to buy some things here."</p>
+
+  <p>"Naturally, then, you expect to pay in advance."</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah&mdash;er&mdash;at least a deposit."</p>
+
+  <p>"One room or two?"</p>
+
+  <p>"One." One would come cheaper.</p>
+
+  <p>"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called again to the clergyman.
+  "This way." And she collected her silken skirt, and swished up
+  two flights of stairs and into a bedroom at the back, where she
+  turned on the light. "A very comfortable room," she went on in
+  the voice of a tired and very superior auctioneer. "Just vacated
+  by a Wall Street broker and his wife; very well-connected people.
+  Bed and couch; easy-chairs; running hot and cold water. And for
+  it I'm making a special summer rate, with board, of only
+  twenty-five dollars a week for two."</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll take it," said Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well. Now the deposit&mdash;how much can you pay?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah&mdash;er&mdash;say fifteen dollars?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. Gilbert's hands that tried to seem indifferent to money
+  and that yet were remarkably prompt, took the bills Matilda held
+  out and thrust them into the folds of her voluminous gown.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you. Breakfast Sunday mornings from eight to ten.
+  Good-night." And with that her large pink-tinted ladyship made a
+  rustling exit.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sank overcome into a chair, drew <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>[pg 124]</span> up
+  her veil, and gazed about her. The other of Mrs. Gilbert's
+  "easy"-chairs had a seat of faded and frayed cotton tapestry;
+  there was a lumpy and unstable-looking couch; a yellow washstand
+  with dandruffy varnish and cracked mirror; wall-paper with vast,
+  uncataloguable flowers gangrenous in suggestion; on the ceiling a
+  circle of over-plump dancing Cupids; and over against one wall a
+  huge, broad, dark box that to Mrs. De Peyster's amazed vision
+  suggested an upended coffin, contrived for the comfort of some
+  deceased with remarkable width of shoulder.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!" she shiveringingly ejaculated. "I didn't know there
+  was anything like it in the world!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know, ma'am, that it's not fit for you," grieved Matilda.
+  "But&mdash;it's better than nothing."</p>
+
+  <p>"And that thing there!" pointing a shaking finger at the
+  abnormal coffin. "What's that?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That's your bed, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>"My bed!"</p>
+
+  <p>"It lets down, ma'am. Like this."</p>
+
+  <p>Whereupon Matilda proceeded to let down that <i>sine qua
+  non</i> of a profitable boarding-house, while Mrs. De Peyster,
+  dismayed, looked for the first time in her life upon the miracle
+  of the unfolding of a folding-bed. Her mistress's slumber
+  prepared for Matilda then softened the inaccuracies of the
+  couch's surface for her own more humble repose.</p>
+
+  <p>Neither felt like talking; there was too much to talk about.
+  So soon both were in their beds, the lights out. Mrs. De Peyster
+  lay dazed upon this <span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id=
+  "page125"></a>[pg 125]</span> strange bed that operated like a
+  lorgnette: tremulously existing, awake, yet hardly capable of
+  coherent thought.</p>
+
+  <p>For a space she heard Matilda toss about, draw long, tremulous
+  breaths; then from the couch of that elderly virgin sounded the
+  incontrovertible tocsin of deep sleep. But for Mrs. De Peyster
+  there was no sleep; not yet.</p>
+
+  <p>She now was thinking; casting up accounts. Exactly twenty-four
+  hours since, she had officially sailed. Jack and that Mary person
+  were now in sweet and undisturbed possession of her house;
+  Olivetta, on board the Plutonia, was this minute reposing at ease
+  amid the luxuries of her <i>cabin de luxe</i>; and she, herself,
+  Mrs. De Peyster, was lying on a folding-bed, a most knobby
+  bed,&mdash;the man who invented cobblestone paving must have got
+  his idea from such a bed as this,&mdash;in a boarding-house the
+  like of which till this night she had never imagined to
+  exist.</p>
+
+  <p>And only twenty-four hours!...</p>
+
+  <p>She stared up toward where, in the dark, the corpulent Cupids
+  were dancing their aerial May-ring ... and stared ... and
+  stared....</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id=
+  "page126"></a>[pg 126]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+  <h3>PEACE&mdash;OF A SORT</h3>
+
+  <p>The next morning there was a long, whispered discussion as to
+  whether Mrs. De Peyster should go down to breakfast or have all
+  her meals sent up to this chamber of distempered green. In the
+  end two considerations decided the matter. In the first place,
+  meals sent to the room would undoubtedly be charged extra. In the
+  second, it was possible that Mrs. De Peyster's remaining in her
+  room might rouse suspicion. It seemed the cheaper and safer
+  course to try to merge herself, an unnoticed figure, in the
+  routine of the house.</p>
+
+  <p>The dining-room was low-ceilinged and occupied the front
+  basement and seemed to be ventilated solely through the kitchen.
+  Mrs. De Peyster hazily saw perhaps a dozen people; from among
+  whom a bare arm, slipping from the sleeve of a pink silk wrapper,
+  languidly waved toward a small table. Into the two chairs Mrs.
+  Gilbert indicated the twain sank.</p>
+
+  <p>A colored maid who had omitted her collar dropped before Mrs.
+  De Peyster a heavy saucer containing three shriveled black
+  objects immured in a dark, forbidding liquor that suggested some
+  wry tincture from a chemist's shop. In response to Mrs. De
+  Peyster's <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id=
+  "page127"></a>[pg 127]</span> glance of shrinking inquiry Matilda
+  whispered that they were prunes. Next the casual-handed maid
+  favored them with thin, underdone oatmeal, and with thin, bitter
+  coffee; and last with two stacks of pancakes, which in hardly
+  less substantial incarnation had previously been served them by
+  every whiff of kitchen air.</p>
+
+  <p>While she pretended to eat this uneatable usurper of her
+  dainty breakfasts, Mrs. De Peyster glanced furtively at the
+  company. Utterly common. And with such she had to
+  associate&mdash;for months, perhaps!&mdash;she who had mixed and
+  mingled only with the earth's best!</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. Gilbert&mdash;naturally Mrs. Gilbert was a
+  widow&mdash;did not give Mrs. De Peyster a second glance. The
+  other boarders, after their first scrutiny, hardly looked at her
+  again. The effect was as if all had turned their backs upon
+  her.</p>
+
+  <p>Certainly this was odd behavior.</p>
+
+  <p>Then, in a flash, she understood. They were snubbing her as a
+  social inferior!</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to flame when the clergyman they
+  had glimpsed the night before entered and pronounced a sonorous
+  good-morning, all-inclusive, as though intended for a
+  congregation. He seated himself at a small table just beyond Mrs.
+  De Peyster's and was unfolding his napkin when his eyes fell upon
+  Mrs. De Peyster. And then Mrs. De Peyster saw one of the oddest
+  changes in a man's face imaginable. Mr. Pyecroft's eyes, which
+  had been <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id=
+  "page128"></a>[pg 128]</span> large with benedictory roundness,
+  flashed with a smile. And then, at an instant's end, his face was
+  once more grave and clerically benign.</p>
+
+  <p>But that instant-long look made her shiver. What was in this
+  clergyman's mind? She watched him, in spite of
+  herself&mdash;strangely fascinated; stole looks at him during
+  this meal, and the next, and when they passed upon the stairway.
+  He had a confusingly contradictory face, had the Reverend Herbert
+  E. Pyecroft&mdash;for such she learned was his full name; a face
+  customarily sedate and elderish, and then, almost without
+  perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide
+  mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as
+  though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden
+  straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly
+  humor had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate,
+  gestureish, ample; giving the sense that in nothing less
+  commodious than a church could he loose his person and his powers
+  to their full expression. He was genially familiar; the
+  church-man who is a good fellow. Yet never did he let one forget
+  the respect that was due his cloth.</p>
+
+  <p>He was at present without a charge, as she learned later. It
+  was understood that he was waiting an almost certain call from a
+  church in Kansas City.</p>
+
+  <p>As Mrs. De Peyster came out of her room that first Sunday at
+  supper-time, there emerged from the room in front of hers the
+  Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. He held out his hand, and smiled
+  parochially.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id=
+  "page129"></a>[pg 129]</span>
+
+  <p>"Ah, Miss Thompson,"&mdash;that was the name she had given the
+  landlady,&mdash;"since we are neighbors we should also be
+  friends." And on he went, voluminously, in his full, upholstered
+  voice.</p>
+
+  <p>Somehow Mrs. De Peyster got away from him. But thereafter he
+  spoke to her whenever he could waylay her in the hallway or upon
+  the stairs. And his attentions did not stop with words. Flowers,
+  even edibles, were continuously found against her door, his card
+  among them. The situation somehow recalled to her the queer
+  gentleman in shorts who threw vegetables over Mrs. Nickleby's
+  garden wall. Mrs. De Peyster felt outraged; she fumed; yet she
+  dared not be outspokenly resentful.</p>
+
+  <p>She had at first no inkling of the meaning of these
+  attentions. It was Matilda who suggested the dismaying
+  possibility.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you think, ma'am, he's trying to make love to you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Make love to me!" rising in horror from one of Mrs. Gilbert's
+  veteran "easy"-chairs.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sure it's that, ma'am," said the troubled Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda! Of all the effrontery!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed, it is an insult to you, ma'am. But that may not be
+  the worst of it. For if he really falls in love with you, he may
+  try to follow you when you get ready to leave."</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Thereafter, whenever he tried to speak to her in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span> the
+  hallways she shrank from him in both fear and indignation. But
+  her rebuffs did not lessen by one ray the smiling amicability of
+  his bland countenance He tried to become confidential, tried to
+  press toward intimacy; one evening he even had the unbelievable
+  audacity to ask if he might call upon her! She flamed with the
+  desire to destroy him with a look, a word; Mrs. De Peyster knew
+  well how thus to snuff out presuming upstarts. But caution warned
+  her that she dared not unloose her powers. So she merely turned
+  and fled, choking.</p>
+
+  <p>But the reverend gentleman's unperturbed overtures
+  continued.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda did not speak of money at first;
+  but it was constantly in both their minds as a problem of
+  foremost importance. Their failure to buy fresh outfits, as they
+  had told Mrs. Gilbert they intended doing, thus supplying
+  "baggage" that would be security for their board, caused Mrs.
+  Gilbert to regard them with hostile suspicion. Matilda saw
+  eviction in their landlady's penciled eyes, and without a word as
+  to her intention to Mrs. De Peyster, she slipped out on the third
+  day, returned minus her two rings, and handed Mrs. Gilbert ten
+  dollars.</p>
+
+  <p>They were secure to the week's end. After that&mdash;?</p>
+
+  <p>Fitfully Mrs. De Peyster pondered this matter of finances. She
+  had money so near, yet utterly unreachable. Her house was filled
+  with negotiable wealth, but she dared not go near it. Judge
+  Harvey <span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id=
+  "page131"></a>[pg 131]</span> would secure her money gladly; but
+  if the previous Friday she could not accept his aid, then a
+  thousand times less could she accept it now. To ask his aid would
+  be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but the series
+  of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper and
+  deeper. That humiliation was unthinkable.</p>
+
+  <p>But on Thursday, locked in their room, they spoke of the
+  matter openly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Please, ma'am," said Matilda, who had been maturing a plan,
+  "you might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you
+  sailed, and I could get it cashed. They'd think it was for back
+  wages."</p>
+
+  <p>"I told you last Friday, when everything happened, that I had
+  drawn out my balance."</p>
+
+  <p>"But your bank won't mind your overdrawing for a hundred or
+  two," urged Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"That," said Mrs. De Peyster with an air of noble principle,
+  "is a thing I will not do."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda knew nothing of the secret of Mrs. De Peyster's
+  exhausted credit at her bank.</p>
+
+  <p>"My own money," Matilda remarked plaintively, "is all in a
+  savings bank. I have to give thirty days' notice before I can
+  draw a penny."</p>
+
+  <p>There was a brief silence. Matilda's gaze, which had several
+  times wandered to a point a few inches below Mrs. De Peyster's
+  throat, now fixed themselves upon this spot. She spoke
+  hesitantly.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's your pearl pendant you forgot and kept on when you
+  put on my dress to go out riding with <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>[pg 132]</span>
+  William." It was not one of the world's famous jewels; yet was of
+  sufficient importance to be known, in a limited circle, as "The
+  De Peyster Pearl." "I know the chain wouldn't bring much; but you
+  could raise a lot on the pearl from a pawnbroker."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster tried to look shocked. "What! I take my pearl
+  to a pawnbroker!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, I wouldn't expect you to go to a pawnshop, ma'am,"
+  Matilda apologized. "I'd take it."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had a moment's picture of Matilda's laying the
+  pearl before a pawnbroker and asking for a fraction of its worth,
+  a mere thousand or two; and of the hard-eyed usurer glancing at
+  it, announcing that the pearl was spoof, and offering fifty cents
+  upon it.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, you should know that I would not part with such an
+  heirloom," she said rebukingly.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am, in a crisis like this&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"That will do, Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda said no more about the pearl then. She went to her
+  bank and gave due notice of her desire to withdraw her funds.
+  That, however, was provision merely for the next month and
+  thereafter. It did not help to-day.</p>
+
+  <p>But all the rest of that day, and all of the following, Mrs.
+  De Peyster felt Matilda's eyes, aggrieved, bitterly resentful,
+  upon the spot where beneath her black housekeeper's dress hung
+  the pearl she was unwilling to pawn to save them.</p>
+
+  <p>It was most uncomfortable.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page133" id="page133"></a>[pg 133]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT</h3>
+
+  <p>The next evening, Friday, as they left the dining-room, draped
+  with the heavy odor of a dark, mysterious viand which Matilda in
+  a whisper had informed Mrs. De Peyster to be pot-roast, Mrs.
+  Gilbert stopped them on the stairs. In her most casual, superior
+  tone, she notified Mrs. De Peyster that she would thank them for
+  another week's pay in advance the following day, or their
+  room.</p>
+
+  <p>Here was a crisis that had to be faced at once. Up in their
+  room they discussed finance, going over and over their
+  predicament, for two hours. There seemed no practical
+  solution.</p>
+
+  <p>A heavy rain had begun to fall. The night was hot, close. The
+  unaccustomed high collar of Matilda's dress had seemed
+  suffocating to Mrs. De Peyster, and she had loosened it, and also
+  she had taken off the pearl pendant which had chafed her beneath
+  the warm, heavy cloth. The pearl and its delicate chain of
+  platinum were now lying on their center-table.</p>
+
+  <p>Several times Matilda's eye had gone furtively toward the
+  pendant. "I don't see why," she at length said doggedly, "you
+  shouldn't let me pawn that pearl."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>[pg 134]</span>
+
+  <p>"I believe I have requested you not to refer to this again."
+  Mrs. De Peyster's tone was stiff.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda's face showed stubborn bitterness. But the habit of
+  obedience was too old and strong for her to speak further.</p>
+
+  <p>There was another silence. Both sat in desperate thought.
+  Suddenly Mrs. De Peyster looked up. "Matilda, I think I have
+  it."</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it, ma'am?"&mdash;with faintly reviving hope.</p>
+
+  <p>"You have the keys to my house. You slip back there to-night,
+  find my purse, or bring something that you might sell."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda slumped down, aghast.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's perfectly simple," Mrs. De Peyster reassured her. "We
+  should have thought of it at first."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am!" quaveringly protested Matilda. "Suppose a
+  policeman should see me! They watch those closed houses. And
+  suppose&mdash;suppose he should shoot!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nonsense, Matilda! No one will see you if you are
+  careful."</p>
+
+  <p>"But if&mdash;if&mdash;Mr. Jack should hear me and come down
+  and see me&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"We shall prepare for such an emergency some kind of plausible
+  explanation that will satisfy Jack."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am, please! I don't think I could ever do it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, it is the only way"&mdash;in the voice of authority.
+  And then more emphatically, and in some <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span>
+  desperation: "Remember, we have got to do something! We have
+  simply got to have money!"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda was beginning to whimper yieldingly, when a knock
+  sounded at their door. They clutched each other, but did not
+  answer.</p>
+
+  <p>The knuckles rapped again.</p>
+
+  <p>They continued silent.</p>
+
+  <p>The knock sounded more loudly.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's the landlady, come to throw us out," quaked Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Open the door," ordered Mrs. De Peyster, decorously
+  rearranging the throat of her dress, "and tell her she shall have
+  her money in the morning."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda unlocked the door, partially opened it, then fell back
+  with a little cry. There entered the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. He
+  smiled at them, put a finger to his lips. Then he locked the door
+  behind him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Please leave this instant!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"It is not in my nature," he returned in his bland voice, "to
+  go and leave behind me fellow creatures in distress."</p>
+
+  <p>"Fellow creatures in distress?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I was passing," said he, "and chanced to overhear you say a
+  moment since that you simply had to have money."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster's face filled with suspicion. "You have been
+  listening all the while?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page136" id="page136"></a>[pg 136]</span>
+
+  <p>"Possibly," said Mr. Pyecroft, with the same bland smile.</p>
+
+  <p>"Eavesdropper!"</p>
+
+  <p>His smile did not alter. "I did not hear very much, really.
+  Miss Thompson, may I beg the favor of a few minutes with you
+  alone?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Most certainly not!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am sure when you learn what it is, Miss Thompson, you would
+  prefer that it be between yourself and myself."</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, don't go!"</p>
+
+  <p>He shrugged his shoulders pleasantly. "I had really hoped that
+  the matter might be between just you and me, Miss Thompson.
+  However, if you prefer Miss Perkins"&mdash;Matilda's name at Mrs.
+  Gilbert's&mdash;"to be present, yours is the right to command.
+  Shall we be seated?"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda had already subsided upon her couch. Mrs. De Peyster
+  sank into one of the chairs. The Reverend Mr. Pyecroft drew the
+  other up to face her and sat down.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Thompson," he began, "I have a very serious proposition
+  to lay before you."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shrank away. An awful premonition burst upon
+  her. It was coming! This impudent, pompous, philandering
+  clergyman was about to propose to her! To <i>her!</i> She gave a
+  swift horrified glance at Matilda, who gave back a look of
+  sympathetic understanding.</p>
+
+  <p>Then Mrs. De Peyster's horror at the indignity <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>[pg 137]</span>
+  changed to horror of quite another sort; for the Reverend Mr.
+  Pyecroft was leaning confidentially close to her, eyes into hers,
+  and was saying in a low voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose, Miss Thompson, you are not aware how much you look
+  like a certain great lady, a famous social leader? To be
+  explicit, like Mrs. De Peyster?"</p>
+
+  <p>She sank back, mere jelly with a human contour. So she was
+  discovered! She rolled her eyes wildly toward Matilda; Matilda
+  rolled wild eyes toward her.</p>
+
+  <p>"It is really a remarkable likeness," went on the low voice of
+  the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "I've seen Mrs. De Peyster, you know;
+  not more than six yards away; and the likeness struck me the very
+  moment I saw you. You haven't the grand-duchess dignity she had
+  on when I saw her&mdash;say, but you should have seen the figure
+  she made!&mdash;but it's a wonderful coincidence. Dressed right,
+  and with some lofty spirit pumped into you, you could pass
+  anywhere as Mrs. De Peyster, provided they did not know Mrs. De
+  Peyster too intimately. That likeness is the foundation of my
+  proposition."</p>
+    <span class=
+  "pagenum"></span>
+  <hr />
+<a name="pageb" id="pageb"></a>
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-3.jpg"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-3.jpg" alt="IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS" /></a>
+
+    <h4>"IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"</h4>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stared at him, and began to clutch at
+  consciousness. After all, was it possible that he hadn't
+  recognized her as Mrs. De Peyster? Perhaps he hadn't&mdash;for
+  every one knew Mrs. De Peyster was abroad, and, furthermore, all
+  the social world yawned inimitably between Mrs. De Peyster and
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>[pg
+  138]</span> this apparent nobody that she was, in an obscure
+  boarding-house, and in a housekeeper's gown. But if he hadn't
+  recognized her, then what was he driving at?</p>
+
+  <p>While she gazed she became aware of an amazing change in his
+  face, of the possibility of which she had previously had only
+  hints. The bland, elderish, clerical look faded; the face grew
+  strangely young, the right corner of his mouth twisted upward,
+  and his right eyelid drooped in a prodigious, unreverend
+  wink.</p>
+
+  <p>"Friend," he remarked, "what's you two ladies' game?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Our game?" Mrs. De Peyster repeated blankly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now don't try to come Miss Innocence over me," he said
+  easily. "I sized you two up from the first minute, and I've been
+  watching you ever since. The other one could get away with the
+  housekeeper's part O.K., but any one could see through your
+  makeup. What are the bulls after you for?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The&mdash;the what?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, come,&mdash;you're dodging the police, or why the
+  disguise?" he queried pleasantly. He picked up Mrs. De Peyster's
+  pearl pendant. "Housekeepers don't sport this kind of jewelry.
+  What are you? Housebreakers&mdash;sneak thieves&mdash;confidence
+  game?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gaped at him. "I&mdash;I don't
+  understand."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's really a pretty fair front you're putting up," he
+  commented with a dry indulgent smile. "But
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>[pg
+  139]</span> might as well drop it, for you see I'm on. But I
+  think I understand." He nodded. "You don't want to admit anything
+  until you feel you can trust me. That's about the size of it,
+  isn't it, friends?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stared, without speaking.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now I know I can trust you," he went on easily, "for I've got
+  something on you and I give you away if you give me away. Well,
+  sisters, of course you know you're not the only people the police
+  are after. That's why I am temporarily in the ministry."</p>
+
+  <p>He grinned widely&mdash;a grin of huge enjoyment.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who are you?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, you don't hesitate to ask, do you?" He laughed,
+  lightly. "Say, it's too good to keep! I always was too confiding
+  a lad; but I've got you where you won't squeal, and I suppose
+  we've got to know each other if we're going to do business
+  together. You must know, my dear ladies, that every proposition
+  I've handled I've gone into it as much for the fun as for the
+  coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element of
+  conceit in his character. "Well, fair ones&mdash;ready?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ever heard of the American Historical Society's collection of
+  recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas
+  Jefferson?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster started.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that
+  said Thomas Jefferson was dead almost <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>[pg 140]</span> a
+  hundred years when said letters were penned; and that he must
+  have been favored with the assistance of an amanuensis of, so to
+  say, the present generation?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston,
+  alleged to be said amanuensis?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to
+  Mrs. De Peyster, then to Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies.
+  Only for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr.
+  Pyecroft."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak. So this was the man
+  Judge Harvey was trying to hunt down! Her meeting him like this,
+  it seemed an impossible coincidence&mdash;utterly impossible! She
+  little dreamed that the laws of chance were not at all concerned
+  in this adventure; that this meeting was but the natural outcome
+  of Matilda's trifling act in picking up from the library rug a
+  boarding-house card and slipping it into her slit-pocket.</p>
+
+  <p>The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly
+  delighted in the surprise he had created.</p>
+
+  <p>"I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs," he went on
+  gleefully&mdash;"these old boys who will come across with
+  sky-high prices for old first editions and original manuscripts,
+  and who don't care one little wheeze of a damn for what the
+  author actually wrote. I'm sorry, though,"&mdash;in a tone of
+  genuine <span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id=
+  "page141"></a>[pg 141]</span> contrition,&mdash;"that Judge
+  Harvey was the man finally to be stung; they say he's the real
+  thing." Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its
+  unreverend wink. "There's a Raphael that the Metropolitan is
+  solemnly proud of. It cost Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand
+  dollars. It cost me an even five hundred to have it made."</p>
+
+  <p>He laughed again: that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh.
+  Mrs. De Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first
+  surprise.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward. "But this isn't getting down to
+  our business. I've got a plan that's more fun than the Jefferson
+  letters, and that will make us a lot of money, Miss Thompson. And
+  it's easy and it's sure fire. It depends, as I said, upon the
+  remarkable coincidence of your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes?" Mrs. De Peyster managed to say.</p>
+
+  <p>"You've read of her, of course; stiffest swell of the lot,"
+  went on the young gentleman rapidly, in clipped phrases oddly
+  unlike the sonorous sentences of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft.
+  "Looks down on most of the Four Hundred as <i>hoi polloi</i>.
+  She's in Europe now, and the papers say she won't be back until
+  the very end of summer. We can't do a thing till then; have to
+  lie low and wait. You need money, I heard you say; I suppose
+  you're afraid to hock this twinkler"&mdash;touching the pearl
+  pendant. "Police probably watching the pawnshops and would nab
+  you. Well, I'll stake you till Mrs. De Peyster comes
+  back."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id=
+  "page142"></a>[pg 142]</span>
+
+  <p>"Stake me?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. Give you, both of you, what money you need."</p>
+
+  <p>"And&mdash;and when&mdash;Mrs. De Peyster comes back?"</p>
+
+  <p>Young Mr. Pyecroft chortled with delight.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, this scheme's the best ever! The day we learn Mrs. De
+  Peyster has landed, we dress you up as a top-notcher&mdash;gad,
+  but we can make you look the part!&mdash;we put you in a swell
+  carriage, with her coat of arms painted on it&mdash;and you go
+  around to Tiffany's and all the other swell shops where in the
+  mean time I'll have learned Mrs. De Peyster has charge accounts.
+  You select the most valuable articles in the shop, and then in
+  the most casual, dignified manner,&mdash;I can coach you on how
+  to put on the dignity,&mdash;you remark, 'Charge to my account,
+  and I'll just take it along with me.' And off you go, with a
+  diamond necklace under your arm. And same thing at all the shops.
+  Then we duck before the thing breaks, and divide the fruits of
+  our industry and superior intelligence, as the economists say.
+  Isn't that one great little game!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stared at his face, grinning like an elated
+  gargoyle; herself utterly limp, her every nerve a filament of icy
+  horror.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, what do you say, girls?" prompted Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster at first could say nothing at all. Whereupon
+  the young man, gleeful over his invention, prompted her
+  again.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id=
+  "page143"></a>[pg 143]</span>
+
+  <p>"I&mdash;can't&mdash;can't do it," she gulped out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Can't do it!" He stared at her, amazed. "Say, do you realize
+  what you're passing up?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I can't do it," repeated Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why?" he demanded.</p>
+
+  <p>She did not reply.</p>
+
+  <p>He stood up, smiling again. "I won't argue with you; it's
+  bigger than anything you ever pulled off&mdash;so big, I guess it
+  stuns you; I'll just let the matter soak in, and put up its own
+  argument. You'll come in, all right," he continued confidently,
+  "for you need money, and I'm the party that can supply you. And
+  to make certain that you don't get the money elsewhere, I'll just
+  take along this vault of the First National Bank as
+  security"&mdash;with which he slipped Mrs. De Peyster's pearl
+  pendant into his pocket. "Now, think the matter over, girls. I'll
+  be back in half an hour. So-long for the present."</p>
+
+  <p>The door closed behind him.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gazed wildly after him. The plan "soaked in,"
+  as he had said it would; and as it soaked in, her horror grew.
+  She saw herself becoming involved, helpless to prevent it, in the
+  plan Mr. Pyecroft considered so delectable; she saw herself later
+  publicly exposed as engaged in this scheme to defraud herself;
+  she could hear all New York laughing. Her whole being shivered
+  and gasped. Of all the plans ever proposed to a woman&mdash;!</p>
+
+  <p>And all the weeks and months this Mr. Pyecroft would be
+  hovering about her!...</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"
+  id="page144"></a>[pg 144]</span>
+
+  <p>Despairingly she sat upright.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, we can't stay in the same house with that man."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am," breathed the appalled Matilda, "of course
+  not!"</p>
+
+  <p>"We've got to leave! And leave before he comes back!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, ma'am," cried Matilda. And then: "But&mdash;but
+  where?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Anywhere to get away from him!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am, the money?" said Matilda who had handled Mrs. De
+  Peyster's petty cash account for twenty years, and whose business
+  it had been to think of petty practicalities. "We've only got
+  twenty-three cents left, and we can't possibly get any more soon,
+  and no one will take us in without money or baggage. Don't you
+  see? We can't stay here, and we can't go any place else."</p>
+
+  <p>This certainly was a dilemma. The two gazed at each other,
+  their faces momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then
+  suddenly Mrs. De Peyster leaned forward, with desperate
+  decision.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, we shall go back home!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Go home, ma'am?" cried Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's nothing else we can do. I'll slip into my
+  sitting-room, lock the door, and live there quietly&mdash;and
+  Jack will never know I'm in the house."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am, won't that be dangerous?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Danger is comparative. Anything is better than
+  this!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id=
+  "page145"></a>[pg 145]</span>
+
+  <p>"Just as you say; I suppose you're right, ma'am." And then
+  with an hysterical snuffle: "But oh, ma'am, I wish I knew how
+  this thing was ever going to turn out!"</p>
+
+  <p>Five minutes later the two twin figures of somberness, their
+  veils down, stole stealthily down the stairs and out into the
+  night.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id=
+  "page146"></a>[pg 146]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+  <h3>HOME AGAIN</h3>
+
+  <p>The two dark figures, giving a glance through the rain in
+  either direction, stole down beneath the stately marble steps of
+  No. 13 Washington Square, and Matilda unlocked the servants'
+  door. They slipped inside; the door was cautiously relocked.
+  Breathless, they stood listening. A vast, noble silence pervaded
+  the great house. They flung their arms about each other, and thus
+  embraced tottered against the wall; and Mrs. De Peyster relaxed
+  in an unspeakable relief.</p>
+  <span class="pagenum"></span>
+  <hr />
+<a name="pagec" id="pagec"></a>
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-4.jpg"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-4.jpg" alt="MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR" /></a>
+
+    <h4>MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR</h4>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+  <p>Home again! Her own home! Odorless of pot-roasts and frying
+  batter-cakes. The phrase was rather common and
+  sentimental&mdash;but, in truth, this was "home, sweet home."</p>
+
+  <p>And free of that unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft!</p>
+
+  <p>While Mrs. De Peyster leaned there in the blackness, gathering
+  strength, her mind mounted in sweet expectancy to her suite. Only
+  a few minutes of soft treading of stairways&mdash;certainly they
+  could avoid arousing Jack&mdash;and she would be locked in her
+  comfortable rooms. A cautious bath! Clean clothes! Her own bed!
+  All of the luxuries she had been so long denied!</p>
+
+  <p>Cautiously they crept through the basement
+  hallway;
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>[pg
+  147]</span> cautiously crept up the butler's stairs and turned
+  off through the door into the great hall of the first floor;
+  cautiously they crept up to the drawing-room floor and trod ever
+  so softly over woven treasures of the Orient, through the
+  spacious ducal gloom. One more flight, then peace, security. With
+  unbreathing care, Mrs. De Peyster set foot upon the first step of
+  her journey's end.</p>
+
+  <p>And then, suddenly, the servants' bell burst into ringing. And
+  there was a terrific hammering against the servants' door and
+  also against the door in the boarding.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda&mdash;what's that?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"M&mdash;maybe the police saw us come in," breathed
+  Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>They did not pause for discussion. Discarding caution, they
+  plunged frantically and noisily up the stairs; until from out of
+  the overhead blackness descended a voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Stop! Or I'll shoot!"</p>
+
+  <p>It was Jack's voice.</p>
+
+  <p>They stopped.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who are you?" the voice demanded.</p>
+
+  <p>They clung to each other, wordless.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who are you?" repeated Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>Their voices were still palsied. They heard his feet begin
+  determinedly to descend. Mrs. De Peyster loosed her grip on
+  Matilda's arm and vanished noiselessly downward.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>[pg 148]</span>
+
+  <p>"Speak up there," commanded Jack, "or I'll fire on the chance
+  of getting you in the dark."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's only me, Mr. Jack," trembled Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"What, Matilda!" cried Jack; and from above, like an echo
+  transposed an octave higher, sounded another, "What,
+  Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Mr. Jack. Yes, ma'a&mdash;yes, Mary."</p>
+
+  <p>"But where the devil have you been?" exclaimed Jack, coming to
+  her side.</p>
+
+  <p>Mary had also hurried down to her. "Matilda, the way you ran
+  away from us!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I got a&mdash;er&mdash;sudden message. There was no
+  time&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Never mind about explaining now," interrupted Jack. "Go down
+  and stop that racket before they break in the doors. And thank
+  God you're here just in time, Matilda! You're just the person to
+  do it: housekeeper, caretaker. But be careful if they're
+  reporters. Now, hurry."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack and Mary scuttled back to the haven of upstairs, and
+  Matilda shivered down through the blackness. As she passed
+  through the lower hall, a hand reached out of the dark and
+  touched her. She managed not to cry out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't let them know about me!" implored Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll&mdash;I'll do my best, ma'am," quavered Matilda, and
+  glided weakly on.</p>
+
+  <p>When she opened the servants' door, a dripping policeman
+  caught her arm. "Down here, Bill," he <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>[pg 149]</span>
+  called to the man battering at the door above; and a minute later
+  two officers were inside, and the door was closed, and a light
+  was flashing in Matilda's face.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, old girl," said the first officer, tightly gripping her
+  arm and giving it that twist which if a policeman does not give
+  an arm he is no policeman, "what's your little game, eh?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I&mdash;I live here, sir. I'm the housekeeper."</p>
+
+  <p>"Now don't try to put that over on us. You know you
+  ain't."</p>
+
+  <p>"You must be new policemen, in this neighborhood," trembled
+  Matilda, "or you'd know I am."</p>
+
+  <p>"We may be new cops, but we don't fall for old stuff like
+  that. I was talkin' to Mrs. De Peyster's coachman only yesterday.
+  He told me the housekeeper wasn't here no more. So better change
+  your line o' dope. Where's the other one?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Wha&mdash;what other one?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The one what come in here with you."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm the only person in the house," Matilda tried to declare
+  valiantly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Drop it!" said the officer. "Didn't the boss tell us to keep
+  our eyes on these here millionaires' closed houses; all kinds o'
+  slick crooks likely to clean 'em out. An' didn't we see two women
+  come in this house,&mdash;hey, Bill?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure&mdash;I was a block off, but I seen 'em plain as day,"
+  said Bill.</p>
+
+  <p>"So I guess," again the twist that proved him a policeman,
+  "you'd better lead us to your pal."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>[pg 150]</span>
+
+  <p>He pushed her before him, lighting the way with his
+  flash-lantern, up stairways and back into the dining-room, where
+  she turned on the one shaded electric bulb that had been left
+  connected. In Matilda all hope was gone; resistance was useless;
+  fate had conquered. And when the officer again demanded that she
+  bring forth her accomplice, she dumbly and obediently made
+  search; and finally brought Mrs. De Peyster forth from the china
+  closet.</p>
+
+  <p>The officer pulled up Mrs. De Peyster's veil, and closely
+  scanned her features; which, to be just to the officer, were so
+  distorted that they bore little semblance to the Mrs. De Peyster
+  of her portraits.</p>
+
+  <p>"Recognize her, Bill?" he queried.</p>
+
+  <p>"Looks a bit like the pictures of Chicago Sal," said Bill.
+  "But I ain't ever handled her. I guess she ain't worked none
+  around New York."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, now," said the officer, with policial jocularity,
+  "since you two ladies already got your hats on, I guess we'll
+  just offer you our arms to the station."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gave Matilda a look of frenzied appeal. But
+  Matilda needed not the spur of another's desperation. For herself
+  she saw a prison cell agape.</p>
+
+  <p>"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's
+  housekeeper!"</p>
+
+  <p>"If so, who's the other mourner?" inquired the humorous
+  policeman. "And what's she doin' here?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She's&mdash;she's"&mdash;and then Matilda plunged blindly at
+  a lie&mdash;"she's my sister." And having <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>[pg 151]</span>
+  started, she went on: "My sister Angelica, who lives in Syracuse.
+  She's come to visit me awhile."</p>
+
+  <p>The officer grinned. "Well, Matilda and Angelica, we'll give
+  you a chance to tell that to the lieutenant. Come on."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson!" cried Matilda. She was
+  now thinking solely of her own imminent disgrace. Inspiration
+  came to her. "You say you talked to William, the coachman. He'll
+  tell you who I am. There's the bell&mdash;ring for him!"</p>
+
+  <p>The officer scratched his chin. Then he eyed his co-laborer
+  meditatively.</p>
+
+  <p>"Not a bad idea, Bill. There's a chance she may be on the
+  level, and there'd be hell to pay at headquarters if we got in
+  bad with any of these swells. No harm tryin'."</p>
+
+  <p>He pressed a big thumb against the bell Matilda had
+  indicated.</p>
+
+  <p>They all sat down, the two officers' oilskins guttering water
+  all over Mrs. De Peyster's Kirmanshah rug and parquet floor. But
+  Mrs. De Peyster was unconscious of this deluge. She gave Matilda
+  a glance of reproachful dismay; then she edged into the dimmest
+  corner of the dusky room and turned her chair away from the door
+  through which this new disaster was about to stalk in upon her,
+  and unnoticed drew down her veil.</p>
+
+  <p>There was a long, sickening wait. Plainly William had gone to
+  bed, and had to dress before he could answer the
+  bell.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id=
+  "page152"></a>[pg 152]</span>
+
+  <p>At length, however, William appeared. He started at sight of
+  the four figures; then his gaze fastened on Matilda and grew
+  hard. Mrs. De Peyster tried to collapse within herself.</p>
+
+  <p>"Friend," said the officer, "here's a lady as says she's
+  Matilda Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper. How about
+  it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She is," William affirmed coldly.</p>
+
+  <p>"The devil!" said the officer; and then in a low voice apart
+  to the other: "Lucky we didn't go no further&mdash;hey, Bill?"
+  And again to William: "Miss Simpson says this other lady is her
+  sister, visitin' her from Syracuse. Can you identify her?"</p>
+
+  <p>William did not alter a line in his face.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Simpson has a sister living near Syracuse. I have never
+  seen her. I cannot identify her."</p>
+
+  <p>"H'm," said the officer.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is that all?" asked William.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, that'll do. Thanks."</p>
+
+  <p>With a cold blighting glare at Matilda, William withdrew.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, ladies," said the officer with ingratiating
+  pleasantness, "I'm mighty glad it's all right. If you have
+  occasion, Miss Simpson, to speak o' this here little incident to
+  Mrs. De Peyster when she gets back from Europe, just explain it
+  as due to over-zealousness, if you don't mind&mdash;desire to
+  safeguard her interests. D'you get me? Headquarters is awful
+  sensitive to kicks from you rich people; and the boss comes down
+  on you like a ton o' bricks. It'll be <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>[pg 153]</span>
+  mighty kind o' you. Good-night. Don't bother to come down with
+  us. I noticed it was a spring lock. We can let ourselves
+  out."</p>
+
+  <p>When the two policemen were out of the room, Mrs. De Peyster
+  and Matilda collapsed into each others' arms and their bodies
+  sank limply forward from their chairs upon the dining-table.
+  "Matilda, what an escape!" shivered Mrs. De Peyster; and she lay
+  there, gathering breath, regathering strength, regathering poise,
+  while the officers' steps grew dimmer and more dim. She was
+  palpitant, yet able to think. Certainly it had been a narrow
+  escape. But that danger was now over. There now remained only the
+  feat of getting into her room, unnoticed by Jack. This they could
+  manage when they were certain that Jack and Mary were asleep.</p>
+
+  <p>Relief, hope, courage once more began to rise within her.</p>
+
+  <p>Then suddenly she sat upright. Footsteps were sounding
+  below&mdash;growing nearer&mdash;heavy footsteps&mdash;what
+  sounded like more than two pairs of footsteps. She sat as one
+  palsied; and before she could recover strength or faculties,
+  there in the doorway were the two policemen. And with them was a
+  gentleman in a cap and tan summer overcoat buttoned to the
+  chin.</p>
+
+  <p>The gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft; and the Mr.
+  Pyecroft they had first seen: bland, oh, so bland, with that odd,
+  elderish look of his.</p>
+
+  <p>"Met him goin' down the servants' steps as we <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>[pg 154]</span> were
+  goin' out, and he asked us&mdash;" the officer was beginning.</p>
+
+  <p>But Mr. Pyecroft was already crossing toward Matilda, smiling
+  affectionately.</p>
+
+  <p>"My dear Matilda!" He kissed her upon the cheek. "I arrived in
+  New York very unexpectedly less than half an hour ago, and could
+  not delay coming to see you. How are you, sister?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Wha&mdash;what?" stammered Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft with his bland affectionate smile crossed to Mrs.
+  De Peyster, slipped an arm across her shoulders and kissed her
+  veil somewhere about the forehead. "And how are you, dear
+  sister?" he inquired with deep concern.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gasped and stiffened.</p>
+
+  <p>"You ladies don't seem very glad to see him," put in the
+  officer. "When we told him about you two bein' sisters, he said
+  he was your brother. Is he?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course I am," Mr. Pyecroft answered pleasantly. "They
+  weren't expecting me; therefore this very natural surprise which
+  you observe. Of course, I am your brother, am I
+  not?"&mdash;patting Mrs. De Peyster's arm with the appearance of
+  affection, and then closing on it warningly.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster nodded her head.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," turning to her, in frank fraternal fashion, "you
+  might tell these officers that I am not only your brother, but in
+  fact the only brother you have. That is true, isn't it,
+  sister?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," gulped Matilda.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page155" id="page155"></a>[pg 155]</span>
+
+  <p>"Well," said the officer, "since everything is all right,
+  we'll be leavin' you. But, believe me, this is certainly some
+  sudden family reunion."</p>
+
+  <p>When they had gone Mr. Pyecroft calmly removed cap and
+  overcoat and stood forth in his clericals. Again he wore the
+  youngish face of their interview of an hour before. Mrs. De
+  Peyster watched him in sickening fear. What was he going to do?
+  Surely he must now know her identity!</p>
+
+  <p>He smiled at them amiably.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, my dears, so you tried to give me the slip. I rather
+  thought you'd bear watching, so I followed you. And when I saw
+  the officers come out without you I knew you had successfully
+  entertained them with some sort of plausible explanation."</p>
+
+  <p>His gaze fixed on Matilda. "So, my dear sister, you're really
+  the housekeeper here." He shook his head chidingly. "And the
+  usual crook of a housekeeper, eh&mdash;trying to make a safe
+  clean-up while her mistress is away. You're deeper than I
+  thought, Matilda. I understand the whole affair now. You and our
+  sister Angelica had already been planning some kind of a game
+  similar to the one I suggested. I just happened to think of the
+  same thing. I don't blame you a lot for not wanting to take me
+  into the game; it was quite natural for you to want all there is
+  in it for yourselves. Not the least hard feeling in the world, my
+  dears. But, of course,"&mdash;apologetically,&mdash;"you could
+  hardly expect me to give up a rich thing like this, could
+  you?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id=
+  "page156"></a>[pg 156]</span>
+
+  <p>His easy, familiar, ironic talk had brought Mrs. De Peyster
+  one large item of relief. Evidently he didn't suspect who she
+  was&mdash;yet.</p>
+
+  <p>"What are you going to do?" she managed to ask.</p>
+
+  <p>"Stay right here with you, my sisters, and in due time we'll
+  go ahead with our game as per previous specifications." He
+  surveyed the high, paneled dining-room, sumptuous, distinguished
+  even in the semi-dusk. "Cozy little flat, eh, my dears?"</p>
+
+  <p>Suddenly that wide mouth of his slipped up to one side, and he
+  laughed in exultant, impish glee.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, isn't this the funniest ever! Beats my plan a mile.
+  We'll make ourselves at home&mdash;hang out together for the
+  summer in Mrs. De Peyster's own house,&mdash;<i>her own
+  house</i>,&mdash;and when we hear she's coming back we vacate and
+  then do our little act of buying out the stores in Lady De
+  Peyster's name. Was there ever such a lark!" For a moment his low
+  laugh of wild glee cut off his speech. "What's more, it's the
+  safest place in the world for us. Nobody'd ever think of our
+  being here!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stared at Matilda, Matilda stared at Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"And it's just what I needed," continued Mr. Pyecroft in
+  amicable confidence. "I just had a tip that the police were
+  closing in on me, and I had to disappear quick. An hour ago, I'd
+  never have dreamed of falling into such a safe little retreat as
+  this. Luck favors the deserving."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gazed at him, faint.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>[pg 157]</span>
+
+  <p>"And of course, Matilda," he went on, "if, say, any of the
+  neighbors happen to drop in for a cup of tea and see me, or if
+  the police should manage to trail me here,&mdash;and they may,
+  you know,&mdash;of course, Matilda, you'll speak right up and say
+  I'm your dear brother."</p>
+
+  <p>At that moment it was beyond either of them to speak right
+  up.</p>
+
+  <p>"Remember, my dears, that we're all crooks together," he
+  prompted in a soft voice, that had a steely suggestion beneath
+  it. "And in case you fail to stand by me it would give me very
+  great pain&mdash;very great pain, I assure you&mdash;to have to
+  blow on you."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda gulped, blinked her eyes, and looked helplessly at
+  Mrs. De Peyster. Mr. Pyecroft turned to the latter.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, Angelica, dear, you're going to stand by me?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster hesitated, then breathed a barely audible
+  "Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Matilda, who were always my favorite sister, you,
+  too, will stand by me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," breathed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah," said Mr. Pyecroft, in a moved tone, "such family loyalty
+  is truly touching. I foresee a most pleasant
+  summer."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id=
+  "page158"></a>[pg 158]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE HAPPY FAMILY</h3>
+
+  <p>He nodded at the two with an air of deep fraternal affection.
+  And again he gazed with satisfaction about the spacious
+  apartment, indicative of numberless other rooms of corresponding
+  comfort.</p>
+
+  <p>His eyes came back to them.</p>
+
+  <p>"And now, Matilda, my dear," he resumed, with his pleasant
+  smile, "in the event we spoke of,&mdash;neighbors or police
+  dropping in, you know,&mdash;in such a case I suppose I ought to
+  be prepared with a correct history of myself. To begin with,
+  might I inquire what our name is?&mdash;our family name, I
+  mean."</p>
+
+  <p>"Simpson."</p>
+
+  <p>"Simpson. Ah, yes; very good. Matilda Simpson&mdash;Angelica
+  Simpson&mdash;and, let us say, Archibald Simpson. And where was I
+  born, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You weren't ever born," protested Matilda with frightened
+  indignation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now don't be facetious or superfluous, sister dear," he said
+  soothingly. "Granted for the sake of argument I wasn't ever born.
+  But where might I have been born?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was born near Albany."</p>
+
+  <p>"Near Albany is perfectly agreeable to me," said <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>[pg 159]</span> Mr.
+  Pyecroft. "And how many are there in our family?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Just Angelica and me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then there really is an authentical Angelica?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"Excellent. And our parents?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They died when I was a child."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm grieved, indeed, to learn of it," said Mr. Pyecroft. "But
+  I'll admit it simplifies matters; there's less to remember.
+  Angelica, our sister here, who is also visiting you, lives near
+  Syracuse I understood some one to say. Married or single?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Married," Matilda choked out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Her married name?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Jones."</p>
+
+  <p>"Angelica Simpson Jones. Good. Very euphonious. And how many
+  little nieces and nephews am I the happy uncle of?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She&mdash;she has no children."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's too bad, for I have a particular fondness for
+  children," sorrowed Mr. Pyecroft. "Still, that also simplifies
+  matters, lessening considerably the percentage of chances for
+  regrettable lapses of memory."</p>
+
+  <p>He pursued his genealogical inquiries into all possibly useful
+  details. And then he sat meditative for a while, gazing amiably
+  about his family circle. And it was while they were all thus
+  sitting silent, in what in the dim light of the one shaded
+  electric bulb might have seemed to an observer the silence of
+  intimacy, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id=
+  "page160"></a>[pg 160]</span> that Jack, who had slipped
+  cautiously downstairs, walked in, behind him Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, what's this mean?" he demanded, with a bewildered
+  look. "We've been wondering why you didn't come upstairs."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster turned in her chair, and held her breath, like
+  one beneath the guillotine. Matilda arose, shaking.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who's this man, Matilda?" Jack continued.</p>
+
+  <p>"He&mdash;ah&mdash;er&mdash;he's&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"And, pray, Matilda, who is this?" politely inquired the
+  arisen Mr. Pyecroft, blandly assuming command of the
+  situation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who am I? Well, you certainly have nerve&mdash;" the
+  astounded Jack was beginning.</p>
+
+  <p>"He's Mr. Jack," Matilda put in. "Jack De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, young Mr. De Peyster!" Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up
+  slightly and a shrewd light flashed into his rounded eyes and was
+  at once gone, and again his face was blandly clerical. "It is,
+  indeed, a pleasure to meet you, Mr. De Peyster. And, pray, who
+  is this?" with a suave gesture toward Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"That, sir, is my wife!" Jack announced, stiff with anger.</p>
+
+  <p>Again Mr. Pyecroft's eyes flashed shrewdly, and again were
+  clerically rounded.</p>
+
+  <p>"My dear sir, that is, indeed, surprising. I have seen no
+  public notice of your marriage. And I watch the marriage
+  announcements quite closely&mdash;which <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>[pg 161]</span> is
+  rather natural, for, if I may be permitted to mention it, I
+  myself am frequently called upon to perform the holy rites." His
+  face clouded with what seemed a painful suspicion. "I trust, sir,
+  that you are really married?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, damn you&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Sir, you must not thus address the cloth!" sternly interposed
+  Mr. Pyecroft. "It is our duty to speak frankly, and to make due
+  inquiry into the propriety of such relations. However, since you
+  say so, I am sure the affair is strictly correct." His voice
+  softened, became nobly apologetic. "No harm has been meant, and
+  if any offense has been felt, I assure you of my deepest
+  regrets."</p>
+
+  <p>"See here, who the devil are you?" demanded Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft turned to Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, my dear, will you kindly tell young Mr. De Peyster
+  who I am."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda seemed about to choke. "He's&mdash;he's my&mdash;my
+  brother."</p>
+
+  <p>"Your brother!" exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know you had a
+  brother. You never spoke of one."</p>
+
+  <p>"Which was entirely natural," said Mr. Pyecroft, with an air
+  of pious remorse. "Matilda has been ashamed to speak of me. To be
+  utterly frank&mdash;and it is meet that one who has been what I
+  have been should be humble and ready to confess&mdash;for many
+  years I was the black sheep of the family, my name unmentioned.
+  But sometime since I was snatched a <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>[pg 162]</span>
+  brand from the burning; I have remained silent about myself until
+  I could give to my family, which had properly disowned me, a long
+  record to prove my reformation. I am now striving by my devotion
+  to make some amends for my previous shortcomings."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack stared incomprehensibly at this unexpected clerical
+  brother of Matilda's, with his unquenchable volubility. Mr.
+  Pyecroft gazed back with appropriate humility, yet with a lofty
+  self-respect.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack turned away with a shrug, and pointed at the dark figure
+  of Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"And who is that, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That, sir," put in Mr. Pyecroft quickly, easily, to forestall
+  any blunder by the hapless Matilda&mdash;and deftly interposing
+  himself between Jack and Mrs. De Peyster, "that is our
+  sister."</p>
+
+  <p>"The one who lives in Syracuse?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes; and she is indisposed," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Our sister
+  Angelica Simpson Jones," he elaborated. "Matilda is the eldest, I
+  am the youngest; there are just us three children."</p>
+
+  <p>"And might I ask, Matilda, without intending discourtesy,"
+  said Jack, eyeing Mr. Pyecroft with disfavor, "how long your
+  brother and sister intend to remain?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda invited us for the summer," said Mr. Pyecroft
+  apologetically.</p>
+
+  <p>"For the summer!" repeated Jack in dismay. Then he spoke to
+  Matilda, caustically: "I suppose <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page163" id="page163"></a>[pg 163]</span> it's all right,
+  Matilda, but has it been your fixed custom, when we've been away
+  for the summer, to fill the house with your family?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Please, Mr. Jack, please," imploringly began Matilda, and
+  could utter nothing further.</p>
+
+  <p>"Great God!" Jack burst out in exasperation. "Not that I'd
+  object ordinarily to your relatives being here, Matilda. But
+  running this place just now as a hotel, who knows but it may let
+  out the fact that we're here!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up&mdash;ever so little.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, I understand. You wish your presence in the house to be a
+  secret."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course! Hasn't Matilda told you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I only just arrived. She hasn't had time. But of course she
+  would have done so. You are&mdash;ah"&mdash;his tone was
+  delicate&mdash;"evading the police?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The police! We don't care a hang about the police, though, of
+  course, we don't want them to know. It's the infernal reporters
+  we care about."</p>
+
+  <p>"The reporters?" softly pursued Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, but one reporter in particular&mdash;a beast by the name
+  of Mayfair, I've had a tip that he suspects something; already
+  he's tried to get into the house as a gas-meter inspector."</p>
+
+  <p>At the mention of that indomitable, remorseless, undeceivable
+  newsgatherer, Mayfair, and the possibility of his gaining
+  entrance into the house, Mrs. De Peyster experienced a new
+  shudder.</p>
+
+  <p>"What would be the harm if Mr. Mayfair did get <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>[pg 164]</span> in?"
+  Imperceptibly prodded Mr. Pyecroft. "He would merely write a
+  piece about you for his paper."</p>
+
+  <p>"And his confounded piece, or the main facts in it, would be
+  cabled to Europe!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, I think I see," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Mrs. De Peyster would
+  read about your marriage in the Paris 'Herald' or some other
+  European paper. You do not wish your mother to know of your
+  marriage&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+  <p>"I supposed Matilda had already told you that," said Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, so that is why you are here in hiding," said Mr.
+  Pyecroft, very softly, chiefly to himself; and his eyes had
+  another momentary flash, only brighter than any heretofore, and
+  his mouth twitched upward, and he pleasantly rubbed his
+  hands.</p>
+
+  <p>At that moment, from the stairway, came the sound of
+  descending steps. Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed. Mr.
+  Pyecroft became taut, though no one could have observed a change,
+  Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet deeper apprehension. Would the
+  trials and tribulations and Pharaonic plagues never cease
+  descending on her!</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda gazed wildly at Jack. "Who's that?" she quavered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Only Uncle Bob," Jack answered carelessly.</p>
+
+  <p>Only Uncle Bob! Mrs. De Peyster, in her dim corner, tried to
+  shrivel up into yet darker obscurity. Breathlessly she felt
+  herself upon the precipitous edge of ultimate horror. For Judge
+  Harvey&mdash;Judge <span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id=
+  "page165"></a>[pg 165]</span> Harvey of all persons&mdash;to be
+  the one to discover her amid her humiliating circumstances!</p>
+
+  <p>Dimly she heard Jack talk on, explaining in casual tone: "You
+  know, Matilda, Uncle Bob has always had the general oversight of
+  the house when it's been closed during summers; and he's always
+  made it his business to drop in occasionally to see that
+  everything's all right. I got him word we were here, and he
+  dropped in this evening to call on us&mdash;and along came this
+  awful rain and we coaxed him to stay the night. Uncle Bob and you
+  are lucky, Matilda, you can both come and go without arousing any
+  suspicion."</p>
+
+  <p>Only the Judge!... Yet, for all her horror, a new phase of the
+  general predicament filtered into such consciousness as she now
+  possessed. Judge Harvey, irate purchaser of autograph letters,
+  and Mr. Pyecroft, <i>alias</i> Thomas Preston, profuse producer
+  of the same, were under the same roof and were about to meet.
+  What would happen when they came face to face?&mdash;for she
+  remembered now that a bad likeness of Thomas Preston had several
+  times appeared in the papers. She turned her head toward the
+  doorway and peered through her veil, waiting.</p>
+
+  <p>When Judge Harvey entered, Mr. Pyecroft started. Upon the
+  instant he had recognized Judge Harvey. But the next moment Mr.
+  Pyecroft was himself. Jack gave the necessary introductions, the
+  one to Angelica Simpson Jones at long distance, and gave a brief
+  explanation of the presence of the two <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>[pg 166]</span>
+  guests. During this while Judge Harvey repeatedly glanced at Mr.
+  Pyecroft, a puzzled look on his countenance.</p>
+
+  <p>"Excuse me, Mr. Simpson," he remarked presently, "but your
+  face seems elusively familiar to me. I seem to know it, yet I
+  cannot place it. Haven't I met you somewhere?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps you were a lay delegate to the recent Episcopal
+  Convention in New York?" politely suggested Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"No. I did not even attend any of the sessions."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then, of course, it could not have been there that you saw
+  me," said Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps it will come to me," said Judge Harvey.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps," said Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, for all her personal apprehension, could but
+  marvel at this young man of the sea who had fastened himself upon
+  her back. Most amazing of all, he seemed to like the taste of his
+  danger.</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster was remarking when you came in,"
+  Mr. Pyecroft continued without permitting a lull, "that he wished
+  his presence in this house to remain unknown. Also I had just
+  told him and his young wife that my earlier years were given over
+  to a life for which I have been trying to atone by good works.
+  Now I have a very humiliating further confession to make to you
+  all. Recently there has been&mdash;may I call it a
+  recrudescence?&mdash;an uncontrollable recrudescence of my former
+  regrettable <span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id=
+  "page167"></a>[pg 167]</span> self. For a disastrous moment the
+  Mr. Hyde element in me, which I thought I had stifled and cast
+  out, arose and possessed me. In brief, I have been guilty of an
+  error which the police consider serious; in fact, the police are
+  this moment searching for me. So you see, I am in the same
+  situation as Mr. De Peyster: I prefer my whereabouts to remain
+  unknown. Since we are in each other's hands, and it is in our
+  power each to betray the other, shall we not all, as a <i>quid
+  pro quo</i>, agree to preserve Mr. De Peyster's and my presence
+  in this house a secret? For my part, I promise."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm willing," said Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"And I," said Mary. "Anyhow, I never get a chance to tell, for
+  I haven't been out of this house once."</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Judge Harvey? You will&mdash;ah&mdash;protect
+  me?"</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey bit the end of his mustache. "I don't like this
+  bargaining over a matter of justice. But&mdash;for Jack's sake,
+  yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, Judge Harvey," Mr. Pyecroft said in a soft,
+  grateful voice, and with a slight, dignified bow.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster drew a deep breath. He certainly was a cool
+  one.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's something that's just been occurring to me," spoke up
+  Jack. "It's along of that infernal reporter Mayfair who's
+  snooping around here. He's likely to get in here any time. If he
+  were to find me <span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id=
+  "page168"></a>[pg 168]</span> here alone, there'd be nothing for
+  him to write about. It's finding me here, married, that will give
+  him one of his yellow stories, and that will put mother next.
+  Matilda, since you already have so large a family visiting you, I
+  suppose you wouldn't mind taking on one more and saying that Mary
+  here was something or other of yours&mdash;say a niece?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, that would be delicious" laughed Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, Mr. Jack,&mdash;I! I&mdash;" The flustered Matilda could
+  get out no more.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Simpson, couldn't you say she was your daughter?" queried
+  Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"I would be only too delighted to own her as such," said Mr.
+  Pyecroft. "But I am not married and I am obviously too young.
+  However,"&mdash;moving closer to Mrs. De Peyster,&mdash;"our
+  sister Angelica is married, and I am sure it will be a great
+  pleasure to her to claim Mrs. De Peyster as her daughter.
+  Angelica, my dear, of course you'll do it?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sat rigid, voiceless.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's the matter?" asked Mary, in deep concern.</p>
+
+  <p>"Our sister probably did not hear, she is slightly deaf," Mr.
+  Pyecroft explained. He bent over Mrs. De Peyster, made a trumpet
+  of one hand, and raised his voice. "Angelica, if any other person
+  comes into the house, you are to say that young Mrs. De Peyster
+  is your daughter. You understand?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"And of course you'll say it?"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>[pg 169]</span>
+
+  <p>For a moment Mrs. De Peyster was again rigid. Then slowly she
+  nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>The spirit of the masquerade seized upon Mary. "Oh, mother
+  dear,&mdash;what a comfort to have you!" she cried with
+  mischievous glee; and arms wide as if for a daughterly embrace
+  she swept toward Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shriveled back. She stopped living. In another
+  moment&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>But the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft, <i>alias</i> Archibald Simpson,
+  <i>alias</i> Thomas Preston, <i>alias</i> God knows what else,
+  stepped quickly between her and the on-coming Mary, and with an
+  air of brotherly concern held out an intercepting hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"No excitement, please. The doctor's orders."</p>
+
+  <p>"Is it anything serious?" Mary asked anxiously.</p>
+
+  <p>"We hope not," in a grave voice. "It is chiefly nervous
+  exhaustion due to a period of worry over a trying domestic
+  situation."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's too bad!" Very genuine sympathy was in Mary's soft
+  contralto. "But if she's unwell, she ought to have more air. Why
+  don't you draw up that heavy veil?"</p>
+
+  <p>"S-s-h! Not so loud, I beg you. If she heard you speak of her
+  veil, it would pain her greatly. You see," Mr. Pyecroft
+  unhesitatingly went on in a low, compassionate tone, "our sister,
+  while trying to light a gasoline stove&mdash;It was a gasoline
+  stove, was it not, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah&mdash;er&mdash;ye-yes," corroborated
+  Matilda.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id=
+  "page170"></a>[pg 170]</span>
+
+  <p>"A gasoline stove, yes," continued the grave voice of Mr.
+  Pyecroft. "It was during the very first year after her marriage.
+  The explosion that followed disfigured her face frightfully. She
+  is extremely sensitive; so much so that she invariably wears a
+  heavy veil when she goes out of her own house."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, how terrible!" cried Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, isn't it! All of our family have felt for poor Angelica
+  most deeply. And furthermore, she is sensitive about her
+  deafness&mdash;which, I may add, was caused by the same accident.
+  And her various misfortunes have made her extremely shy, so the
+  less attention that is paid to her, the happier the poor creature
+  is."</p>
+
+  <p>Mary withdrew among the others. Slowly Mrs. De Peyster
+  returned once more to life. She hardly knew how she had escaped,
+  save that it had been through some miracle of that awful Mr.
+  Pyecroft's amazing tongue.</p>
+
+  <p>"By the way, Matilda," she heard Mary remark, "did you read in
+  to-night's papers about Mrs. De Peyster's voyage? You know she
+  landed to-day."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, ma'&mdash;Mary," said Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"The paper said she was so ill all the way across that she
+  wasn't able to leave her stateroom once." Mary's voice was very
+  sympathetic. "Why, she was so ill she couldn't leave the boat
+  until after dark, hours after all the other passengers had
+  gone."</p>
+
+  <p>"I never knew mother to be seasick before," said Jack, in deep
+  concern.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id=
+  "page171"></a>[pg 171]</span>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey said nothing, but his fine, handsome face was
+  disturbed. Jack noted the look, and, suddenly catching the
+  Judge's hand, said with a burst of boyish frankness:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Uncle Bob, you're worried more than any of us! You know I've
+  always liked you like a father&mdash;and&mdash;and here's hoping
+  some day mother'll change her mind&mdash;and you'll be my father
+  in reality!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, Jack!" the Judge said huskily, gripping Jack's
+  hand.</p>
+
+  <p>Over in her corner, beneath her veil, Mrs. De Peyster flushed
+  hotly.</p>
+
+  <p>They talked on about the distant Mrs. De Peyster, and she
+  listened with keenest ears. They were all so sympathetic about
+  her&mdash;sick&mdash;alone&mdash;in far-off Europe. So
+  sympathetic&mdash;so very, very sympathetic!</p>
+
+  <p>As for Mr. Pyecroft, standing on guard beside her, he looked
+  appropriately grave. But inside his gravity he was smiling. These
+  people had no guess that in a way he was connected with the great
+  Mrs. De Peyster of whom they talked&mdash;that "Miss Gardner" who
+  was the companion to the ailing social leader in France was
+  something more than just Miss Gardner. And he felt no reason for
+  revealing his little secret.... Clara, the dear little Puritan,
+  would be scandalized by this his wildest escapade&mdash;by his
+  having used, after all and despite her prohibition, Mrs. De
+  Peyster's closed house as a retreat; but when she came back from
+  Europe, and he made her <span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"
+  id="page172"></a>[pg 172]</span> see in its proper light this
+  gorgeous and profitable lark, she would relent and forgive him.
+  Why, of course, she would forgive him.</p>
+
+  <p>He was very optimistic, was Mr. Pyecroft; and the founder of
+  his family must have been a certain pagan gentleman by the name
+  of Pan.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id=
+  "page173"></a>[pg 173]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE ATTIC ROOM</h3>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks when at last, toward one o'clock
+  Jack and Mary and Judge Harvey went back to bed, leaving Matilda,
+  Mr. Pyecroft, and herself. It had previously been settled that
+  Mr. Pyecroft was to have Jack's old room, Matilda was, of course,
+  to have her usual quarters, and Mrs. De Peyster was to have the
+  room adjoining Matilda's, that formerly was occupied by Mrs. De
+  Peyster's second maid.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, that was certainly one close shave," Mr. Pyecroft
+  whispered at the door of her room. "Perhaps we'd better beat it
+  from here. If that Judge ever places me! And you, if those people
+  ever get a fair look at your face, they'll see your likeness to
+  Mrs. De Peyster and they'll guess what our game is&mdash;sure!
+  You'll promise to be careful?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster promised.</p>
+
+  <p>Fifteen minutes later, having been undressed by Matilda, she
+  was lying in the dark on a narrow bed, hard, very hard, as hard
+  as Mrs. Gilbert's folding contrivance&mdash;and once more, after
+  this her second move, she was studying the items of her
+  situation.</p>
+
+  <p>She had daily to mix with, strive to avoid, Jack <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>[pg 174]</span> and
+  Mary. And Jack had casually remarked that Judge Harvey would be
+  frequently dropping in.</p>
+
+  <p>And there was that bland, incorrigible Pyecroft, whom she
+  seemed to have become hopelessly tied to; Pyecroft, irresistibly
+  insisting that she should swindle herself, and whom she saw no
+  way of denying.</p>
+
+  <p>Suppose Pyecroft should find out? He might.</p>
+
+  <p>Suppose Jack and Mary should find out? They might.</p>
+
+  <p>Suppose Judge Harvey should find out? He might.</p>
+
+  <p>And suppose all this business of her not going to Europe, but
+  staying in her shuttered house&mdash;her flight from
+  home&mdash;her humiliating experiences in an ordinary
+  boarding-house where she passed as a housekeeper&mdash;her being
+  forced into a plan to rob herself&mdash;suppose Mrs. Allistair
+  should find out? And Mrs. Allistair, she well knew, might somehow
+  stumble upon all this; for she remembered how Mrs. Allistair had
+  tried, and perhaps was still trying, to get some piquant bit of
+  evidence against her in that Duke de Cr&amp;#233;cy affair. And
+  if Mrs. Allistair did find out&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>What a scandal!</p>
+
+  <p>And since her fate had become so inextricably tied up with the
+  fates of others, and since the exposure of others might involve
+  the exposure of her, there were yet further sources of danger.
+  For&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>There was that awful reporter watching the house, after
+  Jack!</p>
+
+  <p>There were the police, after Pyecroft!</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>[pg 175]</span>
+
+  <p>She shuddered. This was only the seventh day since her
+  inspired idea had been born within her. And it was only that very
+  day that she had landed at Cherbourg. Three months must pass
+  before Olivetta, in the role of Mrs. De Peyster, would return,
+  and she could be herself again&mdash;if they could ever, ever
+  manage their expected re-exchange of personalities in this awful
+  mess.</p>
+
+  <p>Only seven days thus far. Three more months of this!</p>
+
+  <p>Three ... more ... months!...</p>
+
+  <p>But at length she slept; slept deeply, for she had the gift of
+  sleep in its perfection; slept a complete and flawless oblivion.
+  So that when she awoke Saturday, refreshed, and glanced blinking
+  about from her thin pillow she did not at first remember where
+  she was. This low room, four by seven feet, with a narrow bed
+  penitentially hard, a stationary wash-basin, a row of iron
+  clothes-hooks, a foot-high oblong window above her
+  head&mdash;what was it? How had she come here? And had any one
+  ever before lived in such a cell?</p>
+
+  <p>Then memory came flooding back. This was her second maid's
+  room. She was Angelica Simpson Jones, sister of Matilda, a poor,
+  diffident creature with defective hearing and pitifully
+  disfigured face. And in the house were Mr. Pyecroft, and Jack and
+  Mary, and Judge Harvey was a frequent visitor. And besides these,
+  there were all the other sources of danger!</p>
+
+  <p>She was now poignantly awake.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>[pg 176]</span>
+
+  <p>While she was still in this process of realization, there was
+  a soft knock at her door and a whispered, "It's Matilda, ma'am,"
+  at her keyhole. She unlocked the door, admitted Matilda, and
+  crept back into her second maid's bed. They gazed at each other a
+  moment without speaking. Matilda's face was gray with awe and
+  helpless woe.</p>
+
+  <p>They whispered about their predicament. What should they do?
+  Should they flee again?&mdash;and how?&mdash;and where?&mdash;and
+  what good would flight do them, especially since Mr. Pyecroft
+  might once more follow? Twice they had leaped from the
+  frying-pan, and each time had landed in a fire hotter than the
+  one preceding. A third flight might drop them into a fire worse
+  even than this in which they now sizzled.</p>
+
+  <p>And as for the specific plan which had brought them
+  back&mdash;for Mrs. De Peyster to steal unnoticed into her suite
+  and hide there&mdash;that seemed impossible of achievement with
+  all these people circulating about the house, especially that
+  all-observing Mr. Pyecroft. If Mr. Pyecroft should catch her in
+  one suspicious move, then his quick mind would deduce the rest,
+  and everything would be up&mdash;everything!</p>
+
+  <p>There was, of course, yet another way&mdash;to give up and
+  disclose her identity herself. But she was now far, far too
+  deeply involved: to confess and thus by her own act bring
+  limitless and appalling humiliation on herself, this was
+  unthinkable! She must go on, on, blindly on&mdash;with the
+  desperate hope that in some manner now unseen she might in the
+  end <span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>[pg
+  177]</span> disentangle herself and come out of the affair
+  undiscovered and with dignity untarnished. The two were still
+  whispering over their predicament, when at the door sounded
+  another knock, loud and confident. They caught at each other. The
+  knocking was repeated.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who's that?" Matilda asked, at Mrs. De Peyster's
+  prompting.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's Archibald," answered a bland voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ma'am, shall I let him in?" breathed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"We don't dare keep him out," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda admitted him. Even in the semi-darkness of the room,
+  due to the green shutters being closed, Mrs. De Peyster could see
+  that he was admirably transformed from the raven Mr. Pyecroft of
+  the night before. He had on a gray modish suit, with lavender tie
+  and socks to match; and looked natty and young and spirited and
+  quite prepared for anything.</p>
+
+  <p>"Good morning, sisters," he greeted them pleasantly. "I see
+  you are admiring my new spring outfit. Not at all bad, is it?" He
+  turned slowly about, for their better observation; then grinned
+  and lowered his voice: "It's young De Peyster's; found it in his
+  room, and helped myself. Burned my clergyman's outfit in the
+  kitchen range before any one was up; best to leave no clues lying
+  around."</p>
+
+  <p>He, too, had come to talk plans, and quickly Mr. Pyecroft
+  settled them. This was a dangerous place <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>[pg 178]</span> for
+  him, with Judge Harvey coming and going; but to stay here was a
+  safer risk than to venture forth until the hue and cry of the
+  police had quieted. It was a dangerous place also for his dear
+  sister Angelica, but if on the plea of indisposition she would
+  stay in this dusky room and would keep her disfigured face hidden
+  when any member of the household chanced to come in (they would
+  all understand, and sympathize with, her painful diffidence),
+  why, there was an excellent chance of her pulling through without
+  discovery. It was obvious that they dared not keep out Jack and
+  Mary, and perhaps Judge Harvey, should these be inspired to make
+  friendly calls. To forbid their visits would arouse suspicion.
+  And if it were said Angelica was too ill to see any one, then
+  they would demand that a doctor be called in&mdash;and a doctor
+  would mean exposure. Their visits must be permitted; no doubt of
+  that; but if dear Angelica were only careful, extremely careful,
+  and kept her head, all would go well.</p>
+
+  <p>Yes, summarized Mr. Pyecroft, the best plan for them was to
+  remain here for the present. Then when the safe and appropriate
+  moment arrived, they could make their get-away.</p>
+
+  <p>From quite other reasons, Mrs. De Peyster accepted this plan.
+  After the strain of the past week, particularly after the wild
+  emotional oscillations of the preceding night, she wished just to
+  lie there in the dusk, and breathe&mdash;and breathe&mdash;and
+  breathe some more&mdash;and recover life.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>[pg 179]</span>
+
+  <p>Matilda suggested that she bring up breakfast for Mrs. De
+  Peyster, and Mr. Pyecroft begged her to discover and set out
+  something below for him, for his stomach was a torturing vacuum.
+  Matilda went down, leaving Mr. Pyecroft behind in the room,
+  discussing further details of their immediate campaign; and
+  presently she returned, trembling, with a tray, Jack and Mary
+  just behind her. Mrs. De Peyster did not need to be prompted to
+  turn her face toward the wall, and into the deeper shadow that
+  there prevailed. Mr. Pyecroft casually sat down upon the bed near
+  its head, making an excellent further screen.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft noted that Jack was observing his raiment. "I
+  trust, Mr. De Peyster, you will pardon the liberty I have taken
+  with your clothes. My own were still wet from last night."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's all right," said Jack. "But, say, Matilda, have your
+  sister eat her breakfast. What we've come to talk about can
+  wait."</p>
+
+  <p>But Matilda's sister, after all, wished no breakfast. And
+  solicitation could not rouse in her an appetite.</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well," said Jack. "Then to the point. I thought we'd
+  better all get together on the matter at once. It's about
+  food."</p>
+
+  <p>"Food?" queried Mr. Pyecroft, a bit blankly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, and it's some problem, you bet. Here's a house that is
+  supposed to be empty. And within this empty house are five
+  adults. Do you get me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Isn't it terrible!" cried Mary.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>[pg 180]</span>
+
+  <p>"Five adults," repeated Jack. "How are we going to get food in
+  here for them without exciting suspicion?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As you say," mused Mr. Pyecroft with a wry face, "that is
+  certainly some problem. My own appetite is already one
+  magnitudinous toothache."</p>
+
+  <p>Jack enlarged upon their situation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Since Judge Harvey tipped me off to the fact that the
+  newspapers smelled a story, and since that reporter Mayfair and
+  other reporters began to watch this house, I've had to give up
+  going out. We two would have starved but for what Judge Harvey
+  and William managed to slip in to us. Even with that, we've
+  almost starved. In fact, we've been driven by hunger about to the
+  point of giving in, going out, acknowledging our marriage and
+  taking the consequences."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, face buried in the shadow, thrilled with a
+  sudden rush of hope. If Jack and Mary should leave the house,
+  then half her danger would be ended!</p>
+
+  <p>"But, you see, since that news yesterday about mother being so
+  sick in Europe," Jack continued solicitously, "I feel that, in
+  her weakened condition, the news of our marriage might be a very
+  severe shock for her. So for her sake we're going to keep the
+  thing secret for a while yet, and stick it out here."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster could hardly keep back a groan.</p>
+
+  <p>"So, now," Jack again propounded, "what the dickens are the
+  five of us going to do?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 181]</span>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft rubbed his wide mouth for a meditative moment.
+  Then he smiled upon Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"It seems to me, sister dear, that we'll have to put it up to
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Up to me?" cried Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Matilda. You belong here; you can come and go as a
+  matter of course. You have a sister visiting you; also a brother,
+  but as I have requested, the less said about his being here the
+  better. But you can go out and openly order provisions for
+  yourself and our sister. And you can give a good large order for
+  nourishing canned goods, casually mentioning that you are laying
+  in a supply so that you will not have to bother again soon with
+  staples. That, with what Judge Harvey and William can smuggle in,
+  should keep us provided for."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft's suggestion was approved by the majority. As an
+  addendum to his proposal Matilda was ordered to answer the bell
+  whenever rung; if she did not, with the knowledge abroad that she
+  was in the house, a dangerous suspicion might be aroused. But she
+  should be careful when she went to the door, very careful.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda was driven forth to make the purchases; Mr. Pyecroft,
+  under Jack's guidance, went below to forage for the
+  an&amp;#230;sthetic of immediate crumbs; and Mary,
+  tender-heartedly, remained behind to relieve the tedium of and
+  give comfort to the invalid. She straightened up the room a bit;
+  urged the patient <span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id=
+  "page182"></a>[pg 182]</span> to eat, to no avail; then went out
+  of the room for a minute, and reappeared with a book.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm going to read to you, Angelica," she announced, in a loud
+  yet nursey voice. "I suppose your taste in books is about the
+  same as your sister's. Here's a story I found in Matilda's room.
+  It's called 'Wormwood.' I'm sure you'll like it."</p>
+
+  <p>So placed that she could get all of the dim light that slanted
+  through the tiny shuttered window, Mary began, her voice raised
+  to meet the need of Mrs. De Peyster's aural handicap. Now Marie
+  Corelli may have been the favorite novelist of a certain amiable
+  queen, who somehow managed to continue to the age of eighty-two
+  despite her preference. But Mrs. De Peyster liked no fiction; and
+  the noble platitudes, the resounding moralizings, the prodigious
+  melodrama, the vast caverns of words of the queen's favorite made
+  Mrs. De Peyster writhe upon her second maid's undentable bed. If
+  only she actually did possess the divine gift of defective
+  hearing with which Mr. Pyecroft had afflicted her! But in the
+  same loud voice, trying to conceal her own boredom, Mary read on,
+  on, on&mdash;patiently on.</p>
+
+  <p>At length Matilda returned. Mary closed the book with a sigh
+  of relief, which on the instant she repressed.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll read to you for a while two or three times a day," she
+  promised. "I know what a comfort it is to a sick person to hear a
+  story she likes."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not even thank her.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 183]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+  <h3>DOMESTIC SCENES</h3>
+
+  <p>The provisions arrived; Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably
+  competent and willing in the matter of their preparation; and
+  such as had appetites gorged themselves. Also Mr. Pyecroft proved
+  himself agreeably competent and willing to do his full share, and
+  more, in the matter of cleaning up.</p>
+
+  <p>Later in the forenoon, Mary again called on Mrs. De Peyster.
+  "I hope you don't mind a little praise directed at your family,
+  Angelica," she said, in the loud voice she had adopted for that
+  unfortunate. "At first Jack and I thought your brother Archibald
+  was&mdash;well&mdash;too pompous. You know, clergymen are often
+  that way. But the more we see of him, the better we like him.
+  He's so pleasant, so helpful. I hope the little trouble he spoke
+  of being in with the police isn't serious, for Jack and I think
+  he's simply splendid!"</p>
+
+  <p>Archibald's sister seemed indifferent to this praise of her
+  brother. At least she said nothing. So Mary took up "Wormwood"
+  and half-shouted another installment.</p>
+
+  <p>The spirits of Jack and Mary, which during the previous
+  evening and the earlier part of this morning had been subdued by
+  concern over the illness of the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page184" id="page184"></a>[pg 184]</span> distant Mrs. De
+  Peyster, had, an hour before Mary's second visit, become suddenly
+  hilarious. While Mary read, Mrs. De Peyster wondered over this
+  change. When the book was closed upon the installment, she
+  hesitatingly asked concerning this mystery.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's news about Mrs. De Peyster," answered Mary. "But of
+  course it could hardly interest you much, for you've never met
+  her&mdash;at least I supposed not, Angelica."</p>
+
+  <p>"I've&mdash;seen her," corrected Angelica. "What&mdash;what
+  news?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why," cried Mary in her soft, happy contralto, "Judge Harvey
+  just telephoned that the latest papers contain cables saying that
+  Mrs. De Peyster has just left Paris on that long motor trip of
+  hers to the Balkans. That means that Jack's mother must be quite
+  well again. We all feel so relieved&mdash;so very, very
+  relieved!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster also felt relief&mdash;and some badly needed
+  courage flowed into her. Olivetta's part of the plan, at least,
+  was working out as per schedule.</p>
+
+  <p>Finally Mary went, Matilda brought in her lunch, and the
+  afternoon began to wear itself away, Mrs. De Peyster keeping most
+  of the time to the hard, narrow bed of the second maid. Twice,
+  however, she got up while Matilda guarded her door, stood at her
+  high, cell-like window, and peered through the slats of the
+  closed shutter, past the purple-and-lavender plumes of the
+  wistaria that climbed on up to the roof, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 185]</span> and
+  out upon the soft, green, sunny spaces of Washington Square. The
+  Square, which she had been proud to live upon but rarely walked
+  in,&mdash;only children and nursemaids and the commoner people
+  actually walked in it,&mdash;the Square looked so expansive, so
+  free, so inviting. And this tiny cell&mdash;these days of early
+  May were unseasonably, hot&mdash;seemed to grow more narrow and
+  more stifling every moment. How had any one ever, ever
+  voluntarily endured it!</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster learned that Jack was studying at home, and
+  studying hard. With the return of Matilda to the house, Jack
+  repeated his instruction concerning the piano: Matilda was to
+  tell any inquisitive folk that Mrs. De Peyster had bought a
+  player-piano shortly before she sailed, and that she, Matilda,
+  was operating it to while away the tedious hours. This device
+  made it possible for Mary to begin her neglected practice.</p>
+
+  <p>With the certainty of being bored, yet with an irrepressible
+  curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the
+  morning and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the
+  instrument. She would be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no
+  poetic suavity of touch, no sense of interpretation.</p>
+
+  <p>When from the rear drawing-room the grand piano sent upwards
+  to Mrs. De Peyster its first strains, they were rapid, careless
+  scales and runs. Quite as she'd expected. Then the player began
+  Chopin's Ballade <span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id=
+  "page186"></a>[pg 186]</span> in G Minor. Mrs. De Peyster
+  listened contemptuously; then with rebellious interest; then with
+  complete absorption. That person below could certainly play the
+  piano&mdash;brilliantly, feelingly, with the touch and insight of
+  an artist. Mrs. De Peyster's soul rose and fell with the soul of
+  the song, and when the piano, after its uprushing, almost human
+  closing cry, fell sharply into silence, she was for the moment
+  that piano's vassal.</p>
+
+  <p>Then she remembered who was the player. Instinctively her
+  emotions chilled; and she lay stiffly in bed, hostile, on guard,
+  defying the charm of the further music.</p>
+
+  <p>Suddenly the piano broke off in the very middle of Liszt's
+  Rhapsodic Number Twelve. The way the music snapped off startled
+  her. There was something inexplicably ominous about it.
+  Intuitively she felt that something was happening below. She
+  wondered what it could be.</p>
+
+  <p>An hour passed; she continued wondering; then Matilda entered
+  the attic room, behind her Mr. Pyecroft and Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"Sister"&mdash;such familiarity was difficult to Matilda, even
+  though she knew this familiarity was necessary to maintain the
+  roles circumstances and Mr. Pyecroft had forced upon
+  them&mdash;"sister," she quavered, "I thought you might be
+  interested to know that the bell rang awhile ago, and I went
+  down, and there was a man&mdash;with a note to me from&mdash;from
+  Mrs. De Peyster."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id=
+  "page187"></a>[pg 187]</span>
+
+  <p>"What!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster, in an almost natural
+  tone.</p>
+
+  <p>"It&mdash;it's disturbed us all so much that I thought you
+  might like to look at it. Here it is."</p>
+
+  <p>Shakingly, Matilda held out a sheet of paper. Shakingly, but
+  without turning to face her visitors, Mrs. De Peyster took it.
+  There was enough light to see that the letter was written on
+  heavy paper embossed at the top with a flag and "S.S. Plutonia,"
+  and was dated the evening she had supposedly gone on board. The
+  note read:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+  <p>DEAR MATILDA:&mdash;</p>
+      <p>Just at this late moment I recall something which,
+      in the hurry of getting off, I forgot to tell you
+      about.
+      This is that I left instructions with Mr. Howard, an
+      expert cabinet-maker, who has previously done
+      things for me under the supervision of the Tiffany
+      Studios, to go over all my furniture while I am abroad
+      and touch up and repair such pieces as may be out
+      of order. I am sending this letter to Mr. Howard
+      for him or his representative to present for
+      identification
+      to you when he is ready to undertake the
+      work. See that he has every facility.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster lay dizzily still. Such an order she had never
+  given. But the writing was amazingly similar to her own.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Matilda?" she managed to inquire, in a voice she tried
+  to make like the sickly Angelica's.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>[pg 188]</span>
+
+  <p>"When the man showed me the note, I tried to put him off; but
+  he simply wouldn't go and he followed me in. His orders, he said.
+  I showed the letter to Mary and Mr. Pyecroft. The man saw them.
+  They said call up Judge Harvey and ask him what to do. I did and
+  Judge Harvey came down and he examined the letter and said it was
+  undoubtedly written by Mrs. De Peyster. And he called up the
+  Tiffany Studios, and they said they'd had such a telephone order
+  from Mrs. De Peyster."</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack and I never dreamed that his mother might have left
+  orders to have people in here to renovate the house!" cried Mary
+  in dismay.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then&mdash;then Judge Harvey asked the man to put off the
+  work," Matilda went on. "The man was very polite, but he said his
+  orders from Mrs. De Peyster had been strict, and if he wasn't
+  allowed to go on with the work, he said, in order to protect
+  himself, he'd have to cable Mrs. De Peyster that the people
+  occupying her house wouldn't let him. Judge Harvey didn't want
+  Mrs. De Peyster to find out about Mr. and Mrs. Jack, so he told
+  the man to go ahead."</p>
+
+  <p>"And the man?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Where is he?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He's down in the drawing-room, beginning on the tables."</p>
+
+  <p>"It seems to me," suggested Mr. Pyecroft, "that since this
+  summer hotel is filling so rapidly, we might as well withdraw our
+  advertisements from the papers."</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>[pg 189]</span>
+
+  <p>"I wonder, ma'&mdash;" Matilda checked herself just in time.
+  "I wonder, Angelica," she exclaimed desperately, "who it'll be
+  next?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Isn't it simply awful!" cried Mary. "But Jack's gone into
+  hiding and isn't going to stir&mdash;and the man didn't see
+  him&mdash;and I'm your niece, you know. So Jack and I are in no
+  danger. Anyhow, Judge Harvey gave the man a&mdash;a large fee not
+  to mention any one being in the house besides Matilda, and the
+  man promised. So I guess all of us are safe."</p>
+
+  <p>But no such sentiment of security comforted Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Who was the man?</p>
+
+  <p>What was he here for?</p>
+
+  <p>One thing was certain: he and those behind him had made clever
+  and adequate preparations for his admission. And she dared not
+  expose him, and order him out&mdash;for only that very morning
+  she had left Paris on her motor trip! She could only lie on the
+  second maid's narrow bed and await developments.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda went out to attend to her domestic duties below; Mr.
+  Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, the sympathetic Mary,&mdash;Mary who
+  had no worry, for the cabinet-maker below would in due time
+  complete his routine work and take himself away,&mdash;Mary
+  remained behind to apply to the invalid the soothing mental
+  poultice of "Wormwood." But "Wormwood" did not torment Mrs. De
+  Peyster as it had done in the forenoon. She did not hear it. She
+  was thinking of the cabinet-maker below. But Mary <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>[pg 190]</span>
+  faithfully continued; she did not cease when Mr. Pyecroft
+  re&amp;#235;ntered. There was a slightly amused look in that
+  gentleman's face, but he said nothing, and seated himself on the
+  foot of the bed and gazed thoughtfully at the wall of scaling
+  kalsomine&mdash;and Mary's loudly pitched voice went on, and on,
+  and on.</p>
+
+  <p>They were thus engaged when Matilda returned. She was all
+  a-tremble. Behind her, holding her arm, was a smallish,
+  sharp-faced young man.</p>
+
+  <p>"He&mdash;he came in with the roast," Matilda stammered
+  wildly.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft had sprung up from the bed.</p>
+
+  <p>"And who is <i>he</i>?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Mayfair, of the 'Record,'" answered the young man,
+  loosing Matilda and stepping forward.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shivered frantically down beneath the
+  bedclothes, her see-sawing hopes once more at the bottom. Mary
+  leaned limply back in the shadow and hid her face.</p>
+
+  <p>"He tried to question me&mdash;and he made me bring
+  him&mdash;" Matilda was chattering.</p>
+
+  <p>"May I inquire what it is you wish, Mr. Mayfair?" requested
+  Mr. Pyecroft&mdash;and Matilda fled.</p>
+
+  <p>"You may," rapidly said the undeceivable Mr. Mayfair. Mr.
+  Mayfair had learned and made his own one of the main tricks of
+  that method of police inquisition known as the "third degree": to
+  hurl a fact, or a suspicion with all the air of its being the
+  truth, with bomb-like suddenness into the face of <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>[pg 191]</span> the
+  unprepared suspect. "I know Jack De Peyster has made a runaway
+  marriage! I know he and his wife are living secretly in this
+  house!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, this news is simply astounding!" exclaimed Mr.
+  Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come, now. Bluffing won't work with me. You see, I'm on to it
+  all!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I presume it's a newspaper story you're after?" Mr. Pyecroft
+  inquired politely.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then"&mdash;in the same polite tone&mdash;"if you know it
+  all, why don't you print it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I want the heart-story of the runaway lovers," declared Mr.
+  Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm afraid, Mr. Mayfair," Mr. Pyecroft suggested gently,
+  "that you are the one who is only bluffing. You have a suspicion,
+  and are trying to find evidence to support it."</p>
+
+  <p>"I know, I tell you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then may I inquire to whom young Mr. De Peyster is
+  married?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know all right!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ah, then, you don't really know," said Mr. Pyecroft
+  mildly.</p>
+
+  <p>"I know, I tell you!" Mr. Mayfair repeated in his sharp,
+  third-degree manner.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then why trouble us? Why not, as I have already suggested,
+  print it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm here to see them!" Mr. Mayfair said peremptorily. Then
+  his tone became soft, diplomatic. "The <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>[pg 192]</span>
+  housekeeper spoke about referring me to her brother. You are her
+  brother, I suppose?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Mayfair smiled persuasively. "If you would tell me what
+  you know about them, and lead me to where they are, my paper
+  would be quite willing to be liberal. Say twenty dollars."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd accept it gladly," said Mr. Pyecroft, "but I know nothing
+  of the matter."</p>
+
+  <p>"One hundred," bid Mr. Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"I would have done it for twenty, if I could. But I couldn't
+  do it for a thousand. They are not here."</p>
+
+  <p>"I know better!" snapped Mr. Mayfair, his manner sharp again.
+  "Who's that?" he demanded suspiciously, pointing at Mary's
+  shadow-veiled figure.</p>
+
+  <p>"That? That is my niece. The daughter of my sister Angelica
+  here."</p>
+
+  <p>"Is she your mother?" demanded Mr. Mayfair of Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, sir," breathed Mary from her corner.</p>
+
+  <p>"Madam, is she your daughter?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not reply.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, my sister is ill, and somewhat deaf," put in Mr.
+  Pyecroft. "Angelica, dear," he half shouted, "the gentleman
+  wishes to know if this is your daughter."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," from Mrs. De Peyster in smothered voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, I know they're here," doggedly insisted Mr. Mayfair,
+  "and I'm going to see them! I have witnesses who saw them
+  enter."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id=
+  "page193"></a>[pg 193]</span>
+
+  <p>"Indeed!" Mr. Pyecroft looked surprised and puzzled. "The
+  witnesses can swear to seeing young Mr. De Peyster come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They can swear to seeing a young man and woman come in. And I
+  know they were Mr. De Peyster and his wife."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's strange." Suddenly Mr. Pyecroft's face cleared. "I
+  think I begin to understand! It was at night, wasn't it, when the
+  witnesses saw them come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>"At night, yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sorry you have been caused all this trouble, Mr.
+  Mayfair,"&mdash;in a tone of very genuine regret. "But there has
+  been a blunder&mdash;a perfectly natural one, I now see.
+  Undoubtedly the young couple your witnesses saw were my niece and
+  myself."</p>
+
+  <p>"What!" cried Mr. Mayfair. For a moment the undeflectable star
+  reporter was all chagrin. Then he was all suspicion. "But why,"
+  he snapped out, "should you and your niece slip in at night? And
+  why should you live here in hiding?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You force me into a disagreeable and humiliating admission.
+  The fact is, our family is in severe financial straits. We simply
+  had no money to live on, and no prospects in sight. To help us
+  out temporarily, my sister Matilda invited us to stay here while
+  Mrs. De Peyster is in Europe. But for Mrs. De Peyster to know of
+  our being here might cost my sister Matilda her position, which
+  accounts for our attempt to get in unseen and to live here
+  secretly. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id=
+  "page194"></a>[pg 194]</span> We had to protect Matilda against
+  the facts leaking out."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Mayfair stared searchingly at Mr. Pyecroft's face. It was
+  confused, as was quite natural after the confession of a not very
+  honorable, and certainly not very dignified, procedure. But it
+  was candor itself.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hell!" he burst out irefully. "Some one has certainly given
+  me a bum steer. But I'll get that young couple yet, you see!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sorry about the story," said Mr. Pyecroft. And then with
+  a slight smile, apologetic, as of one who knows he is taking
+  liberties: "Perhaps, as compensation for the story you missed,
+  you could write a society story about Mrs. De Peyster's
+  housekeeper entertaining for the summer her brother, sister, and
+  niece."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Mayfair grinned, ever so little. "You've got some sense of
+  humor, old top," he approved dryly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you," said Mr. Pyecroft, with a gratified air.</p>
+
+  <p>He led Mr. Mayfair past the room within which Jack was hidden,
+  down to the servants' door and courteously let him out. Two
+  minutes later Mr. Pyecroft was again in the second maid's room.
+  Mary eagerly sprang forward and caught his hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"I waited to thank you&mdash;you were simply superb!" she
+  cried enthusiastically. "I've been telling your sister how
+  wonderful you are. She's got to forgive you&mdash;I'll make her!
+  And Jack will die laughing <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page195" id="page195"></a>[pg 195]</span> when I tell him." She
+  herself burst into excited merriment that half-choked her. "Just
+  think of it&mdash;all the while he was looking&mdash;looking a
+  big story straight in the face!"</p>
+
+  <p>She was off to tell Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"One might add, looking two big stories straight in the face,
+  eh, Angelica, my dear?" chuckled Mr. Pyecroft, <i>alias</i> Mr.
+  Preston.</p>
+
+  <p>One might add, three big stories, shivered Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>But she did not add this aloud.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>[pg 196]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR</h3>
+
+  <p>The amused smile which Mr. Pyecroft had worn when he had
+  entered, and which he had subdued to thoughtful sobriety while
+  "Wormwood" was assuaging the invalid's tribulations, began now to
+  reappear. It grew. Mrs. De Peyster could but notice it, for he
+  was smiling straight at her&mdash;that queer, whimsical, twisted
+  smile of his.</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it?" she felt forced to ask.</p>
+
+  <p>"We three are not the only ones, my dear Angelica," he
+  replied, "who are trying to slip one across on Mrs. De Peyster.
+  Our friend the cabinet-maker is on the same job. I might remark,
+  that he's about as much a cabinet-maker as yourself."</p>
+
+  <p>"What is he?"</p>
+
+  <p>"A detective, my dear."</p>
+
+  <p>"A detective!"</p>
+
+  <p>"The variety known as 'private,'" enlarged Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"What&mdash;what makes you think so?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on our new
+  guest&mdash;unobtrusively, of course. When I slipped out a little
+  while ago it was to watch him. He was working in the library;
+  entirely by accident, my dear Angelica, my eye chanced to be at
+  the keyhole. He <span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id=
+  "page197"></a>[pg 197]</span> was examining the drawers of the
+  big writing-table; and not paying so much attention to the
+  drawers as to the letters in them. And from the rapidity with
+  which he was examining the letters it was plain the cabinet-maker
+  knew exactly what he was after."</p>
+
+  <p>"What&mdash;do you think&mdash;it means?" breathed Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Some person is trying to get something on Mrs. De Peyster,"
+  returned Mr. Pyecroft. "What, I don't know. But the detective
+  party, I've got sized up. He's one of those gracious and
+  indispensable noblest-works-of-God who dig up evidence for
+  divorce trials&mdash;lay traps for the so-called
+  'guilty-parties,' ransack waste-paper baskets for incriminating
+  scraps of letters, bribe servants&mdash;and if they find
+  anything, willing to blackmail either side; remarkably impartial
+  and above prejudice in this respect, one must admit. Altogether a
+  most delectable breed of gentlemen. What would our best society
+  do without them? And then again, what would they do without our
+  best society?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural
+  dilemma.</p>
+
+  <p>"Twin and interdependent pillars of America's shining
+  morality," continued Mr. Pyecroft. "Now, like you, Angelica," he
+  mused, "I wonder what the detective party is after; what the
+  lofty Lady De Peyster can have been doing that is spicy?
+  However," smiling at her, "Angelica, my dear, in the words of the
+  great and good poet, 'We should worry.'"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>[pg 198]</span>
+
+  <p>It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room
+  and closed the door behind her. She was almost breathless.</p>
+
+  <p>"He asked me for the key to"&mdash;"your" almost escaped
+  Matilda&mdash;"to Mrs. De Peyster's suite. He'd been particularly
+  ordered to touch up Mrs. De Peyster's private desk, he said."</p>
+
+  <p>"And you gave him the key?" inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the
+  very question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster's lips.</p>
+
+  <p>"I told him I didn't have a key," said Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"But," continued Matilda, "he said it didn't matter, for he
+  said he'd been brought up a locksmith. And he picked the lock
+  right before my eyes."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never
+  properly instructed in," said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost
+  plaintively. "I never could pick a lock."</p>
+
+  <p>"And where&mdash;is he now?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"In Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room, retouching her desk."</p>
+
+  <p>"He's certainly after something, and after it hot&mdash;and
+  probably something big," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "Any idea what it
+  can be, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda had none.</p>
+
+  <p>"Any idea, Angelica?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified
+  idea; but she likewise said she had none.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>[pg 199]</span>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could
+  give way to her feelings, talk with Matilda. But Mr. Pyecroft
+  stretched out his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind
+  his head, and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. He had an
+  intellectual interest in some imaginary escapade of the
+  far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more; and he was obviously
+  comfortable where he was.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of
+  imperative appeal from Mrs. De Peyster. And so the three sat on
+  in silence for a time, Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with
+  expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft loungingly unconcerned.</p>
+
+  <p>And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which
+  Mr. Pyecroft answered. The cabinet-maker entered. He wore a
+  slouching, ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made
+  bow tie snapped by an elastic over his collar-button&mdash;the
+  conventional garb of the artisan who aspires for the air of
+  gentlemanliness while at work. His face, though fresh-shaven, was
+  dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble of a heavy beard; his eyes
+  were furtive, with that masked gleam of Olympian all-confidence
+  which a detective can never entirely mask.</p>
+
+  <p>"How are you, Miss Simpson?" he said to Matilda. "Your niece
+  told me I'd find you here, so I came right up. Could I have a
+  word with you outside?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't you have it here just as well," suggested Mr.
+  Pyecroft&mdash;who somehow had <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page200" id="page200"></a>[pg 200]</span> imperceptibly taken on
+  an air of mediocrity. "We're all in the family, you know."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mebbe it'd be better to have it here," agreed the
+  cabinet-maker. "You other two are living in the house, so I
+  understand, because you're hard up; so your needing money may
+  help what I'm after." He suddenly and visibly expanded with
+  importance. "When the time comes to put my cards on the table, I
+  don't waste a minute in showing my hand. That cabinet-maker
+  business was all con. I'm an officer of the law."</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't say!" cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.</p>
+
+  <p>"A detective. Brown's my name. I'm here hunting for something.
+  I got part of what I wanted, but not all. What I want isn't here,
+  or I'd have found it; there's only three or four places it'd have
+  been locked up. I know," he ended, with driving confidence, "that
+  a letter was written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de
+  Cr&amp;#233;cy saying he couldn't marry her. That letter is what
+  I'm after."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" breathed Mr. Pyecroft. And then with his wide-eyed
+  mediocrity, "I wonder whom you represent."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. Allistair!" exclaimed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the
+  same.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?" queried the
+  futile-looking brother.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page201" id="page201"></a>[pg 201]</span>
+
+  <p>"Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party,"
+  said Mr. Brown. "That letter is what I'm after, and I'm willing
+  to pay for it. That's what ought to concern you folks."</p>
+
+  <p>"But if there ever was such a letter," commented Mr. Pyecroft
+  with his simple-minded manner, "perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed
+  it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps she did. But I found two others he wrote her. And if
+  she didn't tear it up or burn it, I'm going to have it!"</p>
+
+  <p>He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly,
+  suggestively, impressively. "Confidential servants, who think a
+  bit of number one, should be on the lookout for documents and
+  letters that may be of future value to themselves. I guess you
+  get me. For the original of the letter I'm willing to come across
+  with five hundred dollars."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I have no such letter!" cried Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"I might make it a thousand," conceded the detective. "And,"
+  he added, "the money might come in very handy for your sick
+  sister there."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I tell you I have no such letter!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Say fifteen hundred, then."</p>
+
+  <p>"But I haven't got it!" cried Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is. Some of
+  his letters he signed only with an initial. Here is a sample of
+  the Duke's handwriting&mdash;one of his letters I found."</p>
+
+  <p>"I tell you I have&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, Mr. Brown," interrupted the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>[pg 202]</span>
+  ineffectual-looking Mr. Pyecroft. "May I see the handwriting,
+  please?"</p>
+
+  <p>Firmly holding it in his own hands, the detective displayed
+  the letter to Mr. Pyecroft&mdash;an odd, foreign hand, the paper
+  of superfine quality, but without crest or any other embossing.
+  Mr. Pyecroft studied it closely; his look grew puzzled; then he
+  turned to Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't exactly remember, Matilda, but it seems to me that
+  there was handwriting like this among the letters you sent to me
+  to keep for you."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda gaped at Mr. Pyecroft. Mrs. De Peyster, half-rising on
+  an elbow, peered in amazed stupefaction at her incalculable young
+  man of the sea.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, of course, she'd have turned it over to some one else
+  for safe-keeping!" the detective cried triumphantly. "Where is
+  it?" he demanded of Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm not so sure I have it," said the shallow Mr. Pyecroft
+  apologetically. "It just seems to me that I saw writing like
+  this. If I have, it's over in a little room I keep. But if I
+  really do have it"&mdash;with the shrewd look of a small
+  mind&mdash;"we couldn't sell it for fifteen hundred."</p>
+
+  <p>"How much d'you want?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well"&mdash;Mr. Pyecroft hesitated&mdash;"say&mdash;say three
+  thousand."</p>
+
+  <p>"Good God, that's plain blackmail!"</p>
+
+  <p>"It may be, but poor people like us don't often get a chance
+  like this."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id=
+  "page203"></a>[pg 203]</span>
+
+  <p>"I won't pay it!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps, then,"&mdash;apologetically,&mdash;"we'd better deal
+  with Mrs. Allistair direct."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, well,&mdash;if you've got the letter, we won't scrap
+  about the price. I'll come across."</p>
+
+  <p>"Cash?" shrewdly queried the doltish brother.</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure. I don't run no risks with checks."</p>
+
+  <p>"I&mdash;we&mdash;wouldn't let the letter go out of our hands
+  until it's paid for. And we won't go to any office. You yourself
+  can say whether it's what you want or not? And you can pay right
+  here?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure. I'm the judge of what I want. And when I go for a big
+  thing, I go prepared." Mr. Brown opened his coat, and
+  significantly patted a bulge on the right side of his vest.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, then, I'll go to my room and see if I have it. But
+  you'll have to wait here, for"&mdash;again with the shrewd look
+  of the ineffectual man&mdash;"you might follow me, and with some
+  more detectives you might take the letter from me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Soon wait here as anywhere else. Anyhow, I'll want your
+  sister's word," nodding at Matilda, "that the letter is the same.
+  But don't worry&mdash;nobody's going to take anything from
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft started out, then paused.</p>
+
+  <p>"I just happened to remember; you said the letter might not be
+  signed. Hadn't you better let me have one of the Duke de
+  Cr&amp;#233;cy's letters, so I can verify the
+  handwriting?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id=
+  "page204"></a>[pg 204]</span>
+
+  <p>"I don't mind; these don't tell much." And the detective
+  handed over one letter.</p>
+
+  <p>"It may be an hour or two before I can get back; the letters
+  are packed away and I've got to go through them and compare
+  them."</p>
+
+  <p>He slipped out. Mr. Brown, as he watched him, could hardly
+  conceal his contempt.</p>
+
+  <p>The detective sat heavily down. Mrs. De Peyster was sick with
+  apprehension as to what that incomprehensible Mr. Pyecroft was
+  about to do. She wanted to talk to Matilda. But the two dared not
+  speak with this confident, omniscient, detectorial presence
+  between them. Mr. Brown condescendingly tried to make
+  conversation by complimenting Matilda on her shrewdness; he'd
+  helped a lot of clever servants like her to snug little
+  fortunes.</p>
+
+  <p>But Matilda proved a poor conversationalist.</p>
+
+  <p>Close upon two hours passed before Mr. Pyecroft returned. He
+  drew a letter from his pocket, firmly gripped its edges with both
+  hands, and held it out to Mr. Brown.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is this the one?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Didn't I tell you not to be afraid; no one's going to steal
+  it from you."</p>
+
+  <p>He took the letter from Mr. Pyecroft's unwilling and
+  untrustful hands and glanced it through. The next moment it was
+  as though an arc light of excitement had been switched on within
+  his ample person. With swift, expert fingers he compared the
+  texture of the paper of the new letter and the earlier
+  ones.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id=
+  "page205"></a>[pg 205]</span>
+
+  <p>"Great God!" he exulted. "Same paper&mdash;same
+  handwriting&mdash;and it says just what I expected&mdash;and
+  signed 'De Cr&amp;#233;cy'!"</p>
+
+  <p>He held out the letter to Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, you identify this as the letter you found?"</p>
+
+  <p>But Matilda shrank away as though the letter was deadly
+  poison.</p>
+
+  <p>"I never saw the thing before!"</p>
+
+  <p>"What's that?" cried the detective.</p>
+
+  <p>"She's trying to hold out for more money," explained Mr.
+  Pyecroft. From behind the detective's broad back he gave Matilda
+  a warning look; then said softly: "Of course, it's the letter,
+  isn't it, sister?"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda thought only of saving the hour. The day would have to
+  save itself.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+  <p>"Might&mdash;might I see it?" huskily inquired Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure. The more that corroborates it the better."</p>
+
+  <p>Her face to the wall, the faint light slanting across her
+  shoulder, she glanced at the letter. The Duke's own handwriting!
+  And a jilting letter!&mdash;politely worded&mdash;but a jilting
+  letter!... Mrs. De Peyster jilted!... If that were ever to come
+  out&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>For a moment she lay enfeebled and overwhelmed with horror.
+  Then convulsively she crushed the letter in her hands.</p>
+
+  <p>"See here&mdash;wha' d' you mean?" cried the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>[pg 206]</span>
+  startled detective, springing forward; in a moment his powerful
+  hands rescued the document.</p>
+
+  <p>"Both of my sisters think we ought to stand out for more
+  money," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "And I'm not so sure they're not
+  right."</p>
+
+  <p>"We've made our bargain already," quickly returned Mr. Brown.
+  "And that's just how we'll settle."</p>
+
+  <p>He started to slip the letter into a pocket. But Mr. Pyecroft
+  caught hold of it.</p>
+
+  <p>"How about the money?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean you don't trust me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm not saying that," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "But this
+  means a lot to us. We can't afford to run any risks."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right, then."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Brown released the letter, drew a leather wallet from
+  inside his vest, counted off six five-hundred-dollar bills,
+  returned the wallet and held out the bills. The exchange was
+  made. The detective carefully put the letter into a thick manila
+  envelope, which he licked and sealed and put inside his vest to
+  keep company with the wallet.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft counted the bills, slowly, three or four times;
+  then looked up.</p>
+
+  <p>"I bet my sisters were right; you would have paid more," he
+  said regretfully, greedily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Never you mind what I would have paid!" retorted the
+  detective, buttoning his coat over the letter.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"></span>
+  <hr />
+<a name="paged" id="paged"></a>
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-5.jpg"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-5.jpg" alt="SAME PAPER&mdash;SAME HANDWRITING!" /></a>
+
+    <h4>"SAME PAPER&mdash;SAME HANDWRITING!"</h4>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>[pg
+  207]</span>
+
+  <p>"You'd have paid twice that!" Mr. Pyecroft exclaimed
+  disappointedly.</p>
+
+  <p>The detective, triumphant, could not resist grinning
+  confirmingly.</p>
+
+  <p>"We've been outwitted!" cried Mr. Pyecroft. He turned to the
+  two woman contritely. "If I'd only heeded you&mdash;let you have
+  managed the affair!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You people got a mighty good price," commented Detective
+  Brown.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well&mdash;perhaps so," sighed Mr. Pyecroft. Chagrin gave way
+  to curiosity in his face. "I wonder, now, how Mrs. Allistair is
+  going to use the letter?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That's none of my business."</p>
+
+  <p>"She must think she can do a lot with it," mused Mr. Pyecroft.
+  "If the letter, or its substance, were printed, say in 'Town
+  Gossip,' I suppose it would mean the end of Mrs. De Peyster's
+  social leadership, and Mrs. Allistair would then have things her
+  own way."</p>
+
+  <p>"Can't say," said the detective. But he winked knowingly.</p>
+
+  <p>When he had gone Mr. Pyecroft stood listening until the
+  descending tread had thinned into silence. Then he turned about
+  to Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda, and his wide mouth twisted up and
+  rightward into that pagan, delighted smile of his. He laughed
+  without noise; but every cell of him was laughing.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, sisters dear, we're cleaning up&mdash;eh! I
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>[pg
+  208]</span> had the devil's own time matching that letter-paper
+  at Brentanos', and I ran a pretty big risk leaving the
+  house&mdash;but, say, it was worth it!" For a moment he could
+  only laugh. "First, let's split the pile. I told you I was always
+  square with my pals. Here's a thousand for you,
+  Angelica,"&mdash;slipping two bills under Mrs. De Peyster's
+  pillow,&mdash;"and a thousand for you, Matilda,"&mdash;thrusting
+  the amount into her hands,&mdash;"and a thousand for your dear
+  brother Archibald,"&mdash;slipping his share into a vest
+  pocket.</p>
+
+  <p>Neither of the two women dared refuse the money.</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but," Mrs. De Peyster gasped thickly, "it's an
+  outrageous forgery!"</p>
+
+  <p>"A forgery, I grant you, my dear Angelica," Mr. Pyecroft said
+  good-humoredly. "But if by outrageous you mean crude or obvious,
+  I beg to correct you. Even if I must say it myself, that forgery
+  was strictly first-class."</p>
+
+  <p>"But it's a forgery!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"My dears, don't you worry about that," he reassured them
+  soothingly. "There'll be no comeback. That detective and his
+  agency, and Mrs. Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then
+  tried bribery. They're all in bad themselves. So stop worrying;
+  you're in no danger at all from arrest for forgery or fraud.
+  There'll never be a peep from any of them."</p>
+
+  <p>This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not
+  acknowledge herself comforted.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page209" id="page209"></a>[pg 209]</span>
+
+  <p>"Besides," Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of
+  wrathful contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to
+  slip something over on it's those damned vermin of private
+  detectives! And the swells that employ them! I hope that Mrs.
+  Allistair gets stung good and plenty!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But Mrs. De Peyster!" wailed that lady&mdash;she couldn't
+  help it, though she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of
+  complete annihilation. "When they publish that letter the damage
+  will have been done. It's a forgery, but nobody will believe her
+  when she says so, and she can't prove it! She'll be ruined!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," Mr. Pyecroft commented casually, "I don't see where
+  that bothers us. She's pretty much of a stiff, too, and I
+  wouldn't mind handing her one while we're at it. But, Lord, this
+  won't hurt her a bit."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sat suddenly upright.</p>
+
+  <p>"Not hurt her?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Didn't I tell you?" chortled Mr. Pyecroft. "Why, when our
+  excellent friend, Mr. Brown, presents the Duke's letter to-morrow
+  morning to his chief, or to Mrs. Allistair's agent,&mdash;if he
+  ever gets that far,&mdash;he will turn triumphantly over one
+  sheet of Brentanos' very best notepaper&mdash;blank."</p>
+
+  <p>"Blank?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft's right eyelid drooped in its remarkable wink;
+  his mouth again tilted high to starboard in its impish
+  smile.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id=
+  "page210"></a>[pg 210]</span>
+
+  <p>"You see," he remarked, "the Duke's letter was written in an
+  ink of my own invention. One trifling idiosyncracy of that ink is
+  that it fades completely and permanently in exactly twelve
+  hours."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id=
+  "page211"></a>[pg 211]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+  <h3>A QUESTION OF IDENTITY</h3>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft's grin grew by degrees more delighted: became the
+  smile of a whimsical genius of devil-may-care, of an exultantly
+  mischievous Pan. But he offered not a word of comment upon his
+  work. He was an artist who was, in the main, content to achieve
+  his masterpieces and leave comment and blame and praise to his
+  public and his critics.</p>
+
+  <p>He stood up.</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe I promised to peel the potatoes and put on the
+  roast," he remarked, and went out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," breathed Mrs. De Peyster, numbed and awed, still
+  aghast, "did you ever dream there could be such a man?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am,&mdash;never!"&mdash;tragically, wildly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Whatever <i>is</i> he going to do next?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. Almost anything."</p>
+
+  <p>"And whatever is going to happen to us next?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am, it's terrible to think about! I'm sure I can't
+  even guess! Mr. Pyecroft, and all the others, and all these
+  things happening&mdash;I'm sure they'll be the death of me,
+  ma'am!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sprang from her bed. Despite <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>[pg 212]</span>
+  Matilda's cheap dressing-gown which she wore as appropriate to
+  her station, she made a splendid figure of raging majesty, hands
+  clenched, eyes blazing, furiously erect.</p>
+
+  <p>"That man is outrageous!" she stormed. "I cannot, and shall
+  not, stand him any longer! We must, and shall, get rid of him!"
+  Her voice rang with its accustomed tone of all-conquering
+  determination. "Matilda, we are going to do it! I say we are
+  going to do it!"</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda gazed admiringly at her magnificently aroused
+  mistress. "Of course, you'll do it, ma'am," she said with
+  conviction.</p>
+
+  <p>"I cannot endure him another minute!" Mrs. De Peyster raged
+  on. "At once, he goes out of this house! Or we do!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, ma'am," repeated Matilda in her adoring voice. And
+  then after a moment, she added quaveringly: "But please,
+  ma'am,&mdash;how are we going to do it?"</p>
+
+  <p>The outraged and annihilatory Mrs. De Peyster gazed at
+  Matilda, utterer of practical common-places. As she gazed the
+  splendid flames within her seemed slowly to flicker out, and she
+  sank back upon her bed. Yes, how were they going to do it?</p>
+
+  <p>In cooler mood they discussed that question, without
+  discovering a solution; discussed it until it was time for
+  Matilda to go downstairs to perform her share of the preparation
+  of the communal dinner. Left alone, her fury now sunk to sober
+  ashes, Mrs. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id=
+  "page213"></a>[pg 213]</span> De Peyster continued the
+  exploration of possibilities, with the same negative result.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda brought up her dinner on a tray, then returned to the
+  kitchen; for though the others were all doing fair tasks, to
+  Matilda of twenty years' experience fell the oversight of the
+  thousand details of the house. Presently Mary appeared, on one of
+  her visits of mercy&mdash;full of relief that the cabinet-maker
+  had ended his work so soon, thus setting Jack free.</p>
+
+  <p>But before beginning the anodynous "Wormwood," she launched
+  into another high-voltage eulogy of Angelica's brother. Even more
+  than they had at first thought was he willing and competent and
+  agreeable in the matter of their common household labor; he was
+  not intrusive; he was rich with clever and well-informed talk
+  when they all laid aside work to be sociable. In fact, as she had
+  said before, he was simply splendid!</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, I do hope, Angelica, that you are going to forgive your
+  brother," Mary insisted. "He really means well. I think he's what
+  he is because he has never had a fair chance." And then more
+  boldly: "I think the fault is largely yours and Matilda's.
+  Matilda says your parents died when you were all young; and he
+  admitted that he does not even remember them. And he also
+  admitted, when I pressed him, that you and Matilda had not given
+  him very much attention during his boyhood. You and Matilda are
+  older; you should have brought him up more carefully; you are
+  both seriously to blame <span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"
+  id="page214"></a>[pg 214]</span> for what he is. So I hope," she
+  concluded, "that both of you will forgive him and help him."</p>
+
+  <p>Once more Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to make
+  response.</p>
+
+  <p>"I have noted particularly that Matilda does not seem cordial
+  and forgiving," Mary was continuing, when the prodigal brother
+  himself dropped in. With her pretty, determined manner, Mary
+  renewed her efforts at reconciliation in the estranged family.
+  Mr. Pyecroft was penitent without being humble, and whenever a
+  question was put directly to Mrs. De Peyster his was the tongue
+  that answered; he was quite certain his sister Angelica would
+  relent and receive him back into her respect and love once he had
+  fully proved his worthiness.</p>
+
+  <p>"I must say, Mr. Simpson, that I think you have an admirably
+  forgiving nature," declared Mary. It was clear, though she was
+  silent on the matter, that she considered his sisters to have
+  cold, hard, New England hearts.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, in the high-pitched voice
+  required by the invalid's misfortune, read "Wormwood" for an
+  hour&mdash;until Jack came to the door and announced that Judge
+  Harvey had again called on them. Alone, Mrs. De Peyster pondered
+  her poignant problem, What should she do?&mdash;wishful that
+  Matilda were present to talk the affair over with her. But
+  Matilda was still busy in the kitchen with the odd jobs of
+  night-end.</p>
+
+  <p>Toward ten o'clock Mr. Pyecroft came in again. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>[pg 215]</span> He
+  stood and gazed silently down upon her. The one electric light
+  showed her an odd, dry smile on Mr. Pyecroft's face.</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it?" Mrs. De Peyster asked in fear.</p>
+
+  <p>"Really, Angelica, you're not half so clever as I believed
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it?" she repeated huskily.</p>
+
+  <p>"This pearl." And from a pocket he drew out the pendant he had
+  appropriated the night before in Mrs. Gilbert's boarding-house.
+  "I thought we ought to be prepared with more cash in hand for our
+  get-away when we decide to make it. So an hour ago I slipped out
+  the back way, and made for a safe pawnbroker I know of. Angelica,
+  you're easy. This pearl is nothing but imitation. And you fell
+  for it!" He shook his head sorrowingly, chidingly. "Here's one
+  case where remorse might be highly proper&mdash;and safest;
+  better just mail it back to the party you lifted it from."</p>
+
+  <p>With good-humored contempt he tossed the pendant upon the bed.
+  Mrs. De Peyster clutched it and thrust it beneath her pillow.</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe, Angelica, my dear," he commented, "that in view of
+  the capacity this pearl incident has revealed, it is strictly up
+  to me to assume charge of every detail of our plan."</p>
+
+  <p>He sat down and in his fluent manner discussed the day's
+  developments and their preparations for the future; and he was
+  still talking when, fifteen minutes later, the door opened and
+  Matilda entered. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id=
+  "page216"></a>[pg 216]</span> Her face, of late so often ashen,
+  was ashen as though almost from habit.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, oh," she quavered, "the servants' bell rang&mdash;and I
+  answered it, like I'd been told to do&mdash;and in stepped four
+  men&mdash;two of them the policemen we let in last night, and two
+  men I never saw before&mdash;and they asked if they might speak
+  to my brother who was visiting me. And I&mdash;I promised to call
+  him down. Oh, ma'&mdash;Angelica&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Pyecroft, what does this mean?" cried Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft's usual perfect composure was gone. His face was
+  gleamingly alert; sharp as a razor's edge.</p>
+
+  <p>"God knows how they've done it," he snapped out. "But it means
+  they've tracked me here!"</p>
+
+  <p>"As&mdash;as Thomas Preston?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As Thomas Preston."</p>
+
+  <p>"And if they take you&mdash;they&mdash;they may find me,
+  and&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing more likely," grimly responded Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then escape!" Mrs. De Peyster cried with frantic energy.
+  "Run! For heaven's sake, run! You still have time!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Running from the police is the surest way to get caught when
+  they've got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones.
+  "They've got every door watched&mdash;sure. Anyhow&mdash;Listen!
+  Hear those steps? They haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>[pg
+  217]</span> followed. Angelica, down with your face to the wall,
+  and be sick! And while you're at it, be damned sick!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster obeyed. Mr. Pyecroft drew the room's one chair
+  up beside the bed, sat down, picked up "Wormwood," and again,
+  with the most natural manner in the world, he began to read in a
+  loud voice. The next moment the two policemen of the previous
+  night came in.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft arose.</p>
+
+  <p>"I must beg your pardon, officers," he said pleasantly and
+  with a slight tincture of his clerical manner. "My sister Matilda
+  just told me you wished to see me, but I was almost at the end of
+  a very interesting chapter which I was reading aloud to my other
+  sister, who is ill, and so I thought I would conclude the scene
+  before I came down. In what way can I serve you?"</p>
+
+  <p>Neither of the officers replied. One closed the doorway with
+  his bulk, and the other thumped heavily down a flight or two of
+  stairs, from whence his shout ascended:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"We've got him up here, Lieutenant! Come on up!"</p>
+
+  <p>Within the tiny room of the second maid no one spoke.
+  Presently heavy footfalls mounted; the second policeman entered,
+  and presently two solid men in civilian dress pushed through the
+  door. The foremost, a dark-visaged man with heavy jaw, and a
+  black derby which he did not remove, fixed on Mr. Pyecroft a
+  triumphant, domineering gaze.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page218" id="page218"></a>[pg 218]</span>
+
+  <p>"Well, Preston," he said, "so we've landed you at last."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft, his left forefinger still keeping the place in
+  "Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you
+  are talking about."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it,"
+  advised the lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he
+  was something of a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure
+  who you are, I'll put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the
+  Jefferson letters, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to
+  yourself. Shake hands, gents."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began
+  to break through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston.
+  I've read about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own
+  way."</p>
+
+  <p>He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities
+  attributed to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those
+  qualities to some more useful, and even more profitable,
+  occupation."</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the
+  lieutenant. "Only, you see, it don't go down."</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't
+  going to be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas
+  Preston."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>[pg 219]</span>
+  waggish lieutenant. "Not necessary at all. For you can't."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.</p>
+
+  <p>"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter
+  seriously! Why, you two officers in uniform saw me only last
+  night here with my two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood
+  can tell you my sister Matilda has been housekeeper in this house
+  for twenty years."</p>
+
+  <p>That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen
+  looked at their superior dubiously.</p>
+
+  <p>"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant
+  commented dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."</p>
+
+  <p>"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr.
+  Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Y&mdash;yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent
+  pressure of four crowded officers was almost being bisected
+  against the edge of the stationary wash-bowl.</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the
+  bedclothes.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.</p>
+
+  <p>"There, now, you see."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're
+  Thomas Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>[pg 220]</span> on
+  him. And there's something queer about these women. Just slip the
+  bracelets on Matilda, too, and carry downstairs the party in bed.
+  We'll call the police ambulance for her, and take the whole bunch
+  over to the station."</p>
+
+  <p>The party in bed suddenly stiffened as if from a stroke of
+  some kind, and Matilda fairly wilted away. Mr. Pyecroft alone did
+  not change by so much as a hair.</p>
+
+  <p>"One moment, gentlemen," he interposed in his even voice,
+  "before you go to regrettable extremes. I believe that an even
+  better witness to my identity can easily be secured."</p>
+
+  <p>"And who's that, Tommie?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I refer to Judge Harvey."</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey!" The lieutenant was startled out of his ironic
+  exultation. "You mean the guy that was stung by them forged
+  letters&mdash;the complainant who's making it so damned hot for
+  Preston?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The same," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey is at this moment
+  in this house."</p>
+
+  <p>"In this house!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe he is downstairs some place going over some bills
+  Mrs. De Peyster asked him to examine. Matilda, you doubtless know
+  in what room the Judge is working. Will you kindly knock at his
+  door and ask him to step up here for a moment?"</p>
+
+  <p>The lieutenant frowned doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated,
+  then nodded to Matilda. The latter, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>[pg 221]</span>
+  relieved of the pressure of much policial avoirdupois, slipped
+  from the room. The lieutenant turned and silently held a
+  penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr. Pyecroft
+  continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four
+  officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild
+  visions of Mr. Pyecroft being the next moment exposed, and
+  herself dragged forth to shame.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus for a minute or two. Then Judge Harvey appeared in the
+  doorway.</p>
+
+  <p>"Lieutenant Sullivan! See here, what's the meaning of this?"
+  he demanded sternly.</p>
+
+  <p>"'Evening, Judge Harvey," began the lieutenant, for the first
+  time since his entrance removing his derby. "It's like
+  this&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey, these
+  gentlemen here have been upon the point of making a blunder that
+  would be ludicrous did it not have its serious side. That's why I
+  had you called. The fact is, they desire to arrest me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Arrest you!" exclaimed the Judge.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, arrest me," Mr. Pyecroft went on, easily, yet under his
+  easy words trying to suggest certain definite contingencies.
+  "That would be bad enough in itself. But, as you know, Judge
+  Harvey, my arrest would unfortunately but necessarily involve the
+  arrest of several other quite innocent persons&mdash;bring about
+  a great public scandal&mdash;and create a situation that would be
+  deplorable in every particular. You see that,
+  Judge?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id=
+  "page222"></a>[pg 222]</span>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey got the covered meaning.</p>
+
+  <p>"I see. But what do they want to arrest you for?"</p>
+
+  <p>"On a most absurd charge," answered Mr. Pyecroft,
+  smiling,&mdash;but eyes straight into Judge Harvey's eyes. "They
+  seem to think I am Thomas Preston."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thomas Preston!" cried the Judge.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, the man that forged those Jefferson letters you
+  bought."</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft saw the puzzled semi-recognition that he had
+  observed in the Judge's face the night before flash into amazed,
+  full recognition. Quickly but without appearance of haste, he
+  stepped forward diverting attention from the Judge's face, and
+  made himself the center of the party's eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"You see, lieutenant and officers," he said easily, filling in
+  time to give Judge Harvey opportunity to recover and
+  think&mdash;and still aiming his meaning at the Judge, "you see,
+  I have here summoned before you the best possible witness to my
+  identity. You threaten to arrest and expose me and two other
+  persons in this house. Judge Harvey knows, as well as I know, how
+  unfortunate it would be for these parties, and how displeasing to
+  Mrs. De Peyster, if you should make the very great blunder of
+  arresting me as Thomas Preston. Now, Judge Harvey,"&mdash;with a
+  joking smile,&mdash;"you know who I am. Will you please inform
+  the lieutenant whether I am the man you wish to have
+  arrested?"</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey stared, silent, his face
+  twitching.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id=
+  "page223"></a>[pg 223]</span>
+
+  <p>"Is what he says O.K., Judge?" queried Lieutenant Sullivan.
+  "He ain't the man you want arrested?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He is not," the Judge managed to get out.</p>
+
+  <p>"From the way you hesitated&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"The Judge's hesitation, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft interrupted
+  in his pleasant tone, "was due to his amazement at the utter
+  grotesqueness of the situation. He was for a moment utterly taken
+  aback. That's it, isn't it, Judge?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," said Judge Harvey.</p>
+
+  <p>The lieutenant twisted his derby in chagrined, ireful
+  hands.</p>
+
+  <p>"Some of my men have been damned fools again!" he exploded. He
+  got himself back under control. "Judge Harvey, I hope you'll
+  excuse our buttin' in like this&mdash;and&mdash;and won't find it
+  necessary to mention it to the heads of the department."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's&mdash;it's all right," said the Judge.</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Mr.&mdash;Mr.&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Simpson&mdash;Archibald Simpson," supplied Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Simpson, I hope you don't mind this too much?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No ill feeling at all, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft said
+  graciously. "Such little mistakes must occasionally occur in the
+  most careful police work."</p>
+
+  <p>"And&mdash;and&mdash;there's another thing," said Lieutenant
+  Sullivan with a note of gruff pleading. "You know how the papers
+  are roasting the department <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page224" id="page224"></a>[pg 224]</span> just now. For every
+  little slip, we get the harpoon or the laugh. I'll be obliged to
+  you if you don't say anything that'll let this thing get into the
+  papers."</p>
+
+  <p>"Believe me, Lieutenant, I shall do everything in my power to
+  protect you," Mr. Pyecroft assured him. "And now, since the
+  matter is settled," he added pleasantly, "perhaps you'd like to
+  have Matilda show you the way out. These upper hallways are
+  really very confusing. Matilda, my dear,&mdash;if you don't
+  mind."</p>
+
+  <p>Wordlessly, Matilda obeyed, and four sets of policemen's feet
+  went heavily down the stairs. Beneath her bedclothes Mrs. De
+  Peyster began faintly, ever so faintly, to return to life. Judge
+  Harvey glared at Mr. Pyecroft, hands spasmodically clutching and
+  unclutching; his look grew darker and darker. Respectful,
+  regretful, Mr. Pyecroft stood waiting.</p>
+
+  <p>His left forefinger had not lost the place in
+  "Wormwood."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id=
+  "page225"></a>[pg 225]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE THIRD FLIGHT</h3>
+
+  <p>The storm broke.</p>
+
+  <p>"You are a scoundrel, sir!" thundered the Judge.</p>
+
+  <p>"I fear, sir, you are right," respectfully assented Mr.
+  Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"And what's more, you've made me lie to the police!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Not exactly, sir," Mr. Pyecroft corrected mildly. "I was
+  careful about that. I did not ask you to deny that I was Thomas
+  Preston. I merely asked you if I was the man you wished arrested.
+  You answered that you did not want me arrested; under the
+  circumstances I am certain you spoke the truth. And in explaining
+  your hesitation to the lieutenant, when you said it was due to
+  your utter amazement at the grotesqueness of the situation, I am
+  certain you there also spoke the truth."</p>
+
+  <p>"You are a quibbler!" fumed the outraged Judge. "You made me
+  lie to the police!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, even if I did," returned Mr. Pyecroft in his same mild
+  tone, "is there any one else you would rather lie to?"</p>
+
+  <p>The Judge glared, almost choking. "Have you no respect, man,
+  for common decency&mdash;for order&mdash;for the
+  law?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id=
+  "page226"></a>[pg 226]</span>
+
+  <p>"For order and decency, yes,&mdash;but as for ordinary law, I
+  fear I have no more respect than your honor has," Mr. Pyecroft
+  admitted gravely. "And I acquired my irreverence toward law just
+  as your honor did&mdash;from studying it."</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey stared.</p>
+
+  <p>"What! You're a lawyer?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have been admitted to the bar, and have been a law clerk,
+  but have never practiced for myself."</p>
+
+  <p>"But last night you said you were a clergyman!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I have gone no deeper into theology, sir, than the price of a
+  clerical suit. And that was for its moral effect on the
+  police."</p>
+
+  <p>"Sir," exploded the Judge, "you are utterly incorrigible!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I trust that I am not, sir," submitted Mr. Pyecroft gravely,
+  hopefully.</p>
+
+  <p>At that moment Jack and Mary appeared on tiptoe in the
+  doorway, alive with curiosity; and directly behind them came
+  Matilda. Upon the latter Judge Harvey turned.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Matilda, I certainly want to compliment you on your
+  brother!" he exclaimed with irate sarcasm.</p>
+
+  <p>"My bro&mdash;bro&mdash;yes, sir, thank you," weakly returned
+  poor Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"No wonder, Mr. Simpson," the outraged Judge continued, "that
+  your family disowned you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"They were justified, certainly, as I told you at the very
+  first," soberly conceded Mr. Pyecroft.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>[pg 227]</span>
+
+  <p>Jack and Mary demanded enlightenment. To them Judge Harvey
+  told of the visit of the four police officers, scathingly
+  expounded the character of Matilda's brother, and explained how
+  he, Judge Harvey, had been forced to protect the outrageous
+  scape-grace. Through this recital, Mr. Pyecroft, though unbowed
+  by shame, continued to wear his respectful, regretful look.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps you will not believe me, Judge Harvey," he returned
+  courteously, and with the ring of sincerity, when the indictment
+  was ended, "and even if you do believe me, perhaps my statement
+  will mean nothing to you; but I desire none the less to state
+  that I am sorry that you were the person to be deceived by those
+  Jefferson letters. Of course, I had no idea to whom they were to
+  be sold. I did them for the autograph dealer, so much for the
+  job&mdash;and did them partly as a lark, though, of course, I do
+  not expect you to appreciate the humor of the affair. It may be
+  some consolation to you, however, to know that I profited very
+  little from the transaction; the dealer got over ninety per cent
+  of the price you paid."</p>
+
+  <p>The Judge snorted, and stalked incredulously and wrathfully
+  out, Jack and Mary behind him; and Mrs. De Peyster was left alone
+  in the bosom of her family. Mr. Pyecroft sat silent on the foot
+  of the bed for a space, grave but composed, gazing at a
+  particular scale of the flaking kalsomine. Then he remarked
+  something about its having been a somewhat <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>[pg 228]</span>
+  trying day and that he believed that he'd be off to bed.</p>
+
+  <p>When he was gone Mrs. De Peyster lay wordless, limp, all
+  a-shiver. Beside her sat the limp and voiceless Matilda, gasping
+  and staring wildly. How long Mrs. De Peyster lay in that
+  condition she never knew. All her faculties were reeling. These
+  crowding events seemed the wildest series of unrealities; seemed
+  the frenzied, feverish phantasms of a nightmare. They never,
+  never could possibly-have happened!</p>
+
+  <p>But then ... they had happened! And this hard, narrow bed was
+  real. And this low, narrow room was real. And Mr. Pyecroft was
+  real. And so were Jack, and Mary, and Judge Harvey.</p>
+
+  <p>These things could never have happened. But, then, they had.
+  And would they ever, ever stop happening?</p>
+
+  <p>This was only the eighth day since her promulgated sailing.
+  Three more months, ninety days of twenty-four hours each, before
+  Olivetta&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda," she burst out in a despairing whisper, "I can't
+  stand this another minute!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma'am!" wailed Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"That Mr. Pyecroft&mdash;" Words failed her. "I've simply got
+  to get out of this somehow!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, ma'am. But&mdash;but our changes haven't helped us
+  much yet. If we tried to leave the house, that Mr. Pyecroft might
+  follow and we might find ourselves even in a worse way than we
+  are, ma'am."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id=
+  "page229"></a>[pg 229]</span>
+
+  <p>"Nothing can be worse than this!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm not so sure, ma'am," tremulously doubted Matilda. "We
+  never dreamed anything could be so bad as this, but here this
+  is."</p>
+
+  <p>There was a vague logic in what Matilda said; but logic none
+  the less. Unbelievable, and yet so horribly actual as this
+  was,&mdash;was what had thus far happened only the <i>legato</i>
+  and <i>pianissimo</i> passages of their adventure, with
+  <i>crescendo</i> and <i>fortissimo</i> still ahead? Mrs. De
+  Peyster closed her eyes, and did not speak. She strove to regain
+  some command over her routed faculties.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda waited.</p>
+
+  <p>Presently Mrs. De Peyster's eyes opened. "It would be some
+  relief"&mdash;weak hope was in her voice&mdash;"if only I could
+  manage to get down into my own suite."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, ma'am, with that Mr. Pyecroft&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"He's a risk we've got to run," Mrs. De Peyster cried
+  desperately. "We've somehow got to manage to get me there without
+  his knowing it."</p>
+
+  <p>Suddenly she sat up. The hope that a moment before had shone
+  faintly in her face began to become a more confident glow.
+  Matilda saw that her mistress was thinking; therefore she
+  remained silent, expectant.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, I think there's a chance!" Mrs. De Peyster exclaimed
+  after a moment. "I'll get into my suite&mdash;I'll live there
+  quiet as death. Since they believe the suite empty, since they
+  know it is <span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id=
+  "page230"></a>[pg 230]</span> locked, they may never suspect any
+  one is in it. Matilda, it's the only way!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;but, ma'am, how am I to explain your sudden
+  disappearance?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Say that your sister became homesick," said Mrs. De Peyster
+  with mounting hope, "and decided suddenly, in the middle of the
+  night, to return at once to her home in Syracuse."</p>
+
+  <p>"That may satisfy all but Mr. Pyecroft, ma'am. But Mr.
+  Pyecroft won't believe it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Pyecroft will have to believe whatever he likes. It's the
+  only way, and we're going to do it. And do it at once! Matilda,
+  go down and see if they're all asleep yet, particularly Mr.
+  Pyecroft."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda took off her shoes and in her stocking-feet went
+  scouting forth; and stocking-footed presently returned, with the
+  news that all seemed asleep, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>Five minutes later, in Matilda's dress, and likewise in
+  stocking-feet, Mrs. De Peyster stepped out of her second maid's
+  room. Breathless, she listened. Not a sound. Then, Matilda at her
+  heels, she began to creep down the
+  stairway&mdash;slowly&mdash;slowly&mdash;putting each foot down
+  with the softness of a closing lip&mdash;pausing with straining
+  ears on every tread. With up-pressing feet she glided by the door
+  within which Mr. Pyecroft lay in untroubled sleep, then started
+  by the room that homed Jack and Mary, creeping with the footsteps
+  of a disembodied spirit, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"
+  id="page231"></a>[pg 231]</span> fearful every second lest some
+  door might spring open and wild alarms ring out.</p>
+
+  <p>But she got safely by. Then, more rapidly, yet still as
+  noiseless as a shadow's shadow, she crept on
+  down&mdash;down&mdash;until she came to her own door. Here the
+  attending Matilda silently vanished. With velvet touch Mrs. De
+  Peyster slipped her key into the lock, stepped inside,
+  noiselessly closed and locked the door behind her.</p>
+
+  <p>Then she sank into a chair, and breathed. Just breathed ...
+  back once more in the spacious suite wherein nine days
+  ago&mdash;or was it nine thousand years?&mdash;inspiration had
+  flowered within her and her great idea had been
+  born.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id=
+  "page232"></a>[pg 232]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+  <h3>A PLEASANT HERMITAGE</h3>
+
+  <p>When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of
+  perfect comfort. Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her. Ah! Once
+  more she was in her own wide, gracious bed&mdash;of a different
+  caste, of an entirely different race, from the second maid's
+  paving-stone pallet, from that folding, punitive contrivance from
+  whose output of anguish Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit.
+  Also she was in sweet, ingratiating linen&mdash;the first fresh
+  personal linen that had touched her in nine days.</p>
+
+  <p>It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of
+  a not too fervent benediction.</p>
+
+  <p>About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and
+  beyond were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from
+  where she lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled
+  bathroom. And there were drawers and drawers of fresh
+  <i>lingerie</i>; and there were her closets filled with
+  comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times more grateful
+  after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive black. And
+  there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous implements of
+  silver that had to do with her toilet.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>[pg 233]</span>
+
+  <p>After what she had been through, this, indeed, was
+  comfort.</p>
+
+  <p>But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and
+  her dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed
+  her. Then reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the
+  night before had been hardly more than desperation began to take
+  on the character of confidence. She saw possibilities. And the
+  longer she considered, the more and greater the possibilities
+  were. Her original plan began to re-present itself to her;
+  modified, of course, to meet the altered conditions. If she could
+  only remain here, undiscovered, then months hence, when it was
+  announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a warm prayer for
+  Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that unthinkable
+  Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before, and leave
+  the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and herself of
+  their several personalities.</p>
+
+  <p>As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the
+  extra-curled hair of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised
+  version of her plan, in the first glow of its conception, seemed
+  alluringly plausible. She had to be more careful, to be sure, but
+  aside from this the new plan seemed quite as good as the
+  original. In fact, in her reaction from the alarms of yesterday,
+  it somehow seemed even better.</p>
+
+  <p>Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to
+  her predicament. And here it was&mdash;come unexpectedly to her
+  aid, as was the way with <span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"
+  id="page234"></a>[pg 234]</span> things in life; and a very
+  simple solution, too. Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and
+  evaded her memory. What was it?&mdash;something about "a pleasant
+  hermitage." That was just what this was: a pleasant
+  hermitage.</p>
+
+  <p>But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning
+  wore on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable
+  uncomfortable sensation. And presently the sensation became more
+  definite; became localized; and she was aware that she was
+  growing hungry. And in the same moment came the dismaying
+  realization that, in their haste of the night before, she had not
+  thought to plan with Matilda for the somewhat essential item of
+  food!</p>
+
+  <p>She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary
+  confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have
+  the sense to think of this, and if so would she have the
+  adroitness to smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to
+  be starved out?</p>
+
+  <p>The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.</p>
+
+  <p>She got up, and noiselessly foraged throughout her quarters.
+  The total of her gleaning was a box of forgotten chocolate
+  bon-bons and a box of half-length tallow candles. She had read
+  that Esquimaux ate tallow, or its equivalent, and prospered
+  famously upon it; but she deferred the candles in favor of the
+  bon-bons, and breakfasted on half the box.</p>
+
+  <p>Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate
+  the second half of the bon-bons.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>[pg 235]</span>
+
+  <p>Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying
+  abed, which she had thought would be exhaustless, had
+  inexplicably become transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared
+  not move about, save with a caution that amounted almost to pain;
+  for she had heard Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pass and re-pass
+  her door, and she knew that any slight noise on her part might
+  result in disastrous betrayal.</p>
+
+  <p>Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew
+  more wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for
+  as has been remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long
+  accustomed to being served sumptuously and with deferential
+  promptitude. But she realized that Matilda would not dare come,
+  if she remembered to come at all, until the household was fast
+  asleep.</p>
+
+  <p>Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it,
+  cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....</p>
+
+  <p>Ten o'clock came.</p>
+
+  <p>She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the
+  Esquimaux ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad
+  that way....</p>
+
+  <p>Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint,
+  knocking sent her tiptoeing&mdash;for months she would dare move
+  only on breathless tiptoe!&mdash;to the door of her sitting-room,
+  where she stood and listened.</p>
+
+  <p>Again the faint knocking sounded.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>[pg 236]</span>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated
+  voice.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda
+  slipped in and the door was softly closed upon her back.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here's some food&mdash;just what I could grab in a
+  second&mdash;I didn't dare take time to choose." Matilda held out
+  a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare
+  stay here a second."</p>
+
+  <p>But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.</p>
+
+  <p>"How did they take my going?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my
+  sister, if she was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and
+  asked me all sorts of questions&mdash;which&mdash;which I found
+  it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,&mdash;and she is going to send
+  you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft got me off into
+  a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip again."</p>
+
+  <p>"What is he going to do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection.
+  Outside some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps
+  things might take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be
+  able to help him. So he said he was going to stay on here till
+  things blew over. Oh, please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were
+  to hear me&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the
+  door was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with
+  the bundle of provisions <span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"
+  id="page237"></a>[pg 237]</span> on her exquisitely lacquered
+  tea-table. In the newspaper was a small loaf of bread, a tin of
+  salmon, and a kitchen knife. That was all. Not even butter! And,
+  of course, no coffee&mdash;she who liked coffee, strong, three
+  times a day. But when was she ever again to know the taste of
+  coffee!</p>
+
+  <p>Never before had she sat face to face with such an
+  uninteresting menu. But she devoured it&mdash;opening the tin of
+  salmon after great effort with the knife&mdash;devoured it every
+  bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in which the provisions had
+  been wrapped. It was part of that day's, Sunday's, "Record," and
+  it was the illustrated supplement. This she unfolded, and before
+  her eyes stood a big-lettered title, "Annual Exodus of Society
+  Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of the page was
+  her own portrait by M. Dubois.</p>
+
+  <p>Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly
+  illumined by the rays of her one candle. What poise, what
+  breeding, what calm, imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came
+  back to her be-crumbed tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the
+  raggedly gaping can. She slipped rather limply down in her chair
+  and covered her eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>A day passed&mdash;and another&mdash;and another. Outside Mrs.
+  De Peyster's suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity;
+  within, they lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never
+  to go, as is time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned.
+  Mrs. De Peyster could hear Mary practicing, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>[pg 238]</span> and
+  practicing hard&mdash;and, yes, brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda
+  told her on her later visits&mdash;and her later bundles
+  contained a larger and more palatable supply of food than had the
+  first package&mdash;Matilda said that Jack, too, was working
+  hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the
+  jolliest of honeymoons.</p>
+
+  <p>And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive,
+  after-midnight visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft,
+  it seemed, was becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and
+  Mary&mdash;particularly with Mary. He had confided to them that
+  he was weary of his escapades, and wanted to settle down; in
+  fact, there was a girl&mdash;the nicest girl in the world,
+  begging Mary's pardon&mdash;who had promised to marry him as soon
+  as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he
+  knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible
+  capacity, and so his last departures from strict rectitude had
+  been for the purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in
+  some small but independent way.</p>
+
+  <p>His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity,
+  would on his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft.
+  Nonetheless, Mr. Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite.
+  Once or twice, Judge Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been
+  drawn into discussions of points of law with Mr. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>[pg 239]</span>
+  Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew nothing about law, it
+  had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as well as the Judge
+  himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered himself,
+  resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that
+  Time stood still and taunted her,&mdash;each day exactly like the
+  day before, a day of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless
+  routine,&mdash;days in which she spoke not a word save a whisper
+  or two at midnight at the food-bearing visit of the sad-visaged
+  Matilda,&mdash;three dull, diabolic days dragged by their
+  interminable length of hours. Such days!&mdash;such awful, awful
+  days!</p>
+
+  <p>On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings
+  from the pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that
+  disconsolate pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation&mdash;of
+  a sort hardly ascribable to the danger of their situation: an
+  agitation quite different from mere nervous fear. There were
+  traces of recent crying in Matilda's face, and now and then she
+  had difficulty in holding down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her
+  as to the trouble; Matilda chokingly replied that there was
+  nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted, and soon Matilda was weeping
+  openly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's
+  broke!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Your heart broken! How?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserable
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>[pg
+  240]</span> Matilda, "I've got to make a confession. I've
+  done&mdash;something awful! I've disobeyed you, ma'am! I've
+  disobeyed and deceived you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way
+  I've trusted you for twenty years!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings
+  one can't&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"But what have you done?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've&mdash;I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've
+  been the same as engaged to William."</p>
+
+  <p>"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect,
+  reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am,&mdash;to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you,
+  ma'am,&mdash;very sorry,&mdash;but I can't think about that now.
+  For now," sobbed Matilda, "for now it's all off&mdash;and my
+  heart is broke!"</p>
+
+  <p>"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's
+  all a mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken
+  to him, since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me.
+  I&mdash;I couldn't stand it any longer, and this evening I went
+  out to the stable to see him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and
+  as mad as&mdash;oh, William was never like that to me before,
+  ma'am! I asked him what was the matter. 'All right, if you want
+  to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh, such a hard voice.
+  'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>[pg 241]</span>
+  'but, William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what
+  you've done!' he said."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me
+  and walked away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll
+  never explain, he's such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man!
+  And I love him so, Mrs. De Peyster,&mdash;I love him so! Oh, my
+  heart is broke!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled
+  dismay. She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but
+  she quickly realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper
+  to know that her coachman had made love to her, and had&mdash;had
+  even kissed her. Every drop of De Peyster blood revolted against
+  such a degradation.</p>
+
+  <p>"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a
+  shaking voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door.
+  She paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you,
+  ma'am," she faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I
+  deceived you?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went
+  out.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id=
+  "page242"></a>[pg 242]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+  <h3>MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY</h3>
+
+  <p>At two o'clock of the fifth night Matilda stole into Mrs. De
+  Peyster with a face that would have been an apt cover for the
+  Book of Lamentations. She opened her pages. That day she had had
+  a telegram that her sister Angelica&mdash;the really and truly
+  Angelica, who really and truly lived near Syracuse&mdash;that
+  Angelica was seriously ill. She was sorry, but she felt that she
+  must go.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, you must go, Matilda!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.
+  Then the significance to her of Matilda's absence flashed upon
+  her. "But what will I do without any company at all?" she cried.
+  "And without any food?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've seen to the food, ma'am." And Matilda explained that
+  during the evening, in preparation for her going, she had been
+  smuggling into the house from Sixth Avenue delicatessen stores
+  boxes of crackers, cold meats, all varieties of canned
+  goods&mdash;"enough to last you for a month, ma'am, and by that
+  time I'll be back."</p>
+
+  <p>Her explanation made, Matilda proceeded, with extremest
+  caution, to carry the provisions up and stack them in one corner
+  of Mrs. De Peyster's large, white-tiled bathroom. When the
+  freightage was <span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id=
+  "page243"></a>[pg 243]</span> over, the bathroom, with its supply
+  of crackers and zweibach, its bottles of olives and pickles, its
+  cold tongue, cold roast beef, cold chicken, its cans of salmon,
+  sardines, deviled ham, California peaches, and condensed
+  milk&mdash;the bathroom was itself a delicatessen shop that many
+  an ambitious young German would have regarded as a proud start in
+  life.</p>
+
+  <p>"But what about food for the others while you're gone?"
+  inquired Mrs. De Peyster&mdash;with a sudden hope that the others
+  would be starved into leaving.</p>
+
+  <p>"I've attended to them, ma'am. I've bought a lot of things
+  that will keep. And then I told the tradespeople that my niece
+  was going to be here in my place, and they are to deliver milk
+  and other fresh things for her every day in care of William."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda broke down at the last moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"If it wasn't for you, ma'am, I wouldn't care if it was me
+  that was sick, instead of my sister, and if I never got well. For
+  with William&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>She could say no more, and departed adrip with tears.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda's nightly visits were a loss; but Mrs. De Peyster had
+  come to take her situation more and more philosophically. The
+  life was unspeakably tedious, to be sure, and rather dangerous,
+  too; but she had accepted the predicament&mdash;it had to be
+  endured and could not be helped; and such a state of mind made
+  her circumstances much easier to support. All in all, there was
+  no reason, though, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id=
+  "page244"></a>[pg 244]</span> of course, it was most
+  uncomfortable&mdash;there was no good reason, she kept assuring
+  herself, why she might not safely withstand the siege and come
+  out of the affair with none but her two confidants being the
+  wiser.</p>
+
+  <p>In this philosophic mood three more days passed&mdash;passed
+  slowly and tediously, to be sure, but yet they did get by. There
+  were relaxations, of course,&mdash;things to occupy her mind. She
+  read a little each day; she listened to Mary's concert in the
+  drawing-room below her&mdash;for Mary dared to continue playing
+  despite Matilda's absence, since it was known that Matilda's
+  niece was in the house, though Mary never showed her face; she
+  listened for snatches of the conversation of Jack and Mary and
+  Mr. Pyecroft when they passed her door; at times she stood upon a
+  chair at one of her windows and cautiously peered through the
+  little panes in her shutters, like the lens of a camera, down
+  into the sunny green of Washington Square.</p>
+
+  <p>Also, of evenings, she found herself straining to hear the
+  voice of Judge Harvey. When she surprised herself at this, she
+  would flush slightly, and again raise her book close to her
+  shaded candle.</p>
+
+  <p>Then, of course, her meals were a diversion. She became quite
+  expert with the can-opener and the corkscrew. The empty cans,
+  since there was no way to get them out of her suite, she stacked
+  on the side of the bathroom opposite her provisions; and daily
+  the stack grew higher.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"
+  id="page245"></a>[pg 245]</span>
+
+  <p>The nearest approach to an incident during this solitary
+  period came to pass on the third night after Matilda's departure.
+  On that evening Mrs. De Peyster became aware of a new voice in
+  the house&mdash;a voice with a French accent. It seemed familiar,
+  yet for a time she was puzzled as to the identity of the voice's
+  owner. Then suddenly she knew: the man below was M. Dubois, whom
+  Olivetta, at her desire, had with unwilling but obedient
+  frostiness sent about his business. She had known that Jack had
+  taken up with M. Dubois at the time the artist was doing her
+  portrait; but she had not known that Jack was so intimate as the
+  artist's being admitted to Jack's secret seemed to indicate.</p>
+
+  <p>Within herself, some formless, incomprehensible thing seemed
+  about to happen. During these days of solitude&mdash;and this,
+  too, even before Matilda had gone&mdash;a queer new something had
+  begun to stir within her, almost as though threatening an
+  eruption. It seemed a force, or spirit, rising darkly from
+  hitherto unknown spaces of her being. It frightened her, with its
+  amorphous, menacing strangeness. She tried to keep it down. She
+  tried to keep her mental eyes away from it. And so, during all
+  these days, she had no idea what the fearsome thing might
+  be....</p>
+
+  <p>And then something did happen. On the fifth day after
+  Matilda's departure, and the eighteenth after the sailing of the
+  Plutonia, Mrs. De Peyster observed a sudden change in the
+  atmosphere of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id=
+  "page246"></a>[pg 246]</span> house. Within an hour, from being
+  filled with honeymoon hilarity, the house became filled with
+  gloom. There was no more laughter&mdash;no more running up and
+  down the stairs and through the hallways&mdash;the piano's song
+  was silent. Mrs. De Peyster sought to gain some clue to this
+  mysterious change by listening for the talk of Mary and Jack and
+  Mr. Pyecroft as they passed her door. But whereas the trio had
+  heretofore spoken freely and often in liveliest tones, they now
+  were either wordless or their voices were solemnly hushed.</p>
+
+  <p>What did it mean? Days passed&mdash;the solemn gloom continued
+  unabated&mdash;and this question grew an ever more puzzling
+  mystery to Mrs. De Peyster. What could it possibly,
+  <i>possibly</i>, mean?</p>
+
+  <p>But there was no way in which she could find out. Her only
+  source of information was Matilda, and Matilda was gone for a
+  month; and even if Matilda, by any chance, should know what was
+  the matter, she would not dare write; and even if she wrote, the
+  letter, of course, would never be delivered, but would doubtless
+  be forwarded to the pretended Mrs. De Peyster in Europe. Mrs. De
+  Peyster could only wonder&mdash;and read&mdash;and gaze furtively
+  out of the little peep-holes of her prison&mdash;and
+  eat&mdash;and stack the empty cans yet higher in her
+  bathroom&mdash;and wait, impatiently wait, while the mystery grew
+  daily and hourly in magnitude.</p>
+
+  <p>Among the details that added to the mystery's bulk was the
+  sound of another new but familiar <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page247" id="page247"></a>[pg 247]</span> voice&mdash;the voice
+  of the competent Miss Gardner, her discharged secretary. And Miss
+  Gardner's voice was not heard for an hour and then heard no
+  more&mdash;but was heard day after day, and her tone was the tone
+  of a person who is acquainted with the management of an
+  establishment and who is giving necessary orders. And another
+  detail was that William no longer kept to the stable, but seemed
+  now constantly busy within the house. And another detail was that
+  she became aware that Jack and Mary no longer tried to keep their
+  presence in the house a secret, but went openly forth into the
+  streets together. And Judge Harvey every day came openly to see
+  them.</p>
+
+  <p>But the most bewildering, and yet most clarifying, detail of
+  all was one she observed on the twelfth day since Matilda's
+  going, the twenty-fifth of her own official absence.</p>
+
+  <p>On that afternoon she was standing on a chair entertaining
+  herself by gazing through one of her shutters, when she saw Jack
+  crossing Washington Square. He was walking very soberly, and
+  about the left sleeve of a quiet gray summer suit was a band of
+  crape.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster stepped down from her chair. The mystery was
+  lifting. Somebody was dead! But who? Who?</p>
+
+  <p>Early the next morning, while the inmates of the house were
+  occupied in the serving or the eating of breakfast, Mrs. De
+  Peyster was startled by a soft <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page248" id="page248"></a>[pg 248]</span> knocking at her door.
+  But instantly she was reassured by the tremulous accents
+  without.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's me, ma'am,&mdash;Matilda. Let me in&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+  <p>The next instant the door opened and Matilda half staggered,
+  half fell, into the room. But such a Matilda! Shivering all over,
+  eyes wildly staring.</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it?" cried Mrs. De Peyster, seizing her housekeeper's
+  arm.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, ma&mdash;ma&mdash;ma'am," chattered Matilda.
+  "It's&mdash;it's awful!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But what is it?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, beginning to
+  tremble with an unknown terror.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, it's&mdash;it's awful! I couldn't get you word
+  before&mdash;for I didn't dare write, and my sister wasn't well
+  enough for me to leave her till last night."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster shook the shaking Matilda.</p>
+
+  <p>"Will you please tell me what's happened!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma&mdash;ma'am. Here's a copy of the first paper that
+  had anything about it. The paper's over a week old. I brought it
+  along to&mdash;to break the thing to you gently."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster seized the newspaper. In the center of its
+  first page was a reproduction of M. Dubois's painting of herself,
+  and across the paper's top ran the giant
+  headline:&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"></span>
+  <hr />
+<a name="pagee" id="pagee"></a>
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/no13-6.jpg"><img width="50%" src=
+    "images/no13-6.jpg" alt="SO&mdash;SO IT'S I&mdash;THAT'S&mdash;THAT'S DEAD!" /></a>
+
+    <h4>"SO&mdash;SO IT'S I&mdash;THAT'S&mdash;THAT'S DEAD!"</h4>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>[pg
+  249]</span>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUND</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">DEAD IN THE SEINE</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>Face Disfigured by Water, but</i></p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Friends in Paris Identify Social</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Leader by Clothes upon</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">the Body</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster sank without a word into a chair, and her face
+  duplicated the ashen hue of Matilda's.</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda likewise collapsed into a chair. "Oh, isn't it awful,
+  ma'am," she moaned.</p>
+
+  <p>"So&mdash;so it's I&mdash;that's&mdash;that's dead!" mumbled
+  Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. But that isn't all. I&mdash;I thought I'd break
+  it to you gently. That was over a week ago. Since
+  then&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean," breathed the marble lips of Mrs. De Peyster, "that
+  there's something more?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am. Oh, the papers have been full of it. It's been a
+  tremendous sensation!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"And Mr. Jack, since you died without a will, is your heir.
+  And, since he is now the head of the De Peyster family, the first
+  thing he did on hearing the news was to arrange by cable to have
+  your body sent here."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, as though galvanized, half rose from her
+  chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean&mdash;my body&mdash;is coming here?"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>[pg 250]</span>
+
+  <p>"I said I was trying to break it to you gently," moaned
+  Matilda. "It's&mdash;it's already here. The ship that brought it
+  is now docking. Your funeral&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"My funeral!"</p>
+
+  <p>"It takes place in the drawing-room, this morning. Oh, isn't
+  it awful! But, perhaps, ma'am, if you could see what beautiful
+  flowers your friends have sent&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>But Mrs. De Peyster had very softly sunk back into her
+  chair.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id=
+  "page251"></a>[pg 251]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE VEILED LADY</h3>
+
+  <p>As soon as that huddled mass of womanhood that was Mrs. De
+  Peyster had become sufficiently reanimated to be able to think,
+  its first thought came in the form of an unuttered wail.</p>
+
+  <p>She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home
+  again!</p>
+
+  <p>Or if she did come home, what a scandal! A scandal
+  out-scandalizing anything of which she had ever dreamed! A
+  scandal worse ten times than the very grave itself!</p>
+
+  <p>With loose face and glazed eyes she stared at Matilda while
+  the latter stammered out disjointed details of the past week's
+  happenings. As for Mr. Jack's lark in dwelling surreptitiously
+  with his wife in his mother's house, not a breath of that had
+  reached the public. With Mr. Pyecroft's aid, and Judge Harvey's,
+  he had managed this well. He had told the reporters that he had
+  been quietly married over three weeks before, that he and his
+  wife had been living in seclusion, and that on learning of his
+  mother's demise they had come to the house to direct the
+  obsequies.... Those Paris police were trying to solve the mystery
+  of what had become of Mrs. De Peyster's trunks.... If Mrs. De
+  Peyster <span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id=
+  "page252"></a>[pg 252]</span> could only see the beautiful floral
+  tributes that were arriving, particularly the large wreath sent
+  by Mrs. Allistair&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>But Mrs. De Peyster heard none of this. She was dead! She was
+  to be buried! She could never come home again!</p>
+
+  <p>At length her lips moved&mdash;slowly, stiffly, as might the
+  lips of a dead person.</p>
+
+  <p>"What are we going to do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've been saying that same question to myself for days,
+  ma'am," quavered Matilda. "And I&mdash;I don't see any
+  answer."</p>
+
+  <p>No, there was nothing she could do. Mrs. De Peyster continued
+  her glazed stare at her faithful serving-woman. In the first few
+  minutes her mind had been able to take in the significance only
+  to herself of this culminating disaster. But now its significance
+  to another person shivered through that her being.</p>
+
+  <p>Poor&mdash;poor Olivetta!</p>
+
+  <p>For Olivetta, of course, it was. Mrs. De Peyster knew what was
+  due the De Peyster corpuscles that moved in stately procession
+  along the avenues of her blood, and was not neglectful to see
+  that that due was properly observed; but the heart from which
+  those corpuscles derived their impulse was, as Judge Harvey had
+  once said, in its way the kindest sort of heart. And now, for a
+  few minutes, all that her heart could feel was felt for
+  Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>But for a few minutes only. Then Olivetta, and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>[pg 253]</span> all
+  concerns beyond the immediate moment, were suddenly forgotten.
+  For in the hall without soft footsteps were heard, and the
+  instant after, upon her door, there sounded an ominous
+  scratching&mdash;a sound like a key in an agitated hand searching
+  for its appointed hole.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster rose up and clutched Matilda's arm, and stood
+  in rigid terror.</p>
+
+  <p>"Tha&mdash;that key?" chattered Matilda. "Can&mdash;can it
+  fit?"</p>
+
+  <p>"There were only two keys," breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Mine
+  here, and the one I gave to Olivetta."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then it can't fit, since Miss Olivetta's&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>But the key gave Matilda the lie direct by slipping into the
+  lock. The two women clung to one another, knowing that the end
+  had come, wondering who was to be their exposer. The bolt clicked
+  back, the door swung open, and&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>And into the dusky room there tottered a rather tall, heavily
+  veiled, feminine figure. It did not gaze at the shrinking couple
+  in astoundment. It did not launch into exclamation at its
+  discovery. Instead, it sank weakly down into the nearest
+  chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" it moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Who&mdash;who are you?" huskily demanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh! Oh!" moaned the figure. "Isn't it terrible! Isn't it
+  terrible! But I didn't mean to do it&mdash;I didn't mean to do
+  it, Caroline!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id=
+  "page254"></a>[pg 254]</span>
+
+  <p>"It's not&mdash;not Olivetta?" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"It was an accident!" the figure wailed on. "I couldn't help
+  myself. And if you knew what I've gone through to get here, I
+  know you'd forgive me."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had lifted the veil up over the hat.</p>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta! Then&mdash;after all&mdash;you're not dead!"</p>
+
+  <p>"No&mdash;if I only were!" sobbed Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then who is that&mdash;that person who's coming here this
+  morning?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know!" Then Olivetta's quavering voice grew hard with
+  indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral
+  under false pretenses!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But the papers said the body had on my clothes."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;I suppose it must have had."</p>
+
+  <p>"But how&mdash;" Mrs. De Peyster recalled their precarious
+  position. "Matilda, lock the door. But, Olivetta, how could it
+  ever, ever have happened?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I followed your directions&mdash;and got to Paris all
+  right&mdash;and everything was going splendid&mdash;and I was
+  beginning to enjoy myself&mdash;when&mdash;when&mdash;Oh,
+  Caroline, I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"You what?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I lost my purse!" sobbed Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Lost your purse?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I left it in a cab when I went to the Louvre. And in it was
+  all my money&mdash;my letter of
+  credit&mdash;everything!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page255" id="page255"></a>[pg 25]</span>
+
+  <p>"Olivetta!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And I didn't dare cable you for more. For if I had sent a
+  cable to you here, it might have betrayed you."</p>
+
+  <p>"And what did you do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"There was nothing for me to do but to&mdash;to&mdash;sell
+  some of your gowns."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" Mrs. De Peyster was beginning dimly to see the drift of
+  things.</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta's mind wandered to another phase of her
+  tribulations.</p>
+
+  <p>"And the price I got for them was a swindle, Caroline. It
+  was&mdash;it was a tragedy! For your black chiffon, and your
+  silver satin, and your spangled net&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"But this person they took for me?" interrupted Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, whoever she is, she must have bought one of them. She
+  could have bought it for nothing&mdash;and that Frenchman who
+  cheated me&mdash;would have doubled his money. And after she
+  bought it&mdash;she&mdash;she"&mdash;Olivetta's voice rang out
+  with hysterical resentment&mdash;"she got us all into this
+  trouble by walking into the Seine. It's the most popular pastime
+  in Paris, to walk into the Seine. But why," ended Olivetta with a
+  spiteful burst,&mdash;"why couldn't she have amused herself in
+  her own clothes? That's what I want to know!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And then? What did you do?" breathed Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id=
+  "page256"></a>[pg 256]</span>
+
+  <p>"When it came out three days later that it was you, I was
+  so&mdash;so frightened that I didn't know what to do. I didn't
+  dare deny the report, for that would have been to expose you. And
+  I didn't dare cable to you that it was all a mistake and that I
+  was all right, for that would have been just as bad. Perhaps I
+  might have acted differently, but I&mdash;well, I ran away. I
+  crossed to London with your trunks. There I learned
+  that&mdash;that they were sending your remains home. I realized I
+  had to get you word somehow, and I realized the only way was for
+  me to come and tell you. So I sold some more of your gowns, and
+  just caught the Mauretania, and here I am."</p>
+
+  <p>So ending, Olivetta, as though her bones had melted, subsided
+  into a gelatinous heap of dejection, dabbing her crimson eyes
+  with a handkerchief already saturated with liquid woe.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's a relief to know it wasn't you," said Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sure&mdash;it's kind of you&mdash;to say so," snuffled
+  Olivetta gratefully.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, aside from your being safe, our situation is unchanged,"
+  said Mrs. De Peyster in tremulous, awe-stricken tone. "For
+  that&mdash;that person is coming here just the same!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know. The horrid interloper!"</p>
+
+  <p>"She may be here any minute," said Mrs. De Peyster. "What are
+  we going to do?"</p>
+
+  <p>"We must think of something quick," spoke up <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>[pg 257]</span>
+  Matilda nervously. "For it's almost time for your funeral, ma'am,
+  and after that&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've been thinking all the voyage over," broke in Olivetta.
+  "And I could think of only one plan."</p>
+
+  <p>"And that?" Mrs. De Peyster eagerly inquired.</p>
+
+  <p>There was an excited, desperate light in Olivetta's flooding
+  eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't you manage, in some way, while nobody is looking, to
+  slip into that Frenchwoman's place; and then, before the ceremony
+  was over, you could sit up and say you'd been in a cataleptic
+  fit. Such things have happened. I've read about them."</p>
+
+  <p>"Absurd, Olivetta! Quite absurd!" quavered Mrs. De
+  Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I dare say it is," agreed Olivetta, subsiding again into her
+  limp misery. "Oh, why did I ever go to Paris! I hate the
+  place!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't give way; think!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster, who was in
+  a condition not far removed from Olivetta's. "Think,
+  Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda obediently.</p>
+
+  <p>"You think, Caroline," whimpered Olivetta. "You always had
+  such a superior intellect, and were always so equal to every
+  emergency."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster thus reminded of what was expected of her
+  life-long leadership, tried to collect her scattered forces, and
+  sat with pale, drawn, twitching face, staring at her
+  predicament&mdash;and her two faithful subjects sat staring at
+  her, waiting the inspired idea for escape that would fall from
+  her <span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>[pg
+  258]</span> never-failing lips. Moment after moment of deepest
+  silence followed.</p>
+
+  <p>At length Mrs. De Peyster spoke.</p>
+
+  <p>"There are only two ways. First, for me to go down and
+  disclose myself&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"But the scandal! The humiliation!" cried Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, that first way will never do," said Mrs. De Peyster.
+  "The second way is not a solution; it is only a means to a
+  possible solution. But before I state the way, I must ask you,
+  Olivetta, if any one saw you come in?"</p>
+
+  <p>"There were a number of people coming and going, people
+  preparing for the funeral&mdash;but I watched my chance, and used
+  my latch-key, and I'm sure no one connected with the house saw
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>"That is good. If any outsiders saw you, they will merely
+  believe that you also were some person concerned in the funeral.
+  As for my plan, it is simple. You must both slip out of here
+  unseen; you, Olivetta, will, of course, say that you have
+  returned to the city to attend my funeral. From the outside you
+  both must help me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. But you, Caroline?" said Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"As for me, I must stay here, quietly, just as I have done for
+  the last three weeks. I still have some supplies left. After
+  everything has quieted down, I shall watch my chance, and steal
+  out of the house late some night. That's as far as I have
+  planned, but once away I can work out some explanation for
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>[pg
+  259]</span> the terrible mistake and then come home. That seems
+  the only way; that seems the only chance."</p>
+
+  <p>"You always were a wonder!" cried Olivetta admiringly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you agree to the plan?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And you, Matilda?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, ma'am."</p>
+
+  <p>Thus praised and seconded, Mrs. De Peyster resumed some faint
+  shadow of her accustomed dignity.</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well, then. You must both leave here this instant."</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta threw her arms about her cousin's neck.</p>
+
+  <p>"Good-bye, Caroline," she quavered. "You really have no hard
+  feelings against me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No, none. You must go!" said Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sure, with you in charge, it's all going to come out
+  right!" said the clinging Olivetta hopefully.</p>
+
+  <p>"You must really go!" And Mrs. De Peyster pressed her and
+  Matilda toward the door.</p>
+
+  <p>But midway to the door the trio halted suddenly. Coming up the
+  stairway was the sound of hurried feet&mdash;of many pairs of
+  feet. The footsteps came through the hall. The trio did not
+  breathe. The footsteps paused before the sitting-room door. The
+  confederates gripped each others' arms.</p>
+
+  <p>"Are you sure you saw that person come in here?" they heard a
+  voice ask&mdash;Jack's voice.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page260" id="page260"></a>[pg 260]</span>
+
+  <p>"I'm certain." The voice that answered was Mary's.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll bet it was a sneak thief," said a third voice&mdash;Mr.
+  Pyecroft's. "To slip into a house at a funeral, or a wedding,
+  when a lot of people are coming and going&mdash;that's one of
+  their oldest tricks." He turned the knob, and finding the door
+  locked, shook it violently. "Open up, in there!" he called.</p>
+
+  <p>The three clung to one another for support.</p>
+
+  <p>"Better open up!" called a fourth voice&mdash;Judge Harvey's.
+  "For we know you're in there!"</p>
+
+  <p>Breathless, the trembling conspirators clung yet more
+  desperately.</p>
+
+  <p>"But how could she get in?" queried the excited voice of Mary.
+  "I understood that Mrs. De Peyster locked the door before she
+  went away."</p>
+
+  <p>"Skeleton key," was Mr. Pyecroft's brief explanation. "Mrs. De
+  Peyster, we three will watch the door to see she doesn't get
+  out&mdash;there may have been more than one of her. You go and
+  telephone for a locksmith and the police."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right," said Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's&mdash;it's all over!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, oh! What shall we ever do?" wailed Olivetta, collapsing
+  into a chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"The police!&mdash;she mustn't go!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+  "Open the door, Matilda, quick!" Then in a weak, quavering voice
+  she called to her besiegers:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id=
+  "page261"></a>[pg 261]</span>
+
+  <p>After which she wilted away into the nearest chair&mdash;which
+  chanced to be directly beneath the awesome, unbending,
+  blue-blue-blooded Mrs. De Peyster of the golden frame, whose
+  proud composure it was beyond things mortal to
+  disturb.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id=
+  "page262"></a>[pg 262]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+  <h3>A FAMILY REUNION</h3>
+
+  <p>Matilda's shaking hand unlocked the door. Jack lunged in,
+  behind him Mr. Pyecroft and Judge Harvey, and behind them Mary.
+  On Jack's face was a look of menacing justice. But at sight of
+  the trembling turnkey the invading party suddenly halted, and
+  Jack's stern jaw relaxed and almost dropped from its sockets.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda!" he exclaimed. And from behind him, like a
+  triplicate echo, sounded the others' "Matilda!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Good&mdash;good-morning, Mr. Jack," quavered Matilda, locking
+  the door again.</p>
+
+  <p>Then the four sighted Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"What, you, Olivetta!" Jack and Judge Harvey cried in
+  unison.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, it's I, Jack," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I
+  just thought I'd call in to express&mdash;it's no more than is
+  proper, my being her cousin, you know,&mdash;to express my
+  sympathy to your mother."</p>
+
+  <p>"Your sympathy to my mother?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes. To&mdash;to tell her how&mdash;how sorry I am that she's
+  dead," elucidated Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>A little hand gripped Jack's arm.</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id=
+  "page263"></a>[pg 263]</span>
+
+  <p>He turned his head and his eyes followed Mary's pointing
+  finger.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mother!" He walked amazedly up before Mrs. De Peyster's
+  palsied figure. "Mother!"</p>
+
+  <p>In the same instant Judge Harvey was beside her.</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline!" he breathed, like one seeing a ghost.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye-yes," she mumbled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you're not dead?"</p>
+
+  <p>"N-no," she mumbled.</p>
+
+  <p>The Judge and Jack and Mary gazed down at her in uttermost
+  astoundment. To them was added Mr. Pyecroft. His bewilderment,
+  for the moment, was the greatest of the group; for the likeness
+  between the black-garbed, fled Angelica, and this real Mrs. De
+  Peyster in lavender dressing-gown, was more remarkable than he
+  had ever dreamed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank God!" quavered Judge Harvey. And then, voicing the
+  general amazement: "But&mdash;but&mdash;I don't understand! What
+  has happened? How do you come here?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster, with a shivering glance at them all, and one
+  of particular terror at her recent confederate, Mr. Pyecroft,
+  made a last rally to save herself.</p>
+
+  <p>"My explanation&mdash;that is, all I know about this
+  affair&mdash;is really very simple. I&mdash;you see&mdash;I very
+  unexpectedly returned home&mdash;and&mdash;and discovered
+  this&mdash;this situation. That is all." She gathered a little
+  more courage. "I do not need to inform you that I have been
+  away."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id=
+  "page264"></a>[pg 264]</span>
+
+  <p>"Of course, we know you've been away!" said Jack. "But that
+  Mrs. De Peyster at the pier&mdash;who is she?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She's nothing&mdash;but a base&mdash;impostor!" cried
+  Olivetta indignantly, lifting her face for a moment from her
+  woe-soaked handkerchief. "Don't you believe a word she says!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But we're all ready for the ceremony!" exclaimed Jack. "There
+  are a dozen reporters downstairs, and no end of friends are
+  coming from out of town to be present. And that person, whoever
+  she is, will be here&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I tell you she's an impostor!" cried Olivetta frantically.
+  "Don't you let her in!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline, I can't tell you how&mdash;" Judge Harvey's voice,
+  tremulous with relief at this unbelievably averted tragedy, broke
+  off. "But what are we going to do?" he cried.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, what are we going to do?" echoed Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>Concern over this new, swiftly approaching crisis for a moment
+  took precedence of all other emotions. Judge Harvey and Mary and
+  Jack gazed at each other, bewildered, helpless. Something had to
+  be done, quick&mdash;but what?</p>
+
+  <p>"I tell you, don't let that impostor in!" repeated the frantic
+  Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>The three continued their interchange of helpless gaze.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me if I seem to intrude," spoke up the even voice of
+  Mr. Pyecroft.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id=
+  "page265"></a>[pg 265]</span>
+
+  <p>Swiftly, but without appearing to hurry, he stepped to Mrs. De
+  Peyster's writing-desk, and began running through the pages of
+  the telephone book. With terrified apprehension, Mrs. De Peyster
+  watched him: what&mdash;what was that terrible man going to
+  do?</p>
+
+  <p>The telephone was now in his hand, the receiver at his
+  ear.</p>
+
+  <p>"Central, give me Broad 4900.... Is this the French Line? Then
+  connect me with the manager.... This the manager of the French
+  Line?... I am speaking for Mr. Jack De Peyster, son of Mrs. De
+  Peyster,&mdash;you know. Please give orders to the proper
+  authorities to have Mrs. De Peyster held at the dock. Or if she
+  has left, stop her at all cost. There must be no mistake! Further
+  orders will follow. Understand?... Thank you very much.
+  Good-bye."</p>
+
+  <p>He turned about.</p>
+
+  <p>"It will be all right," he said quietly.</p>
+
+  <p>With a wild stare at him, Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her
+  chair and closed her eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"She's fainted!" cried Mary. "Her smelling-salts!"</p>
+
+  <p>"A glass of water!" exclaimed Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"No, no," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>But the pair had darted away, Mary into the bedroom, Jack into
+  the bathroom. From the bathroom came a sudden, jangling din like
+  the sheet-iron thunder of the stage.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg 266]</span>
+
+  <p>Mary reappeared, fresh amazement on her face.</p>
+
+  <p>"Somebody's been using the bedroom! The bed's not made, and
+  your clothes are all about!"</p>
+
+  <p>The next moment Jack rushed in behind her.</p>
+
+  <p>"What a stack of empty tin cans I kicked into in the bathroom!
+  What the deuce has been going on here?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster looked weakly, hopelessly, at Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's no use trying to keep it up any longer. We&mdash;we
+  might as well confess. You tell them, Olivetta."</p>
+
+  <p>But Olivetta protested into her dripping handkerchief that she
+  never, never could. So it fell to Mrs. De Peyster herself to be
+  the historian of her plans and misadventures&mdash;and she was so
+  far reduced that even the presence of Mr. Pyecroft made no
+  difference to her; and as for Mr. Pyecroft, when the truth of the
+  affair flashed upon him, that wide, flexible mouth twisted upward
+  into its whimsicalest smile&mdash;but the next instant his face
+  was gravity itself. With every word she grew less and less like
+  the Mrs. De Peyster of M. Dubois's masterpiece. At the close of
+  the long narrative, made longer by frequent outbursts of misery,
+  she could have posed for a masterpiece of humiliation.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all been bad enough," she moaned at the end; "what's
+  happened is all bad enough, but think what's yet to come! It's
+  all coming out! Everybody will be laughing at
+  me&mdash;oh!&mdash;oh!&mdash;oh!&mdash;"</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>[pg 267]</span>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster was drifting away into inarticulate
+  lamentations, when there came a tramping sound upon the stairway.
+  She drew herself up.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+  <p>There was a loud rap upon the door.</p>
+
+  <p>"I say, Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster," called out a voice.
+  "What's all this delay about?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Who is it?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"That infernal Mayfair, and the whole gang of reporters!"
+  exclaimed Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Jack,&mdash;Judge Harvey! Save me! Save me!"</p>
+
+  <p>"The hour set for the funeral is passed," Mayfair continued to
+  call, "the drawing-room is packed with people, and the body
+  hasn't arrived yet. We don't want to make ourselves obnoxious,
+  but it's almost press-time for the next edition, and we've got to
+  know what's doing. You know what a big story this is.
+  Understand&mdash;we've simply got to know!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge&mdash;what the devil <i>are</i> we going to do?"
+  breathed Jack.</p>
+
+  <p>"My God, Caroline, Jack,&mdash;this is awful!" Judge Harvey
+  whispered desperately. "We simply can't keep this out of the
+  papers, and when it does get out&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh! Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey," called the impatient Mr. Mayfair, "you really
+  must tell us what's up!"</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary regarded each <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg 268]</span>
+  other in blank desperation; Mrs. De Peyster and Olivetta and
+  Matilda were merely different varieties of jellied
+  helplessness.</p>
+
+  <p>"Judge Harvey," Mr. Mayfair called again, "we simply must
+  insist!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline," falteringly whispered Judge Harvey, "I don't see
+  what we&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me," whispered Mr. Pyecroft, gently stepping forward
+  among them. Then he raised his voice: "Wait just one minute,
+  gentlemen! You shall know everything!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Mr. Pyecroft, don't, don't!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.
+  "Judge Harvey&mdash;Jack&mdash;don't let him! Send them away! Put
+  it off! I can't stand it!"</p>
+
+  <p>But Mr. Pyecroft, without heeding her protest, and unhampered
+  by the others, stepped to Olivetta's side.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Harmon," he whispered rapidly, "did you obey Mrs. De
+  Peyster's instructions on your voyage home? About keeping to your
+  stateroom&mdash;about keeping yourself veiled, and all the
+  rest?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," said Olivetta.</p>
+
+  <p>"And Mrs. De Peyster's trunks, where are they?"</p>
+
+  <p>"At the Cunard pier,"</p>
+
+  <p>"What name did you sail under?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Harriman."</p>
+
+  <p>In the same instant Mr. Pyecroft had lifted Olivetta to her
+  feet, had drawn from her boneless figure the long traveling-coat
+  of pongee silk, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id=
+  "page269"></a>[pg 269]</span> had drawn the pins from her
+  traveling-hat. Released from his support, Olivetta re-collapsed.
+  In the next instant Mr. Pyecroft had Mrs. De Peyster upon her
+  feet, with firm, deft, resistless hands had slipped the long coat
+  upon her, had put the hat upon her head and pushed in the pins,
+  had drawn the thick veil down over her face&mdash;and had thrust
+  her again down into her chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Matilda, not a word!" he ordered, in a quick, authoritative
+  whisper. "Miss Harmon, not a word! Mrs. De Peyster, call up your
+  nerve; you'll need it, for you know that Mayfair is the cleverest
+  reporter in Park Row. And now, Mrs. Jack De Peyster,"&mdash;for
+  Mary stood nearest the door,&mdash;"let them in."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster half-rose in ultimate consternation.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, please&mdash;please&mdash;you're not going to let them
+  in!"</p>
+
+  <p>"We don't dare keep them out!" Mr. Pyecroft pressed Mrs. De
+  Peyster firmly back into her chair. "Keep your nerve!" he
+  repeated sharply. "Open the door, please,&mdash;quick!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mary cast a questioning glance at Jack, who, bewildered,
+  nodded his consent. She unlocked the door.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+  <h3>MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE</h3>
+
+  <p>The next moment a dozen reporters crowded into the room, the
+  redoubtable Mr. Mayfair at their head; and behind them could be
+  seen the pale, curious faces of William, Miss Gardner, and M.
+  Dubois. Mrs. De Peyster, Olivetta, and Matilda sat in limp
+  despair. Judge Harvey, Jack, and Mary gazed in breathless
+  suspense and wonderment at Mr. Pyecroft. As for Mr. Pyecroft, he
+  stood before Mrs. De Peyster, obscuring her, looking like one who
+  has suffered a severe shock, yet withal grave and composed.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's up?" demanded the keen-faced Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Before I answer that," said Mr. Pyecroft, "permit me to
+  preface what I have to say by touching upon two necessary
+  personal details. First, I believe, at least, you, Mr. Mayfair,
+  have known me as Mr. Simpson, brother of Mrs. De Peyster's
+  housekeeper. I am not her brother. This harmless deception was
+  undertaken, for reasons not necessary to give, at the request of
+  Judge Harvey; he wished me to remain in the house to arrange, and
+  make abstracts of, certain private papers. The <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span>
+  second detail is, that I am speaking at the request of Judge
+  Harvey, as his associate and as the representative of the De
+  Peyster family."</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey felt his collar; Jack stared. But fortunately the
+  room was dim, and the reporters' eyes were all on the grave,
+  candid face of Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;yes," said the impatient Mayfair. "But out with the
+  story! What's doing?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Something that I think will surprise you," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+  "Something that has completely astounded all of
+  us&mdash;particularly this lady who is Mrs. De Peyster's
+  housekeeper, and Miss Harmon, here, who has just returned from a
+  quiet summer in Maine to attend her cousin's funeral. The fact
+  is, gentlemen, to come right to the point, there is to be no
+  funeral."</p>
+
+  <p>"No funeral!" cried Mr. Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"No funeral!" ran through the crowd.</p>
+
+  <p>"No funeral," repeated Mr. Pyecroft. "The reason, gentlemen,
+  is that a great mistake has been made. Mrs. De Peyster is not
+  dead."</p>
+
+  <p>"Not dead!" exclaimed the reporters.</p>
+
+  <p>"If you desire proof, here it is." Mr. Pyecroft, stepping
+  aside, revealed the figure of Mrs. De Peyster. He put his right
+  hand upon her shoulder, gripping it tightly and holding her in
+  her chair, and with his left he lifted the thick veil above her
+  face. "I believe that most of you know Mrs. De Peyster, at least
+  from her pictures."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"
+  id="page272"></a>[pg 272]</span>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. De Peyster!" cried the staggered crowd. "Mrs. De Peyster
+  herself!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. De Peyster herself," repeated Mr. Pyecroft in his grave
+  voice. "You are surprised, but not more so than the rest of
+  us."</p>
+
+  <p>"But that other Mrs. De Peyster&mdash;the one the funeral is
+  for?" asked Mr. Mayfair. "Who is she?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That, gentlemen, is as great a mystery to us as to any of
+  you," said Mr. Pyecroft.</p>
+
+  <p>"But how the&mdash;but how did it all happen?" ejaculated Mr.
+  Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"That is what I am going to tell you," Mr. Pyecroft
+  answered.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster struggled up.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't&mdash;don't!" she besought him wildly.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pyecroft pressed her back into her chair, and held her
+  there with an arm that was like a brace of steel.</p>
+
+  <p>"You see, gentlemen," he remarked sympathetically, "how this
+  business has upset her."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes! But the explanation?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Immediately&mdash;word for word, as Mrs. De Peyster has just
+  now told us," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>Olivetta and Matilda gazed at Mr. Pyecroft with ghastly,
+  loose-lipped faces; Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary stared at him
+  with an amazed suspense which they could hardly mask; and Miss
+  Gardner, with whom he had not yet made his peace, breathlessly
+  awaited the next move of this incomprehensible <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span>
+  husband of hers. Mr. Pyecroft kept his eyes, for the most part,
+  upon the shrewd, fraud-penetrating features of the unfoilable Mr.
+  Mayfair&mdash;his own countenance the most truthful that son of
+  Adam ever wore.</p>
+
+  <p>"What Mrs. De Peyster has said is really very simple. As you
+  know, she left Paris two or three weeks ago on a long motor trip.
+  During her brief stay in Paris, one of her trunks was either lost
+  or stolen, she is not certain which. As she pays no personal
+  attention to her baggage, she was not aware of her loss for
+  several days. So much is fact. Now we come to mere conjecture. A
+  plausible conjecture seems to be that the gowns in the trunk were
+  sold to a second-hand dealer, and these gowns, being attractive,
+  the dealer must have immediately resold to various purchasers,
+  and one of these purchasers must have&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, yes! Plain as day!" exclaimed Mr. Mayfair.</p>
+
+  <p>"The face was unrecognizable," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "but
+  since the gown had sewn into it Mrs. De Peyster's name, of
+  course&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course! The most natural mistake in the world!" cried Mr.
+  Mayfair excitedly. "Go on! Go on!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster had slowly turned a dazed countenance upward
+  and was gazing at the sober, plausible face of her young man of
+  the sea.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mrs. De Peyster did not learn of what had <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span>
+  happened till the day the supposed Mrs. De Peyster was started
+  homeward. The most sensible thing for her to have done would have
+  been to declare the mistake, and saved her family and friends a
+  great deal of grief. But the shock completely unbalanced her. I
+  will not attempt to describe her psychological processes or
+  explain her actions. You may call her course illogical,
+  hysterical, what you like; I do not seek to defend it; I am only
+  trying to give you the facts. She was so completely
+  unnerved&mdash;But a mere look at Mrs. De Peyster will show you
+  how the shock unnerved her."</p>
+
+  <p>The group gazed at Mrs. De Peyster's face. A murmur of
+  sympathy and understanding ran among them.</p>
+
+  <p>"In her hysterical condition," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "she
+  had but one thought, and that was to get home as quickly as she
+  could. She crossed to England, sailed on the Mauretania, kept to
+  her stateroom, and arrived here at the house heavily veiled about
+  an hour ago. I may add the details that she sailed under the name
+  of Miss Harriman and that her trunks are now at the Cunard pier.
+  There you have the entire story, gentlemen."</p>
+
+  <p>He looked down at Mrs. De Peyster. "I believe I have stated
+  the matter just as you outlined it to us?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Ye&mdash;yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>"There is no detail you would like to add?"</p>
+
+  <p>"N&mdash;none," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg 275]</span>
+
+  <p>"Then, gentlemen," said Mr. Pyecroft, turning to the
+  reporters, "since you have all the facts, and since Mrs. De
+  Peyster is in a state bordering on collapse, we would take it as
+  a favor if&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"No need to dismiss us," put in Mr. Mayfair. "We're in a
+  bigger hurry to leave than you are to have us go. God, boys," he
+  ejaculated to his fellows, "what a peach of a story!"</p>
+
+  <p>In a twinkling Mr. Mayfair and his fellows of the press had
+  vanished, each in the direction of a telephone over which he
+  could hurry this super-sensation into his office.</p>
+
+  <p>Within the room, all were staring at Mr. Pyecroft, as though
+  in each a whirling chaos were striving to shape itself into
+  speech. But before they could become articulate, that sober young
+  gentleman had stepped from out of their midst and, his back to
+  them, was discreetly engrossing himself in the examination of the
+  first object that came to his hands: which chanced to be
+  something lying on top of the exquisite safe&mdash;a slender
+  platinum chain with a pendant pearl.</p>
+
+  <p>With him gone, all eyes fixed themselves upon Mrs. De Peyster,
+  and there was a profound and motionless silence in the room, save
+  at first for some very sincere and vigorous snuffling into the
+  handkerchiefs of Olivetta and Matilda. As for Mrs. De Peyster,
+  she sat below the awesome, imperturbable Mrs. De Peyster of the
+  portrait, and oh, what a change was there in the one
+  beneath!&mdash;huddled, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"
+  id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span> shaking, not a duchess-like line
+  to her person, her face dropped forward in her hands.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mother&mdash;" Jack breathed at length.</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline!" breathed Judge Harvey. Then added: "I'm sure
+  it&mdash;it'll never become known."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, to think it's all over&mdash;and we're out of it!"
+  Olivetta cried hysterically. "Oh! Oh!" And she limply pitched
+  sidewise in her chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mees Harmon&mdash;Olivetta!" exclaimed M. Dubois. He sprang
+  forward, knelt at her side and supported her wilted figure
+  against his bosom. Upon this poultice to her troubles Olivetta
+  relaxed and sobbed unrestrainedly. And no one, particularly Mrs.
+  De Peyster, paid the least heed to this little episode.</p>
+
+  <p>William, the coachman, the irreproachable, irreplaceable,
+  unbendable William, his clean-shaven mask of a face now somewhat
+  pale&mdash;William took a few respectful paces toward his
+  resurrected mistress.</p>
+
+  <p>"If you will not regard it as a liberty," said he, with his
+  cadence of a prime minister, "I should like to express my relief
+  and happiness at your restoration among us."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you&mdash;William," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>William, having delivered his felicitations, bowed slightly,
+  and started to turn away. But Matilda had stepped forward behind
+  him, an imploring look upon her face.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg 277]</span>
+
+  <p>"Please, ma'am,&mdash;please, ma'am!" said she, in a tone that
+  left no doubt as to her meaning.</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait, William," weakly commanded Mrs. De Peyster.</p>
+
+  <p>William paused.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster did not yet know what she was doing; her words
+  spoke themselves.</p>
+
+  <p>"William, Matilda has&mdash;has just confessed your
+  engagement. She has also confessed how, during my&mdash;my
+  absence&mdash;one night, after driving with you, she&mdash;she
+  lost control of herself and seriously offended you. She asks me
+  to apologize to you and tell you how very, very sorry she
+  is."</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed, I am, William!" put in Matilda fervently.</p>
+
+  <p>"It is my wish, William," continued Mrs. De Peyster, "that you
+  should forgive her&mdash;and make up things between you&mdash;and
+  never speak of that incident again&mdash;and be happy and stay
+  with me forever."</p>
+
+  <p>Matilda timidly slipped an arm through William's.</p>
+
+  <p>"Forgive me, William!" said she appealingly.</p>
+
+  <p>William's graven face exhibited a strange phenomenon&mdash;it
+  twitched slightly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, Mrs. De Peyster," said he. And bowing
+  respectfully, with Matilda upon his arm, he went out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Mary, I guess we'd better be going, too," said Jack,
+  taking his wife's hand. "Mother,"&mdash;respectfully, yet a
+  little defiantly,&mdash;"I'm sorry <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> that Mary and I have
+  by our trespassing caused you so much inconvenience. But Mary and
+  I and our things will be out of the house within an hour.
+  Good-bye."</p>
+
+  <p>"Wait, Jack!" Mrs. De Peyster reached up a trembling hand and
+  caught his sleeve. "Olivetta," said she, "perhaps you and
+  your&mdash;your fianc&amp;#233; could find&mdash;another place
+  for your confidences."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" exclaimed Olivetta, starting up with a flush.</p>
+
+  <p>"Cousin Caroline, do you mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster lifted an interrupting hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Do as you like, but tell me about it later."</p>
+
+  <p>As the pair went out, Mrs. De Peyster slowly raised herself up
+  and stood gazing for a moment at her son. And that strange new
+  force which had menaced her with eruption during all the days of
+  her hiding, and which these last few minutes had been pulsing
+  upward toward orgasm, was now become resistless. It was as though
+  a crust, a shell, were being burst and being violently shed. She
+  thrilled with an amazing, undreamed-of, expanding warmth.</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you really&mdash;want to&mdash;leave me, Jack?" she
+  whispered.</p>
+
+  <p>"I have been invited to leave," said he, "but I have never
+  been invited to come back."</p>
+
+  <p>With a timidity, shot through with tingling daring, she
+  slipped an arm about his shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then I invite you," she said tremulously. "Won't you stay,
+  Jack?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id=
+  "page279"></a>[pg 279]</span>
+
+  <p>"And Mary?" said he.</p>
+
+  <p>She looked about at her dark-eyed daughter-in-law.</p>
+
+  <p>"If Mary will stay, too, I'll&mdash;I'll try not to act like
+  my petrified family tree."</p>
+
+  <p>"What! Was that you that day?" gasped the horrified Mary.</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. De Peyster slipped her other arm about Mary, and daringly
+  she kissed Mary's fresh young cheek, and she drew the two
+  tightly, almost convulsively, to her. "Mother!" cried Jack; and
+  the next instant the two pairs of arms were about her. And thus
+  they stood for several moments; until&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline," broke in the unsteady but determined voice of
+  Judge Harvey, "I told you I was going to propose to you again.
+  And I'm going to do it right now. Please consider yourself
+  proposed to."</p>
+
+  <p>She looked up&mdash;shamefaced, flushing.</p>
+
+  <p>"What, after the foolish woman I've&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"If you were ever foolish, you were never less a fool than
+  now!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know about that," she quavered, "but anyhow I want
+  you to straighten out my affairs&mdash;and&mdash;and Allistair,
+  for all I care, can have&mdash;can have&mdash;for I'm all
+  through&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Caroline!"</p>
+
+  <p>The next moment Judge Harvey's arms had usurped complete
+  possession of her. And she wilted away upon his shoulder, and
+  sobbed there. And thus for several moments....</p>
+
+  <p>They were aroused by a polite cough. Both <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 280]</span>
+  looked up. Halfway to the door stood Mr. Pyecroft; and beside him
+  was Miss Gardner, gazing at him, tremulously bewildered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me," said he, in his grave manner; nothing was ever
+  seen less suggestive of having ever smiled than his
+  face&mdash;"pardon me, Judge Harvey, but I believe you failed to
+  mention at what time your office opens."</p>
+
+  <p>"What time my office opens?" Judge Harvey repeated blankly.
+  "Why?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Naturally," said Mr. Pyecroft, "I wish to know at what hour I
+  am supposed to report for work."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well&mdash;Well&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>But for a moment Judge Harvey could get out no more. He just
+  stared.</p>
+
+  <p>Then in a voice of dryest sarcasm: "Would you consider it
+  impudent on my part&mdash;I wouldn't be impudent for the world,
+  you know&mdash;to inquire what might be your real name? I have
+  heard you variously called Mr. Simpson, Mr. Preston, Mr.
+  Pyecroft. Perhaps you have a few other <i>aliases</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>"I have had&mdash;yes. My real name is Eliot Endicott
+  Bradford. That name has the advantage of never having appeared in
+  any complaint or police report. For that matter, I may add that
+  under none of my names have I ever been arrested. Eliot Bradford
+  is a man against whom no legal fault can be found."</p>
+
+  <p>"A testimonial from you," exclaimed the Judge&mdash;"what
+  could possibly be better!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page281" id="page281"></a>[pg 281]</span>
+
+  <p>"But the hour?" gently insisted the other.</p>
+
+  <p>Judge Harvey stared; his eyes narrowed. Then,
+  suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Nine-thirty," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bradford; and slipped a hand
+  through Miss Gardner's arm.</p>
+
+  <p>But before he could turn to go, Mrs. De Peyster, from over the
+  shoulder against which she leaned&mdash;Mrs. De Peyster, she
+  couldn't help it ... smiled at him.</p>
+
+  <p>And, suddenly, Judge Harvey&mdash;he couldn't help it, either
+  ... was smiling, too.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, No. 13 Washington Square, by Leroy Scott
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: No. 13 Washington Square
+
+Author: Leroy Scott
+
+Release Date: October 24, 2004  [eBook #13844]
+[Date last updated: February 27, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Alison Hadwin, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 13844-h.htm or 13844-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/4/13844/13844-h/13844-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/8/4/13844/13844-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
+
+by
+
+LEROY SCOTT
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+      I. THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
+
+     II. ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+    III. MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE
+
+     IV. A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT
+
+      V. THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+     VI. BEHIND THE BLINDS
+
+    VII. NOT IN THE PLAN
+
+   VIII. THE HONEYMOONERS
+
+     IX. THE FLIGHT
+
+      X. PEACE--OF A SORT
+
+     XI. THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
+
+    XII. HOME AGAIN
+
+   XIII. THE HAPPY FAMILY
+
+    XIV. THE ATTIC ROOM
+
+     XV. DOMESTIC SCENES
+
+    XVI. THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR
+
+   XVII. A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
+
+  XVIII. THE THIRD FLIGHT
+
+    XIX. A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
+
+     XX. MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY
+
+    XXI. THE VEILED LADY
+
+   XXII. A FAMILY REUNION
+
+  XXIII. MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  "I NEVER SUSPECTED I'D END IN SUCH A LITTLE BLAZE"
+
+  "WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"
+
+  "IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"
+
+  MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR
+
+  "SAME PAPER--SAME HANDWRITING!"
+
+  "SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"
+
+
+
+
+NO. 13 WASHINGTON SQUARE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE GREAT MRS. DE PEYSTER
+
+
+It was a raw, ill-humored afternoon, yet too late in the spring for
+the ministration of steam heat, so the unseasonable May chill was
+banished from Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room by a wood fire that
+crackled in the grate; crackled most decorously, be it added, for
+Mrs. De Peyster's fire would no more have forgotten itself and shown
+a boisterous enthusiasm than would one of her admirably trained
+servants. Beside a small steel safe, whose outer shell of exquisite
+cabinet-work transformed that fortress against burglarious desire into
+an article of furniture that harmonized with the comfortable elegance
+of a lady's boudoir, sat Mrs. De Peyster herself--she was born a De
+Peyster--carefully transferring her jewels from the trays of the safe
+to leathern cases. She looked quite as Mrs. De Peyster should have
+looked: with an aura of high dignity that a sixty-year-old dowager of
+the first water could not surpass, yet with a freshness of person that
+(had it not been for her dignity) might have made her early forties
+seem a blossomy thirty-five.
+
+Before the well-bred fire sat a lady whose tears had long since
+dried that she had shed when she had bid good-bye to thirty. She
+was--begging the lady's pardon--a trifle spare, and a trifle pale,
+and though in a manner well enough dressed her clothes had an air
+of bewilderment, of general irresolution, as though each article was
+uncertain in its mind as to whether it purposed to remain where it had
+been put, or casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures.
+
+A dozen years before, Mrs. De Peyster, then in the fifth year of her
+widowhood, had graciously undertaken to manage and underwrite the
+debut of her second cousin (not of the main line, be it said) and had
+tried to discharge her duty in the important matter of securing her
+a husband. But her efforts had been futile, and to say that Mrs. De
+Peyster had not succeeded was to admit that poor Olivetta Harmon
+was indeed a failure. She had lacked the fortune to attract the
+conservative investor who is looking for a sound business proposition
+in her he promises to support; she had lacked the good looks to lure
+on the lover who throws himself romantically away upon a penniless
+pretty face; and she had not been clever enough to attract the man
+so irrationally bold as to set sail upon the sea of matrimony with a
+woman of brains. And so, her brief summer at an end, she had receded
+to those remote and undiscovered shores on which dwell the poor
+relations of the Four Hundred; whereon she had lived respectably, as
+a lady (for that she should ever appear a lady was due the position
+of Mrs. De Peyster), upon an almost microscopic income; and from which
+bleak and distant land of second-cousindom she came in glad and
+proud obedience to fill an occasional vacant place at one of Mrs. De
+Peyster's second-best dinner parties.
+
+She had arrived but the moment before to bid her exalted cousin adieu
+and wish her _bon-voyage_, and was now silently gazing in unenvious
+admiration at the jewels Mrs. De Peyster was transferring to their
+traveling-cases--with never a guess that perturbation might exist
+beneath her kinswoman's composed exterior. As a matter of fact, under
+the trying circumstances which confronted Mrs. De Peyster, any other
+household would have been in confusion, any lesser woman might have
+been headed toward hysteria. But centuries of having had its own will
+had established the De Peyster habit of believing that things would
+eventuate according to the De Peyster wish; it was not in the De
+Peyster blood to give way. And yet, though self-control might restrain
+worry from the surface, it could not banish it from the private
+chambers of her being.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster glanced at the open door of her
+bedroom--hesitated--then called: "Miss Gardner!"
+
+A trim and pretty girl stepped in. "Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Will you please call up Judge Harvey's office once more, and inquire
+if there is any news about my son. And ask when Judge Harvey will be
+here."
+
+Miss Gardner crossed to Mrs. De Peyster's desk and took up the
+telephone.
+
+"Why, Cousin Caroline, has Jack--"
+
+"One moment, Olivetta,"--motioning toward the telephone,--"until Miss
+Gardner is through."
+
+They sat silent until the receiver was hung up. Mrs. De Peyster strove
+to keep anxiety from her voice.
+
+"Well, Miss Gardner,--any trace of my son yet?"
+
+"They have learned nothing whatever."
+
+"And--and Judge Harvey? When will he be here?"
+
+"His office said he was at a meeting of the directors of the New York
+and New England Railroad, and that he was coming here straight after
+the meeting."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Gardner. You may now go on with the packing. I'll
+have the jewels ready very shortly, and Matilda will be in to help you
+as soon as she is through arranging with the servants."
+
+"Why, Cousin Caroline, what is it about Jack?" burst out Olivetta with
+an excited flutter after Miss Gardner had gone into the bedroom. "I
+hadn't heard anything of it before! Has--has anything happened to
+him?"
+
+Olivetta, an intimate, a relative, and a worshipful inferior, was one
+of the few persons with whom Mrs. De Peyster could bring herself to
+unbend and be confidential. "That is what I do not know. About a week
+ago Jack suddenly disappeared--"
+
+"Disappeared!"
+
+"Oh, he left a note, telling me not to worry. But not a word has been
+heard from him since. Of course, it may only be some wild escapade,
+but then he knew we were going on shipboard this evening, and he
+should have been home long before this."
+
+"How terrible!" cried the sympathetic Olivetta, pushing into place a
+few of the inconstant hairpins that threatened to bestrew the floor.
+"Went a week ago!" And then suddenly: "Why, that was about the time
+that first rumor was printed of his engagement to Ethel Quintard. And
+again this morning--in the 'Record'--did you see it?"
+
+"I never give thought to the newspapers," was Mrs. De Peyster's
+somewhat stiff response.
+
+"You have--have told the police?"
+
+"The police, of course not! But I have advised with Judge Harvey, and
+he has a firm of private detectives on the case."
+
+"And they have clues?"
+
+"They have nothing, as you just heard Miss Gardner report."
+
+"Cousin Caroline! With all these--these thugs and hold-up men we read
+about--and all the accidents--"
+
+"Olivetta! Don't!" And then in a more composed voice: "I am hoping it
+is merely some boyish prank. But even that will be bad enough, if he
+misses the boat."
+
+"Yes, I see. You told me about arranging with Mrs. Quintard also to
+sail on the Plutonia."
+
+"I had counted on the trip--Jack and Ethel being thrown together, you
+know."
+
+"Indeed, it was very clever of you!"
+
+"I am hoping it may be only some boyish prank," Mrs. De Peyster
+repeated. "You may not have noticed it, Olivetta," she continued,
+permitting a sigh to escape her, "but of late Jack has acted at
+times--well, rather queerly."
+
+"Queerly! How?"
+
+"He has been far from being himself. In fact, I have observed a number
+of things not at all natural to a De Peyster."
+
+"Caroline! What a worry he must be to you!"
+
+"Yes. But I am hoping for the best. And now, please, we will say no
+more about it."
+
+They were silent for a moment. Miss Gardner entered, took the jewels
+which in the mean time Mrs. De Peyster had finished putting in their
+cases, and went again into the bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her.
+
+"You are still pleased with Miss Gardner?"
+
+"Thus far she has proved herself competent. I consider myself very
+fortunate in finding a secretary who is not above some of the duties
+of a lady's maid. It is a very happy combination for traveling."
+
+"She seems almost too good to be true," mused Olivetta. "She's really
+very pretty. I hope Jack hasn't--"
+
+"Olivetta! How can you! Jack has never paid her the slightest
+attention, nor she him."
+
+"Pardon me, Caroline! But she's so pretty, and she's just the sort of
+girl who attracts men--and--and"--a bit wistfully--"gets engaged and
+gets married."
+
+"Nonsense, Olivetta. When she first came to me I asked her if she were
+in love or engaged. She said she was not, and I told her my rules. She
+is a very sensible girl."
+
+"At any rate, she must be a great relief after that Marie you had."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster flushed, as though at some disagreeable memory.
+
+"Have you learned yet whether Marie was actually a spy for Mrs.
+Allistair?" inquired Olivetta.
+
+"She confessed that she was getting money besides the wages I paid
+her. That is proof enough."
+
+"I believe it of Mrs. Allistair! She wouldn't stop at anything to win
+your place as social leader. But she could never fill it!"
+
+"She will never win it!" Mrs. De Peyster returned with calm
+confidence.
+
+At that moment the door from the hallway opened and there entered a
+woman of middle age, in respectable dull-hued black, with apron of
+black silk and a white cap.
+
+"Ah, Matilda," remarked Mrs. De Peyster. "The servants, are they all
+gone yet?"
+
+"The last one, the cook, is just going, ma'am. There's just William
+and me left. And the men have already come to board up the windows and
+the door."
+
+"You paid the servants board wages as I instructed, and made clear to
+them about coming to Newport when I send orders?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. And they all understand."
+
+"Good," said Mrs. De Peyster. "You have Mr. Jack's trunks packed?"
+
+"All except a few things he may want to put in himself."
+
+"Very well. You may now continue helping Miss Gardner with my things."
+
+But Matilda did not obey. She trembled--blinked her eyes--choked; then
+stammered:--
+
+"Please, ma'am, there's--there's something else."
+
+"Something else?" queried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. Downstairs there are six or seven young men from the
+newspapers. They want--"
+
+"Matilda," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster in stern reproof, "you are well
+enough acquainted with my invariable custom regarding reporters to
+have acted without referring this matter to me. It is a distinct
+annoyance," she added, "that one cannot make a single move without the
+newspapers following one!"
+
+"Indeed it is!" echoed the worshipful and indignant Olivetta. "But
+that is because of your position."
+
+"I tried to send them away," said Matilda hurriedly. "And I told them
+you were never interviewed. But," she ended helplessly, "it didn't do
+any good. They're all sitting downstairs waiting."
+
+"I shall not see them," Mrs. De Peyster declared firmly.
+
+"There was one," Matilda added timorously, "who drew me aside and
+whispered that he didn't want an interview. He wants your picture."
+
+"Wants my picture!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. He said the pictorial supplement of his paper a week from
+Sunday was going to have a page of pictures of prominent society women
+who were sailing for Europe. He said something about calling the page
+'Annual Exodus of Social Leaders.' He wants to print that painting of
+you by that new foreign artist in the center of the page." And Matilda
+pointed above the fireplace to a gold-framed likeness of Mrs.
+De Peyster--stately, aloof, remote, of an ineffable composure, a
+masterpiece of blue-bloodedness.
+
+"You know my invariable custom; give him my invariable answer," was
+Mrs. De Peyster's crisp response.
+
+"Pardon me, but--but, Cousin Caroline," put in Olivetta, with eager
+diffidence, "don't you think this is different?"
+
+"Different?" asked Mrs. De Peyster. "How?"
+
+"This isn't at all like the ordinary offensive newspaper thing. A
+group of the most prominent social leaders, with you in the center of
+the page--with you in the center of them all, where you belong! Why,
+Caroline,--why--why--" In her excitement for the just glorification of
+her cousin, Olivetta's power of speech went fluttering from her.
+
+"Perhaps it may not be quite the same," admitted Mrs. De Peyster. "But
+I see no reason for departing from my custom."
+
+"If not for your own sake, then--then for the artist's sake!" Olivetta
+pursued, a little more eagerly, and a little more of diffidence in
+her eagerness. "You have taken up M. Dubois--you have been his
+most distinguished patron--you have been trying to get him properly
+started. To have his picture displayed like that, think how it will
+help M. Dubois!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned
+the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered
+an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a
+struggling fellow being that dictated her decision.
+
+"Matilda, you may give the man a photograph of the picture. And as I
+treat the papers without discrimination, you may give photographs
+to all the reporters who wish them. But on the understanding that M.
+Dubois is to have conspicuous credit."
+
+"Very well, ma'am."
+
+"And send all of them away."
+
+"I'll do what I can, ma'am." And Matilda went out.
+
+"What time does the Plutonia sail?" inquired Olivetta, with the haste
+of one who is trying to get off of very thin ice.
+
+"At one to-night. Matilda will get me a bit of dinner and I shall go
+aboard right after it."
+
+"How many times does this make that you've been over?"
+
+"I do not know," Mrs. De Peyster answered carelessly. "Thirty or
+forty, I dare say."
+
+Olivetta's face was wistful with unenvious envy. "Oh, what a
+pleasure!"
+
+"Going to Europe, Olivetta, is hardly a pleasure," corrected Mrs. De
+Peyster. "It is a duty one owes one's social position."
+
+"Yes, I know that's true with you, Cousin Caroline. But with me--what
+a joy! When you took me over with you that summer, we only did the
+watering-places. But now"--a note of ecstatic desire came into
+her voice, and she clasped her hands--"but now, to see Paris!--the
+Louvre!--the Luxembourg! It's the dream of my life!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster again gave her cousin a suspicious look.
+
+"Olivetta, have you been allowing M. Dubois to pay you any more
+attention?"
+
+"No, no,--of course not," cried Olivetta, and a sudden color tinted
+the too-early autumn of her cheeks. "Do you think, after what you
+said--"
+
+"M. Dubois is a very good artist, but--"
+
+"I understand, Cousin Caroline," Olivetta put in hastily. "I think
+too much of your position to think of such a thing. Since you--since
+then--I have not spoken to him, and have only bowed to him once."
+
+"We will say no more about it," returned Mrs. De Peyster; and she
+kissed Olivetta with her duchess-like kindness. "By the by, my dear,
+your comb is on the floor."
+
+"So it is. It's always falling out."
+
+Olivetta picked it up, put it into place, and with nervous hands tried
+to press into order loose-flying locks of her rather scanty hair.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster arose; her worry about her missing son prompted her
+to seek the relief of movement. "I think I shall take a turn about the
+house to see that everything is being properly closed. Would you like
+to come with me?"
+
+Olivetta would; and, talking, they went together down the stairs.
+As they neared the ground floor, Matilda's voice arose to them,
+expostulating, protesting.
+
+"What can that be about?" wondered Mrs. De Peyster, and following the
+voice toward its source she stepped into her reception-room. Instantly
+there sprang up and stood before her a young man with the bland,
+smiling, excessively polite manner of a gentleman-brigand. And around
+her crowded five or six other figures.
+
+Matilda, pressing through them, glared at these invaders in helpless
+wrath, then at her mistress in guilty terror.
+
+"I--I did my best, ma'am. But they wouldn't go." And before punishment
+could fall she discreetly fled.
+
+"Pardon this seeming intrusion, Mrs. De Peyster," the foremost young
+man said rapidly, smoothly, appeasingly. "But we could not go, as
+you requested. The sailing of Mrs. De Peyster, under the attendant
+circumstances, is a piece of news of first importance; in fact, almost
+a national event. We simply had to see you. I trust you perceive and
+appreciate our professional predicament."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was glaring at him with devastating majesty.
+
+"This--this is an outrage!"
+
+"Perhaps it may seem an outrage to you," said the young man swiftly,
+politely, and thoroughly undevastated. "But, really, it is only our
+duty. Our duty to our papers, and to the great reading public. And
+when newspaper men are doing their duty they must necessarily fail,
+to their great personal regret, in the observance of some of the nicer
+courtesies."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was almost inarticulate.
+
+"Who--who are you?"
+
+"Mayfair is my name. Of the 'Record.'"
+
+"The 'Record'! That yellow, radical paper!"
+
+Mr. Mayfair stepped nearer. His voice sank to an easy, confidential
+tone.
+
+"You are misled by appearances, Mrs. De Peyster. Every paper has got
+to have a policy; we're the common people's paper--big circulation,
+you know; and we so denounce the rich on our editorial page. But as
+a matter of fact we give our readers more live, entertaining, and
+respectful matter about society people than any other paper in New
+York. It's just what the common people love. And now"--easily shifting
+his base--"about this reported engagement of your son and Miss
+Quintard. As you know, it's the best 'romance in high life' story of
+the season. Will you either confirm or deny the report?"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say," flamed out Mrs. De Peyster. "And
+will you leave this house instantly!"
+
+"Ah, Miss Quintard's mother would not deny it either," commented Mr.
+Mayfair with his polite imperturbability. His sharp eyes glinted with
+satisfaction. Young Mr. Mayfair admired himself as being something of
+the human dynamo. Also it was his private opinion that he was of the
+order of the super-reporter; nothing ever "got by him." "And so,"
+he went on without a pause, "since the engagement is not denied,
+I suppose we may take it as a fact. And now"--again with his swift
+change of base--"may I ask, as a parting word before you sail, whether
+it is your intention next season to contest with Mrs. Allistair--"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say!"
+
+"Quite naturally you'd prefer not to say anything," appeasingly
+continued the high-geared Mr. Mayfair, "but of course you are going
+to fight her." Again his sharp, unfoilable eyes glinted. "'Duel for
+social leadership'--pardon me for speaking of it as such, but that's
+what it is; and most interesting, I assure you; and I, for one,
+trust that you will retain your supremacy, for I know--_I know_," he
+repeated with emphasis--"that Mrs. Allistair has used some methods not
+altogether--sportsmanlike, may I say? And now"--rapidly shifting once
+more--"I trust I will not seem indelicate if I inquire whether it is
+in the scope of your present plans, perhaps at house-parties at the
+estates of titled friends, to meet the Duke de--"
+
+"I have nothing whatever to say!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, glaring with
+consuming fury.
+
+"Naturally. We could hardly expect a categorical 'yes' or 'no.' We
+understand that your position requires you to be non-committal; and
+you, of course, understand that we newspaper men interpret a refusal
+to speak as an answer in the affirmative. Thank you very much for the
+interview you have given us. And I can assure you that we shall all
+handle the story with the utmost good taste. Good afternoon."
+
+He bowed. And the next moment the place where he had stood was vacant.
+
+"Of--of all the effrontery!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Isn't it terrible!" shudderingly gasped the sympathetic Olivetta. "I
+hope they won't really drag in that horrible Duke de Crecy!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shuddered, too. The episode of the Duke de Crecy was
+still salt in an unhealed social wound. The Duke had been New York's
+most distinguished titled visitor the previous winter; Mrs. De
+Peyster, to the general envy, had led in his entertainment; there
+had been whispers of another international marriage. And then, after
+respectful adieus, the Duke had sailed away--and within a month
+the papers were giving columns to his scandalous escapades with a
+sensational Spanish dancer of parsimonious drapery. Whereupon the
+rumors of Mrs. De Peyster's previously gossiped-of marriage with the
+now notorious Duke were revived--by the subtle instigation, and as an
+act of social warfare, so Mrs. De Peyster believed, of her aspiring
+rival, Mrs. Allistair. And there was one faint rumor, still daringly
+breathed around, that the Duke had proposed--had been accepted--had
+run away: in blunt terms, had jilted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"We will not speak of this again, Olivetta," Mrs. De Peyster remarked
+with returning dignity, "but while the matter is up, I will mention
+that the Duke did propose to me, and that I refused him."
+
+With a gesture she silenced any comment from Olivetta. In a breath or
+two she was entirely her usual poiseful self. Too many generations
+had her blood been trained to ways of dignity, and too long had she
+herself been drilled in composure and self-esteem and in a perfect
+confidence in the thing that she was, for an invasion of newspaper
+creatures to disturb her for longer than a few moments.
+
+She was moving with stately tread toward the dining-room when Matilda
+came hurrying up from the nether regions of the house. "Did you know,
+ma'am," Matilda fluttered eagerly, "that Mr. Jack is home?"
+
+"My son back!" There was vast relief in Mrs. De Peyster's voice. "When
+did he come?"
+
+"A few minutes ago."
+
+"Did--did he say anything?"
+
+"I haven't seen him, ma'am. He came in the back way, through the
+stable. William told me about it."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's voice became composed, severe. "I shall see what he
+has to say for himself." Majestically, somewhat ominously, she turned
+and began to mount the stairs, followed by Olivetta and Matilda. But
+as she passed the library's closed door, she heard Miss Gardner's
+voice and a second voice--and the second voice was the voice of a man.
+
+Startled, she paused. She caught a few fragments of phrases.
+Indignation surged up within her. Resolutely she stepped to the door;
+but by instinct she was no eavesdropper, and she would not come upon
+people in compromising attitudes without giving them fair warning. So
+she knocked, waited a moment--then opened the door and entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+Half an hour earlier, across in Washington Square, a young gentleman
+was sauntering about taking the crisp May air. He was fashionably but
+quietly dressed, and in his chamois-gloved hand he swung a jaunty wand
+of a cane; a slender, lithe young gentleman, with a keen face that
+had an oddly wide but yet attractive mouth: a young man emanating an
+essence of lightness both of body and of spirit. He might have been
+the very person of agreeable, irresponsible Spring, if Spring is ever
+of the male gender, out for a promenade.
+
+It seemed most casual, the saunter of this pleasant idler; the keenest
+observer would never have guessed purpose in his stroll. But never
+for longer than an instant were the frank gray eyes of this young
+gentleman away from the splendid stone steps, with their carved
+balustrade, and the fine old doorway of Mrs. De Peyster's house at No.
+13 Washington Square.
+
+Presently he noted three men turn up Mrs. De Peyster's steps. Swiftly,
+but without noticeable haste, he was across the street. The trio had
+no more than touched the bell when he was beside them.
+
+"What papers are you boys with?" he inquired easily, merging himself
+at once with the party.
+
+One man told him--and looked him up and down. "Thought I knew all the
+fellows," added the speaker, a middle-aged man, "but never ran into
+you before. What's your rag?"
+
+"'Town Gossip,'" replied the agreeable young gentleman.
+
+"'Town Gossip'!" The old reporter gave a grunt of contempt. "And
+you've come to interview Mrs. De Peyster?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"First time I ever knew that leprous scandal-scavenger and
+black-hander to send a man out in the open to get a story." Evidently
+the old reporter, whom the others addressed as "colonel," had by his
+long service acquired the privilege of surly out-spokenness. "Thought
+'Town Gossip' specialized in butlers and ladies' maids and such--or
+faked up its dope in the office."
+
+"This is something special." The young gentleman's smiling but
+unpresuming _camaraderie_ seemed unruffled by the colonel's blunt
+contempt, and though they all drew apart from him he seemed to be
+untroubled by his journalistic ostracism.
+
+The next moment the door was opened by a stout, short-breathed
+woman, hat, jacket, and black gloves on. All stepped in. The three
+late-arriving reporters, seeing in the reception-room beyond a group
+of newspapermen about a servant,--Matilda making her first futile
+effort to rid the house of this pestilential horde, generaled by Mr.
+Mayfair,--started quickly toward the members of their fraternity. But
+the young gentleman remained behind with their stout admitter.
+
+"Huh--thought that was really your size--tackling a servant!"
+commented the caustic colonel.
+
+But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply; and the
+three disappeared into the reception-room. The young gentleman,
+very politely, half pushed, half followed the stout woman out of the
+reception-room's range of vision.
+
+"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant
+matter-of-factness.
+
+"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the basement door. When I heard the
+ring, I just happened--"
+
+"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost all the
+regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say," smiling engagingly,
+"that you might be the cook, and a mighty good cook, too."
+
+He had such an "air," did this young man,--the human air of the real
+gentleman,--that, despite the unexpectedness of his overture, the
+stout woman, instead of taking offense, flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."
+
+"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.
+
+"Eighty," corrected the cook.
+
+"That's mighty good--twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs. Cook,"--again
+with his open, engaging smile,--"pardon me for not knowing your proper
+name,--could I induce you to enter my employment--at, say, twenty
+dollars a minute?"
+
+"What--what--"
+
+"For only a limited period," continued the young gentleman--"to
+be exact, say one minute. Light work," he added with a certain
+whimsicality, "short hours, seven days out--unusual opportunity."
+
+"But what--what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before she could
+gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two ten-dollar
+bills.
+
+"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner--alone. It's all right. She and I
+are old friends."
+
+"But--but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all
+non-intrigantes.
+
+"Isn't there some room where nobody will come in?"
+
+"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at a door.
+
+"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will know we're
+meeting."
+
+"But, sir, I don't see how--"
+
+"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want to bid
+Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in there with
+the reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to speak to her and
+will be waiting in the library. When you've said that, you've earned
+the money. Then just watch your chance until the somber lady isn't
+looking, and continue with your original plan of leaving the house."
+
+"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture in
+which there was no hesitation she slipped her minute's pay between the
+buttons of her waist.
+
+The young gentleman went lightly and swiftly up the stairs and through
+the mahogany door that had been pointed out to him. Curiously he
+looked about the spacious, dark-toned room of splendid dignity. He had
+the ease of the man to whom the world is home, and seemed not one
+whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur of the great chamber. With a
+watchful eye on the door, he glanced at the rows and rows of volumes:
+well-bred authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary
+"old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with
+a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing--and this he
+did absently, as one might do from habit--he tried the knob of a big
+safe, but it was locked.
+
+The next moment there was a sound at the door. Instantly he was out
+of sight behind the brown velvet hangings of a recessed French window.
+Miss Gardner entered, saw upon the embarrassed edges of none of the
+shrouded chairs a plump and short-breathed Susan. Surprised, she was
+turning to leave when a cautious but clear whisper floated across the
+room.
+
+"Clara!"
+
+She whirled about. At sight of the young gentleman, who had stepped
+forth, she went pale, then red, then pale again.
+
+"Eliot--Mr. Bradford!" she exclaimed. Then in a husky frightened
+whisper: "How did you get in here?"
+
+He sought to take one of her hands, but she put both behind her back.
+At this repulse the young gentleman winced, then smiled gravely, then
+pleasantly,--and then with a whimsical upward twist to his wide mouth.
+
+"Via the cook," he answered, and told her the rest.
+
+"Did any one else belonging to the house see you?"
+
+"Besides you and my excellent old friend, the cook, no one."
+
+"But don't you realize that this house is one of the most dangerous
+places in the world for you?" she cried in a low voice. "Why, Judge
+Harvey himself is expected here any minute!"
+
+"Judge Harvey!" The equable young man gave a start. But the next
+moment his poise came back.
+
+"And after what I saw only to-day in the papers about Thomas
+Preston--! Don't you know you are this moment standing on a volcano?"
+
+"Yes--but what of it?" he answered cheerfully. "It's the most
+diverting indoor or outdoor sport I've ever indulged in--dodging
+eruptions. Besides, in standing on this volcano I have the advantage
+of also standing near you."
+
+"Didn't I tell you I never wanted to see you again!" she flamed at
+him. "How dared you come here?"
+
+"I had to come, dear." His voice was pleading, yet imperturbably
+pleasant. "You refused to answer the letters I wrote you begging you
+to meet me somewhere to talk things over. I read that Mrs. De Peyster
+was sailing to-night, and I knew that you were sailing with her.
+Surely you understand, before she went, I had to see my wife."
+
+"I refuse to recognize myself as such!" cried Miss Gardner.
+
+"But, my dear, you married--"
+
+"Yes, after knowing you just two days! Oh, you can be charming and
+plausible, but that shows just how foolish a girl can be when she's a
+bit tired and lonesome, and then gets a bit of a holiday."
+
+"But, Clara, you really liked me!"
+
+"That was because I didn't know who you were and what you were!"
+
+"But, Clara," he went on easily--he could not help talking easily,
+though his tone had the true ring of sincerity. There seemed to be no
+bit of agressive self-assurance about this young gentleman; he seemed
+to be just quietly, pleasantly, whimsically, unsubduably his natural
+self. "But, Clara, you must remember that it was as sudden with me as
+with you. I hardly thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank,
+I was afraid if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step a
+bit, that's a fact."
+
+"You admit this, and yet you expect me to accept as my husband a man
+who admits he is a crook!"
+
+"My dear Clara," he protested gently, "I never admitted I was such an
+undraped, uneuphonious, square-cornered word as that."
+
+"Well, if a forger isn't a crook, then who is? The business of those
+forged letters of Thomas Jefferson, do you think I can stand for
+that?"
+
+The young man was in earnest, deadly earnest; yet he could not help
+his wide mouth tilting slightly upward to the right. Plainly there was
+something here that amused him.
+
+"But, Clara, you don't seem to understand that business--and you don't
+seem to understand me."
+
+"No, I must say I don't!" she said caustically.
+
+"Well, perhaps I can't blame you," he admitted soothingly, "for I
+don't always understand myself. But really, my dear, you're not seeing
+this in the right light. Oh, I'm not going to defend myself. It's sad,
+very sad, but I'll confess I'm no chromo of sweet and haloed rectitude
+to be held up for the encouragement and beatification of young John D.
+Rockefeller's Bible Class. Still, I get my living quite as worthily as
+many of the guests who grace"--with a light wave of his hand about
+the great chamber--"this noble habitation. Though," in a grieved tone,
+"I'll confess some of my methods are not yet adequately recognized and
+protected by law."
+
+"Won't you ever take anything seriously?" she cried in exasperation.
+
+"Besides yourself, what is there to take seriously?"
+
+"Don't consider me in your calculations, if you please!" And then with
+sudden suspicion: "See here--you're not here to try any of your tricks
+on this house, or on Mrs. De Peyster!"
+
+"I was thinking," said he, smiling about the room, "that you might
+hide me here till the police become infatuated with some other party.
+A fashionable house closed for the summer--nothing could possibly be
+superior for my purposes."
+
+"I'd never do it! Besides, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper will be
+here."
+
+"But Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper would never know I was here."
+
+"I can't stand your talk another minute," she burst out. "Go!"
+
+He did not stir; continued to smile at her pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not
+really asking the favor, Clara. I'm pretty safe where I'm staying."
+
+"Go, I say! And if you don't care for your own danger, then at least
+consider mine."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"I've told you of Mrs. De Peyster's attitude toward married--"
+
+"Then leave her, my dear. Even though it wouldn't be safe for you to
+be with me till the police resume their interrupted nap--still, you
+can have your own flat and your own bank account. Nothing would make
+me happier."
+
+"Understand this, Mr. Bradford,--I'm going to have nothing to do with
+you!"
+
+For a moment he sobered. "Come, Clara: give me a chance to make
+good--"
+
+"Will you turn straight?" she caught him up sharply. "And will you fix
+up the affair of the Jefferson letters?"
+
+"That last is a pretty stiff proposition; I don't see how it's to
+be done. As to the first--but, really, Clara,"--smiling again
+appeasingly,--"really, you take this thing altogether too seriously."
+
+"Too seriously!" She almost choked. "Why--why--I'm through with you!
+That's final! And I don't dare stay here another minute! Good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Clara." He caught her hand as she turned to go, and spoke
+rapidly. "I don't think I'm so bad as you think I am--honest. You may
+change your mind; I hope you do, dear; and if you do, write me, 'phone
+me, telegraph me, cable me, wireless me. But, of course, not to me
+direct; the police, you know. Address me in care of the Reverend
+Mr. Pyecroft." Tense though the moment was to him, the young man
+could not restrain his odd whimsical smile. "The Reverend Mr.
+Pyecroft has taken an interest in me; like you he is trying to make
+me a better man. He'll see that I get your message. Herbert E.
+Pyecroft--P-y-e-c-r-o-f-t--remember his name. Here's a card of
+the boarding-house at which he is staying." He thrust the bit of
+pasteboard into her free hand. "Remember, dear, I really am your
+husband."
+
+With an outraged gesture she flung the card to the floor. "There'll be
+no message!" Her voice was raised; she trembled in fierce humiliation,
+and in scorn of him. "You ... my husband!"
+
+"Yes, your husband!" he said firmly. "And I'm going to make you love
+me!"
+
+It was at just this moment that Mrs. De Peyster, ascending from her
+scene with the reporters, was passing without, and it was these last
+words that she overheard. And it was at just this moment that her
+knock sounded upon the door.
+
+"Quick, you mustn't be seen here!" breathed Miss Gardner. "The French
+windows there, and out the back way through the stable!"
+
+With a cat's silent swiftness he was at the windows, Miss Gardner
+beside him. But in the back-yard stood William, the coachman, sunning
+himself. That way was closed.
+
+"Into the study," whispered Miss Gardner, pointing at a door, "and
+watch your chance to get out!"
+
+In the same instant the heavy sound-proof mahogany door closed softly
+behind him--leaving Miss Gardner in the middle of the room, with
+heightened color, breathing rapidly. Into the library swept Mrs. De
+Peyster, followed by Olivetta and Matilda.
+
+There was a lofty sternness in Mrs. De Peyster's manner. "Miss
+Gardner, I believe I heard you speaking with a man."
+
+"You did." Miss Gardner was stiff, proudly erect, for she sensed what
+might be coming.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He went out through the window," said Miss Gardner.
+
+"Ah, he did not want me to find out about you. But by chance I
+overheard him say he was your husband."
+
+"He is." Then with an effort: "But husband or no husband, Mrs. De
+Peyster, I believe I would be of equal value--"
+
+"I desire no scene, no argument," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster,
+dignified, not a strident note in her voice--for she never lost
+her self-possession or the true grand manner. "I believe you will
+remember, Miss Gardner, that when you applied for your present
+position two months ago, I told you that I made it a rule to have no
+servants or employees of any kind who were married. As I desired that
+you should understand my reasons, I informed you that I had once had a
+cook and a footman who were married, and who paid so much attention to
+one another that they had time to pay no attention to me. I then asked
+you if you were married. You informed me you were not."
+
+"And I was not, at that time."
+
+"Indeed! Then you have married since. That makes your deception
+all the worse. Remember, Miss Gardner, it was on the distinct
+understanding that you were unmarried that I employed you. I have
+no desire to pass judgment upon you. I try to be fair and just and
+generous with all my employees. If you had been what you declared
+yourself to be, and remained such, you could have stayed with me
+indefinitely. Matilda there came to me as my son's nurse over twenty
+years ago, and has been with me ever since--happy, as she will tell
+you, with no desire to change her state whatever."
+
+"N--no--none--none at all!"
+
+Matilda hastily dropped her eyes. Mechanically her eyes noted the
+rejected card Mr. Bradford had tendered Miss Gardner. Her long habit
+of perfect orderliness, and perhaps the impulse to hide the slight
+confusion that suddenly had seized upon her, prompted her to bend over
+and secure this bit of litter. She glanced at it, would have put it
+in the waste-basket had that receptacle not been across the room, then
+thrust it into the capacious slit-pocket of her black skirt.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster continued in her tone of exact justice: "Miss Gardner,
+you have the perfect right to be married or unmarried. I have the
+perfect right to have the sort of employees I prefer. But since you
+are not what you declared yourself to be, I no longer require your
+service."
+
+Miss Gardner bowed stiffly.
+
+"Matilda, see that Miss Gardner is paid in full to the end of her
+month; and also pay her one month in advance. And telephone about
+until you can find me a maid--do not bother about the secretary part
+of it--a maid who is _not_ married, and who can come at once. That is
+all."
+
+Matilda, still somewhat pale and agitated, started to follow out the
+proud Miss Gardner, who gave a swift glance at the study door--while
+Mrs. De Peyster looked on with her invariable calm majesty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE
+
+
+But at just this moment there was a smart rap at the library door, it
+was partly opened, and a cheery masculine voice called out:--
+
+"May I come in, mother?"
+
+"You, Jack. You may," was the somewhat eager response from Mrs. De
+Peyster.
+
+The door swung entirely open, Miss Gardner stepped out, and there
+entered a young man of twenty-two or three, good-natured confidence
+in his manner, flawlessly dressed, with hands that were swathed in
+bandages. He crossed limpingly to Mrs. De Peyster, who, her affection
+now under control, stood regarding him with reproving and sternly
+questioning eyes.
+
+"Good-morning, mother,--glad to get back," he said, imprinting an
+undaunted kiss upon her stately cheek.
+
+Her reply was a continuance of her reproving look. The young man
+turned to Mrs. De Peyster's faithful satellite.
+
+"Hello, Olivetta. Hands out of commission. You'll have to shake my
+elbow." And he held out his angled arm.
+
+"Good-morning, Jack," responded Olivetta, in trepidation, hardly
+daring to be gracious where Mrs. De Peyster had been cool.
+
+Jack slipped an arm across Matilda's shoulders. "How are you, Matilda?
+Glad to see you again."
+
+"And I'm glad to see you again, Mr. Jack," returned Matilda, with a
+look of stealthy affection.
+
+"Please go, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster crisply. "And now, Jack,"
+she continued with frigid dignity after Matilda had withdrawn, "I
+trust that you will explain your absence, and your long silence."
+
+"Certainly, mother," said Jack, pushing a slip-covered chair
+before the fireplace--for an open wood fire burned here as in her
+sitting-room above--and letting himself down into the chair slowly and
+with extreme care and crossing his legs. "I got a sudden invitation
+from Reggie Atwater to--"
+
+"You know I do not approve of that young scape-grace!"
+
+"I know you don't. I suppose that's one reason I didn't tell you
+beforehand what I was up to."
+
+"What have you been doing?"
+
+"Reggie asked me to go on a long trip to try out his new car. It's
+a hummer. Hundred-and-twenty horse-power--bloody-eyed, fire-spitting
+devil--"
+
+"Such cars are dangerous," severely commented Mrs. De Peyster, who
+still kept to her horses and carriage as better maintaining old-family
+distinction.
+
+"I know. That's another reason I didn't tell you--especially since we
+were planning a thousand-mile lark."
+
+"What's the matter with your hands?" suddenly demanded Mrs. De
+Peyster.
+
+Jack gazed meditatively at the bandaged members.
+
+"You were right about that car being dangerous, mother," said he.
+"I'll confess the whole business. We were whizzing around a corner
+coming into Yonkers this morning when the machine skidded. I did a
+loop-the-loop and lit on my hands. But the skin of my palms--"
+
+"Oh!" shuddered Olivetta.
+
+"Were you much hurt?" asked Mrs. De Peyster, for a moment forgetting
+her reproving manner in her affectionate concern.
+
+"Mother, with your love for old lace, you certainly would like the
+openwork effect of my skin. But--the patient will recover."
+
+"I trust this experience has been a lesson to you!" said Mrs. De
+Peyster with returned severity.
+
+"Oh, it has--a big lesson!" Jack heartily agreed.
+
+"Then I trust you will do nothing of the kind again."
+
+"I trust I won't have to!"
+
+There was rather an odd quality in Jack's tone.
+
+"Won't have to? What do you mean?"
+
+"You've questioned me a lot, mother. I'd like to put a few leading
+questions to you. And--u'm--alone. Olivetta," he remarked pleasantly,
+"do you know that Sherlock Holmes found it an instructive and valuable
+occupation to count the stair-steps in a house? Suppose you run out
+for five minutes and count 'em. I'll bet you a box of--"
+
+Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.
+
+"I never eat candy!"
+
+"A box of hairpins," continued Jack, clumsily picking up one from the
+floor, "that there aren't more than seventy-five."
+
+"Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!" said Olivetta,
+sticking the pin into place.
+
+"Here, is that your purse?" asked Jack, fishing an open purse from
+beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.
+
+"Yes, I'm always dropping it. I lost two--"
+
+"I must say, Olivetta," put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly, "that you
+really must not be so careless!"
+
+Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.
+
+"Hello! And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings of--"
+
+"Give it to me!" And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face, snatched
+purse and card from Jack's hands. "I'll wait up in your bedroom,
+Caroline, and look at your new gowns." And with a rapidity that
+approached instantaneity she disappeared.
+
+"Jack," his mother demanded suspiciously, "what was that card?"
+
+"Just an old admission ticket to varnishing day at the spring exhibit
+of the American Society of Painters," said Jack easily. And without
+giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue the matter
+further, he awkwardly pushed her favorite chair toward the fire to a
+place beside his own. "Come sit down, mother. There's a lot of things
+I want to tell you."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair. "Yes?"
+
+Jack's eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta. "Do you know, mother,
+that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she only had the
+right chance?"
+
+"The right chance?"
+
+"Yes. Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper little
+hotel--chuck full of primped and crimped and proud poor relations who
+don't dare draw a single full-sized breath without first considering
+whether such a daring act might not disturb the social standing of
+somebody over on Fifth Avenue or down here on Washington Square--Oh,
+I say, mother, five more years of that life and Olivetta will be
+choked--dessicated--salted away--a regular forever-and-ever-amen old
+maid. But if--" He hesitated.
+
+"Yes--if?"
+
+"If Olivetta were only to marry some one--some decent fellow--she'd
+blossom out, grow as young as she actually is--and, who knows, perhaps
+even her hairpins might stay in."
+
+"Marry, yes. But whom?"
+
+"I've seen a few things--there's a certain party--and--" He stumbled
+a bit, conscious that he was becoming indiscreet. "And, oh, well, just
+on general principles marriage is a good thing."
+
+"That is just the opinion I have been urging upon you in regard to
+yourself," returned his mother in her even, confident tone.
+
+"U'm--yes," Jack said hastily. "But that was not--not the first thing
+I wanted to speak about."
+
+"I believe you did say there were several matters."
+
+"So there are." He rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand;
+then smiled blandly at his mother. "Yes, there are a few."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, first of all, mother, I want to make a kick."
+
+She frowned. "How often must I request you not to use such common
+expressions!"
+
+"All right, all right," said he. "Suppose I say, then, that I'm
+dissatisfied."
+
+"Dissatisfied!" She straightened up. "Dissatisfied! What about? Do I
+not allow you all the money you want?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And have I not practically arranged a match between you and Ethel
+Quintard? Ethel will have three millions some day. And there is no
+better family to marry into; that is, except our own."
+
+"Yes, yes,--I know."
+
+"And yet you say you are dissatisfied!" She stared. "What more can you
+want?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, to go to school," was Jack's amiable response.
+
+"Go to school! Why--why, you've already had the best of educations!
+Exeter--Yale--not to speak of private tutors!"
+
+"And what did I learn? That is," he added, "over and above being a
+fairly decent half-back and learning how to spend money--u'm--pretty
+thoroughly."
+
+"I trust," said Mrs. De Peyster with all her dignity, "that you
+learned to be a gentleman!"
+
+"Oh, I suppose I learned that all right," Jack acquiesced. "And I've
+been working hard at the profession ever since--sixteen to twenty
+hours a day, no half-holidays and no Sundays off. I can't stand it any
+longer. So I've decided to go on strike."
+
+"Strike?" exclaimed his mother, bewildered.
+
+"Yes. For better conditions. I'm tired loafing such long hours. I'd
+like a little leisure in which to work."
+
+"Work!" repeated his mother--and human voice could hardly express
+amazement greater than did hers. "Work! Jack--you're not in earnest?"
+
+He held upon her a clear-eyed, humorous, but resolute face.
+
+"Don't I look in earnest?"
+
+He did; and his mother could only dazedly repeat, "Work! You go to
+work!"
+
+"Oh, not at once. No, thank you! I want to ask you to give me a little
+proper education first that will equip me to do something. You've
+spent--how much have you spent on my education, mother? Tens and tens
+of thousands, I know. Pretty big investment, on the whole. Now, how
+large returns do you suppose I can draw on that investment?"
+
+"I was not thinking about dividends; I was thinking about fitting you
+for your station," returned his mother stiffly.
+
+"Well, as for me, I've been thinking of late about how much I could
+get out of that investment. I've wanted to test myself and find what
+I was worth--as a worker." He leaned a little closer. "I say, mother,"
+he said confidentially, "you remember that little explanation I just
+gave you of my absence."
+
+"About your trip in that high-powered automobile?"
+
+"That was just a high-powered fib. Just a bit of diplomatic
+romance--for Olivetta's consumption."
+
+"Then where have you been?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Prospecting. Prospecting to find out just how much that hundred
+thousand or two or three you've sunk in me is worth. And I've found
+out. It's present value is not quite nine a week."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean," he said pleasantly, "I've been at work."
+
+"At work!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster slowly rose and looked down at him with staring,
+loose-fallen face.
+
+"At work!" she gasped again. "At work!"
+
+"Yes, mother. At work."
+
+"But--but that skidding automobile? Those hands?"
+
+"Blisters, mother dear. Most horrible blisters."
+
+"You've worked--you've worked--at what?"
+
+"Well, you see, mother, if I could have knocked out a home run, say
+a job as a railroad president, when I stepped up to the plate in the
+first inning, I suppose I wouldn't have backed away from the chance.
+But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore cheap clothes and kept
+clear of my friends. 'What could I do?' every one asked me. You know
+my answer. And _their_ answer! I thought only sub-way guards could
+say, 'Step lively,' like that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met
+a kind gentleman who gave me a chance."
+
+"A gentleman?"
+
+"About the size of your piano--only he had a red mustache and a
+red shirt and I should say his complexion needed re-decorating.
+Irish--foreman on a water-main trench."
+
+"And you--you took it?"
+
+"Took it? I grabbed it!"
+
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" his appalled mother slowly
+exclaimed--so slowly that each letter seemed to shiver out by itself
+in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any rate," she declared with
+returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had enough of it to bring you to
+your senses and bring you home!"
+
+"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache is--well,
+you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold so much discomfort.
+But that isn't the only thing that brought me home. It was--er--I
+might say, mother, that it was suggested to me."
+
+"Suggested? I do not understand."
+
+"If you will permit the use of so inelegant an expression, I was
+'fired.'"
+
+"Fired?"
+
+"Yes. The foreman intimated--I won't repeat his language, mother, but
+the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular knots--he intimated,
+in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning, that I was not quite up
+to the nine per week standard. I'll be honest with you and admit that
+I didn't lean against the pay-shed and weep. I still wanted to work,
+but I decided that I didn't want to start life at its pick-and-shovel
+end--if I could help it. So here I am, mother, asking you to give me
+a little real education--say as a mining engineer, or something like
+that."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was trembling with indignation.
+
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r!" again a letter at a time.
+"J--a--c--k D--e P--e--y--s--t--e--r! I'm astounded at you!"
+
+"I thought you might be--a little," he admitted.
+
+"I think you might have some consideration for me! And my position!"
+
+"I suppose it is rather selfish of me to want to earn my own living.
+But you don't know what dreary hard work being a gentleman becomes."
+
+"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. De Peyster wrathfully. "This is what
+comes of your attending that Intercollegiate Socialist thing in
+college! I protested to the president against the college harboring
+such unsettling influences, and urged him to put it out."
+
+"Well, dear old prexy did his best to comply."
+
+"It's that Socialist thing! As for what you propose, I simply will not
+have it!"
+
+"No? I could have started in up at Columbia, and kept it from you. But
+I wanted to be all on the level--"
+
+"I won't have it!"
+
+"You really mean that you are not going to add a few thousand more to
+my hundred thousands' worth of education?"
+
+"I certainly shall not!"
+
+"Then," said Jack regretfully, "I suppose after all I've got to start
+in at the pick-and-shovel end."
+
+"No, you will not! I have reared you to be a gentleman! And you are
+going to be a gentleman!"
+
+"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed, "we'll drop
+the matter--temporarily."
+
+"We'll drop it permanently!" said Mrs. De Peyster decisively.
+"Besides, all this talk is utterly footless. You seem to forget that
+you are sailing with me to Europe to-morrow."
+
+"That brings me to the second point. I was hoping," Jack said mildly,
+"that you would consent to take my regrets to Europe. Don't you think
+Europe might be willing to overlook my negligence--just this once?"
+
+"Jack--I can't endure your facetiousness!"
+
+"I'm not facetious, mother dear. I'm most confoundedly and
+consummately serious. I really want you to let me off on this Europe
+business. Won't you--there's a dear?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"No?"
+
+"Why, your passage is paid for, and my plans--You know Ethel Quintard
+and her mother are sailing on the same boat. No, most certainly I
+shall not let you off!"
+
+"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed again, "perhaps
+we'd better drop this matter also--temporarily."
+
+"This matter we'll also drop permanently," his mother said, again with
+her calm, incontrovertible emphasis.
+
+"Well, that brings us to the third point." He drew a copy of the
+"Record" from his pocket and pointed to a paragraph. "Mother, this is
+the second time my engagement to Ethel Quintard has been in print. I
+must say that I don't think it's nice of Ethel and Mrs. Quintard to
+let those rumors stand. I would deny them myself, only it seems rather
+a raw thing for a fellow to do. Mother, you must deny them."
+
+"Jack, this marriage is bound to come!"
+
+"Mother, you are simply hypnotizing yourself into the belief that I am
+going to marry Ethel Quintard. When"--he painfully recrossed his legs,
+and smiled pleasantly at his mother--"when, as a matter of fact, what
+I have been trying to lead up to is to tell you that I shall never
+lead Ethel's three millions to the altar."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It's all off."
+
+"Off?"
+
+Jack slowly nodded his head. "Yes, all off."
+
+"And why, if you please?"
+
+"Oh, for several reasons," he returned mildly. "But one of the reasons
+is, that I happen to be engaged to someone else."
+
+"Engaged!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, falling back. "And without my
+knowing it! Who is she?"
+
+"Mary Morgan."
+
+"Mary Morgan! I never heard of her. Who's her father?"
+
+"First name Henry, I believe."
+
+"I don't mean his name. But who is he--what's his family--his
+financial affiliations?"
+
+"Oh, I see. Mary told me he runs a shoe store up in Buffalo."
+
+"A shoe store! A shoe store!"
+
+"Or perhaps," Jack corrected, "it was a grocery. I'm not certain."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh! And--and this--this--Mary person--"
+
+"She plays the piano, and is going to be a professional."
+
+For a moment Mrs. De Peyster's horror was inarticulate. Then it began
+to regain its power of speech.
+
+"What--you throw away--Ethel Quintard--for a little pianist! You
+compare a girl like--like that--to Ethel Quintard!"
+
+"Compare them? Not for one little minute, mother, dear! For Mary has
+brains and--"
+
+"Stop!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster, in majestic rage. "Young man, have
+you considered the social disgrace you are plunging us all into?
+But--but surely you cannot be in earnest!"
+
+He looked imperturbably up into her face. "Not in earnest, mother? I'm
+as earnest as a preacher on Sunday."
+
+"Then--then--"
+
+She choked with her words. Before she could get them out, Jack was on
+his feet and had an arm around her shoulders.
+
+"Come, mother, don't be angry--please!" he cried with warm boyish
+eagerness. "Before you say another word, let me bring Mary to see you.
+I can get her here before you go on board. The sight of her will show
+you how right I am. She is the dearest, sweetest--"
+
+"Stop!" She caught his arm. "I shall not see this--this Mary person!"
+
+"No?"
+
+She was the perfect figure of wrath and pride and confident power
+of domination. "I shall never see her! Never! And what is more,"
+she continued, with the energy of one who believes her will to be
+equivalent to the accomplished fact, "you are going to give up, yes,
+and entirely forget, all those foolish things you have just been
+speaking of!"
+
+He gazed squarely back into her flashing eyes. His face had tightened,
+and at that moment there was a remarkable likeness between the two
+faces, usually so dissimilar.
+
+"Pardon me, mother; you are mistaken," he said quietly. "I am going to
+give up nothing."
+
+"What, you defy me?" she gasped.
+
+"I am not defying you. I tried to tell you in as pleasant a way as I
+could what my plans are. But everything I said, I am going to do."
+
+"Then--then--" At first the words would not come forth; she stood
+trembling, clutching the back of her chair. "Then I beg to inform
+you," she was saying thickly in her outraged majesty, when Matilda
+opened the hall door and ushered in an erect, slender man of youngish
+middle age and with graying hair and dark mustache, and with a
+pleasant, distinguished face.
+
+"I beg pardon; I fear I come inopportunely," he said, as he sighted
+Mrs. De Peyster's militant attitude. "But I was told to come right up.
+I'll just wait--"
+
+"Do not go, Judge Harvey," Mrs. De Peyster commanded, as he started to
+withdraw. "On the other hand, your arrival is most opportune. Please
+come here."
+
+"Good-morning, Uncle Bob," Jack said cheerfully. "Excuse me for not
+shaking hands. Just a little automobile accident."
+
+"Jack, you home!" cried the Judge. "My boy, but you have given us
+all a scare!" And then in affectionate concern, noticing his hands:
+"Nothing serious, I hope?"
+
+"Nothing serious about the accident," said Jack, glancing at his
+mother.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster glared at her son, then crossed to the safe, larger
+and more formidable than the one above from which she had been
+removing her jewels, took out a document and returned to the two
+men. She had something of the ominous air of a tragedy queen who is
+foreshadowing an approaching climax.
+
+"Judge Harvey, I do not care to go into explanations," said she. "But
+I desire to give you an order and to have you be a witness to my act."
+
+"Of course, I am at your service, Caroline."
+
+"In the first place," she said, striving to speak calmly, "I beg to
+request my son to move such of his things as he may wish out of this
+house--and within the hour."
+
+"Certainly, mother," Jack said pleasantly.
+
+"And to you, Judge Harvey,--I wish my son's allowance, which is paid
+through your office, to be discontinued from this moment."
+
+"Why--of course--just as you say," said the astonished Judge. "But
+perhaps if the case were--"
+
+"This paper is my will," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster, holding up the
+document she had taken from the safe. "As my man of affairs, I believe
+you are acquainted with its contents."
+
+"I am."
+
+"It gives the bulk of my fortune to my son here."
+
+"Why, yes," admitted the Judge with increasing bewilderment.
+
+"His share amounts to two millions, or thereabouts."
+
+"Thereabouts."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster took two rustling, majestic steps toward her
+fireplace. "Until my son gives me very definite assurance that his
+conduct will be more suitable to me and my position, he is no longer
+my son." And so saying she tossed the will upon the fire. She allowed
+a moment of effective silence to elapse. "That is all, Jack. You are
+excused."
+
+Jack stood and watched the flaming will flicker down to a glowing ash.
+One bandaged hand slowly smoothed his blond hair.
+
+"Gee! I've seen people burning up money, and I've burnt up quite a bit
+myself, but I never saw two millions go as quick! Well, mother," he
+sighed, shaking his head, "I never suspected I'd end in such a little
+blaze. With such a pile I could have made a bigger bonfire than that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A SLIGHT PREDICAMENT
+
+
+For several moments after Jack had withdrawn, Mrs. De Peyster stood in
+majestic silence beside the mantelpiece.
+
+"We will forget this incident, Judge Harvey," she said at length. "Be
+seated, if you please."
+
+Judge Harvey took a chair, as ordered. Out in the world, Judge Harvey
+was a disconcerting personality, though a respected one; a judge who
+had resigned his judgeship, with the bold announcement that law-courts
+were in the main theaters for farces; a thinker who rejected all
+labels, who was daring enough to perceive and applaud what was good
+even in the conventional.
+
+"But, Caroline," he began hesitantly, "weren't you perhaps a little
+too stern with Jack?"
+
+"As I said, Judge Harvey, I do not care to explain the situation."
+
+"I understood it--a little--anyhow. See here, you don't want Jack to
+grow up to be a member of that geranium-cheeked, leather-chair brigade
+that stare out of Fifth Avenue Club windows, their heaviest labor
+lifting a whiskey-and-soda all the way up to their mouths?"
+
+"I certainly do not propose to accept the alternative he proposed!"
+she retorted. "I assure you, such severity as I used was necessary.
+Nothing will bring a young man to his senses so quickly and so surely
+as having his resources cut off." Her composure, her confidence in her
+judgment, were now fully returned. "Jack will come around all right.
+What I did was imperative to save myself; and certainly it was best
+for him."
+
+"I trust so. But I hope you don't mind if I'm a bit sorry for the
+boy, for, you know,"--in a lower voice, and with a stealthy look at
+her,--"Jack's the nearest thing to a son I've ever had."
+
+She did not answer. In the silence that ensued an uneasiness crept
+into his manner.
+
+"Caroline," bracing himself, "there is something--something you were
+perhaps not expecting to hear--that I must tell you."
+
+"I trust, Judge Harvey,"--somewhat stiffly,--"that you are not about
+to propose to me again."
+
+"I am not." His face flushed; then set grimly. "But I'm going to
+again, sometime, and I'd do it now if I thought it would do any good."
+
+"It will not."
+
+"Oh, I know I wouldn't fit into your present scheme of life."
+Bitterness and contempt had risen like a tide in the Judge's voice. "I
+know I'm no social figure; at least, not up to your dimensions. I know
+it would be a come-down to change from Mrs. De Peyster to Mrs. Harvey.
+Not that I'm so infernally humble, Caroline, that I don't consider
+myself a damned lot better than most of the men you might possibly
+think about marrying."
+
+He rose abruptly, and with a groaning burst of impatience that had
+a tinge of anger: "Oh, for God's sake, Caroline, why don't you throw
+overboard all this fashionable business, this striving to keep an
+empty position, and be--and be--"
+
+"And be what?" put in Mrs. De Peyster with glittering eye.
+
+"And be just yourself!" he cried defiantly, squarely facing her.
+"There, at last I've said it! And I'm going to say the rest of it.
+This Mrs. De Peyster that heads everything isn't at all the simple,
+natural gracious Carrie De Peyster that John De Peyster and I made
+love to! You're not the real Mrs. De Peyster; you only think you are.
+This Mrs. De Peyster the world knows is something that's been built
+by and out of the obligation which you accepted to maintain the De
+Peyster dignity. She's only a surface, a shell, a mask! If your mother
+hadn't died, and then your mother-in-law, and thrown upon you this
+whole infernal family business and this infernal social leadership,
+why, you'd have been an entirely different person--"
+
+"Judge Harvey!"
+
+"You'd then have been the real Mrs. De Peyster!" he rushed hotly on.
+"Oh, all this show, this struggle for place, this keeping up a front,
+I know it's only a part of the universal comedy of our pretending to
+be what we're not,--every one of us is doing the same, in a big way,
+or a little way,--but it makes me sick! For God's sake, Caroline,
+chuck it--chuck it all and be just the fine human woman that there is
+in you!"
+
+She was trembling with suppressed wrath. Never before--not to her
+face, at least--had such criticism been directed at her.
+
+"And ultimately be Mrs. Harvey--no, thank you!" she replied, in a
+choking, caustic voice. "But while you are at it, have you any further
+suggestions for my conduct?"
+
+"Yes," said he determinedly. "You have been spending too much
+money, and spending it on utterly worthless purposes. This social
+duel--that's just what it is--between you and Mrs. Allistair, besides
+being nonsense, will be absolutely ruinous if you keep it up. Mrs.
+Allistair is as unprincipled in a social way as her husband has been
+in a business way; her ambition will hesitate to use no means, you
+know that--and, don't forget this, she can spend fifty dollars to your
+one!"
+
+"I believe," with blazing hauteur, yet still controlled, "that I
+possess something superior to Mrs. Allistair's dollars."
+
+"Yes," groaned the Judge, "your confounded old-family business!"
+
+"And speaking of money," continued Mrs. De Peyster in her cuttingest,
+most withering, most annihilatory grand manner, "perhaps I should
+have spent my money worthily, like Judge Harvey, upon a gift of Thomas
+Jefferson letters to the American Historical Society."
+
+The shaft of sarcasm quivered into the center of Judge Harvey's sorest
+spot. Those recently discovered letters of Thomas Jefferson which
+Judge Harvey had presented to the Historical Society, and which had
+been so widely discussed as throwing new light upon the beginnings
+of the United States Republic, had a month before been pronounced and
+proved to be clever but arrant forgeries. The newspaper sensation
+and the praise that had attended the discovery and gift--warming and
+exalting Judge Harvey's very human pride--had been followed by an
+anti-climax of gibes and jeers at his gullibility. Whenever the hoax
+was spoken of, Judge Harvey writhed with personal humiliation, and
+with anger against the person who had recalled his discomfiture, and
+with a desire for vengeance against the perpetrator of the swindle.
+
+"Remember this, that the first experts pronounced those letters
+genuine," he retorted in a hot, trembling voice. "And I'm going to
+get that scoundrel--you see! Only to-day I had word from the Police
+Commissioner that his department at last had clues to that fellow
+Preston. And, besides," he ended cuttingly, "though I was deceived, I
+at least made an effort to spend my money upon a worthy object."
+
+They glared into one another's eyes; old friends now thoroughly
+aroused against each other. They might be sarcastic or out-spoken;
+but their self-respect, their good-breeding, would not permit them to
+become vituperative, to lose themselves in outbursts of wrath--though
+such might have been the healthier course. They knew how to plug the
+volcano. So for a space, though they quivered, they were silent.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster it was who first spoke. Her voice had recovered its
+most formal, frigid tone.
+
+"Please recall, Judge Harvey, that you are here at the present moment
+not as a friend but as my man of affairs."
+
+"All right," he said grimly. "But at least I've told you what I
+thought as a friend."
+
+"As my man of affairs," she continued with her magnificent iciness,
+"you may now tell me what you have been able to do for me about a
+cottage in Newport."
+
+"Very well, here goes as your man of affairs: You said you wished to
+be in Newport from the middle of July to early in September."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The house, of those available, which I thought would come nearest
+suiting you is 'The Heron's Nest.'"
+
+"You mean the cottage Mrs. Van der Grift had last season?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"You need not describe it then. I know it perfectly. It is exactly
+what I desire; elegant, but not showy. And the terms?"
+
+"Ten thousand for the season."
+
+"Quite satisfactory. I hope you have taken a lease."
+
+"I have an option till to-morrow."
+
+"Then close it. I suppose you have brought my letters of credit?"
+
+"That," said he in formal lawyer tone, "brings me back to the news
+which, as your man of affairs, I was trying to break to you when you
+thought, as a friend, I was trying to propose."
+
+"What news?"
+
+"You will recall that the money with which I was to buy your letters
+of credit was money which I was to draw for you, to-day, as dividends
+on the stock you hold in the New York and New England Railroad."
+
+"Certainly--though I do not see the drift of your remarks."
+
+"And I hardly need remind you that the bulk of your fortune is
+invested in this railroad."
+
+"A perfectly good stock, I believe," Mrs. De Peyster commented.
+
+"Perfectly good--perfectly sound," Judge Harvey agreed. "But there has
+existed a certain possibility in the company's affairs for some time
+of which I hesitated to inform you. I did not wish to give you any
+unnecessary concern, which would have been the case if I had spoken to
+you and if the situation had terminated happily."
+
+"And what is the situation to which you refer?"
+
+"You are doubtless aware that all the railroads have been complaining
+about bad business, owing to increased wages on the one side and
+governmental regulation of rates on the other. That's the way the
+officers explain it; but the truth is, the roads have been abominably
+mismanaged."
+
+"Yes, I have vaguely heard something about bad business," said Mrs. De
+Peyster with a bored air. "But what does all this lead to?"
+
+"I am trying to lead you gently, Mrs. De Peyster, to realize the
+possibility that, in view of its alleged bad business, the New York
+and New England might decide to pass dividends for this quarter."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster started forward. "Do you mean to say, Judge Harvey,
+that such a possibility exists?"
+
+"It's rather more than a possibility."
+
+"More than a possibility?"
+
+"Yes. In fact, it's a--a fact."
+
+"A fact?"
+
+"I have just come from the meeting of the directors. They have voted
+to pay no dividends."
+
+"No dividends!" Mrs. De Peyster gazed stupefied into the face of Judge
+Harvey. "No dividends! Then--then--my income?"
+
+"I am very sorry," said Judge Harvey.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and laid one hand across her
+eyes. For a moment she was dazed by this undreamed-of disaster; so
+overwhelmed that she did not even hear Judge Harvey, whose anger had
+ere this begun to relax, try to reassure her with remarks about the
+company being perfectly solvent. But it was not befitting the De
+Peyster dignity to exhibit consternation. Instinct, habit, ruled. So,
+after a moment, she removed her hand, and, though all her senses were
+floundering, she remarked with an excellent imitation of calm:--
+
+"Thank you very much, Judge Harvey, for your information."
+
+Judge Harvey, though still resentful, was by now feeling contrite
+for his share of their quarrel and looked unusually handsome in his
+contrition. And in his concern he could not help pointing the way out.
+
+"I trust you have enough in your bank for your present plans. And if
+not, your bank will readily advance you what you need."
+
+"Of course," said she with her mechanical composure.
+
+"Or if there is any difficulty," he continued, desirous of making
+peace, "I shall be glad to arrange a loan for you."
+
+She was too blinded by disaster to think, to realize her needs. And
+dazed though she was by this reverse, her anger against Judge Harvey
+for daring to criticize burned as high as before. And then, too, she
+remembered the haughtiness with which she had just refused his advice
+and put him in his place. At that moment, the person of all persons
+in the world from whom it would have been most humiliating to her to
+accept even a finger's turn of assistance was Judge Harvey.
+
+"Thank you. I shall manage very well."
+
+"And the Newport house?"
+
+"I shall send you my instructions concerning it later."
+
+He hesitated, waiting for her to speak. But she did not.
+
+"Then that is all?" he queried.
+
+"Quite all," she replied.
+
+He still lingered. He was not to see her again for three months. And
+he didn't like to part like this; even if--
+
+"After all, Caroline," he said impulsively, holding out his hand,
+"let's forget what we said and be friends. At any rate, I certainly
+hope you have a most enjoyable time in Europe."
+
+"Thank you. I am sure I shall have."
+
+Her words were cool, calm; the hand she gave him was without pressure.
+Stiffening again, he made her the briefest of bows and angrily walked
+out.
+
+At the sound of the closing door, announcing that Judge Harvey's eyes
+were outside the room, Mrs. De Peyster unloosed the mantle of dignity,
+which with so great an effort she had kept folded about her person,
+let her face fall forward into her hands, and slumped down into her
+chair, a loose, inert bundle. Several lifeless minutes dragged by.
+
+A little before, during a silence between Judge Harvey and Mrs. De
+Peyster, the study door had slowly opened and there had appeared
+the reconnoitering face of the entrapped Mr. Bradford. Though their
+attention had apparently been too centered on each other for them to
+be observant of what happened beyond their very contracted horizon,
+that had seemed to him no promising moment to try for an escape. With
+high curiosity, eyes amused and alight with delectable danger, he
+had studied Judge Harvey a moment, and then the duchess-like Mrs. De
+Peyster in her most magnificent towering attitude of wrathful hauteur.
+Then quickly and soundlessly the heavy door had closed.
+
+Now again the heavy, sound-proof door of the study began to
+open--noiselessly, inch by inch. Again the light, humorous, but
+shrewd, very shrewd, face of Mr. Bradford appeared in the crack. This
+time the face did not withdraw. He watched the bowed figure of the
+solitary Mrs. De Peyster for several moments; considered; measured the
+distance to the door of escape; evaluated the silencing quality of the
+deep library rug; then slipped through the door, closed it, and with
+tread as soft as a bird's wing against the air started across the
+room.
+
+At Mrs. De Peyster's back curiosity checked him and he turned his
+whimsical face down upon the motionless figure. The great Mrs. De
+Peyster! He wondered what had thus changed her from the all-commanding
+presence of a few moments since; for within that perfection of a study
+he had overheard nothing. An instant he stood thus at her back, alert
+to disappear upon the warning of a changing breath--the two but an
+arm's reach apart, and apparently about to go their separate ways
+forever--she unconscious of him, and he equally unconscious of the
+seed of a common drama which their own acts had already sown--with
+never a thought that ships that pass in the night may possibly alter
+their courses and meet again in the morning.
+
+He slipped on out of the room, closing the door without a sound. In
+the hallway he paused. He wished to see Miss Gardner again, ignorant
+of the sudden fate that had befallen her. But he decided little would
+be gained by trying for another meeting. Certainly she must have
+relented sufficiently to have picked up the card he had given her; and
+perhaps she would change her mind and send him a message in care of
+the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. Anyhow, that was his best hope.
+
+Lightly, and with a light heart--for the presence of danger was to him
+a stimulant--he went down the stairs, eyes and ears on guard against
+unfortunate rencontres, and eyes also instinctively noting doors and
+passages and articles worth a gentleman's while. At the front door he
+waited a moment until the sidewalk was empty; then he let himself out,
+and went down Mrs. De Peyster's noble stone steps, his face pleasant
+and frank-gazing, and with the easy self-possession of departing from
+a call to wish a friend _bon-voyage_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HONOR OF THE NAME
+
+
+After a time Mrs. De Peyster rose totteringly from the sheeted library
+chair, mounted weakly to the more intimate asylum of her private
+sitting-room, and sat down and stared into her fire. She was still
+dazed by Judge Harvey's announcement of the decision of the New York
+and New England to pay no dividends.
+
+She was not rich, as the rich count riches. Nor did she desire a
+greater wealth; at least not much greater. In fact, she looked down
+upon the possessors of those huge fortunes acquired during the last
+generation as upon beings of an inferior order. It was blood-discs
+that gave her her supremacy, not vulgar discs of gold. She had enough
+to maintain the De Peyster station, but just enough; and she had so
+adjusted her scale of living that her expenses exactly consumed her
+normal income--no more, no less.
+
+That is, had exactly consumed it, except during the last year or two.
+One reason she had so resented Judge Harvey's criticism of her manner
+of living was that the criticism had the unfortunate quality of being
+based on truth. Of late, the struggle to maintain her inherited and
+rightful leadership had involved her in greatly increased expenditure,
+and this excess she had met in ways best known to herself.
+
+The collapsed Mrs. De Peyster heard Matilda enter, pause, then
+pass into the bedroom, but did not look up; nor a moment later when
+Olivetta reentered from the bedroom, did she at first raise her
+dejected head.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Cousin Caroline?" cried Olivetta.
+
+There was no occasion for maintaining an appearance before Olivetta,
+who was almost as faithful and devoted as though a very member of
+her body. So Mrs. De Peyster related her misfortune, interrupted by
+frequent interjections from her sympathetic cousin.
+
+"Do you realize what it means, Olivetta?" she concluded in a benumbed
+voice. "It means that, except for less than a thousand which I have
+on hand,--a mere nothing,--I am penniless until more dividends are
+due--perhaps months! I cannot go to Europe! I cannot go to Newport!"
+
+Olivetta was first stunned, then was ejaculative with consternation.
+
+"But, Caroline," she cried after a moment, "why not have Judge Harvey
+get you the money?"
+
+"Out of the question, Olivetta; I do not care to explain." She would
+never unbend to Judge Harvey! Never!
+
+"Then, why not borrow the money from the bank, as you say Judge Harvey
+suggested?"
+
+"Olivetta, you should know that that is against my principles." She
+tried to instill proud rebuke into her voice. But just here was the
+pinch--or one of them. To cover the excess in her expenses she had
+already borrowed--secretly, for she would never have had it come
+to Judge Harvey's knowledge--from her bank to the very limit of her
+personal credit.
+
+Olivetta's distressed eyes fell upon one of the jewel cases which
+Marie had left in the sitting-room.
+
+"There are your jewels, Caroline. But, of course you wouldn't consider
+raising money--"
+
+"On my jewels! How can you think of such a thing!"
+
+"Of course not, of course not," fluttered Olivetta. "Please forgive
+me, Caroline. I do so admire your strict principles!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster accepted apology and tribute with a forgiving nod. But
+just here was another of the pinches. The previous spring, while
+in Paris, she had had her jewels most confidentially replaced with
+excellent imitations; and the original stones were at this moment
+lying as pledges in the vaults of a Parisian banker.
+
+"But, Caroline," pursued the sympathetic Olivetta, "can't you cut down
+expenses and remain in town? What with your credit, you have enough
+for that!"
+
+"Remain in town, when everybody is leaving?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+"Are you out of your senses Olivetta? Why, people would never stop
+talking about it!"
+
+"Of course--you're right--forgive me," stammered Olivetta. "But you
+might go to some modest resort for the summer--or--or--go to Europe in
+a more modest way."
+
+"Olivetta, you grow more absurd every moment!" exclaimed Mrs. De
+Peyster. "You know it has long been my custom to spend the first half
+of the summer in Europe, in a style befitting me, and to spend the
+second half in Newport. To do less would set people talking, and might
+endanger my position."
+
+"Of course! Of course!" cried the humbled Olivetta.
+
+"I hope you fully realize my dilemma."
+
+"It is terrible--terrible!" Olivetta's tone was slow, and full of
+awed dismay. "You must maintain your social position and there is no
+money!"
+
+"Just so."
+
+Detailed horrors of the situation began to move in spasmodic
+procession through Olivetta's mind.
+
+"And your passage is taken on the Plutonia--and it has been widely
+announced that you are leaving for Europe--and that newspaper is going
+to print your picture among the social leaders who have sailed--and,
+oh, Caroline, all those reporters are going to fill the papers with
+long articles about your going!"
+
+A new horror, that till then had escaped Mrs. De Peyster's inventory,
+a horror out-climaxing any in Olivetta's tragic list, burst suddenly
+upon Mrs. De Peyster. Her face went pale, fell loose.
+
+"Mrs. Allistair!" she barely articulated.
+
+"Mrs. Allistair?" Olivetta repeated blankly.
+
+"Don't you see--if I stay at home--don't sail--Mrs. Allistair will use
+it as capital against me--and she'll ride over me to--"
+
+"Caroline!" gasped the appalled Olivetta.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood up, rigid with desperation.
+
+"I simply must sail!" she cried.
+
+"Of course you must! Can't you think of some way out of it? I never
+knew you unequal to an emergency!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, her brow knitted with agitated thought, walked slowly
+to one of her windows and stood looking down into the pleasant bustle
+of Washington Square. Olivetta watched her intently, waiting for the
+brilliant plan that would be the result of her cousin's cogitations.
+
+But the minutes passed, Mrs. De Peyster did not move, and Olivetta's
+gaze wandered about the large, luxurious sitting-room. Her mind roamed
+afar to the desolate realm which she inhabited, and she thought of her
+own sitting-room, dark and stingily furnished, and rather threadbare,
+in which she was expecting to spend the summer, save for a few weeks
+at a respectable, poor-relations' resort. She sighed.
+
+"If it wasn't for your social position," she said, half to herself,
+"it really wouldn't be so bad to spend the summer here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster must have heard, for she turned slowly about and gazed
+at Olivetta--gazed at her steadily. And gradually, as she gazed, her
+whole appearance changed. The consternation on her face was succeeded
+by calm resolution. Poise and dignity returned.
+
+"You have an idea, Caroline?" cried Olivetta, struck by her look.
+
+"Wait!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood silent for yet a few more moments. Then,
+completely her dignified and composed self, she stepped toward
+her bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her in wondering, worshipful
+fascination.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster opened the door.
+
+"Matilda!"
+
+The housekeeper instantly appeared.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Matilda, call William and have him waiting in the hall till I summon
+him. Come back immediately."
+
+"But, Cousin Caroline, what is it?" asked Olivetta excitedly, as
+Matilda went out.
+
+"Wait!" said Mrs. De Peyster in a majestic tone.
+
+A minute passed, Mrs. De Peyster standing composedly by the fireplace,
+Olivetta gazing at her in throbbing suspense. Then Matilda returned.
+Her Mrs. De Peyster summoned to her side.
+
+"Matilda, you have proved your loyalty to me by twenty years of
+service," she began, "and you, Olivetta, I know are completely devoted
+to me. So I know you both will faithfully execute my requests. But
+I must ask you not to breathe a word of what I tell you, and what we
+do."
+
+"I?" cried Olivetta. "Never a syllable!"
+
+"Nor I, ma'am,--never!" declared Matilda.
+
+"But first, Matilda, I must acquaint you with a situation that
+has just arisen." And Mrs. De Peyster outlined such details of her
+predicament as she thought Matilda needed to know. "And now, here
+are my orders, Matilda. The house, of course, is being boarded up as
+usual. All the servants are sent away except William; and that order,
+if you have given it, for a maid for me is to be countermanded. You,
+Matilda, are to remain here alone in charge of the house as has been
+your custom. The report that I am sailing is to be allowed to stand.
+But in reality--"
+
+"Yes, in reality?" cried the excited Olivetta.
+
+"In reality," continued Mrs. De Peyster calmly, for she knew how a
+_denouement_ is heightened by a quiet manner--"in reality, I shall,
+during the entire summer, stay here in my own house."
+
+"Stay here!" ejaculated Olivetta.
+
+"Stay here!" exclaimed Matilda.
+
+"Stay here. Chiefly in my suite. Secretly, of course. No one but you
+two will ever know of it. By staying here, I shall be practically at
+no expense. But the world will think I am in Europe, and my position
+will be saved."
+
+Staggered as she was, Olivetta had remaining a few fragments of
+reason.
+
+"But--but, Caroline! You cannot merely announce that you are going
+abroad! You are a person of importance--your every move is observed.
+People will see that you do not sail. How will you get around that?"
+
+It sounded a poser. But Mrs. De Peyster was unruffled.
+
+"Very simply, Olivetta. You shall sail in my stead."
+
+"Me!" cried Olivetta, yet more bewildered.
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"But--but, if you cannot afford Europe for yourself, how can you
+afford it for me?"
+
+"It would take a great many thousands for me to go in the manner that
+is expected of me. I cannot afford that. For you, Olivetta, since the
+passage is already paid, it would take but a few hundred--and that I
+can afford."
+
+"You--you mean that I am to pass for you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But I never can! People will know the difference!"
+
+"People will never see you," returned the calm voice of Mrs. De
+Peyster. "The Plutonia sails at one to-night. You will go on board
+with my trunks late this evening, heavily veiled. Since no one must
+see you on the way over, you must of course, keep to your cabin. You
+must be seasick."
+
+"But I am never seasick!" cried Olivetta.
+
+"Then you must stay in your berth anyhow and pretend to be. You are to
+be too ill to receive any friends who may chance to be on board. Your
+stewardess will bring your meals to your stateroom. When the boat
+arrives, you must wait till every one else is off, and when you land
+you must again be heavily veiled and be too sick to speak to any one.
+Once you are in Paris--"
+
+"Yes, there's the difficulty!"
+
+"Not so great as you think. I shall give you full directions what to
+do. Once you are in Paris, you quietly disappear. It will become
+known that Mrs. De Peyster has gone off on a long motor trip through
+unvisited portions of Europe and will not return for the Newport
+season. With Mrs. De Peyster started on this trip, you become
+yourself, and you see Europe just as you please."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Olivetta, drawing in a deep breath.
+
+"But please, ma'am," put in Matilda, "why could you not go over
+yourself and then slip away to some modest resort?"
+
+"So many people know me I should be sure to be seen and recognized.
+And then think of the talk! No, that would never do. I have considered
+all possibilities. My plan is best."
+
+"Of course, you're right, ma'am," agreed Matilda.
+
+"On the way back, Olivetta, you are to preserve the same precautions
+as on the way over. And to avoid any possible difficulty in getting
+into the house, I shall provide you with a key to the house and one to
+my sitting-room."
+
+"But you, ma'am," objected Matilda, "in the mean time you cannot stay
+cooped up all summer in this room!"
+
+"I do not intend to," returned Mrs. De Peyster with her consummate
+calm, which assured her co-conspirators that they could lean
+untroubled upon her unblundering brain. "Matilda, will you now please
+have William come in?"
+
+Matilda, bewildered but obedient, stepped to the door and a
+moment later followed in the most clean-shaven, the most stiffly
+perpendicular, the most deferentially dignified, the most
+irreproachably expressionless of men-servants. He was the ultimate
+development of his kind. It seems almost a sacrilege to add that he
+was past man's perfect prime, and to hint that perhaps his scanty,
+unstreaked hair sought surreptitious rejuvenation in a drug-store
+bottle.
+
+"William, Matilda will acquaint you with certain alterations in my
+plans," began his mistress. "I desire to add that she will remain
+in the house alone during my absence; that you are to keep to your
+quarters in the stable and not enter the house; and that you are to
+arrange to take, at my expense, all your meals outside."
+
+William inclined his body slightly, as if to say, "Yes, my lady."
+
+"And in order to give the horses proper exercise, and to relieve
+Matilda's monotony, I desire you to take Matilda out driving every
+evening."
+
+Again William bowed a "Yes, my lady."
+
+"You understand this perfectly?"
+
+William's lips executed one of their rare movements.
+
+"Perfectly, Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Very well."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and William
+made the exit of a minister from his queen.
+
+"You don't mean--" began Matilda, almost breathless.
+
+"Yes, I mean that I shall go out driving nightly in your clothes,"
+responded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"But--but--" gasped Matilda.
+
+"Have no fear. I shall, of course, be veiled, and William is the
+best-trained, the most incurious of servants."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, looking her most majestic, stood waiting for
+the outburst of approval, just tribute to one who has conceived a
+supernally clever and flawless scheme.
+
+"Well, now, Matilda," she prompted, "what do you think of the whole
+plan?"
+
+"Since you thought it out, I--I--suppose it's all right," stammered
+Matilda.
+
+"And you, Olivetta, what do you think?"
+
+"Me!" cried Olivetta, who for the last minute had with
+difficulty restrained her ecstasy. "Paris!--the Louvre!--the
+Luxembourg!--Versailles!" She flung her arms about Mrs. De Peyster's
+neck amid a shower of hairpins. "Oh, Caroline--Caroline. It's--it's
+simply glorious!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BEHIND THE BLINDS
+
+
+It was the next day.
+
+Olivetta had mailed a few hurried notes to friends about her sudden
+departure for a complete rest in the utter seclusion of an unnamed
+spot in Maine--Jack De Peyster had moved out--the front door way and
+the windows had been boarded up--the house wore the proper countenance
+of respectable desertion--and up in her sitting-room, lighted only
+by little diamond panes in her thick shutters, sat Mrs. De Peyster
+reading a newspaper. From this she gleaned that Mrs. De Peyster had
+sailed that morning on the Plutonia, having gone on board late the
+night before. Also she learned that Mrs. De Peyster would not be back
+as was her custom for the Newport season, but was going to make an
+extended motor trip off the main-traveled roads, perhaps penetrating
+as far as the beautiful but rarely visited Balkan States.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was well satisfied as she rested at ease in her
+favorite chair. It would not be too much to say that she was very
+proud; for hers was certainly a happy plan, a plan few intellects
+could have evolved. And thus far it had worked to perfection, and
+there was no doubt but that it would work so to the end; for, although
+Olivetta, to be sure, was rather careless, the instructions given her,
+the arrangements made in her behalf, were so admirable and complete
+that any miscarriage could not possibly have Olivetta for its source.
+
+Also Mrs. De Peyster was at heart honestly contented. She had spoken
+truly when she had told Olivetta that Europe was old to her and had
+become merely a social duty. Of that fatiguing obligation to her
+position she was glad to be relieved. The past season, with its
+struggle with Mrs. Allistair and that Duke de Crecy affair, had been
+a trying one, and she was tired. By the present arrangement, which she
+regarded as nothing short of an inspiration, her social prestige was
+secure, her financial difficulties were taken care of, and she herself
+would have the desired opportunity for a sorely needed rest. She would
+have her books, she would have the society of Matilda (for Matilda
+had in the long years grown to be more than a mere servant--she was a
+companion, a confidant)--her creature comforts would be well seen to
+by Matilda,--she would have the whole house to roam over at her will
+during the day, and every night she would have the pleasant relaxation
+of a drive behind the peerless William.
+
+It seemed to her, as she looked forward to it, the most desirable of
+vacations.
+
+Her mind was quite at ease concerning Jack. Severity, as she had said,
+had been necessary. A bit of privation would do him good, would bring
+him to his senses; she had no slightest doubt of that. And when
+they met again, he would be in a mood to fit into the place she had
+carefully prepared for him. Of course, she would let him off in the
+matter of Ethel Quintard, if he really didn't care for Ethel. There
+were other nice girls of good families. She wouldn't be hard on him.
+
+Also she felt easier in her mind in the matter of the quarrel with
+Judge Harvey. The sting and humiliation of his words she had now cast
+out of her system; she was really superior to such criticism.
+There remained only Judge Harvey's offense. Certainly he had been
+inexcusably outspoken and officious. Her resentment had settled down
+into a calm, implacable, changeless attitude. She would be polite to
+him, since they must continue to meet in the future. But she would
+keep him coldly at a distance. She would never unbend. She would never
+forgive.
+
+Next to the column recording her departure she had noted a few
+paragraphs giving the progress of the police in their search for James
+Preston, the forger of the Jefferson letters. What a fool Judge Harvey
+had been in that affair!...
+
+And yet, in a way, she was sorry. She had liked Judge Harvey; had
+liked him very much. In fact, there had been relaxed moods in which
+she had dallied pleasantly with the thought of marrying him. She
+might, indeed, have married him already had it not been for the
+obvious social descent.
+
+Also, she thought for a moment of Miss Gardner. In this matter she
+had likewise been quite right. However, aside from the deception Miss
+Gardner had practiced, she had seemed a nice girl; and Mrs. De Peyster
+was lenient enough to feel a very honest wish that the husband, who
+had so rapidly disappeared, was a decent sort of man. Perhaps later
+she might favor them with some trifling present.
+
+She had a light luncheon, for it was her custom to eat but little at
+midday, and spent part of the afternoon with a comfortable sense of
+improvement over one of John Fiske's volumes of colonial history;
+popular novels she abhorred as frivolities beneath her. And then she
+took upon her lap a large volume, weighing perhaps a dozen pounds,
+entitled "Historic Families in America," in which first place
+was given to an account of the glories of the De Peysters. Though
+premiership was no better than the family's due, she was secretly
+pleased with her forebears' place in the volume--in a sublimated way
+it was the equivalent of going in first to dinner among distinguished
+guests. She liked frequently to glance leisurely through the pages,
+tasting here and there; and now, as she did whenever she read the
+familiar text, she lingered over certain passages of the deferential
+genealogist--whom, hardly conscious of the act of imagination, she
+could almost see in tight satin breeches, postured on his knees,
+holding out these tributes to her on a golden salver:--
+
+"In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ... "From an early period of the
+fourteenth century the De Peysters were among the richest and most
+influential of the patrician families of Ghent" ... "The exact
+genealogical connection between the De Peysters of the fourteenth
+century and the above-noted sixteenth and seventeenth century
+ancestors of the American De Peysters has not been traced, as the work
+of translating and analyzing the records of the intervening period is
+still incompleted. Sufficient has been ascertained, however, to leave
+no doubt of the continual progress of the family in possessions,
+social dignity, and public consequence" ... "The first man in New
+Amsterdam who had a family carriage" ... "The chief people of the
+city and province, and stately visitors from the Old World, were often
+grouped together under this roof"....
+
+Such august and ample phrases could but nourish and exalt her sense
+of worthiness; could but add to her growing sense of satisfaction.
+She closed the ceremonious volume, and her eyes, lifting, rested for
+a gratifying moment on a framed steel engraving from the painting of
+Abraham De Peyster, Mayor of New York from 1691 to 1693. The picture
+pleased her, with its aristocratically hooked nose, its full wig, its
+smile of amiable condescension. But fortunately she had forgotten, or
+perhaps preferred not to learn, that when this ancestor was New York's
+foremost figure, the city had had within its domain somewhat less than
+one one-thousandth of its present subjects.
+
+And then her eyes wandered to the three-quarters portrait of herself
+by M. Dubois, hung temporarily in this room. Yes, it was good. M.
+Dubois had caught the peculiar De Peyster quality. One looked at it
+and instinctively thought of generations processioning back into a
+beginningless past. "In 1148 Archambaud de Paster" ...
+
+Toward five o'clock she rose and, a stately figure in lavender
+dressing-gown, strolled through the velvet hush of the great darkened
+house: over foot-flattering rugs, through silken hangings that rustled
+discreet homage at her passing, by dark tapestries lit with threads of
+gold, among shadowy bronzes and family portraits and pier-glasses and
+glinting cut-glass candlesticks and chandeliers. So exaltative yet so
+soothing, this opulent silence, this spacious solitude!
+
+And for an almost perfect hour she sat in her rear drawing-room,
+lightly, ever so cautiously, touching bits of Grieg and Tschaikowsky
+out of her Steinway Grand--just dim whispers of music that did not
+breathe beyond the door. She played well, for she loved the piano and
+had a real gift for instrumentation. Often when she played for her
+friends, she had to hold herself in consciously, had to play below her
+ability; for to have allowed herself to play her best might have been
+to suggest that she was striving to be as good as a professional, and
+that would have caused comment and been in bad taste.
+
+Her piano was going to be another comfort to her.
+
+She was complacent--even happy--even exultant. It was all so restful.
+And before her were three months--three beautiful months--of this
+calm, this rest, this security.
+
+At seven o'clock Matilda announced that her dinner was ready, and
+she swept back into the great dining-room, high-ceilinged, surfaced
+completely with old paneling of Flemish oak. The room was dimly
+illuminated by a single shaded electric bulb. The other lighting had
+all been switched off; during the summer the illumination would,
+of course, have to be unsuspiciously meager. To a mortal of a less
+exalted sphere the repast would have seemed a banquet. Mrs. De
+Peyster, though an ascetic at noon, was something of an epicure at
+night; she liked a comfortable quantity, and that of many varieties,
+and these of the best. Under the ministrations of Matilda she
+pleasurably disposed of clear soup, whitebait, a pair of squabs on
+toast with asparagus tips, and an alligator pear salad.
+
+"Really, Matilda," she remarked with benign approval as she leisurely
+began on her iced strawberries, "I had quite forgotten that you were
+such a wonderful cook. Most excellent!"
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," In her enjoyment Mrs. De Peyster had not noticed
+that throughout the meal her faithful attendant had worn a somewhat
+troubled look.
+
+"Just give me food up to this standard, and I shall be most happy,
+my dear. My summer may grow somewhat tedious toward the end; I shall
+count a great deal on good meals to keep it pleasant."
+
+"Of course--of course--" and then a salad plate slipped from Matilda's
+hands. "Oh, ma'am, I--I--"
+
+"What is the matter, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, a trifle
+stern at this ineptness.
+
+"Nothing, ma'am. Nothing at all. I'll see that you get it, b--but I
+don't know how I'll get it."
+
+"Don't know how?"
+
+"You see, ma'am, the butcher, the grocer, everybody thinks I'm the
+only person in the house. We've always traded with these same people,
+and I've stayed here alone now for fifteen summers, and they know I
+eat very little and care only for plain food. And so to-day when I
+ordered all these things, they--they grinned at me. And the butcher
+said, 'Living pretty high, while the missus is away.'"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had dropped her dessert spoon, and was staring at her
+confederate. "I never thought about food!" she exclaimed in dismay.
+
+"Nor did I, ma'am, till the butcher spoke. And, besides, William
+received the goods, and--and he smiled at me and said--"
+
+"It does look suspicious!" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I think it does, ma'am."
+
+"If you keep on having so much food sent in--"
+
+"And such high quality, ma'am."
+
+"Some one may suspect--become curious--and might find out--might find
+out--"
+
+"That's what I was thinking of, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had risen.
+
+"Matilda, we cannot run that risk!"
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps, ma'am, we'd better change our butcher and grocer."
+
+"That would do no good, for the new ones would find out that there was
+supposed to be only a single person here, No, such ordering has got to
+be stopped!"
+
+"If you can stand it, I think it would be safer, ma'am. But what will
+you eat?"
+
+There was a brief silence. Mrs. De Peyster's air grew almost tragic.
+
+"Matilda, do you realize that you and I have got to live for
+the summer, for the entire summer, upon the amount you have been
+accustomed to ordering for yourself!"
+
+"It looks that way, ma'am."
+
+The epicure in Mrs. De Peyster spoke out in a voice of even deeper
+poignancy.
+
+"Two persons--do you realize that, Matilda!--two adult persons will
+have to live for three months upon the rations of one person!"
+
+"And what's worse," added Matilda, "as I told you, I don't eat much.
+I've usually had just a little tea and now and then a chop."
+
+"A little tea and a chop!" Mrs. De Peyster looked as though she were
+going to faint. "A little tea and a chop!... For three months!...
+Matilda!"
+
+It seemed plain, however, that this was the only way out. But standing
+over the remains of the last genuine meal she expected to taste until
+the summer's end, her brow began slowly to clear.
+
+"Matilda," she said after a moment, in a rebuking tone, "I'm surprised
+you did not see the solution to this!"
+
+"Is there one, ma'am? What is it?"
+
+"You are so fixed in the habit of sending your orders to the
+tradespeople that your mind cannot conceive of any other procedure.
+You are to go out in person, at night, if you like, to shops where
+you are not known, pay cash for whatever you want, and carry your
+purchases home with you. It is really extremely simple."
+
+"Why, of course, ma'am," meekly agreed Matilda.
+
+With the specter of famine thus banished, confidence, good humor, and
+the luxurious expectancy of a reposeful summer returned to Mrs. De
+Peyster. Soon she was being further diverted by the mild excitement of
+being dressed in one of Matilda's sober housekeeper gowns, the twin
+of the dress Matilda now wore, for her evening ride with William. They
+were fortunately of nearly the same figure, though, of course, there
+was a universe of difference in how those two figures were carried.
+
+Matilda, the competent, skilled Matilda, was inexplicably incompetent
+at this function. So clumsy, so nervous was she, that Mrs. De Peyster
+was moved to ask with a little irritation what was the matter. Matilda
+hastily assured her mistress that there was nothing--nothing at
+all;--and buttoned a few more buttonholes over the wrong buttons. As
+she followed the fully garbed and thickly veiled Mrs. De Peyster, now
+looking the most stately of stately housekeepers, down the stairway,
+her nervousness increased.
+
+"I wish--I wish--" she began at the door. "What _is_ the matter with
+you, Matilda?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster severely.
+
+"I--I rather wish you--you wouldn't go out, ma'am."
+
+"You are afraid I may be recognized?"
+
+"No, I wasn't thinking of that, ma'am. I--I--"
+
+"What else is there to be afraid of?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am, nothing. But I wish--"
+
+"I am going, Matilda; we will not discuss it," said Mrs. De Peyster,
+in a peremptory tone intended to silence Matilda. "You may first clear
+away the dishes," she ordered. "But I believe I left a squab and some
+asparagus. You might put them, and any other little thing you have, on
+the dining-room table; I shall probably be hungry on my return from my
+drive. And then put my rooms in order. I believe the tea-tray is still
+in my sitting-room; don't forget to bring it down."
+
+"Certainly, ma'am. But--but--" "Matilda"--very severely--"are you
+going to do as I bid you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am,"--very humbly. "But excuse me for presuming to advise
+you, ma'am, but if you want to pass for me you must remember to be
+very humble and--"
+
+"I believe I know how to play my part," Mrs. De Peyster interrupted
+with dignity. Then she softened; it was her instinct to be thoughtful
+of those who served her. "We shall both try to get to bed early, my
+dear. You especially need sleep after last night's strain in getting
+Olivetta away. We shall have a long, restful night."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster opened the door, unlocked the door in the boarding and
+locked it behind her, and stepped into her brougham, which had been
+ordered and was waiting at the curb. "Up Fifth Avenue and into the
+Park, William," she said. She settled back into the courtly embrace of
+the cushions; she breathed deep of the freedom of the soft May night.
+The carriage turned northward into the Avenue. Rolling along in such
+soothing ease--a crowd streaming on either side of her--yet such
+solitude--so entirely unknown.
+
+Restful, yes. And spiced with just the right pinch of mild adventure.
+
+It really could not possibly have been better.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+NOT IN THE PLAN
+
+
+As she rolled northward behind the miraculously erect and rigid
+William, the emotion which had been so mildly exciting when she had
+left her door grew in potency like a swiftly fermenting liquor. It was
+both fearful and delightful. She was all a-flutter. This was a daring
+thing that she was doing--the nearest to a real adventure that she had
+engaged in since her girlhood. Suppose, just suppose, that some one
+should recognize her from the sidewalk!
+
+The thought sent a series of pricking shivers up and down her usually
+tranquil spine.
+
+Just as that fear thrummed through her, she saw, a few doors ahead, a
+man come out of a residence hotel. He sighted the De Peyster carriage,
+and paused. Mrs. De Peyster's heart stood still, for the man was Judge
+Harvey. If he should try to stop her and speak to her--!
+
+But Judge Harvey merely bowed, and the carriage rolled on past him.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's heart palpitated wildly for a block. Then she
+began to regain her courage. Judge Harvey had, of course, thought her
+Matilda. A few blocks, and she had completely reassured herself. There
+was no danger of her discovery. None. Almost every one she knew was
+out of town; she herself was known to be upon the high seas bound for
+Europe; Matilda's gown and veil were a most unsuspicious disguise;
+and William, her paragon of a William, so rigidly upright on the seat
+before her--William's statuesque, unapproachable figure diffused about
+her a sense of absolute security. She relaxed, sank back into the
+upholstery of the carriage, and began fully to enjoy the rare May
+night.
+
+But a surprise was lying in wait for her as she came into a
+comparatively secluded drive of Central Park. In itself the surprise
+was the most trifling of events--so slight a matter as a person
+twisting his vertebrae some hundred-odd degrees, and silently smiling.
+But that person was William!
+
+For a moment she gasped with amazed indignation. To think of William
+daring to smile at her! But quickly she recognized that William, of
+course, supposed her to be Matilda, and that the smile was no more
+than the friendly courtesy that would naturally pass between two
+fellow-servants. Her indignation subsided, but her wonderment
+remained. To think that William could smile, William in whose
+thoroughly ironed dignity she had never before detected a wrinkle!
+
+Just as she had re-composed herself, they rolled into another
+unpeopled stretch of the drive. Again William's vertebrae performed a
+semicircle and again William smiled.
+
+"Fine night, Matilda," he remarked in a pleasant voice.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shrank back into the cushions. She had the presence of
+mind to nod her head, and William faced about. To put it temperately,
+the situation was becoming very trying. Mrs. De Peyster now realized
+that she had been guilty of a lack of forethought. It had not occurred
+to her, in working out this plan of hers, that her frigidly proper
+William could entertain a friendliness toward any one. What she should
+have done was to have given William a vacation and secured an entirely
+strange coachman for the summer who would have had no friendly
+sentiments to give play to.
+
+But her desire was now all to escape from William's amiable
+attentions.
+
+"Take me home," she said presently, muffling her voice behind her hand
+and veil, and withdrawing from it its accustomed tone of authority.
+
+Half an hour later, to her great relief, the carriage turned again
+into Washington Square and drew up before her house. She stepped
+quickly out.
+
+"Good-night--thank you," she said in a smothered imitation of
+Matilda's voice, and hurried up her steps.
+
+She had unlocked the door in the boarding and had stepped into the
+dark entry, when she became aware that William had deserted his horses
+and was stepping in just behind her. As though it were a matter of
+long custom, William slipped an arm about her waist and imprinted a
+kiss upon her veil.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster let out a little gasping cry, and struggled to free
+herself.
+
+"Don't be scared, Matilda," William reassured her. "Nobody can see
+us in here." And he patted her on the shoulder with middle-aged
+affection.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, after her first outburst, realized that she dared not
+cry out, or rebuff William. To do so would reveal her identity. And
+horrified as she was, she realized that there must have long existed
+between William and Matilda a carefully concealed affair of the heart.
+
+"It's all right, dear," William again reassured her, with his staid
+ardor. "It's mighty good to be with you like this, Matilda!" He heaved
+a love-laden sigh. "We've had it mighty hard, haven't we, with only
+being able to steal a minute with each other now and then--always
+afraid of Mrs. De Peyster. It's been mighty hard for me. Hasn't it
+been hard for you?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.
+
+"Hasn't it been hard for you, dear?" William insisted tenderly.
+
+"Ye--yes," very huskily.
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Matilda? I know; you're tired, dear; your
+nerves are all worn out with the strain of getting Mrs. De Peyster
+off." Again his voice became tenderly indignant. "Just see how she
+treated that Miss Gardner; and wouldn't she have done the same to us,
+if she'd found us out? To think, dear, that but for her attitude you
+and me might have been married and happy! I know you are devoted to
+her, and wouldn't leave her, and I know she's kind enough in her
+way, but I tell you, Matilda,"--William's voice, so superbly without
+expression when on duty, was alive with conviction,--"I tell you,
+Matilda, she's a regular female tyrant!"
+
+There was a mighty surging within Mrs. De Peyster, a premonition of
+eruption. But she choked it down. William, launched upon the placid
+sea of his elderly affection, did not heed that his supposed inamorata
+was making no replies.
+
+"She's a regular tyrant!" he repeated. "But now that she's away,"
+he added in a tender tone, "and left just us two here, Matilda dear,
+we'll have a lot of nice little times together." And urged by his
+welling love he again embraced her and again pressed a loverly kiss
+upon Matilda's veil.
+
+This was too much. The crater could be choked no longer. The eruption
+came.
+
+"Let me go!" Mrs. De Peyster cried, struggling; and her right hand,
+striking wildly out, fell full upon William's sacred cheek.
+
+He drew back amazed.
+
+"What's the matter?" he demanded.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster searched frantically for the keyhole to the inner
+door.
+
+"Matilda, I'm not the man to take that!" he declared irefully. "What
+do you mean?"
+
+"Go! Go!" she gasped.
+
+He drew back wrathfully, but with an awful dignity.
+
+"Very well, Miss Simpson. But I'm not a man that forgives. You'll be
+sorry for this!"
+
+As he started stiffly away Mrs. De Peyster found the keyhole. She
+turned her key, opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her.
+Gasping, shivering, she groped in the dusky hall until she found
+a chair. Into this she sank, half fainting, and sat shaking with
+astoundment, with horror, with wrath.
+
+Wrath swiftly became the ruling emotion. It began to fulminate. She
+would discharge William! She would send him flying the very next
+morning, bag and baggage!
+
+Then an appalling thought shot through her. She could not discharge
+William!
+
+She could not discharge William, because she was not there to
+discharge him! She was upon the Atlantic highroad, speeding for
+Europe, and would not be home for many a month! And during all those
+months, whenever she dared appear, she would be subject to William's
+loverly attention!
+
+She sat rigid with the horror of this new development. But she had not
+yet had time to realize its full possibilities--for hardly a minute
+had passed since she had entered--when she heard a key slide into
+the lock of the front door and saw a vague figure enter the unlighted
+hall. She arose in added terror. Had that William come back to--
+
+"Oh, there you are, Matilda," softly called a voice, and the vague
+figure came toward her.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's terror took suddenly a new turn. For the voice was
+not the voice of her coachman.
+
+"J-a-c-k!" she breathed wildly.
+
+Jack threw an arm about Mrs. De Peyster's shoulders.
+
+"Ho, ho, that's the time I caught you, Matilda," said he, in teasing
+reproof. "U'm, I saw those tender little love passages between you and
+William!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stood a pillar of ice.
+
+"Better not let mother find it out," he advised. "If she got on to
+this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda." He patted her shoulder
+assuringly. "So don't worry."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's lips opened. If her voice sounded unlike Matilda's
+voice, the difference was unconsciously attributed by Jack to
+agitation due to his discovery.
+
+"How--how do you come here?" she asked.
+
+"With an almighty lot of trouble!" grumbled he. "Came around the
+corner an hour ago just in time to see you drive off with William.
+I've got a key to the inside door, but none to the door in the
+boarding; and as I knew there was nobody in the house I could rouse
+up, there was nothing for it but to wait till you and William came
+back. So we've been sitting out there on a park bench ever since."
+
+There was one particular word of Jack's explanation that drummed
+against Mrs. De Peyster's ear.
+
+"We?" she ejaculated. "We?" Then she noticed that another shadowy
+figure had drawn nearer in the dark. "Who--who's that?"
+
+"Mary," was Jack's prompt and joyous answer.
+
+"Mary! Not that--that Mary Morgan?"
+
+"She used to be. She's Mary de Peyster now."
+
+"You're not--not married?"
+
+"To-day," he cried in exultation. "We slipped out to Stamford;
+everything was done secretly there, and it's to be kept strictly on
+the quiet for a time." He bent down close to Mrs. De Peyster's ear.
+"Don't let Mary know how mother objected to her; I haven't told
+her, and she doesn't guess it. And oh, Matilda," he bubbled out
+enthusiastically, "she's the kind of a little sport that will stick
+by a chap through anything, and she's clever and full of fun, and a
+regular little dear!"
+
+He turned. "Come here, Mary," he called softly. "This is Matilda."
+
+The next instant a slight figure threw its arms about Mrs. De Peyster
+and kissed her warmly.
+
+"I'm so glad to meet you at last, Matilda!" exclaimed a low, clear
+voice. "Jack has told me how good you have been to him ever since he
+was a baby. I know we shall be the very, very best of friends!"
+
+"And so--you're--you're married!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Jack was too excited by his happiness to have noticed Mrs. De
+Peyster's voice had it been a dozen-fold more unlike Matilda's than
+it was. "Yes!" he cried. "And wouldn't it surprise mother if she knew!
+Mother, sailing so unsuspiciously along on the Plutonia!" He gave a
+chortle of delight. "But oh, I say, Matilda," he cried suddenly, "you
+mustn't write her!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not answer.
+
+"We don't want her to know yet," Jack insisted; "that's one reason
+we've done the whole thing so quietly." Then he added jocosely:
+"If you tell, there's a thing I might tell her about you.
+About--u'm--about you and William. Want me to do that--eh? Better
+promise not to tell."
+
+"I won't," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It's a bargain, then. But there's something else that would surprise
+her, too. I'm going to work."
+
+"But not at once," put in Mary de Peyster, _nee_ Mary Morgan, in her
+soft contralto voice, that seemed to effervesce with mischief. "Tell
+Matilda what you're doing to do."
+
+"I've already told you, Matilda, about my little experiment in
+the pick-and-shovel line. I decided that I didn't care for that
+profession. I've saved a few hundred out of my allowance. Monday I'm
+going to enter the School of Mines at Columbia--am going to study
+straight through the summer--night and day till the money gives out.
+By that time I ought to be able to get a job that will support us. And
+then I'll study hard of nights till I become a real mining engineer!"
+
+"But we've got to live close! Oh, but we've got to live close!"
+exclaimed Mary joyously, as though living close were one of the
+chiefest pleasures of life.
+
+"Yes, we've certainly got to live close!" emphasized Jack. "That's why
+we're here."
+
+"Why you're here?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster in a low, dazed tone.
+
+"Yes." Jack gave a gleeful, excited laugh. "I had an inspiration how
+to economize. Says I to Mary, 'Mary, since mother is away, and this
+big house is empty except for you, Matilda, why pay rent?' So here
+we are, and here we're going to live all summer--on the '_q t_,' of
+course." He slipped an arm about Mary and one about Mrs. De Peyster,
+and again laughed his gleeful, excited laugh. "Just you, and Mary, and
+me--and, oh, say, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE HONEYMOONERS
+
+
+Again Jack's arm tightened about Mrs. De Peyster in his convulsive
+glee, and again he exclaimed, "Oh, Matilda, won't it be a lark!"
+
+Only the embrace of Jack's good left arm kept Mrs. De Peyster from
+subsiding into a jellied heap upon her parqueted floor. It had ever
+been her pride, and a saying of her admirers, that she always rose
+equal to every emergency. But at the present moment she had not a
+thought, had not a single distinct sensation. She was wildly, weakly,
+terrifyingly dizzy--that was all; and her only self-control, if the
+paralysis of an organ may be called controlling it, was that she held
+her tongue.
+
+Fortunately, at first, there was little necessity for her speaking.
+The bride and groom were too joyously loquacious to allow her much
+chance for words, and too bubbling over with their love and with the
+spirit of daring mischief to be observant of any strangeness in her
+demeanor that the darkness did not mask. As they chattered on, Mrs.
+De Peyster began to regain some slight steadiness--enough to consider
+spasmodically how she was to escape undiscovered from the pair, how
+she was to extricate herself from the predicament of the moment--for
+beyond that moment's danger she had not the power to think. She had
+decided that she must somehow get away from the couple at once; in the
+darkness slip unobserved into her sitting-room; lock the door; remain
+there noiseless;--she had decided so much, when suddenly her wits were
+sent spinning by a new fear.
+
+The real Matilda! Mrs. De Peyster's ears, at that moment frantically
+acute, registered dim movements of Matilda overhead.
+
+Suppose the real Matilda should hear their voices; suppose she should
+come walking down into the scene! With two Matildas simultaneously
+upon the stage--
+
+Mrs. De Peyster reached out and clutched the banister of the stairway
+with drowning hands.
+
+The pair talked on to her, answering themselves. They would take the
+rooms above Mrs. De Peyster's suite, they said--they would give her,
+Matilda, no trouble at all--they would attend to their own housework,
+everything--and so on, and so on, with Mrs. De Peyster hearing
+nothing, but reaching aurally out for Matilda's exposing tread. To
+forestall this exposure, she started weakly up the stairs, only to be
+halted by the slipping of Jack's arm around her shoulder. The couple
+chattered on about their household arrangements, and Mrs. De Peyster
+the prisoner of Jack's affectionate arm, stood gulping, as though her
+soul were trying to swallow itself, ready to sink through her floor at
+the faintest approach of her housekeeper's slippers.
+
+And then again the arm of the exuberant Jack tightened about her. "Oh,
+say, what a wild old time we're going to have! Won't we, Matilda?"
+
+"Ye--yes," Mrs. De Peyster felt constrained to answer.
+
+"But it's mighty dangerous!" cried the little figure, with a shivery
+laugh.
+
+"Dangerous!" chuckled Jack with his mischievous glee. "Well, rather!
+And that's half the fun. If the newspapers were to get on to the fact
+that the son of _the_ Mrs. De Peyster had secretly married without
+his mother's knowledge, and that the young scamp and his wife were
+secretly living in her house--can't you just see the reporters
+jimmying open every window to get at us!"
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster faintly.
+
+"Really, Jack," protested the girlish voice, "I think it's scandalous
+of us to be doing this!"
+
+"Come, now, Mary, nobody's going to be any the worse, or any the
+wiser, for it. We're just using something that would otherwise be
+wasted--and we'll vanish at the first news that mother's coming back.
+But, of course, Matilda, we've certainly got to be all-fired
+careful. I'll leave the house only in the early mornings--by the
+back way--through Washington Mews--either when the coast is clear
+or there's a crowd. There are so many artists and chauffeurs and
+stablemen coming and going through the Mews that I'm sure I can manage
+it without being noticed. And I'll come back in the same way; and our
+food I'll smuggle in of nights."
+
+"And I, Matilda, I shall not mind staying in at all," bubbled the Mary
+person. "It will give me a splendid chance to practice. You see, I
+hope to go on a concert tour this fall."
+
+"By the way, Matilda, about the row Mary'll be making on the piano.
+Couldn't you just casually mention to anybody you see that mother had
+bought one of these sixty-horse-power, steam-hammer piano-players and
+you were the engineer, running it a lot to while away the lonesome
+months?"
+
+"Do you want to intimate, sir," demanded Mary with mock hauteur, "that
+my playing sounds like a--"
+
+"What I want to intimate, madam, is that I'd like to avoid having our
+happy home raided by the police. Matilda, you could do that, couldn't
+you--just casually?"
+
+"Yes--M--Mr. Jack," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"There, everything's settled. We'll go up to our rooms. You wouldn't
+mind helping us a bit, Matilda?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had one supreme thought. If they went upstairs, they
+might run into the other Matilda. The frantic, drowning impulse to put
+off disaster every possible moment caused her to clutch Jack's arm.
+
+"There's--something to eat--in the dining-room. Perhaps you'd like--"
+
+"Great idea, Matilda! Lead on."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks that all the lights but one had been
+switched off. And fortunately the light from that one shaded bulb was
+almost lost in the great dining-room. Subconsciously Mrs. De Peyster
+recalled Matilda's injunction to "be humble," and she let her manner
+slump--though at that moment she had no particular excess of dignity
+to discard.
+
+Jack sighted the food Matilda had left upon the table. With a swoop he
+was upon it.
+
+"Oh, joy! Squabs! Asparagus!" And he seized a squab by the legs, with
+a hand that was still bandaged. "Here you are, my dear," tearing off a
+leg and handing it to Mary, who accepted it gingerly. With much gusto
+Jack took a bite of bird and a huge bite of bread. "Great little
+wedding supper, Matilda! Thanks. But I say, Matilda, you haven't yet
+spoken up about _meine liebe Frau_. Don't you think she'll do?"
+
+"Now, Jack dear, don't be a fool!"
+
+"Mrs. Jack de Peyster, I'll have you understand your husband can't be
+a fool! Come now, Matilda,--my bonny bride, look at her. Better lift
+your veil."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not lift her veil. But helplessly she gave a
+glance toward this new wife Jack had thus brought home: a glance so
+distracted that it could see nothing but vibrating blurs.
+
+"Well? Well?" prompted Jack. "Won't she do?"
+
+"Yes," in a husky whisper.
+
+"And don't you think, when mother sees her, she'll say the same?"
+
+"I'm sure--I'm sure--" her choking voice could get out no more.
+
+"Oh, but I shall be so afraid!" cried Mary, again with that shivery
+little laugh.
+
+"Nothing to be afraid of, Mary. Mother's really a good sort."
+
+"Jack! To call one's mother a 'good sort'!"
+
+"Why not? She's bug-house on this social position business, but aside
+from that she's perfectly human."
+
+"Jack!" in her scandalized tone. "Isn't he awful Matilda?"
+
+"Ye--yes, ma'am."
+
+"Don't call me 'ma'am,' Matilda. Since we're to be together constantly
+this summer, call me Mary."
+
+"Yes, ma'a--Mary."
+
+"That's right, Matilda," put in Jack. "We're going to run this place
+as a democracy. You're to have all your meals with us."
+
+"And I'll help you get them!" Mary cried excitedly. "You'll find me
+tagging around after you most of the time. For, think of it, you're
+the only woman I'm going to see in months!"
+
+"Ye--yes, Mary."
+
+"Jack, you run along, there's a dear," commanded Mary, "and unpack
+your things. Matilda and I want to have a little chat."
+
+"Married six hours, and bossed already," grumbled Jack happily. "All
+right. But that bit of a squab I ate was nothing. I'm starved. I'll
+be back in five minutes and then we'll get a real supper down in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Yes, all three of us," agreed Mary.
+
+Jack picked up his bag. Frantically Mrs. De Peyster tried to think of
+some way of holding him back from a possible damnatory encounter with
+Matilda upon the stairway. But she could think of nothing. Jack went
+out.
+
+Mary ordered Mrs. De Peyster into a chair, and sat down facing her.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster strained her ears for the surprised voices that would
+announce the disastrous meeting. But there sounded from above no
+startled cries. Jack must have got to his room, unnoticed by Matilda.
+Mrs. De Peyster breathed just a little easier. The evil moment was put
+off.
+
+"Matilda," began Mary, "I want you to tell me the honest truth about
+something. I think Jack's been trying to deceive me. To make me feel
+better, the dear boy, he's been telling me there'd not be the least
+doubt about his mother being reconciled to our marriage. Do you think
+she ever will be?"
+
+"Well--well--"
+
+"Please! Will she, or won't she?"
+
+"You can only--only hope--for the best."
+
+"I hope she will, for Jack's sake!" sighed Mary deeply. She picked
+up an evening paper Jack had brought in. "Did you know his mother was
+very ill at the time she sailed? This paper says she was so sick that
+she was unable to see a single one of her friends who came to see her
+off. That was too bad, wasn't it!" There was a great deal of genuine
+feeling in the voice of the small person.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster remained silent.
+
+"Why, you don't seem at all sympathetic, Matilda!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster put a hand to her lips. "I'm--I'm very sorry, ma'am,"
+she mumbled between her fingers, trying to assume Matilda's humility.
+
+"Why, what's the matter with your voice? It seems husky."
+
+"It's just"--Mrs. De Peyster swallowed--a little summer cold I caught
+to-day. It's--it's nothing, ma'am."
+
+"I'm sorry!" exclaimed the little person. "But, Matilda, how many more
+times have I got to tell you I don't like your 'ma'aming' me. Call me
+Mary."
+
+"Very well--Mary."
+
+"That's right. And now, as to Jack's mother; the paper says society is
+very much concerned over her condition."
+
+On the whole, Mrs. De Peyster's concern over her condition was rather
+more acute than society's. But she had begun to recover in a degree,
+and was now, though palpitant within, making a furtive study of Mary.
+Such light as there was fell full upon that small person. Mrs. De
+Peyster saw a dark, piquant face, with features not regular, but ever
+in motion and quick with expression--eyes of a deep, deep brown, with
+a glimmer of red in them, eyes that gave out an ever-changing sparkle
+of sympathy and mischief and intelligence--and a mass of soft dark
+hair, most unstylishly, most charmingly arranged, that caught some of
+the muffled light and softly glowed with a reddish tone. If there was
+anything vulgar, or commonplace, about Jack's wife, the shaded bulb
+was too kindly disposed to betray it to Mrs. De Peyster's scrutiny.
+
+Suddenly Mary laughed--softly, musically.
+
+"If Jack's mother ever dreamed what Jack and I are doing here! Oh--oh!
+Some day, after she's forgiven us--if ever she does forgive us--You've
+said you're sure she'll forgive us, Matilda; do you honestly, truly,
+cross-your-heartly, believe she will?"
+
+"Y-e-s," said Mrs. De Peyster's numb lips.
+
+"I do hope so, for Jack's sake!" sighed the little person. "After she
+forgives us, I'm going to 'fess up everything. Of course she'll be
+scandalized--for what we're doing is simply awful!--but all the same
+I'll tell her. And after she's forgiven us, I'll make her forgive you,
+too, Matilda, for your part in harboring us here. We'll see that you
+do not suffer."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster realized that she should have expressed thanks at this
+point. But silence she considered better than valor.
+
+"This paper prints that picture of her by M. Dubois again. Really,
+Matilda, is she as terribly dignified as that makes her look?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had to speak. "I--I--hardly, ma'am."
+
+"There you go with that 'ma'am' again!"
+
+"Hardly, Mary," mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Because if she looks anything like that picture, it must simply scare
+you to death to live with her. Did she ever bend her back?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Or smile?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Or forget that she was a De Peyster?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"The lady of that picture never did!" declared the little person
+with conviction. "She's just dignity and pride--calm, remote, lofty,
+icebergy pride. She can say her ancestors backwards. Why, she's her
+family tree, petrified!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to add to these remarks.
+
+"I don't see how she can possibly like me!" cried the little person.
+"Do you, Matilda?"
+
+"I suppose--you can--only wait--and see," replied Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I haven't got any dignity, or any money, or any ancestors; only a
+father and a couple of grandfathers--though I dare say there were some
+Morgans before them. No, she'll never care for me--never!" wailed the
+little person. "She couldn't! Why, she's carved out of a solid block
+of dignity! She never did an un-De-Peyster thing in her life!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster felt herself choking. She had to get out of the room,
+or die.
+
+Just then Jack walked back in. For a few moments she had forgotten
+Jack. The terror arising from the menace upstairs returned to her.
+But Jack's happy face was assurance that as yet he knew nothing of the
+second Matilda.
+
+Yes, she had to get out, or die. And Jack's reappearance gave her
+frantic mind a cue for an unbetraying exit.
+
+"I'll go to the kitchen--and start supper," she gulped, and hurried
+into the butler's pantry.
+
+"Jack," she heard Mary's perplexed voice, "Matilda, somehow, seems
+rather queer to me."
+
+"She doesn't seem quite herself," agreed Jack.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank into a chair beside the door, and sat there
+motionless, hardly daring to breathe--shattered by the narrowness of
+her escape, and appalled by this new situation that had risen around
+her--too appalled even to consider what might be the situation's
+natural developments. Soon amid the wild churning of various emotions,
+anger began to rise, and outraged pride. Such cool, dumbfounding
+impudence!
+
+Then curiosity began to stir. Instinct warned her, incoherently, for
+all her faculties were too demoralized to be articulate, that this was
+no place for her. But those two persons in there--her son, and
+this daughter-in-law who had burst out of a fair cloud upon her--a
+daughter-in-law whom she would never recognize--what were they doing?
+Cautiously, ever so cautiously, she pushed open the pantry door till
+there was a slight crack giving into the other room.
+
+Jack had his arms about Mary's shoulders.
+
+"Well, little lady," she heard him ask with tremulous fondness--the
+young fool!--"What do you think of our honeymoon?"
+
+"I think, sir, that it's something scandalous!" (Not such an
+unpleasant voice--but then!)
+
+"U'm! Has the fact occurred to you"--very solemnly--"that you haven't
+kissed me since we have been in this room?"
+
+"Was it written in the bond that I had to kiss you in every room?"
+
+"No matter about the bond. A kiss or a divorce. Take your choice."
+
+"It isn't worth divorcing you, since you may be too poor to pay
+alimony. So"--sighing and turning her face up to him.
+
+(Sentimental idiots!)
+
+"Mary"--after a moment of clinging lips--"you think you can really be
+happy with me?"
+
+"I know I shall be, dear!"
+
+"Even if things don't go right between mother and me, and even if for
+a long time I shall be awfully, awfully poor?"
+
+"It's just you I care for, Jack,--just you!"
+
+Jack stared at her; then suddenly:
+
+"Do you know what I feel like?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Like kissing you again."
+
+"Now don't be--"
+
+"Mary!"
+
+His voice was tremulous. Slowly their lips came together; they
+embraced; then drew apart, and holding hands, stood gazing at each
+other.
+
+"You're a dear, dear fool!" said Mary softly.
+
+"And you're a dear, dear another!" softly said Jack.
+
+(Outrageous fools, both! agreed Mrs. De Peyster.)
+
+They were still gazing at each other when in the wide doorway at their
+back appeared Matilda, carrying the tray of tea-things that had been
+in Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room. For the last few moments Mrs. De
+Peyster's danger had been forgotten in her indignation. But at sight
+of Matilda, regained its own.
+
+Matilda stopped short. The tea-things almost rattled from the tray.
+Jack wheeled about.
+
+"Hello, Matilda. Thought you'd gone down to the kitchen."
+
+"Why--why--if it isn't Mr. Jack!" stammered Matilda.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster trembled. What more likely than that Matilda, in her
+amazement, should reveal the house's secret? But the half-light of the
+room was a very obliging ally against such unsuspicion as her son's.
+
+"Of course, it's Jack," said he. "Who else did you suppose it was? But
+say, what's the matter, Matilda?"
+
+"Yes, what's the matter, Matilda?" asked Mary with great concern.
+
+"Ma'am--ma'am"--staring wildly at Mary--"I--I don't know, ma'am."
+
+"What, have you already forgotten what I told you about calling me
+Mary!"
+
+"Ma--Mary?" gasped Matilda blankly.
+
+"Jack," said Mary in a low voice, "I said awhile ago that she seemed
+queer."
+
+"Where have you put your head, Matilda? Yes--Mary!--Mary!--Mary! Mary
+De Peyster--Mrs. Jack De Peyster--my wedded wife--whom it cost me four
+thirty-nine to make my own. Understand?"
+
+"P-per-perfectly, Mr. Jack."
+
+"Well, that's happy news. What's that you're carrying?"
+
+"It's--ah--er--my breakfast," explained Matilda.
+
+"Your breakfast!" exclaimed Jack. "What are you doing with it here?"
+
+"I was--I was--er--was going to--to get it all ready to--to take up to
+myself to-morrow."
+
+Jack took the tray from Matilda's nerveless hands.
+
+[Illustration: "WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"]
+
+"Sit down, Matilda," firmly pressing her into a chair. "Mary, have you
+some salts in that bag."
+
+"Yes, Jack." In an instant Mary had a bottle from her bag and was
+holding it beneath Matilda's nose. "You'll be all right in just a
+moment. Take it easy. The surprise must have been too much for you.
+For it was a big surprise, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied Matilda, for the first time speaking with no
+hesitancy.
+
+"Matilda, it's almost provoking the way you ignore my request to call
+me Mary."
+
+"Ah--er--" staring wildly--"yes, Mary."
+
+Jack moved to the wall near the door, where were several buttons.
+
+"Mary, I'm going to ring for William--we'd better take him into this
+thing straight off, or he may stumble on the fact that extra people
+are in the house and call in the police."
+
+At her crack in the pantry door, Mrs. De Peyster grew even more
+apprehensive.
+
+Jack and Mary cooed; Matilda sat all of a heap; and presently William
+walked in. To her other emotions, Mrs. De Peyster had added a new
+shock. For William the peerless--fit coachman for an emperor--William,
+whom till that night she could not have imagined, had she imagined
+about such things at all, other than as sleeping in a high collar and
+with all his brass buttons snugly buttoned--William was coatless, and
+collarless, and slouching from his mouth was an old pipe!
+
+He came in with a haughty glower, for he had supposed the ring to
+be Matilda's. But at sight of Jack and Mary his face went blank with
+amazement.
+
+"Why, why, Mr. Jack!" Hastily he jerked his pipe into his pocket and
+began buttoning the open collar of his shirt. "I--I beg pardon, sir."
+
+"Hello, William! This is Mrs. Jack, William. Just married. We've come
+to spend the summer with you."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But on the quiet, William. Understand? If you leak a word about our
+being here--well, I know about the heart-throb business between you
+and Matilda. If you drop one word--one single word, I put mother next
+to what's doing between you two."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Just wanted you to know we were here, William, so you wouldn't by any
+chance throw a surprise that would give us away. That's all. Keep mum
+about us"--with a sly wink at him and another at Matilda--"and you two
+can goo-goo at each other like a popular song. Good-night."
+
+Jack turned his back; and Mary, whose heart went out to all lovers,
+delicately turned hers.
+
+"William," fluttered Matilda, taking an eager, hesitating step toward
+him.
+
+He stared at her haughtily--as haughtily as is in the power of a mere
+mortal who has no collar on.
+
+"William," she cried bewildered, "what is it?"
+
+"I believe you know what it is, Miss Simpson," he replied witheringly,
+and stalked out under full majesty.
+
+She stood dumbfounded; but only for a moment.
+
+"Matilda," spoke up Jack, "have you got supper things started yet in
+the kitchen?"
+
+"Er--er--what?" stammered poor Matilda.
+
+"Say, see here--what the dickens _is_ the matter with you?" Jack
+exploded in exasperation. "You just promised to start supper in the
+kitchen, and now--"
+
+"Of course--of course," gulped Matilda, "I forgot. I'll do it right
+away."
+
+Matilda was reeling. But she perceived that here was her chance to
+get out of the room--and for the moment that was her supreme and only
+desire. She started for the door of the butler's pantry.
+
+"We'll be down with you in about five minutes," Jack called after her.
+
+In the darkness of the pantry a hand fell upon her arm. "Matilda,"
+breathed her mistress's voice, and Matilda had enough control not
+to cry out, or was too far gone. Clutching hands, they went down the
+winding stairs that led from the butler's pantry to the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, ma'am!" moaned Matilda in the darkness.
+
+"Matilda"--in awed breathlessness--"isn't this terrible?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am! ma'am!"
+
+"If Jack should learn that I am here--" She could not express the
+horror of it.
+
+"Oh, ma'am!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's voice rang out with wild desperation.
+
+"Matilda, there is only one thing to do! We must leave the house!"
+
+"I think we'd better, ma'am," Matilda snuffled hysterically, "for with
+all of you here, and this keeping up, I--I don't think I'd last a day,
+ma'am."
+
+"And we must leave at once! We've not a second to spare. They said
+they were coming right down. We must be out of the house before they
+come!"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, yes! This minute! But where--"
+
+"There's no time to think of anything now but getting out," cried Mrs.
+De Peyster with frantic energy. "Slip up the front stairway, Matilda,
+and get your hat. And here are my keys. Lock my sitting-room, so they
+can't see any one's been living in it. You can manage it without them
+seeing you. And for heaven's sake, hurry!"
+
+Two minutes later these things were done, and Matilda, bonneted, was
+hurrying forward hand in hand with Mrs. De Peyster through the black
+hallway of the basement. Behind them, descending the stairs from
+the butler's pantry, sounded the chatter and laughter of the larking
+honeymooners; and then from the kitchen came the surprised and
+exasperated call: "Hello, Matilda--See here, where the dickens are
+you?"
+
+But at just that moment the twin, unbreathing figures in black slipped
+through the servants' door and noiselessly closed it behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+The two dark figures stood an instant, breathless, in the dark mouth
+of the cavern beneath the marble balustraded stairway that ascended
+with chaste dignity to Mrs. De Peyster's noble front door. Swiftly
+they surveyed the scene. Not a policeman was in sight: no one save,
+across the way on Washington Square benches, a few plebeian lovers
+enjoying the soft calm of a May eleven o'clock.
+
+The pair, with veils down, each looking a plagiarism of the other,
+slipped out of the servants' entrance, through the gate of the low
+iron fence, and arm clutching arm hastened eastward to University
+Place. Thus far no one had challenged them. Here they turned and went
+rapidly northward: past the Lafayette, where Mrs. De Peyster's impulse
+to take a taxicab was instantly countermanded by the fear that so
+near her home there was danger of recognition: and onward, onward
+they went, swiftly, wordlessly, their one commanding impulse to get
+away--to get away.
+
+At Fourteenth Street they passed a policeman. Again they choked back
+their breath; shiveringly they felt his eyes upon them. And, indeed,
+his eyes were--interestedly; for to that Hibernian, with his native
+whimsicality, they suggested the somewhat unusual phenomenon of the
+same person out walking with herself. But he did not speak.
+
+At the head of Union Square they caught a roving taxicab. Their next
+thought, after bare escape, was necessarily concerned with shelter, a
+hiding-place. To the chauffeur's "Where to, ladies?" Mrs. De Peyster
+said, "Hotel Dauphin." The instinct, the Mrs. De Peyster of habit,
+which was beneath her surface of agitation, said the Dauphin because
+the Dauphin was quite the most select hotel in New York. In fact, six
+months before, when Mrs. De Peyster desired to introduce and honor the
+Duke de Crecy in a larger way than her residence permitted, it was at
+the Dauphin that she had elected to give the ball that had brought her
+so much deferential praise--which occasion was the first and only time
+she had departed from her strict old-family practice of limiting
+her social functions to such as could be accommodated within her own
+house. She had then been distinctly pleased; one could hardly
+have expected good breeding upon so large a scale. And her present
+subconscious impression of the Dauphin was that it was ducal, if not
+regal, in its reserved splendor, in its manner of subdued, punctilious
+ceremony.
+
+She could remain at the Dauphin, in seclusion, until she had time to
+think. Then she could act.
+
+As she sped smoothly up Fifth Avenue--her second ride on the Avenue
+that night--she began, in the cushioned privacy of the taxi, to
+recover somewhat from the panic of dire necessity that had driven them
+forth. Other matters began to flash spasmodically across the screen
+of her mind. One of these was William. And there the film stopped. The
+cold, withering look William had given Matilda a few minutes before
+remained fixed upon the screen. That look threatened her most
+unpleasantly as to the future. What if William should learn who was
+the real Matilda to whom he had made love!
+
+"Matilda," she began, calling up her dignity, "I desire to instruct
+you upon a certain matter."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," whispered Matilda.
+
+"I expressly instruct you not to mention or hint to any one,
+particularly William, that it was I and not you who went out driving
+with him to-night."
+
+"I'll not, ma'am."
+
+"You swear?"
+
+"I swear, ma'am. Never!"
+
+"Remember, Matilda. You have sworn." And relieved of that menace, she
+leaned back.
+
+The taxi drew up before the Dauphin. A grenadier-lackey, who seemed
+bulk and brass buttons and braid of gold, handed them out with august
+white gloves.
+
+"Pay the fare, Matilda," ordered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's bills, when she had a servant with her, were always
+paid by the attendant. Matilda did so, out of a square black leather
+bag that was never out of Matilda's fingers when Matilda was out of
+the house; it seemed almost a flattened extension of Matilda's hand.
+
+They entered the Dauphin, passing other white-gloved lackeys, each a
+separate perfection of punctiliousness; and passed through a marble
+hallway, muted with rugs of the Orient, and came into a vast high
+chamber, large as a theater--marble walls and ceiling, tapestries,
+moulded plaster and gilt in moderation, silken ropes instead of
+handrails on the stairways, electric lights so shaded that each looked
+a huge but softly unobtrusive pearl. The chamber was pervaded by, was
+dedicated to, splendid repose.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, Matilda trailing, headed for a booth of marble and
+railing of dull gold--the latter, possibly, only bronze, or gilded
+iron--within which stood a gentleman in evening dress, with the
+bearing of one no lower than the first secretary of an embassy.
+
+"A suite," Mrs. De Peyster remarked briefly across the counter, "with
+sitting-room, two bed-rooms and bath."
+
+"Certainly," said the distinguished gentleman. "I have a most
+desirable suite on the fifteenth floor, with a splendid outlook over
+the park."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"The name, please?" queried the gentleman, reaching for a pen.
+
+"Mrs. David Harrison," invented Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"When do your employers wish to occupy the suite?" pursued the courtly
+voice of the secretary of the embassy.
+
+"Our employers!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster. And then with wrathful
+hauteur: "The apartment is for ourselves. We desire to occupy it at
+once."
+
+The gentleman glanced her up and down; then up and down his eyes went
+over Matilda, just behind her. There was no doubting what Matilda was;
+and since the two were patently the same, there could be no doubt as
+to what Mrs. De Peyster was.
+
+"I'm sorry--but, after all, the suite is not available," he said
+courteously.
+
+"Not available?" cried Mrs. De Peyster. "Why not?"
+
+"I prefer to say no more."
+
+"But I insist!"
+
+"Since you insist--the Dauphin does not receive servants, even of the
+higher order, as regular guests." The hotel clerk's voice was silken
+with courtesy; there was no telling with what important families these
+two were connected; and it would not do to give offense. "We receive
+servants only when they accompany their employers, and then assign
+them to the servants' quarters. You yourself must perceive the
+necessity of this," he added hastily, seeing that Mrs. De Peyster was
+shaking, "to preserve the Dauphin's social tone--"
+
+"The servants' quarters!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "You mean--"
+
+"You'll excuse me, please," interrupted the clerk, and with a bow
+ended the scene and moved to the rear of the office where he plainly
+busied himself over nothing at all.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, quivering, gulping, glared through her veil at him. A
+hotel clerk had turned his back on her! And this mere clerk had dared
+refuse her a room! _Refuse her!_ Because she, _she_, Mrs. De Peyster
+had not the social tone!
+
+Nothing like it had ever happened to her before.
+
+Her desire to annihilate that clerk with the suave ambassadorial look,
+and the Dauphin, and all therein and all appertaining thereunto, was
+mounting toward explosion, when Matilda clutched her arm.
+
+"It's awful, ma'am,--but let's go," she whispered. "What else can we
+do?"
+
+Yes, what else could they do? Mrs. De Peyster's wrath was still at
+demolitory pressure, but she saw the sense in that question. The next
+moment the two figures, duplicates of somberness, one magnificently
+upright, the other shrinking, were re-passing over the muting rugs,
+through the corridor of noble marble, by the lackeys between whose
+common palms and the hands of patrician guests was the antiseptic
+intermediary of white thread gloves.
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well, ma'am," Matilda began tremulously as soon
+as they were in the street, before Mrs. De Peyster's black storm could
+burst. "How much would that suite have been?"
+
+"Perhaps fifty dollars a day."
+
+"I only just now thought about it--but--but please, ma'am, did you
+happen to bring your purse?"
+
+"My purse!" Mrs. De Peyster stopped short. "Matilda!"--in a voice
+chilled with dismay--"I never thought of my purse until this moment!
+There wasn't time! I haven't a cent!"
+
+"And after paying for the cab, ma'am, I have only a little over
+fifteen dollars."
+
+"Matilda!"
+
+"Perhaps, ma'am," repeated Matilda, "it was just as well they wouldn't
+take us."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not speak.
+
+"And what's worse," Matilda faltered, as though the blame was hers,
+"the hotels won't trust you unless you have baggage. And we have no
+baggage, ma'am."
+
+"Matilda!" There was now real tragedy in Mrs. De Peyster's voice.
+"What _are_ we going to do?"
+
+They walked along the Park, whispering over their unforeseen and
+unforeseeable predicament. It had many aspects, their situation; it
+was quickly clear to them that the most urgent aspect was the need of
+immediate refuge. Other troubles and developments could be handled as
+they arose, should any such arise. But a place to hide, to sleep, had
+to be secured within the hour. Also they needed two or three days in
+which to think matters over calmly, and to apply to them clear reason.
+And they had only the fifteen dollars in Matilda's black bag.
+
+"It seems to me, ma'am," ventured Matilda, "that a rooming-house or a
+boarding-house would be cheapest."
+
+"A boarding-house!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. "But where?"
+
+Matilda remembered and reached into her slit pocket. "Yesterday I
+happened to pick up the card of a boarding-house in the library--I've
+no idea how it came there. I saved it because my sister Angelica, who
+lives in Syracuse, wrote me to look up a place where she might stay."
+
+They examined the address upon the card, and twenty minutes later, now
+close upon midnight, Matilda was pressing the bell of a house on the
+West Side. Visible leadership Mrs. De Peyster had resigned to Matilda,
+for they were entering a remote and lowly world whose ways Mrs.
+De Peyster knew not. In all her life she had never been inside a
+boarding-house.
+
+The door opened slightly. A voice, female, interrogated Matilda. Then
+they were admitted into a small hall, lighted by an electric bulb in
+a lantern of stamped sheet-iron with vari-colored panes and portholes.
+From this hall a stairway ascended, and from it was a view into a
+small rear parlor, where sat a clergyman. The lady who had admitted
+them was the mistress; a Junoesque, superior, languid sort of
+personage, in a loose dressing-gown of pink silk with long train. To
+her Matilda made known their desire.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called to the clergyman. "So you and
+your friend want board and room," the landlady repeated in a drawling
+tone, yet studying them sharply with heavy-penciled eyes. "I run
+a select house, so I've got to be careful about whom I admit.
+Consequently you will not object to answering a few questions. You and
+your friend are working-women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The heavy eyes had concluded their inventory. "Perhaps both
+housekeepers?"
+
+"Ye--yes."
+
+Matilda had a double impulse to explain, first to clear Mrs. De
+Peyster of this unmerited indignity, and second to prevent their being
+once more turned away as servants. But something kept her still. And
+perhaps it was just as well. Mrs. Gilbert, considering the two,
+did have a moment's thought about refusing them; she, too, liked to
+maintain the social tone of her establishment, and certainly servants
+as guests did not help; but then the arid season for boarding-houses
+was at hand, and she was not one to sacrifice real money to mere
+principle.
+
+"How long do you want to stay?"
+
+"We don't know yet. Per--perhaps several months."
+
+This was agreeable news to Mrs. Gilbert. But it was not boarding-house
+policy to show it.
+
+"When would you want to come in?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"To-night!" The penciled eyebrows lifted in surprise. "And your
+baggage?"
+
+"We came to New York without any," Matilda lied desperately.
+"We're--we're going to buy some things here."
+
+"Naturally, then, you expect to pay in advance."
+
+"Ah--er--at least a deposit."
+
+"One room or two?"
+
+"One." One would come cheaper.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Pyecroft," she called again to the clergyman. "This
+way." And she collected her silken skirt, and swished up two flights
+of stairs and into a bedroom at the back, where she turned on the
+light. "A very comfortable room," she went on in the voice of a tired
+and very superior auctioneer. "Just vacated by a Wall Street broker
+and his wife; very well-connected people. Bed and couch; easy-chairs;
+running hot and cold water. And for it I'm making a special summer
+rate, with board, of only twenty-five dollars a week for two."
+
+"We'll take it," said Matilda.
+
+"Very well. Now the deposit--how much can you pay?"
+
+"Ah--er--say fifteen dollars?"
+
+Mrs. Gilbert's hands that tried to seem indifferent to money and that
+yet were remarkably prompt, took the bills Matilda held out and thrust
+them into the folds of her voluminous gown.
+
+"Thank you. Breakfast Sunday mornings from eight to ten. Good-night."
+And with that her large pink-tinted ladyship made a rustling exit.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank overcome into a chair, drew up her veil, and
+gazed about her. The other of Mrs. Gilbert's "easy"-chairs had a
+seat of faded and frayed cotton tapestry; there was a lumpy and
+unstable-looking couch; a yellow washstand with dandruffy varnish
+and cracked mirror; wall-paper with vast, uncataloguable flowers
+gangrenous in suggestion; on the ceiling a circle of over-plump
+dancing Cupids; and over against one wall a huge, broad, dark box
+that to Mrs. De Peyster's amazed vision suggested an upended coffin,
+contrived for the comfort of some deceased with remarkable width of
+shoulder.
+
+"Matilda!" she shiveringingly ejaculated. "I didn't know there was
+anything like it in the world!"
+
+"I know, ma'am, that it's not fit for you," grieved Matilda.
+"But--it's better than nothing."
+
+"And that thing there!" pointing a shaking finger at the abnormal
+coffin. "What's that?"
+
+"That's your bed, ma'am."
+
+"My bed!"
+
+"It lets down, ma'am. Like this."
+
+Whereupon Matilda proceeded to let down that _sine qua non_ of a
+profitable boarding-house, while Mrs. De Peyster, dismayed, looked
+for the first time in her life upon the miracle of the unfolding of a
+folding-bed. Her mistress's slumber prepared for Matilda then softened
+the inaccuracies of the couch's surface for her own more humble
+repose.
+
+Neither felt like talking; there was too much to talk about. So soon
+both were in their beds, the lights out. Mrs. De Peyster lay dazed
+upon this strange bed that operated like a lorgnette: tremulously
+existing, awake, yet hardly capable of coherent thought.
+
+For a space she heard Matilda toss about, draw long, tremulous
+breaths; then from the couch of that elderly virgin sounded the
+incontrovertible tocsin of deep sleep. But for Mrs. De Peyster there
+was no sleep; not yet.
+
+She now was thinking; casting up accounts. Exactly twenty-four hours
+since, she had officially sailed. Jack and that Mary person were now
+in sweet and undisturbed possession of her house; Olivetta, on board
+the Plutonia, was this minute reposing at ease amid the luxuries of
+her _cabin de luxe_; and she, herself, Mrs. De Peyster, was lying on
+a folding-bed, a most knobby bed,--the man who invented cobblestone
+paving must have got his idea from such a bed as this,--in a
+boarding-house the like of which till this night she had never
+imagined to exist.
+
+And only twenty-four hours!...
+
+She stared up toward where, in the dark, the corpulent Cupids were
+dancing their aerial May-ring ... and stared ... and stared....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PEACE--OF A SORT
+
+
+The next morning there was a long, whispered discussion as to whether
+Mrs. De Peyster should go down to breakfast or have all her meals sent
+up to this chamber of distempered green. In the end two considerations
+decided the matter. In the first place, meals sent to the room would
+undoubtedly be charged extra. In the second, it was possible that Mrs.
+De Peyster's remaining in her room might rouse suspicion. It seemed
+the cheaper and safer course to try to merge herself, an unnoticed
+figure, in the routine of the house.
+
+The dining-room was low-ceilinged and occupied the front basement and
+seemed to be ventilated solely through the kitchen. Mrs. De Peyster
+hazily saw perhaps a dozen people; from among whom a bare arm,
+slipping from the sleeve of a pink silk wrapper, languidly waved
+toward a small table. Into the two chairs Mrs. Gilbert indicated the
+twain sank.
+
+A colored maid who had omitted her collar dropped before Mrs. De
+Peyster a heavy saucer containing three shriveled black objects
+immured in a dark, forbidding liquor that suggested some wry tincture
+from a chemist's shop. In response to Mrs. De Peyster's glance of
+shrinking inquiry Matilda whispered that they were prunes. Next the
+casual-handed maid favored them with thin, underdone oatmeal, and with
+thin, bitter coffee; and last with two stacks of pancakes, which in
+hardly less substantial incarnation had previously been served them by
+every whiff of kitchen air.
+
+While she pretended to eat this uneatable usurper of her dainty
+breakfasts, Mrs. De Peyster glanced furtively at the company. Utterly
+common. And with such she had to associate--for months, perhaps!--she
+who had mixed and mingled only with the earth's best!
+
+Mrs. Gilbert--naturally Mrs. Gilbert was a widow--did not give Mrs.
+De Peyster a second glance. The other boarders, after their first
+scrutiny, hardly looked at her again. The effect was as if all had
+turned their backs upon her.
+
+Certainly this was odd behavior.
+
+Then, in a flash, she understood. They were snubbing her as a social
+inferior!
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to flame when the clergyman they
+had glimpsed the night before entered and pronounced a sonorous
+good-morning, all-inclusive, as though intended for a congregation. He
+seated himself at a small table just beyond Mrs. De Peyster's and was
+unfolding his napkin when his eyes fell upon Mrs. De Peyster. And
+then Mrs. De Peyster saw one of the oddest changes in a man's face
+imaginable. Mr. Pyecroft's eyes, which had been large with benedictory
+roundness, flashed with a smile. And then, at an instant's end, his
+face was once more grave and clerically benign.
+
+But that instant-long look made her shiver. What was in this
+clergyman's mind? She watched him, in spite of herself--strangely
+fascinated; stole looks at him during this meal, and the next, and
+when they passed upon the stairway. He had a confusingly contradictory
+face, had the Reverend Herbert E. Pyecroft--for such she learned
+was his full name; a face customarily sedate and elderish, and then,
+almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful;
+with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right
+corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden
+straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor
+had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate, gestureish, ample;
+giving the sense that in nothing less commodious than a church could
+he loose his person and his powers to their full expression. He was
+genially familiar; the church-man who is a good fellow. Yet never did
+he let one forget the respect that was due his cloth.
+
+He was at present without a charge, as she learned later. It was
+understood that he was waiting an almost certain call from a church in
+Kansas City.
+
+As Mrs. De Peyster came out of her room that first Sunday at
+supper-time, there emerged from the room in front of hers the Reverend
+Mr. Pyecroft. He held out his hand, and smiled parochially.
+
+"Ah, Miss Thompson,"--that was the name she had given the
+landlady,--"since we are neighbors we should also be friends." And on
+he went, voluminously, in his full, upholstered voice.
+
+Somehow Mrs. De Peyster got away from him. But thereafter he spoke to
+her whenever he could waylay her in the hallway or upon the stairs.
+And his attentions did not stop with words. Flowers, even edibles,
+were continuously found against her door, his card among them. The
+situation somehow recalled to her the queer gentleman in shorts who
+threw vegetables over Mrs. Nickleby's garden wall. Mrs. De Peyster
+felt outraged; she fumed; yet she dared not be outspokenly resentful.
+
+She had at first no inkling of the meaning of these attentions. It was
+Matilda who suggested the dismaying possibility.
+
+"Don't you think, ma'am, he's trying to make love to you?"
+
+"Make love to me!" rising in horror from one of Mrs. Gilbert's veteran
+"easy"-chairs.
+
+"I'm sure it's that, ma'am," said the troubled Matilda.
+
+"Matilda! Of all the effrontery!"
+
+"Indeed, it is an insult to you, ma'am. But that may not be the worst
+of it. For if he really falls in love with you, he may try to follow
+you when you get ready to leave."
+
+"Matilda!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Thereafter, whenever he tried to speak to her in the hallways she
+shrank from him in both fear and indignation. But her rebuffs did not
+lessen by one ray the smiling amicability of his bland countenance
+He tried to become confidential, tried to press toward intimacy; one
+evening he even had the unbelievable audacity to ask if he might call
+upon her! She flamed with the desire to destroy him with a look,
+a word; Mrs. De Peyster knew well how thus to snuff out presuming
+upstarts. But caution warned her that she dared not unloose her
+powers. So she merely turned and fled, choking.
+
+But the reverend gentleman's unperturbed overtures continued.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda did not speak of money at first; but
+it was constantly in both their minds as a problem of foremost
+importance. Their failure to buy fresh outfits, as they had told Mrs.
+Gilbert they intended doing, thus supplying "baggage" that would be
+security for their board, caused Mrs. Gilbert to regard them with
+hostile suspicion. Matilda saw eviction in their landlady's penciled
+eyes, and without a word as to her intention to Mrs. De Peyster, she
+slipped out on the third day, returned minus her two rings, and handed
+Mrs. Gilbert ten dollars.
+
+They were secure to the week's end. After that--?
+
+Fitfully Mrs. De Peyster pondered this matter of finances. She had
+money so near, yet utterly unreachable. Her house was filled with
+negotiable wealth, but she dared not go near it. Judge Harvey would
+secure her money gladly; but if the previous Friday she could not
+accept his aid, then a thousand times less could she accept it now. To
+ask his aid would be to reveal, not alone her presence in America, but
+the series of undignified experiences which had involved her deeper
+and deeper. That humiliation was unthinkable.
+
+But on Thursday, locked in their room, they spoke of the matter
+openly.
+
+"Please, ma'am," said Matilda, who had been maturing a plan, "you
+might make out a check to me, dated last week, before you sailed, and
+I could get it cashed. They'd think it was for back wages."
+
+"I told you last Friday, when everything happened, that I had drawn
+out my balance."
+
+"But your bank won't mind your overdrawing for a hundred or two,"
+urged Matilda.
+
+"That," said Mrs. De Peyster with an air of noble principle, "is a
+thing I will not do."
+
+Matilda knew nothing of the secret of Mrs. De Peyster's exhausted
+credit at her bank.
+
+"My own money," Matilda remarked plaintively, "is all in a savings
+bank. I have to give thirty days' notice before I can draw a penny."
+
+There was a brief silence. Matilda's gaze, which had several times
+wandered to a point a few inches below Mrs. De Peyster's throat, now
+fixed themselves upon this spot. She spoke hesitantly.
+
+"There's your pearl pendant you forgot and kept on when you put on my
+dress to go out riding with William." It was not one of the world's
+famous jewels; yet was of sufficient importance to be known, in a
+limited circle, as "The De Peyster Pearl." "I know the chain wouldn't
+bring much; but you could raise a lot on the pearl from a pawnbroker."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster tried to look shocked. "What! I take my pearl to a
+pawnbroker!"
+
+"Of course, I wouldn't expect you to go to a pawnshop, ma'am," Matilda
+apologized. "I'd take it."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had a moment's picture of Matilda's laying the pearl
+before a pawnbroker and asking for a fraction of its worth, a
+mere thousand or two; and of the hard-eyed usurer glancing at it,
+announcing that the pearl was spoof, and offering fifty cents upon it.
+
+"Matilda, you should know that I would not part with such an
+heirloom," she said rebukingly.
+
+"But, ma'am, in a crisis like this--"
+
+"That will do, Matilda!"
+
+Matilda said no more about the pearl then. She went to her bank and
+gave due notice of her desire to withdraw her funds. That, however,
+was provision merely for the next month and thereafter. It did not
+help to-day.
+
+But all the rest of that day, and all of the following, Mrs. De
+Peyster felt Matilda's eyes, aggrieved, bitterly resentful, upon the
+spot where beneath her black housekeeper's dress hung the pearl she
+was unwilling to pawn to save them.
+
+It was most uncomfortable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE REVEREND MR. PYECROFT
+
+
+The next evening, Friday, as they left the dining-room, draped with
+the heavy odor of a dark, mysterious viand which Matilda in a whisper
+had informed Mrs. De Peyster to be pot-roast, Mrs. Gilbert stopped
+them on the stairs. In her most casual, superior tone, she notified
+Mrs. De Peyster that she would thank them for another week's pay in
+advance the following day, or their room.
+
+Here was a crisis that had to be faced at once. Up in their room they
+discussed finance, going over and over their predicament, for two
+hours. There seemed no practical solution.
+
+A heavy rain had begun to fall. The night was hot, close. The
+unaccustomed high collar of Matilda's dress had seemed suffocating to
+Mrs. De Peyster, and she had loosened it, and also she had taken off
+the pearl pendant which had chafed her beneath the warm, heavy cloth.
+The pearl and its delicate chain of platinum were now lying on their
+center-table.
+
+Several times Matilda's eye had gone furtively toward the pendant.
+"I don't see why," she at length said doggedly, "you shouldn't let me
+pawn that pearl."
+
+"I believe I have requested you not to refer to this again." Mrs. De
+Peyster's tone was stiff.
+
+Matilda's face showed stubborn bitterness. But the habit of obedience
+was too old and strong for her to speak further.
+
+There was another silence. Both sat in desperate thought. Suddenly
+Mrs. De Peyster looked up. "Matilda, I think I have it."
+
+"What is it, ma'am?"--with faintly reviving hope.
+
+"You have the keys to my house. You slip back there to-night, find my
+purse, or bring something that you might sell."
+
+Matilda slumped down, aghast.
+
+"It's perfectly simple," Mrs. De Peyster reassured her. "We should
+have thought of it at first."
+
+"But, ma'am!" quaveringly protested Matilda. "Suppose a policeman
+should see me! They watch those closed houses. And suppose--suppose he
+should shoot!"
+
+"Nonsense, Matilda! No one will see you if you are careful."
+
+"But if--if--Mr. Jack should hear me and come down and see me--"
+
+"We shall prepare for such an emergency some kind of plausible
+explanation that will satisfy Jack."
+
+"But, ma'am, please! I don't think I could ever do it!"
+
+"Matilda, it is the only way"--in the voice of authority. And then
+more emphatically, and in some desperation: "Remember, we have got to
+do something! We have simply got to have money!"
+
+Matilda was beginning to whimper yieldingly, when a knock sounded at
+their door. They clutched each other, but did not answer.
+
+The knuckles rapped again.
+
+They continued silent.
+
+The knock sounded more loudly.
+
+"It's the landlady, come to throw us out," quaked Matilda.
+
+"Open the door," ordered Mrs. De Peyster, decorously rearranging the
+throat of her dress, "and tell her she shall have her money in the
+morning."
+
+Matilda unlocked the door, partially opened it, then fell back with
+a little cry. There entered the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. He smiled at
+them, put a finger to his lips. Then he locked the door behind him.
+
+"Please leave this instant!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It is not in my nature," he returned in his bland voice, "to go and
+leave behind me fellow creatures in distress."
+
+"Fellow creatures in distress?" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I was passing," said he, "and chanced to overhear you say a moment
+since that you simply had to have money."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster's face filled with suspicion. "You have been listening
+all the while?"
+
+"Possibly," said Mr. Pyecroft, with the same bland smile.
+
+"Eavesdropper!"
+
+His smile did not alter. "I did not hear very much, really. Miss
+Thompson, may I beg the favor of a few minutes with you alone?"
+
+"Most certainly not!"
+
+"I am sure when you learn what it is, Miss Thompson, you would prefer
+that it be between yourself and myself."
+
+"Matilda, don't go!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders pleasantly. "I had really hoped that the
+matter might be between just you and me, Miss Thompson. However, if
+you prefer Miss Perkins"--Matilda's name at Mrs. Gilbert's--"to be
+present, yours is the right to command. Shall we be seated?"
+
+Matilda had already subsided upon her couch. Mrs. De Peyster sank into
+one of the chairs. The Reverend Mr. Pyecroft drew the other up to face
+her and sat down.
+
+"Miss Thompson," he began, "I have a very serious proposition to lay
+before you."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shrank away. An awful premonition burst upon her. It
+was coming! This impudent, pompous, philandering clergyman was about
+to propose to her! To _her!_ She gave a swift horrified glance at
+Matilda, who gave back a look of sympathetic understanding.
+
+Then Mrs. De Peyster's horror at the indignity changed to horror
+of quite another sort; for the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft was leaning
+confidentially close to her, eyes into hers, and was saying in a low
+voice:--
+
+"I suppose, Miss Thompson, you are not aware how much you look like a
+certain great lady, a famous social leader? To be explicit, like Mrs.
+De Peyster?"
+
+She sank back, mere jelly with a human contour. So she was discovered!
+She rolled her eyes wildly toward Matilda; Matilda rolled wild eyes
+toward her.
+
+"It is really a remarkable likeness," went on the low voice of the
+Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "I've seen Mrs. De Peyster, you know; not more
+than six yards away; and the likeness struck me the very moment I
+saw you. You haven't the grand-duchess dignity she had on when I saw
+her--say, but you should have seen the figure she made!--but it's
+a wonderful coincidence. Dressed right, and with some lofty spirit
+pumped into you, you could pass anywhere as Mrs. De Peyster, provided
+they did not know Mrs. De Peyster too intimately. That likeness is the
+foundation of my proposition."
+
+[Illustration: "IT IS REALLY A REMARKABLE LIKENESS"]
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at him, and began to clutch at consciousness.
+After all, was it possible that he hadn't recognized her as Mrs. De
+Peyster? Perhaps he hadn't--for every one knew Mrs. De Peyster was
+abroad, and, furthermore, all the social world yawned inimitably
+between Mrs. De Peyster and this apparent nobody that she was, in an
+obscure boarding-house, and in a housekeeper's gown. But if he hadn't
+recognized her, then what was he driving at?
+
+While she gazed she became aware of an amazing change in his face, of
+the possibility of which she had previously had only hints. The bland,
+elderish, clerical look faded; the face grew strangely young, the
+right corner of his mouth twisted upward, and his right eyelid drooped
+in a prodigious, unreverend wink.
+
+"Friend," he remarked, "what's you two ladies' game?"
+
+"Our game?" Mrs. De Peyster repeated blankly.
+
+"Now don't try to come Miss Innocence over me," he said easily. "I
+sized you two up from the first minute, and I've been watching you
+ever since. The other one could get away with the housekeeper's part
+O.K., but any one could see through your makeup. What are the bulls
+after you for?"
+
+"The--the what?"
+
+"Oh, come,--you're dodging the police, or why the disguise?" he
+queried pleasantly. He picked up Mrs. De Peyster's pearl pendant.
+"Housekeepers don't sport this kind of jewelry. What are you?
+Housebreakers--sneak thieves--confidence game?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gaped at him. "I--I don't understand."
+
+"It's really a pretty fair front you're putting up," he commented with
+a dry indulgent smile. "But might as well drop it, for you see I'm on.
+But I think I understand." He nodded. "You don't want to admit
+anything until you feel you can trust me. That's about the size of it,
+isn't it, friends?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared, without speaking.
+
+"Now I know I can trust you," he went on easily, "for I've got
+something on you and I give you away if you give me away. Well,
+sisters, of course you know you're not the only people the police are
+after. That's why I am temporarily in the ministry."
+
+He grinned widely--a grin of huge enjoyment.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Well, you don't hesitate to ask, do you?" He laughed, lightly. "Say,
+it's too good to keep! I always was too confiding a lad; but I've got
+you where you won't squeal, and I suppose we've got to know each other
+if we're going to do business together. You must know, my dear ladies,
+that every proposition I've handled I've gone into it as much for the
+fun as for the coin." He cocked his head; plainly there was an element
+of conceit in his character. "Well, fair ones--ready?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
+
+"Ever heard of the American Historical Society's collection of
+recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster started.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that said
+Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters
+were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of
+an amanuensis of, so to say, the present generation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston, alleged
+to be said amanuensis?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to Mrs. De
+Peyster, then to Matilda.
+
+"It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies. Only
+for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak. So this was the man Judge
+Harvey was trying to hunt down! Her meeting him like this, it seemed
+an impossible coincidence--utterly impossible! She little dreamed that
+the laws of chance were not at all concerned in this adventure; that
+this meeting was but the natural outcome of Matilda's trifling act in
+picking up from the library rug a boarding-house card and slipping it
+into her slit-pocket.
+
+The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly delighted
+in the surprise he had created.
+
+"I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs," he went on
+gleefully--"these old boys who will come across with sky-high prices
+for old first editions and original manuscripts, and who don't care
+one little wheeze of a damn for what the author actually wrote. I'm
+sorry, though,"--in a tone of genuine contrition,--"that Judge Harvey
+was the man finally to be stung; they say he's the real thing."
+Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its unreverend wink.
+"There's a Raphael that the Metropolitan is solemnly proud of. It cost
+Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It cost me an even five
+hundred to have it made."
+
+He laughed again: that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh. Mrs. De
+Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first surprise.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward. "But this isn't getting down to our
+business. I've got a plan that's more fun than the Jefferson letters,
+and that will make us a lot of money, Miss Thompson. And it's easy and
+it's sure fire. It depends, as I said, upon the remarkable coincidence
+of your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"Yes?" Mrs. De Peyster managed to say.
+
+"You've read of her, of course; stiffest swell of the lot," went
+on the young gentleman rapidly, in clipped phrases oddly unlike the
+sonorous sentences of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft. "Looks down on most
+of the Four Hundred as _hoi polloi_. She's in Europe now, and the
+papers say she won't be back until the very end of summer. We can't do
+a thing till then; have to lie low and wait. You need money, I heard
+you say; I suppose you're afraid to hock this twinkler"--touching the
+pearl pendant. "Police probably watching the pawnshops and would nab
+you. Well, I'll stake you till Mrs. De Peyster comes back."
+
+"Stake me?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes. Give you, both of you, what money you need."
+
+"And--and when--Mrs. De Peyster comes back?"
+
+Young Mr. Pyecroft chortled with delight.
+
+"Say, this scheme's the best ever! The day we learn Mrs. De Peyster
+has landed, we dress you up as a top-notcher--gad, but we can make you
+look the part!--we put you in a swell carriage, with her coat of arms
+painted on it--and you go around to Tiffany's and all the other swell
+shops where in the mean time I'll have learned Mrs. De Peyster has
+charge accounts. You select the most valuable articles in the shop,
+and then in the most casual, dignified manner,--I can coach you on how
+to put on the dignity,--you remark, 'Charge to my account, and I'll
+just take it along with me.' And off you go, with a diamond necklace
+under your arm. And same thing at all the shops. Then we duck before
+the thing breaks, and divide the fruits of our industry and superior
+intelligence, as the economists say. Isn't that one great little
+game!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at his face, grinning like an elated gargoyle;
+herself utterly limp, her every nerve a filament of icy horror.
+
+"Well, what do you say, girls?" prompted Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster at first could say nothing at all. Whereupon the young
+man, gleeful over his invention, prompted her again.
+
+"I--can't--can't do it," she gulped out.
+
+"Can't do it!" He stared at her, amazed. "Say, do you realize what
+you're passing up?"
+
+"I can't do it," repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Why?" he demanded.
+
+She did not reply.
+
+He stood up, smiling again. "I won't argue with you; it's bigger than
+anything you ever pulled off--so big, I guess it stuns you; I'll just
+let the matter soak in, and put up its own argument. You'll come in,
+all right," he continued confidently, "for you need money, and I'm the
+party that can supply you. And to make certain that you don't get the
+money elsewhere, I'll just take along this vault of the First National
+Bank as security"--with which he slipped Mrs. De Peyster's pearl
+pendant into his pocket. "Now, think the matter over, girls. I'll be
+back in half an hour. So-long for the present."
+
+The door closed behind him.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed wildly after him. The plan "soaked in," as
+he had said it would; and as it soaked in, her horror grew. She saw
+herself becoming involved, helpless to prevent it, in the plan Mr.
+Pyecroft considered so delectable; she saw herself later publicly
+exposed as engaged in this scheme to defraud herself; she could hear
+all New York laughing. Her whole being shivered and gasped. Of all the
+plans ever proposed to a woman--!
+
+And all the weeks and months this Mr. Pyecroft would be hovering about
+her!...
+
+Despairingly she sat upright.
+
+"Matilda, we can't stay in the same house with that man."
+
+"Oh, ma'am," breathed the appalled Matilda, "of course not!"
+
+"We've got to leave! And leave before he comes back!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am," cried Matilda. And then: "But--but where?"
+
+"Anywhere to get away from him!"
+
+"But, ma'am, the money?" said Matilda who had handled Mrs. De
+Peyster's petty cash account for twenty years, and whose business
+it had been to think of petty practicalities. "We've only got
+twenty-three cents left, and we can't possibly get any more soon, and
+no one will take us in without money or baggage. Don't you see? We
+can't stay here, and we can't go any place else."
+
+This certainly was a dilemma. The two gazed at each other, their faces
+momently growing more ghastly with helplessness. Then suddenly Mrs. De
+Peyster leaned forward, with desperate decision.
+
+"Matilda, we shall go back home!"
+
+"Go home, ma'am?" cried Matilda.
+
+"There's nothing else we can do. I'll slip into my sitting-room, lock
+the door, and live there quietly--and Jack will never know I'm in the
+house."
+
+"But, ma'am, won't that be dangerous?"
+
+"Danger is comparative. Anything is better than this!"
+
+"Just as you say; I suppose you're right, ma'am." And then with an
+hysterical snuffle: "But oh, ma'am, I wish I knew how this thing was
+ever going to turn out!"
+
+Five minutes later the two twin figures of somberness, their veils
+down, stole stealthily down the stairs and out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HOME AGAIN
+
+
+The two dark figures, giving a glance through the rain in either
+direction, stole down beneath the stately marble steps of No. 13
+Washington Square, and Matilda unlocked the servants' door. They
+slipped inside; the door was cautiously relocked. Breathless, they
+stood listening. A vast, noble silence pervaded the great house. They
+flung their arms about each other, and thus embraced tottered against
+the wall; and Mrs. De Peyster relaxed in an unspeakable relief.
+
+[Illustration: MATILDA UNLOCKED THE SERVANTS' DOOR]
+
+Home again! Her own home! Odorless of pot-roasts and frying
+batter-cakes. The phrase was rather common and sentimental--but, in
+truth, this was "home, sweet home."
+
+And free of that unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft!
+
+While Mrs. De Peyster leaned there in the blackness, gathering
+strength, her mind mounted in sweet expectancy to her suite. Only a
+few minutes of soft treading of stairways--certainly they could avoid
+arousing Jack--and she would be locked in her comfortable rooms. A
+cautious bath! Clean clothes! Her own bed! All of the luxuries she had
+been so long denied!
+
+Cautiously they crept through the basement hallway; cautiously crept
+up the butler's stairs and turned off through the door into the great
+hall of the first floor; cautiously they crept up to the drawing-room
+floor and trod ever so softly over woven treasures of the Orient,
+through the spacious ducal gloom. One more flight, then peace,
+security. With unbreathing care, Mrs. De Peyster set foot upon the
+first step of her journey's end.
+
+And then, suddenly, the servants' bell burst into ringing. And there
+was a terrific hammering against the servants' door and also against
+the door in the boarding.
+
+"Matilda--what's that?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"M--maybe the police saw us come in," breathed Matilda.
+
+They did not pause for discussion. Discarding caution, they plunged
+frantically and noisily up the stairs; until from out of the overhead
+blackness descended a voice:--
+
+"Stop! Or I'll shoot!"
+
+It was Jack's voice.
+
+They stopped.
+
+"Who are you?" the voice demanded.
+
+They clung to each other, wordless.
+
+"Who are you?" repeated Jack.
+
+Their voices were still palsied. They heard his feet begin
+determinedly to descend. Mrs. De Peyster loosed her grip on Matilda's
+arm and vanished noiselessly downward.
+
+"Speak up there," commanded Jack, "or I'll fire on the chance of
+getting you in the dark."
+
+"It's only me, Mr. Jack," trembled Matilda.
+
+"What, Matilda!" cried Jack; and from above, like an echo transposed
+an octave higher, sounded another, "What, Matilda!"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Jack. Yes, ma'a--yes, Mary."
+
+"But where the devil have you been?" exclaimed Jack, coming to her
+side.
+
+Mary had also hurried down to her. "Matilda, the way you ran away from
+us!"
+
+"I got a--er--sudden message. There was no time--"
+
+"Never mind about explaining now," interrupted Jack. "Go down and stop
+that racket before they break in the doors. And thank God you're here
+just in time, Matilda! You're just the person to do it: housekeeper,
+caretaker. But be careful if they're reporters. Now, hurry."
+
+Jack and Mary scuttled back to the haven of upstairs, and Matilda
+shivered down through the blackness. As she passed through the lower
+hall, a hand reached out of the dark and touched her. She managed not
+to cry out.
+
+"Don't let them know about me!" implored Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'll--I'll do my best, ma'am," quavered Matilda, and glided weakly
+on.
+
+When she opened the servants' door, a dripping policeman caught her
+arm. "Down here, Bill," he called to the man battering at the door
+above; and a minute later two officers were inside, and the door was
+closed, and a light was flashing in Matilda's face.
+
+"Now, old girl," said the first officer, tightly gripping her arm and
+giving it that twist which if a policeman does not give an arm he is
+no policeman, "what's your little game, eh?"
+
+"I--I live here, sir. I'm the housekeeper."
+
+"Now don't try to put that over on us. You know you ain't."
+
+"You must be new policemen, in this neighborhood," trembled Matilda,
+"or you'd know I am."
+
+"We may be new cops, but we don't fall for old stuff like that. I was
+talkin' to Mrs. De Peyster's coachman only yesterday. He told me the
+housekeeper wasn't here no more. So better change your line o' dope.
+Where's the other one?"
+
+"Wha--what other one?"
+
+"The one what come in here with you."
+
+"I'm the only person in the house," Matilda tried to declare
+valiantly.
+
+"Drop it!" said the officer. "Didn't the boss tell us to keep our eyes
+on these here millionaires' closed houses; all kinds o' slick crooks
+likely to clean 'em out. An' didn't we see two women come in this
+house,--hey, Bill?"
+
+"Sure--I was a block off, but I seen 'em plain as day," said Bill.
+
+"So I guess," again the twist that proved him a policeman, "you'd
+better lead us to your pal."
+
+He pushed her before him, lighting the way with his flash-lantern, up
+stairways and back into the dining-room, where she turned on the one
+shaded electric bulb that had been left connected. In Matilda all hope
+was gone; resistance was useless; fate had conquered. And when the
+officer again demanded that she bring forth her accomplice, she dumbly
+and obediently made search; and finally brought Mrs. De Peyster forth
+from the china closet.
+
+The officer pulled up Mrs. De Peyster's veil, and closely scanned her
+features; which, to be just to the officer, were so distorted that
+they bore little semblance to the Mrs. De Peyster of her portraits.
+
+"Recognize her, Bill?" he queried.
+
+"Looks a bit like the pictures of Chicago Sal," said Bill. "But I
+ain't ever handled her. I guess she ain't worked none around New
+York."
+
+"Well, now," said the officer, with policial jocularity, "since you
+two ladies already got your hats on, I guess we'll just offer you our
+arms to the station."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave Matilda a look of frenzied appeal. But Matilda
+needed not the spur of another's desperation. For herself she saw a
+prison cell agape.
+
+"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper!"
+
+"If so, who's the other mourner?" inquired the humorous policeman.
+"And what's she doin' here?"
+
+"She's--she's"--and then Matilda plunged blindly at a lie--"she's my
+sister." And having started, she went on: "My sister Angelica, who
+lives in Syracuse. She's come to visit me awhile."
+
+The officer grinned. "Well, Matilda and Angelica, we'll give you a
+chance to tell that to the lieutenant. Come on."
+
+"But I tell you I'm Matilda Simpson!" cried Matilda. She was now
+thinking solely of her own imminent disgrace. Inspiration came to her.
+"You say you talked to William, the coachman. He'll tell you who I am.
+There's the bell--ring for him!"
+
+The officer scratched his chin. Then he eyed his co-laborer
+meditatively.
+
+"Not a bad idea, Bill. There's a chance she may be on the level, and
+there'd be hell to pay at headquarters if we got in bad with any of
+these swells. No harm tryin'."
+
+He pressed a big thumb against the bell Matilda had indicated.
+
+They all sat down, the two officers' oilskins guttering water all
+over Mrs. De Peyster's Kirmanshah rug and parquet floor. But Mrs. De
+Peyster was unconscious of this deluge. She gave Matilda a glance
+of reproachful dismay; then she edged into the dimmest corner of the
+dusky room and turned her chair away from the door through which this
+new disaster was about to stalk in upon her, and unnoticed drew down
+her veil.
+
+There was a long, sickening wait. Plainly William had gone to bed, and
+had to dress before he could answer the bell.
+
+At length, however, William appeared. He started at sight of the four
+figures; then his gaze fastened on Matilda and grew hard. Mrs. De
+Peyster tried to collapse within herself.
+
+"Friend," said the officer, "here's a lady as says she's Matilda
+Simpson, Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper. How about it?"
+
+"She is," William affirmed coldly.
+
+"The devil!" said the officer; and then in a low voice apart to
+the other: "Lucky we didn't go no further--hey, Bill?" And again to
+William: "Miss Simpson says this other lady is her sister, visitin'
+her from Syracuse. Can you identify her?"
+
+William did not alter a line in his face.
+
+"Miss Simpson has a sister living near Syracuse. I have never seen
+her. I cannot identify her."
+
+"H'm," said the officer.
+
+"Is that all?" asked William.
+
+"Yes, that'll do. Thanks."
+
+With a cold blighting glare at Matilda, William withdrew.
+
+"Well, ladies," said the officer with ingratiating pleasantness, "I'm
+mighty glad it's all right. If you have occasion, Miss Simpson, to
+speak o' this here little incident to Mrs. De Peyster when she gets
+back from Europe, just explain it as due to over-zealousness, if
+you don't mind--desire to safeguard her interests. D'you get me?
+Headquarters is awful sensitive to kicks from you rich people; and the
+boss comes down on you like a ton o' bricks. It'll be mighty kind o'
+you. Good-night. Don't bother to come down with us. I noticed it was a
+spring lock. We can let ourselves out."
+
+When the two policemen were out of the room, Mrs. De Peyster and
+Matilda collapsed into each others' arms and their bodies sank limply
+forward from their chairs upon the dining-table. "Matilda, what
+an escape!" shivered Mrs. De Peyster; and she lay there, gathering
+breath, regathering strength, regathering poise, while the officers'
+steps grew dimmer and more dim. She was palpitant, yet able to think.
+Certainly it had been a narrow escape. But that danger was now over.
+There now remained only the feat of getting into her room, unnoticed
+by Jack. This they could manage when they were certain that Jack and
+Mary were asleep.
+
+Relief, hope, courage once more began to rise within her.
+
+Then suddenly she sat upright. Footsteps were sounding below--growing
+nearer--heavy footsteps--what sounded like more than two pairs of
+footsteps. She sat as one palsied; and before she could recover
+strength or faculties, there in the doorway were the two policemen.
+And with them was a gentleman in a cap and tan summer overcoat
+buttoned to the chin.
+
+The gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft; and the Mr. Pyecroft they
+had first seen: bland, oh, so bland, with that odd, elderish look of
+his.
+
+"Met him goin' down the servants' steps as we were goin' out, and he
+asked us--" the officer was beginning.
+
+But Mr. Pyecroft was already crossing toward Matilda, smiling
+affectionately.
+
+"My dear Matilda!" He kissed her upon the cheek. "I arrived in New
+York very unexpectedly less than half an hour ago, and could not delay
+coming to see you. How are you, sister?"
+
+"Wha--what?" stammered Matilda.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft with his bland affectionate smile crossed to Mrs. De
+Peyster, slipped an arm across her shoulders and kissed her veil
+somewhere about the forehead. "And how are you, dear sister?" he
+inquired with deep concern.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gasped and stiffened.
+
+"You ladies don't seem very glad to see him," put in the officer.
+"When we told him about you two bein' sisters, he said he was your
+brother. Is he?"
+
+"Of course I am," Mr. Pyecroft answered pleasantly. "They weren't
+expecting me; therefore this very natural surprise which you observe.
+Of course, I am your brother, am I not?"--patting Mrs. De Peyster's
+arm with the appearance of affection, and then closing on it
+warningly.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded her head.
+
+"Matilda," turning to her, in frank fraternal fashion, "you might tell
+these officers that I am not only your brother, but in fact the only
+brother you have. That is true, isn't it, sister?"
+
+"Yes," gulped Matilda.
+
+"Well," said the officer, "since everything is all right, we'll be
+leavin' you. But, believe me, this is certainly some sudden family
+reunion."
+
+When they had gone Mr. Pyecroft calmly removed cap and overcoat and
+stood forth in his clericals. Again he wore the youngish face of their
+interview of an hour before. Mrs. De Peyster watched him in sickening
+fear. What was he going to do? Surely he must now know her identity!
+
+He smiled at them amiably.
+
+"Well, my dears, so you tried to give me the slip. I rather thought
+you'd bear watching, so I followed you. And when I saw the officers
+come out without you I knew you had successfully entertained them with
+some sort of plausible explanation."
+
+His gaze fixed on Matilda. "So, my dear sister, you're really the
+housekeeper here." He shook his head chidingly. "And the usual
+crook of a housekeeper, eh--trying to make a safe clean-up while her
+mistress is away. You're deeper than I thought, Matilda. I understand
+the whole affair now. You and our sister Angelica had already been
+planning some kind of a game similar to the one I suggested. I just
+happened to think of the same thing. I don't blame you a lot for not
+wanting to take me into the game; it was quite natural for you to want
+all there is in it for yourselves. Not the least hard feeling in the
+world, my dears. But, of course,"--apologetically,--"you could hardly
+expect me to give up a rich thing like this, could you?"
+
+His easy, familiar, ironic talk had brought Mrs. De Peyster one large
+item of relief. Evidently he didn't suspect who she was--yet.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she managed to ask.
+
+"Stay right here with you, my sisters, and in due time we'll go ahead
+with our game as per previous specifications." He surveyed the high,
+paneled dining-room, sumptuous, distinguished even in the semi-dusk.
+"Cozy little flat, eh, my dears?"
+
+Suddenly that wide mouth of his slipped up to one side, and he laughed
+in exultant, impish glee.
+
+"Say, isn't this the funniest ever! Beats my plan a mile. We'll
+make ourselves at home--hang out together for the summer in Mrs. De
+Peyster's own house,--_her own house_,--and when we hear she's coming
+back we vacate and then do our little act of buying out the stores in
+Lady De Peyster's name. Was there ever such a lark!" For a moment
+his low laugh of wild glee cut off his speech. "What's more, it's the
+safest place in the world for us. Nobody'd ever think of our being
+here!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stared at Matilda, Matilda stared at Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"And it's just what I needed," continued Mr. Pyecroft in amicable
+confidence. "I just had a tip that the police were closing in on me,
+and I had to disappear quick. An hour ago, I'd never have dreamed
+of falling into such a safe little retreat as this. Luck favors the
+deserving."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed at him, faint.
+
+"And of course, Matilda," he went on, "if, say, any of the neighbors
+happen to drop in for a cup of tea and see me, or if the police should
+manage to trail me here,--and they may, you know,--of course, Matilda,
+you'll speak right up and say I'm your dear brother."
+
+At that moment it was beyond either of them to speak right up.
+
+"Remember, my dears, that we're all crooks together," he prompted in a
+soft voice, that had a steely suggestion beneath it. "And in case you
+fail to stand by me it would give me very great pain--very great pain,
+I assure you--to have to blow on you."
+
+Matilda gulped, blinked her eyes, and looked helplessly at Mrs. De
+Peyster. Mr. Pyecroft turned to the latter.
+
+"Of course, Angelica, dear, you're going to stand by me?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster hesitated, then breathed a barely audible "Yes."
+
+"And you, Matilda, who were always my favorite sister, you, too, will
+stand by me?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Matilda.
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Pyecroft, in a moved tone, "such family loyalty is
+truly touching. I foresee a most pleasant summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HAPPY FAMILY
+
+
+He nodded at the two with an air of deep fraternal affection. And
+again he gazed with satisfaction about the spacious apartment,
+indicative of numberless other rooms of corresponding comfort.
+
+His eyes came back to them.
+
+"And now, Matilda, my dear," he resumed, with his pleasant smile, "in
+the event we spoke of,--neighbors or police dropping in, you know,--in
+such a case I suppose I ought to be prepared with a correct history of
+myself. To begin with, might I inquire what our name is?--our family
+name, I mean."
+
+"Simpson."
+
+"Simpson. Ah, yes; very good. Matilda Simpson--Angelica Simpson--and,
+let us say, Archibald Simpson. And where was I born, Matilda?"
+
+"You weren't ever born," protested Matilda with frightened
+indignation.
+
+"Now don't be facetious or superfluous, sister dear," he said
+soothingly. "Granted for the sake of argument I wasn't ever born. But
+where might I have been born?"
+
+"I was born near Albany."
+
+"Near Albany is perfectly agreeable to me," said Mr. Pyecroft. "And
+how many are there in our family?"
+
+"Just Angelica and me."
+
+"Then there really is an authentical Angelica?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excellent. And our parents?"
+
+"They died when I was a child."
+
+"I'm grieved, indeed, to learn of it," said Mr. Pyecroft. "But I'll
+admit it simplifies matters; there's less to remember. Angelica,
+our sister here, who is also visiting you, lives near Syracuse I
+understood some one to say. Married or single?"
+
+"Married," Matilda choked out.
+
+"Her married name?"
+
+"Jones."
+
+"Angelica Simpson Jones. Good. Very euphonious. And how many little
+nieces and nephews am I the happy uncle of?"
+
+"She--she has no children."
+
+"That's too bad, for I have a particular fondness for children,"
+sorrowed Mr. Pyecroft. "Still, that also simplifies matters, lessening
+considerably the percentage of chances for regrettable lapses of
+memory."
+
+He pursued his genealogical inquiries into all possibly useful
+details. And then he sat meditative for a while, gazing amiably about
+his family circle. And it was while they were all thus sitting silent,
+in what in the dim light of the one shaded electric bulb might have
+seemed to an observer the silence of intimacy, that Jack, who had
+slipped cautiously downstairs, walked in, behind him Mary.
+
+"Matilda, what's this mean?" he demanded, with a bewildered look.
+"We've been wondering why you didn't come upstairs."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster turned in her chair, and held her breath, like one
+beneath the guillotine. Matilda arose, shaking.
+
+"Who's this man, Matilda?" Jack continued.
+
+"He--ah--er--he's--"
+
+"And, pray, Matilda, who is this?" politely inquired the arisen Mr.
+Pyecroft, blandly assuming command of the situation.
+
+"Who am I? Well, you certainly have nerve--" the astounded Jack was
+beginning.
+
+"He's Mr. Jack," Matilda put in. "Jack De Peyster."
+
+"Ah, young Mr. De Peyster!" Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up slightly
+and a shrewd light flashed into his rounded eyes and was at once gone,
+and again his face was blandly clerical. "It is, indeed, a pleasure
+to meet you, Mr. De Peyster. And, pray, who is this?" with a suave
+gesture toward Mary.
+
+"That, sir, is my wife!" Jack announced, stiff with anger.
+
+Again Mr. Pyecroft's eyes flashed shrewdly, and again were clerically
+rounded.
+
+"My dear sir, that is, indeed, surprising. I have seen no public
+notice of your marriage. And I watch the marriage announcements
+quite closely--which is rather natural, for, if I may be permitted
+to mention it, I myself am frequently called upon to perform the holy
+rites." His face clouded with what seemed a painful suspicion. "I
+trust, sir, that you are really married?"
+
+"Why, damn you--"
+
+"Sir, you must not thus address the cloth!" sternly interposed Mr.
+Pyecroft. "It is our duty to speak frankly, and to make due inquiry
+into the propriety of such relations. However, since you say so, I am
+sure the affair is strictly correct." His voice softened, became nobly
+apologetic. "No harm has been meant, and if any offense has been felt,
+I assure you of my deepest regrets."
+
+"See here, who the devil are you?" demanded Jack.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft turned to Matilda.
+
+"Matilda, my dear, will you kindly tell young Mr. De Peyster who I
+am."
+
+Matilda seemed about to choke. "He's--he's my--my brother."
+
+"Your brother!" exclaimed Jack, "I didn't know you had a brother. You
+never spoke of one."
+
+"Which was entirely natural," said Mr. Pyecroft, with an air of pious
+remorse. "Matilda has been ashamed to speak of me. To be utterly
+frank--and it is meet that one who has been what I have been should be
+humble and ready to confess--for many years I was the black sheep of
+the family, my name unmentioned. But sometime since I was snatched a
+brand from the burning; I have remained silent about myself until I
+could give to my family, which had properly disowned me, a long record
+to prove my reformation. I am now striving by my devotion to make some
+amends for my previous shortcomings."
+
+Jack stared incomprehensibly at this unexpected clerical brother of
+Matilda's, with his unquenchable volubility. Mr. Pyecroft gazed back
+with appropriate humility, yet with a lofty self-respect.
+
+Jack turned away with a shrug, and pointed at the dark figure of Mrs.
+De Peyster.
+
+"And who is that, Matilda?"
+
+"That, sir," put in Mr. Pyecroft quickly, easily, to forestall any
+blunder by the hapless Matilda--and deftly interposing himself between
+Jack and Mrs. De Peyster, "that is our sister."
+
+"The one who lives in Syracuse?"
+
+"Yes; and she is indisposed," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Our sister Angelica
+Simpson Jones," he elaborated. "Matilda is the eldest, I am the
+youngest; there are just us three children."
+
+"And might I ask, Matilda, without intending discourtesy," said Jack,
+eyeing Mr. Pyecroft with disfavor, "how long your brother and sister
+intend to remain?"
+
+"Matilda invited us for the summer," said Mr. Pyecroft apologetically.
+
+"For the summer!" repeated Jack in dismay. Then he spoke to Matilda,
+caustically: "I suppose it's all right, Matilda, but has it been your
+fixed custom, when we've been away for the summer, to fill the house
+with your family?"
+
+"Please, Mr. Jack, please," imploringly began Matilda, and could utter
+nothing further.
+
+"Great God!" Jack burst out in exasperation. "Not that I'd object
+ordinarily to your relatives being here, Matilda. But running this
+place just now as a hotel, who knows but it may let out the fact that
+we're here!"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's eyebrows went up--ever so little.
+
+"Ah, I understand. You wish your presence in the house to be a
+secret."
+
+"Of course! Hasn't Matilda told you?"
+
+"I only just arrived. She hasn't had time. But of course she would
+have done so. You are--ah"--his tone was delicate--"evading the
+police?"
+
+"The police! We don't care a hang about the police, though, of course,
+we don't want them to know. It's the infernal reporters we care
+about."
+
+"The reporters?" softly pursued Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes, but one reporter in particular--a beast by the name of Mayfair,
+I've had a tip that he suspects something; already he's tried to get
+into the house as a gas-meter inspector."
+
+At the mention of that indomitable, remorseless, undeceivable
+newsgatherer, Mayfair, and the possibility of his gaining entrance
+into the house, Mrs. De Peyster experienced a new shudder.
+
+"What would be the harm if Mr. Mayfair did get in?" Imperceptibly
+prodded Mr. Pyecroft. "He would merely write a piece about you for his
+paper."
+
+"And his confounded piece, or the main facts in it, would be cabled to
+Europe!"
+
+"Ah, I think I see," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Mrs. De Peyster would read
+about your marriage in the Paris 'Herald' or some other European
+paper. You do not wish your mother to know of your marriage--yet."
+
+"I supposed Matilda had already told you that," said Jack.
+
+"Ah, so that is why you are here in hiding," said Mr. Pyecroft, very
+softly, chiefly to himself; and his eyes had another momentary flash,
+only brighter than any heretofore, and his mouth twitched upward, and
+he pleasantly rubbed his hands.
+
+At that moment, from the stairway, came the sound of descending steps.
+Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed. Mr. Pyecroft became taut, though
+no one could have observed a change, Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet
+deeper apprehension. Would the trials and tribulations and Pharaonic
+plagues never cease descending on her!
+
+Matilda gazed wildly at Jack. "Who's that?" she quavered.
+
+"Only Uncle Bob," Jack answered carelessly.
+
+Only Uncle Bob! Mrs. De Peyster, in her dim corner, tried to shrivel
+up into yet darker obscurity. Breathlessly she felt herself upon the
+precipitous edge of ultimate horror. For Judge Harvey--Judge Harvey
+of all persons--to be the one to discover her amid her humiliating
+circumstances!
+
+Dimly she heard Jack talk on, explaining in casual tone: "You know,
+Matilda, Uncle Bob has always had the general oversight of the house
+when it's been closed during summers; and he's always made it his
+business to drop in occasionally to see that everything's all right.
+I got him word we were here, and he dropped in this evening to call
+on us--and along came this awful rain and we coaxed him to stay the
+night. Uncle Bob and you are lucky, Matilda, you can both come and go
+without arousing any suspicion."
+
+Only the Judge!... Yet, for all her horror, a new phase of the general
+predicament filtered into such consciousness as she now possessed.
+Judge Harvey, irate purchaser of autograph letters, and Mr. Pyecroft,
+_alias_ Thomas Preston, profuse producer of the same, were under the
+same roof and were about to meet. What would happen when they came
+face to face?--for she remembered now that a bad likeness of Thomas
+Preston had several times appeared in the papers. She turned her head
+toward the doorway and peered through her veil, waiting.
+
+When Judge Harvey entered, Mr. Pyecroft started. Upon the instant
+he had recognized Judge Harvey. But the next moment Mr. Pyecroft was
+himself. Jack gave the necessary introductions, the one to Angelica
+Simpson Jones at long distance, and gave a brief explanation of the
+presence of the two guests. During this while Judge Harvey repeatedly
+glanced at Mr. Pyecroft, a puzzled look on his countenance.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Simpson," he remarked presently, "but your face seems
+elusively familiar to me. I seem to know it, yet I cannot place it.
+Haven't I met you somewhere?"
+
+"Perhaps you were a lay delegate to the recent Episcopal Convention in
+New York?" politely suggested Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"No. I did not even attend any of the sessions."
+
+"Then, of course, it could not have been there that you saw me," said
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Perhaps it will come to me," said Judge Harvey.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, for all her personal apprehension, could but marvel
+at this young man of the sea who had fastened himself upon her back.
+Most amazing of all, he seemed to like the taste of his danger.
+
+"Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster was remarking when you came in," Mr.
+Pyecroft continued without permitting a lull, "that he wished his
+presence in this house to remain unknown. Also I had just told him
+and his young wife that my earlier years were given over to a life
+for which I have been trying to atone by good works. Now I have a very
+humiliating further confession to make to you all. Recently there has
+been--may I call it a recrudescence?--an uncontrollable recrudescence
+of my former regrettable self. For a disastrous moment the Mr. Hyde
+element in me, which I thought I had stifled and cast out, arose
+and possessed me. In brief, I have been guilty of an error which the
+police consider serious; in fact, the police are this moment searching
+for me. So you see, I am in the same situation as Mr. De Peyster: I
+prefer my whereabouts to remain unknown. Since we are in each other's
+hands, and it is in our power each to betray the other, shall we not
+all, as a _quid pro quo_, agree to preserve Mr. De Peyster's and my
+presence in this house a secret? For my part, I promise."
+
+"I'm willing," said Jack.
+
+"And I," said Mary. "Anyhow, I never get a chance to tell, for I
+haven't been out of this house once."
+
+"And you, Judge Harvey? You will--ah--protect me?"
+
+Judge Harvey bit the end of his mustache. "I don't like this
+bargaining over a matter of justice. But--for Jack's sake, yes."
+
+"Thank you, Judge Harvey," Mr. Pyecroft said in a soft, grateful
+voice, and with a slight, dignified bow.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster drew a deep breath. He certainly was a cool one.
+
+"There's something that's just been occurring to me," spoke up Jack.
+"It's along of that infernal reporter Mayfair who's snooping around
+here. He's likely to get in here any time. If he were to find me here
+alone, there'd be nothing for him to write about. It's finding me
+here, married, that will give him one of his yellow stories, and
+that will put mother next. Matilda, since you already have so large
+a family visiting you, I suppose you wouldn't mind taking on one
+more and saying that Mary here was something or other of yours--say a
+niece?"
+
+"Oh, that would be delicious" laughed Mary.
+
+"Why, Mr. Jack,--I! I--" The flustered Matilda could get out no more.
+
+"Mr. Simpson, couldn't you say she was your daughter?" queried Jack.
+
+"I would be only too delighted to own her as such," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"But I am not married and I am obviously too young. However,"--moving
+closer to Mrs. De Peyster,--"our sister Angelica is married, and I am
+sure it will be a great pleasure to her to claim Mrs. De Peyster as
+her daughter. Angelica, my dear, of course you'll do it?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sat rigid, voiceless.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mary, in deep concern.
+
+"Our sister probably did not hear, she is slightly deaf," Mr. Pyecroft
+explained. He bent over Mrs. De Peyster, made a trumpet of one hand,
+and raised his voice. "Angelica, if any other person comes into the
+house, you are to say that young Mrs. De Peyster is your daughter. You
+understand?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster nodded.
+
+"And of course you'll say it?"
+
+For a moment Mrs. De Peyster was again rigid. Then slowly she nodded.
+
+The spirit of the masquerade seized upon Mary. "Oh, mother dear,--what
+a comfort to have you!" she cried with mischievous glee; and arms wide
+as if for a daughterly embrace she swept toward Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shriveled back. She stopped living. In another
+moment--
+
+But the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft, _alias_ Archibald Simpson, _alias_
+Thomas Preston, _alias_ God knows what else, stepped quickly between
+her and the on-coming Mary, and with an air of brotherly concern held
+out an intercepting hand.
+
+"No excitement, please. The doctor's orders."
+
+"Is it anything serious?" Mary asked anxiously.
+
+"We hope not," in a grave voice. "It is chiefly nervous exhaustion due
+to a period of worry over a trying domestic situation."
+
+"That's too bad!" Very genuine sympathy was in Mary's soft contralto.
+"But if she's unwell, she ought to have more air. Why don't you draw
+up that heavy veil?"
+
+"S-s-h! Not so loud, I beg you. If she heard you speak of her veil, it
+would pain her greatly. You see," Mr. Pyecroft unhesitatingly went
+on in a low, compassionate tone, "our sister, while trying to light a
+gasoline stove--It was a gasoline stove, was it not, Matilda?"
+
+"Ah--er--ye-yes," corroborated Matilda.
+
+"A gasoline stove, yes," continued the grave voice of Mr. Pyecroft.
+"It was during the very first year after her marriage. The explosion
+that followed disfigured her face frightfully. She is extremely
+sensitive; so much so that she invariably wears a heavy veil when she
+goes out of her own house."
+
+"Why, how terrible!" cried Mary.
+
+"Yes, isn't it! All of our family have felt for poor Angelica most
+deeply. And furthermore, she is sensitive about her deafness--which, I
+may add, was caused by the same accident. And her various misfortunes
+have made her extremely shy, so the less attention that is paid to
+her, the happier the poor creature is."
+
+Mary withdrew among the others. Slowly Mrs. De Peyster returned once
+more to life. She hardly knew how she had escaped, save that it had
+been through some miracle of that awful Mr. Pyecroft's amazing tongue.
+
+"By the way, Matilda," she heard Mary remark, "did you read in
+to-night's papers about Mrs. De Peyster's voyage? You know she landed
+to-day."
+
+"No, ma'--Mary," said Matilda.
+
+"The paper said she was so ill all the way across that she wasn't able
+to leave her stateroom once." Mary's voice was very sympathetic. "Why,
+she was so ill she couldn't leave the boat until after dark, hours
+after all the other passengers had gone."
+
+"I never knew mother to be seasick before," said Jack, in deep
+concern.
+
+Judge Harvey said nothing, but his fine, handsome face was disturbed.
+Jack noted the look, and, suddenly catching the Judge's hand, said
+with a burst of boyish frankness:--
+
+"Uncle Bob, you're worried more than any of us! You know I've always
+liked you like a father--and--and here's hoping some day mother'll
+change her mind--and you'll be my father in reality!"
+
+"Thank you, Jack!" the Judge said huskily, gripping Jack's hand.
+
+Over in her corner, beneath her veil, Mrs. De Peyster flushed hotly.
+
+They talked on about the distant Mrs. De Peyster, and she
+listened with keenest ears. They were all so sympathetic about
+her--sick--alone--in far-off Europe. So sympathetic--so very, very
+sympathetic!
+
+As for Mr. Pyecroft, standing on guard beside her, he looked
+appropriately grave. But inside his gravity he was smiling. These
+people had no guess that in a way he was connected with the great
+Mrs. De Peyster of whom they talked--that "Miss Gardner" who was the
+companion to the ailing social leader in France was something more
+than just Miss Gardner. And he felt no reason for revealing his little
+secret.... Clara, the dear little Puritan, would be scandalized by
+this his wildest escapade--by his having used, after all and despite
+her prohibition, Mrs. De Peyster's closed house as a retreat; but when
+she came back from Europe, and he made her see in its proper light
+this gorgeous and profitable lark, she would relent and forgive him.
+Why, of course, she would forgive him.
+
+He was very optimistic, was Mr. Pyecroft; and the founder of his
+family must have been a certain pagan gentleman by the name of Pan.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ATTIC ROOM
+
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gave thanks when at last, toward one o'clock Jack and
+Mary and Judge Harvey went back to bed, leaving Matilda, Mr. Pyecroft,
+and herself. It had previously been settled that Mr. Pyecroft was
+to have Jack's old room, Matilda was, of course, to have her
+usual quarters, and Mrs. De Peyster was to have the room adjoining
+Matilda's, that formerly was occupied by Mrs. De Peyster's second
+maid.
+
+"Say, that was certainly one close shave," Mr. Pyecroft whispered at
+the door of her room. "Perhaps we'd better beat it from here. If that
+Judge ever places me! And you, if those people ever get a fair look
+at your face, they'll see your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster and they'll
+guess what our game is--sure! You'll promise to be careful?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster promised.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, having been undressed by Matilda, she was
+lying in the dark on a narrow bed, hard, very hard, as hard as Mrs.
+Gilbert's folding contrivance--and once more, after this her second
+move, she was studying the items of her situation.
+
+She had daily to mix with, strive to avoid, Jack and Mary. And Jack
+had casually remarked that Judge Harvey would be frequently dropping
+in.
+
+And there was that bland, incorrigible Pyecroft, whom she seemed to
+have become hopelessly tied to; Pyecroft, irresistibly insisting that
+she should swindle herself, and whom she saw no way of denying.
+
+Suppose Pyecroft should find out? He might.
+
+Suppose Jack and Mary should find out? They might.
+
+Suppose Judge Harvey should find out? He might.
+
+And suppose all this business of her not going to Europe, but
+staying in her shuttered house--her flight from home--her humiliating
+experiences in an ordinary boarding-house where she passed as a
+housekeeper--her being forced into a plan to rob herself--suppose Mrs.
+Allistair should find out? And Mrs. Allistair, she well knew, might
+somehow stumble upon all this; for she remembered how Mrs. Allistair
+had tried, and perhaps was still trying, to get some piquant bit
+of evidence against her in that Duke de Crecy affair. And if Mrs.
+Allistair did find out--
+
+What a scandal!
+
+And since her fate had become so inextricably tied up with the fates
+of others, and since the exposure of others might involve the exposure
+of her, there were yet further sources of danger. For--
+
+There was that awful reporter watching the house, after Jack!
+
+There were the police, after Pyecroft!
+
+She shuddered. This was only the seventh day since her inspired idea
+had been born within her. And it was only that very day that she had
+landed at Cherbourg. Three months must pass before Olivetta, in
+the role of Mrs. De Peyster, would return, and she could be herself
+again--if they could ever, ever manage their expected re-exchange of
+personalities in this awful mess.
+
+Only seven days thus far. Three more months of this!
+
+Three ... more ... months!...
+
+But at length she slept; slept deeply, for she had the gift of sleep
+in its perfection; slept a complete and flawless oblivion. So that
+when she awoke Saturday, refreshed, and glanced blinking about from
+her thin pillow she did not at first remember where she was. This
+low room, four by seven feet, with a narrow bed penitentially hard, a
+stationary wash-basin, a row of iron clothes-hooks, a foot-high oblong
+window above her head--what was it? How had she come here? And had any
+one ever before lived in such a cell?
+
+Then memory came flooding back. This was her second maid's room.
+She was Angelica Simpson Jones, sister of Matilda, a poor, diffident
+creature with defective hearing and pitifully disfigured face. And in
+the house were Mr. Pyecroft, and Jack and Mary, and Judge Harvey was a
+frequent visitor. And besides these, there were all the other sources
+of danger!
+
+She was now poignantly awake.
+
+While she was still in this process of realization, there was a soft
+knock at her door and a whispered, "It's Matilda, ma'am," at her
+keyhole. She unlocked the door, admitted Matilda, and crept back
+into her second maid's bed. They gazed at each other a moment without
+speaking. Matilda's face was gray with awe and helpless woe.
+
+They whispered about their predicament. What should they do? Should
+they flee again?--and how?--and where?--and what good would flight do
+them, especially since Mr. Pyecroft might once more follow? Twice they
+had leaped from the frying-pan, and each time had landed in a fire
+hotter than the one preceding. A third flight might drop them into a
+fire worse even than this in which they now sizzled.
+
+And as for the specific plan which had brought them back--for Mrs. De
+Peyster to steal unnoticed into her suite and hide there--that seemed
+impossible of achievement with all these people circulating about the
+house, especially that all-observing Mr. Pyecroft. If Mr. Pyecroft
+should catch her in one suspicious move, then his quick mind would
+deduce the rest, and everything would be up--everything!
+
+There was, of course, yet another way--to give up and disclose her
+identity herself. But she was now far, far too deeply involved:
+to confess and thus by her own act bring limitless and appalling
+humiliation on herself, this was unthinkable! She must go on, on,
+blindly on--with the desperate hope that in some manner now unseen
+she might in the end disentangle herself and come out of the affair
+undiscovered and with dignity untarnished. The two were still
+whispering over their predicament, when at the door sounded another
+knock, loud and confident. They caught at each other. The knocking was
+repeated.
+
+"Who's that?" Matilda asked, at Mrs. De Peyster's prompting.
+
+"It's Archibald," answered a bland voice.
+
+"Ma'am, shall I let him in?" breathed Matilda.
+
+"We don't dare keep him out," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Matilda admitted him. Even in the semi-darkness of the room, due to
+the green shutters being closed, Mrs. De Peyster could see that he was
+admirably transformed from the raven Mr. Pyecroft of the night before.
+He had on a gray modish suit, with lavender tie and socks to match;
+and looked natty and young and spirited and quite prepared for
+anything.
+
+"Good morning, sisters," he greeted them pleasantly. "I see you are
+admiring my new spring outfit. Not at all bad, is it?" He turned
+slowly about, for their better observation; then grinned and lowered
+his voice: "It's young De Peyster's; found it in his room, and helped
+myself. Burned my clergyman's outfit in the kitchen range before any
+one was up; best to leave no clues lying around."
+
+He, too, had come to talk plans, and quickly Mr. Pyecroft settled
+them. This was a dangerous place for him, with Judge Harvey coming and
+going; but to stay here was a safer risk than to venture forth until
+the hue and cry of the police had quieted. It was a dangerous place
+also for his dear sister Angelica, but if on the plea of indisposition
+she would stay in this dusky room and would keep her disfigured face
+hidden when any member of the household chanced to come in (they would
+all understand, and sympathize with, her painful diffidence),
+why, there was an excellent chance of her pulling through without
+discovery. It was obvious that they dared not keep out Jack and Mary,
+and perhaps Judge Harvey, should these be inspired to make friendly
+calls. To forbid their visits would arouse suspicion. And if it were
+said Angelica was too ill to see any one, then they would demand that
+a doctor be called in--and a doctor would mean exposure. Their visits
+must be permitted; no doubt of that; but if dear Angelica were only
+careful, extremely careful, and kept her head, all would go well.
+
+Yes, summarized Mr. Pyecroft, the best plan for them was to remain
+here for the present. Then when the safe and appropriate moment
+arrived, they could make their get-away.
+
+From quite other reasons, Mrs. De Peyster accepted this plan. After
+the strain of the past week, particularly after the wild emotional
+oscillations of the preceding night, she wished just to lie there in
+the dusk, and breathe--and breathe--and breathe some more--and recover
+life.
+
+Matilda suggested that she bring up breakfast for Mrs. De Peyster, and
+Mr. Pyecroft begged her to discover and set out something below
+for him, for his stomach was a torturing vacuum. Matilda went down,
+leaving Mr. Pyecroft behind in the room, discussing further details of
+their immediate campaign; and presently she returned, trembling, with
+a tray, Jack and Mary just behind her. Mrs. De Peyster did not need
+to be prompted to turn her face toward the wall, and into the deeper
+shadow that there prevailed. Mr. Pyecroft casually sat down upon the
+bed near its head, making an excellent further screen.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft noted that Jack was observing his raiment. "I trust,
+Mr. De Peyster, you will pardon the liberty I have taken with your
+clothes. My own were still wet from last night."
+
+"That's all right," said Jack. "But, say, Matilda, have your sister
+eat her breakfast. What we've come to talk about can wait."
+
+But Matilda's sister, after all, wished no breakfast. And solicitation
+could not rouse in her an appetite.
+
+"Very well," said Jack. "Then to the point. I thought we'd better all
+get together on the matter at once. It's about food."
+
+"Food?" queried Mr. Pyecroft, a bit blankly.
+
+"Yes, and it's some problem, you bet. Here's a house that is supposed
+to be empty. And within this empty house are five adults. Do you get
+me?"
+
+"Isn't it terrible!" cried Mary.
+
+"Five adults," repeated Jack. "How are we going to get food in here
+for them without exciting suspicion?"
+
+"As you say," mused Mr. Pyecroft with a wry face, "that is certainly
+some problem. My own appetite is already one magnitudinous toothache."
+
+Jack enlarged upon their situation.
+
+"Since Judge Harvey tipped me off to the fact that the newspapers
+smelled a story, and since that reporter Mayfair and other reporters
+began to watch this house, I've had to give up going out. We two would
+have starved but for what Judge Harvey and William managed to slip
+in to us. Even with that, we've almost starved. In fact, we've
+been driven by hunger about to the point of giving in, going out,
+acknowledging our marriage and taking the consequences."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, face buried in the shadow, thrilled with a sudden
+rush of hope. If Jack and Mary should leave the house, then half her
+danger would be ended!
+
+"But, you see, since that news yesterday about mother being so sick
+in Europe," Jack continued solicitously, "I feel that, in her weakened
+condition, the news of our marriage might be a very severe shock for
+her. So for her sake we're going to keep the thing secret for a while
+yet, and stick it out here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster could hardly keep back a groan.
+
+"So, now," Jack again propounded, "what the dickens are the five of us
+going to do?"
+
+Mr. Pyecroft rubbed his wide mouth for a meditative moment. Then he
+smiled upon Matilda.
+
+"It seems to me, sister dear, that we'll have to put it up to you."
+
+"Up to me?" cried Matilda.
+
+"Yes, Matilda. You belong here; you can come and go as a matter of
+course. You have a sister visiting you; also a brother, but as I have
+requested, the less said about his being here the better. But you can
+go out and openly order provisions for yourself and our sister. And
+you can give a good large order for nourishing canned goods, casually
+mentioning that you are laying in a supply so that you will not have
+to bother again soon with staples. That, with what Judge Harvey and
+William can smuggle in, should keep us provided for."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's suggestion was approved by the majority. As an addendum
+to his proposal Matilda was ordered to answer the bell whenever rung;
+if she did not, with the knowledge abroad that she was in the house,
+a dangerous suspicion might be aroused. But she should be careful when
+she went to the door, very careful.
+
+Matilda was driven forth to make the purchases; Mr. Pyecroft, under
+Jack's guidance, went below to forage for the anaesthetic of immediate
+crumbs; and Mary, tender-heartedly, remained behind to relieve the
+tedium of and give comfort to the invalid. She straightened up the
+room a bit; urged the patient to eat, to no avail; then went out of
+the room for a minute, and reappeared with a book.
+
+"I'm going to read to you, Angelica," she announced, in a loud yet
+nursey voice. "I suppose your taste in books is about the same as
+your sister's. Here's a story I found in Matilda's room. It's called
+'Wormwood.' I'm sure you'll like it."
+
+So placed that she could get all of the dim light that slanted through
+the tiny shuttered window, Mary began, her voice raised to meet the
+need of Mrs. De Peyster's aural handicap. Now Marie Corelli may have
+been the favorite novelist of a certain amiable queen, who somehow
+managed to continue to the age of eighty-two despite her preference.
+But Mrs. De Peyster liked no fiction; and the noble platitudes, the
+resounding moralizings, the prodigious melodrama, the vast caverns
+of words of the queen's favorite made Mrs. De Peyster writhe upon her
+second maid's undentable bed. If only she actually did possess the
+divine gift of defective hearing with which Mr. Pyecroft had afflicted
+her! But in the same loud voice, trying to conceal her own boredom,
+Mary read on, on, on--patiently on.
+
+At length Matilda returned. Mary closed the book with a sigh of
+relief, which on the instant she repressed.
+
+"I'll read to you for a while two or three times a day," she promised.
+"I know what a comfort it is to a sick person to hear a story she
+likes."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not even thank her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+DOMESTIC SCENES
+
+
+The provisions arrived; Mr. Pyecroft proved himself agreeably
+competent and willing in the matter of their preparation; and such
+as had appetites gorged themselves. Also Mr. Pyecroft proved himself
+agreeably competent and willing to do his full share, and more, in the
+matter of cleaning up.
+
+Later in the forenoon, Mary again called on Mrs. De Peyster. "I hope
+you don't mind a little praise directed at your family, Angelica,"
+she said, in the loud voice she had adopted for that unfortunate.
+"At first Jack and I thought your brother Archibald was--well--too
+pompous. You know, clergymen are often that way. But the more we see
+of him, the better we like him. He's so pleasant, so helpful. I hope
+the little trouble he spoke of being in with the police isn't serious,
+for Jack and I think he's simply splendid!"
+
+Archibald's sister seemed indifferent to this praise of her brother.
+At least she said nothing. So Mary took up "Wormwood" and half-shouted
+another installment.
+
+The spirits of Jack and Mary, which during the previous evening and
+the earlier part of this morning had been subdued by concern over the
+illness of the distant Mrs. De Peyster, had, an hour before Mary's
+second visit, become suddenly hilarious. While Mary read, Mrs. De
+Peyster wondered over this change. When the book was closed upon the
+installment, she hesitatingly asked concerning this mystery.
+
+"It's news about Mrs. De Peyster," answered Mary. "But of course it
+could hardly interest you much, for you've never met her--at least I
+supposed not, Angelica."
+
+"I've--seen her," corrected Angelica. "What--what news?"
+
+"Why," cried Mary in her soft, happy contralto, "Judge Harvey just
+telephoned that the latest papers contain cables saying that Mrs. De
+Peyster has just left Paris on that long motor trip of hers to the
+Balkans. That means that Jack's mother must be quite well again. We
+all feel so relieved--so very, very relieved!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster also felt relief--and some badly needed courage flowed
+into her. Olivetta's part of the plan, at least, was working out as
+per schedule.
+
+Finally Mary went, Matilda brought in her lunch, and the afternoon
+began to wear itself away, Mrs. De Peyster keeping most of the time
+to the hard, narrow bed of the second maid. Twice, however, she got up
+while Matilda guarded her door, stood at her high, cell-like
+window, and peered through the slats of the closed shutter, past the
+purple-and-lavender plumes of the wistaria that climbed on up to the
+roof, and out upon the soft, green, sunny spaces of Washington Square.
+The Square, which she had been proud to live upon but rarely walked
+in,--only children and nursemaids and the commoner people actually
+walked in it,--the Square looked so expansive, so free, so inviting.
+And this tiny cell--these days of early May were unseasonably,
+hot--seemed to grow more narrow and more stifling every moment. How
+had any one ever, ever voluntarily endured it!
+
+Mrs. De Peyster learned that Jack was studying at home, and studying
+hard. With the return of Matilda to the house, Jack repeated his
+instruction concerning the piano: Matilda was to tell any inquisitive
+folk that Mrs. De Peyster had bought a player-piano shortly before
+she sailed, and that she, Matilda, was operating it to while away
+the tedious hours. This device made it possible for Mary to begin her
+neglected practice.
+
+With the certainty of being bored, yet with an irrepressible
+curiosity, Mrs. De Peyster, piano-lover, awaited during the morning
+and early forenoon Mary's first assault upon the instrument. She would
+be crude, no doubt of it; no technique, no poetic suavity of touch, no
+sense of interpretation.
+
+When from the rear drawing-room the grand piano sent upwards to Mrs.
+De Peyster its first strains, they were rapid, careless scales and
+runs. Quite as she'd expected. Then the player began Chopin's Ballade
+in G Minor. Mrs. De Peyster listened contemptuously; then with
+rebellious interest; then with complete absorption. That person below
+could certainly play the piano--brilliantly, feelingly, with the touch
+and insight of an artist. Mrs. De Peyster's soul rose and fell with
+the soul of the song, and when the piano, after its uprushing, almost
+human closing cry, fell sharply into silence, she was for the moment
+that piano's vassal.
+
+Then she remembered who was the player. Instinctively her emotions
+chilled; and she lay stiffly in bed, hostile, on guard, defying the
+charm of the further music.
+
+Suddenly the piano broke off in the very middle of Liszt's Rhapsodic
+Number Twelve. The way the music snapped off startled her. There was
+something inexplicably ominous about it. Intuitively she felt that
+something was happening below. She wondered what it could be.
+
+An hour passed; she continued wondering; then Matilda entered the
+attic room, behind her Mr. Pyecroft and Mary.
+
+"Sister"--such familiarity was difficult to Matilda, even though
+she knew this familiarity was necessary to maintain the roles
+circumstances and Mr. Pyecroft had forced upon them--"sister," she
+quavered, "I thought you might be interested to know that the bell
+rang awhile ago, and I went down, and there was a man--with a note to
+me from--from Mrs. De Peyster."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster, in an almost natural tone.
+
+"It--it's disturbed us all so much that I thought you might like to
+look at it. Here it is."
+
+Shakingly, Matilda held out a sheet of paper. Shakingly, but without
+turning to face her visitors, Mrs. De Peyster took it. There was
+enough light to see that the letter was written on heavy paper
+embossed at the top with a flag and "S.S. Plutonia," and was dated the
+evening she had supposedly gone on board. The note read:--
+
+  DEAR MATILDA:--
+
+  Just at this late moment I recall something which,
+  in the hurry of getting off, I forgot to tell you about.
+  This is that I left instructions with Mr. Howard, an
+  expert cabinet-maker, who has previously done
+  things for me under the supervision of the Tiffany
+  Studios, to go over all my furniture while I am abroad
+  and touch up and repair such pieces as may be out
+  of order. I am sending this letter to Mr. Howard
+  for him or his representative to present for identification
+  to you when he is ready to undertake the
+  work. See that he has every facility.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lay dizzily still. Such an order she had never given.
+But the writing was amazingly similar to her own.
+
+"Well, Matilda?" she managed to inquire, in a voice she tried to make
+like the sickly Angelica's.
+
+"When the man showed me the note, I tried to put him off; but he
+simply wouldn't go and he followed me in. His orders, he said. I
+showed the letter to Mary and Mr. Pyecroft. The man saw them. They
+said call up Judge Harvey and ask him what to do. I did and
+Judge Harvey came down and he examined the letter and said it was
+undoubtedly written by Mrs. De Peyster. And he called up the Tiffany
+Studios, and they said they'd had such a telephone order from Mrs. De
+Peyster."
+
+"Jack and I never dreamed that his mother might have left orders to
+have people in here to renovate the house!" cried Mary in dismay.
+
+"Then--then Judge Harvey asked the man to put off the work," Matilda
+went on. "The man was very polite, but he said his orders from Mrs.
+De Peyster had been strict, and if he wasn't allowed to go on with the
+work, he said, in order to protect himself, he'd have to cable Mrs.
+De Peyster that the people occupying her house wouldn't let him. Judge
+Harvey didn't want Mrs. De Peyster to find out about Mr. and Mrs.
+Jack, so he told the man to go ahead."
+
+"And the man?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Where is he?"
+
+"He's down in the drawing-room, beginning on the tables."
+
+"It seems to me," suggested Mr. Pyecroft, "that since this
+summer hotel is filling so rapidly, we might as well withdraw our
+advertisements from the papers."
+
+"I wonder, ma'--" Matilda checked herself just in time. "I wonder,
+Angelica," she exclaimed desperately, "who it'll be next?"
+
+"Isn't it simply awful!" cried Mary. "But Jack's gone into hiding and
+isn't going to stir--and the man didn't see him--and I'm your niece,
+you know. So Jack and I are in no danger. Anyhow, Judge Harvey gave
+the man a--a large fee not to mention any one being in the house
+besides Matilda, and the man promised. So I guess all of us are safe."
+
+But no such sentiment of security comforted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Who was the man?
+
+What was he here for?
+
+One thing was certain: he and those behind him had made clever and
+adequate preparations for his admission. And she dared not expose him,
+and order him out--for only that very morning she had left Paris on
+her motor trip! She could only lie on the second maid's narrow bed and
+await developments.
+
+Matilda went out to attend to her domestic duties below; Mr. Pyecroft
+withdrew; and Mary, the sympathetic Mary,--Mary who had no worry, for
+the cabinet-maker below would in due time complete his routine work
+and take himself away,--Mary remained behind to apply to the invalid
+the soothing mental poultice of "Wormwood." But "Wormwood" did not
+torment Mrs. De Peyster as it had done in the forenoon. She did
+not hear it. She was thinking of the cabinet-maker below. But Mary
+faithfully continued; she did not cease when Mr. Pyecroft reentered.
+There was a slightly amused look in that gentleman's face, but he
+said nothing, and seated himself on the foot of the bed and gazed
+thoughtfully at the wall of scaling kalsomine--and Mary's loudly
+pitched voice went on, and on, and on.
+
+They were thus engaged when Matilda returned. She was all a-tremble.
+Behind her, holding her arm, was a smallish, sharp-faced young man.
+
+"He--he came in with the roast," Matilda stammered wildly.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft had sprung up from the bed.
+
+"And who is _he_?"
+
+"Mr. Mayfair, of the 'Record,'" answered the young man, loosing
+Matilda and stepping forward.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shivered frantically down beneath the bedclothes, her
+see-sawing hopes once more at the bottom. Mary leaned limply back in
+the shadow and hid her face.
+
+"He tried to question me--and he made me bring him--" Matilda was
+chattering.
+
+"May I inquire what it is you wish, Mr. Mayfair?" requested Mr.
+Pyecroft--and Matilda fled.
+
+"You may," rapidly said the undeceivable Mr. Mayfair. Mr. Mayfair
+had learned and made his own one of the main tricks of that method of
+police inquisition known as the "third degree": to hurl a fact, or
+a suspicion with all the air of its being the truth, with bomb-like
+suddenness into the face of the unprepared suspect. "I know Jack De
+Peyster has made a runaway marriage! I know he and his wife are living
+secretly in this house!"
+
+"Why, this news is simply astounding!" exclaimed Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Come, now. Bluffing won't work with me. You see, I'm on to it all!"
+
+"I presume it's a newspaper story you're after?" Mr. Pyecroft inquired
+politely.
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Then"--in the same polite tone--"if you know it all, why don't you
+print it?"
+
+"I want the heart-story of the runaway lovers," declared Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Mayfair," Mr. Pyecroft suggested gently, "that you
+are the one who is only bluffing. You have a suspicion, and are trying
+to find evidence to support it."
+
+"I know, I tell you!"
+
+"Then may I inquire to whom young Mr. De Peyster is married?"
+
+"I know all right!"
+
+"Ah, then, you don't really know," said Mr. Pyecroft mildly.
+
+"I know, I tell you!" Mr. Mayfair repeated in his sharp, third-degree
+manner.
+
+"Then why trouble us? Why not, as I have already suggested, print it?"
+
+"I'm here to see them!" Mr. Mayfair said peremptorily. Then his tone
+became soft, diplomatic. "The housekeeper spoke about referring me to
+her brother. You are her brother, I suppose?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Mr. Mayfair smiled persuasively. "If you would tell me what you know
+about them, and lead me to where they are, my paper would be quite
+willing to be liberal. Say twenty dollars."
+
+"I'd accept it gladly," said Mr. Pyecroft, "but I know nothing of the
+matter."
+
+"One hundred," bid Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"I would have done it for twenty, if I could. But I couldn't do it for
+a thousand. They are not here."
+
+"I know better!" snapped Mr. Mayfair, his manner sharp again. "Who's
+that?" he demanded suspiciously, pointing at Mary's shadow-veiled
+figure.
+
+"That? That is my niece. The daughter of my sister Angelica here."
+
+"Is she your mother?" demanded Mr. Mayfair of Mary.
+
+"Yes, sir," breathed Mary from her corner.
+
+"Madam, is she your daughter?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not reply.
+
+"Pardon me, my sister is ill, and somewhat deaf," put in Mr. Pyecroft.
+"Angelica, dear," he half shouted, "the gentleman wishes to know if
+this is your daughter."
+
+"Yes," from Mrs. De Peyster in smothered voice.
+
+"Well, I know they're here," doggedly insisted Mr. Mayfair, "and I'm
+going to see them! I have witnesses who saw them enter."
+
+"Indeed!" Mr. Pyecroft looked surprised and puzzled. "The witnesses
+can swear to seeing young Mr. De Peyster come in?"
+
+"They can swear to seeing a young man and woman come in. And I know
+they were Mr. De Peyster and his wife."
+
+"That's strange." Suddenly Mr. Pyecroft's face cleared. "I think I
+begin to understand! It was at night, wasn't it, when the witnesses
+saw them come in?"
+
+"At night, yes."
+
+"I'm sorry you have been caused all this trouble, Mr. Mayfair,"--in
+a tone of very genuine regret. "But there has been a blunder--a
+perfectly natural one, I now see. Undoubtedly the young couple your
+witnesses saw were my niece and myself."
+
+"What!" cried Mr. Mayfair. For a moment the undeflectable star
+reporter was all chagrin. Then he was all suspicion. "But why," he
+snapped out, "should you and your niece slip in at night? And why
+should you live here in hiding?"
+
+"You force me into a disagreeable and humiliating admission. The fact
+is, our family is in severe financial straits. We simply had no money
+to live on, and no prospects in sight. To help us out temporarily,
+my sister Matilda invited us to stay here while Mrs. De Peyster is in
+Europe. But for Mrs. De Peyster to know of our being here might cost
+my sister Matilda her position, which accounts for our attempt to get
+in unseen and to live here secretly. We had to protect Matilda against
+the facts leaking out."
+
+Mr. Mayfair stared searchingly at Mr. Pyecroft's face. It was
+confused, as was quite natural after the confession of a not very
+honorable, and certainly not very dignified, procedure. But it was
+candor itself.
+
+"Hell!" he burst out irefully. "Some one has certainly given me a bum
+steer. But I'll get that young couple yet, you see!"
+
+"I'm sorry about the story," said Mr. Pyecroft. And then with a
+slight smile, apologetic, as of one who knows he is taking liberties:
+"Perhaps, as compensation for the story you missed, you could write a
+society story about Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper entertaining for the
+summer her brother, sister, and niece."
+
+Mr. Mayfair grinned, ever so little. "You've got some sense of humor,
+old top," he approved dryly.
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Pyecroft, with a gratified air.
+
+He led Mr. Mayfair past the room within which Jack was hidden, down to
+the servants' door and courteously let him out. Two minutes later
+Mr. Pyecroft was again in the second maid's room. Mary eagerly sprang
+forward and caught his hand.
+
+"I waited to thank you--you were simply superb!" she cried
+enthusiastically. "I've been telling your sister how wonderful you
+are. She's got to forgive you--I'll make her! And Jack will die
+laughing when I tell him." She herself burst into excited merriment
+that half-choked her. "Just think of it--all the while he was
+looking--looking a big story straight in the face!"
+
+She was off to tell Jack.
+
+"One might add, looking two big stories straight in the face, eh,
+Angelica, my dear?" chuckled Mr. Pyecroft, _alias_ Mr. Preston.
+
+One might add, three big stories, shivered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+But she did not add this aloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MAN IN THE CELLULOID COLLAR
+
+
+The amused smile which Mr. Pyecroft had worn when he had entered,
+and which he had subdued to thoughtful sobriety while "Wormwood" was
+assuaging the invalid's tribulations, began now to reappear. It grew.
+Mrs. De Peyster could but notice it, for he was smiling straight at
+her--that queer, whimsical, twisted smile of his.
+
+"What is it?" she felt forced to ask.
+
+"We three are not the only ones, my dear Angelica," he replied, "who
+are trying to slip one across on Mrs. De Peyster. Our friend the
+cabinet-maker is on the same job. I might remark, that he's about as
+much a cabinet-maker as yourself."
+
+"What is he?"
+
+"A detective, my dear."
+
+"A detective!"
+
+"The variety known as 'private,'" enlarged Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"What--what makes you think so?"
+
+"Well, I felt it my duty to keep an eye on our new
+guest--unobtrusively, of course. When I slipped out a little while
+ago it was to watch him. He was working in the library; entirely by
+accident, my dear Angelica, my eye chanced to be at the keyhole. He
+was examining the drawers of the big writing-table; and not paying so
+much attention to the drawers as to the letters in them. And from
+the rapidity with which he was examining the letters it was plain the
+cabinet-maker knew exactly what he was after."
+
+"What--do you think--it means?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Some person is trying to get something on Mrs. De Peyster," returned
+Mr. Pyecroft. "What, I don't know. But the detective party, I've
+got sized up. He's one of those gracious and indispensable
+noblest-works-of-God who dig up evidence for divorce trials--lay traps
+for the so-called 'guilty-parties,' ransack waste-paper baskets for
+incriminating scraps of letters, bribe servants--and if they find
+anything, willing to blackmail either side; remarkably impartial and
+above prejudice in this respect, one must admit. Altogether a most
+delectable breed of gentlemen. What would our best society do without
+them? And then again, what would they do without our best society?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not attempt an answer to this conjectural dilemma.
+
+"Twin and interdependent pillars of America's shining morality,"
+continued Mr. Pyecroft. "Now, like you, Angelica," he mused, "I wonder
+what the detective party is after; what the lofty Lady De Peyster can
+have been doing that is spicy? However," smiling at her, "Angelica, my
+dear, in the words of the great and good poet, 'We should worry.'"
+
+It was only a moment later that Matilda burst into the room and closed
+the door behind her. She was almost breathless.
+
+"He asked me for the key to"--"your" almost escaped Matilda--"to Mrs.
+De Peyster's suite. He'd been particularly ordered to touch up Mrs. De
+Peyster's private desk, he said."
+
+"And you gave him the key?" inquired Mr. Pyecroft, asking the very
+question that was struggling at Mrs. De Peyster's lips.
+
+"I told him I didn't have a key," said Matilda.
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"But," continued Matilda, "he said it didn't matter, for he said he'd
+been brought up a locksmith. And he picked the lock right before my
+eyes."
+
+"That's one accomplishment of gentlemanliness I was never properly
+instructed in," said Mr. Pyecroft regretfully, almost plaintively. "I
+never could pick a lock."
+
+"And where--is he now?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"In Mrs. De Peyster's sitting-room, retouching her desk."
+
+"He's certainly after something, and after it hot--and probably
+something big," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "Any idea what it can be,
+Matilda?"
+
+Matilda had none.
+
+"Any idea, Angelica?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was beginning to have an idea, and a terrified idea;
+but she likewise said she had none.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster wished Mr. Pyecroft would go, so she could give way
+to her feelings, talk with Matilda. But Mr. Pyecroft stretched out
+his legs, settled back, clasped his hands behind his head, and looked
+thoughtfully at the ceiling. He had an intellectual interest in some
+imaginary escapade of the far-distant Mrs. De Peyster; but no more;
+and he was obviously comfortable where he was.
+
+Matilda started out, but was recalled by a glance of imperative appeal
+from Mrs. De Peyster. And so the three sat on in silence for a time,
+Mrs. De Peyster and Matilda taut with expectant fear, Mr. Pyecroft
+loungingly unconcerned.
+
+And thus they were still sitting when there was a knock, which Mr.
+Pyecroft answered. The cabinet-maker entered. He wore a slouching,
+ready-made suit and a celluloid collar with ready-made bow tie snapped
+by an elastic over his collar-button--the conventional garb of the
+artisan who aspires for the air of gentlemanliness while at work. His
+face, though fresh-shaven, was dark with the sub-cutaneous stubble
+of a heavy beard; his eyes were furtive, with that masked gleam of
+Olympian all-confidence which a detective can never entirely mask.
+
+"How are you, Miss Simpson?" he said to Matilda. "Your niece told me
+I'd find you here, so I came right up. Could I have a word with you
+outside?"
+
+"Couldn't you have it here just as well," suggested Mr. Pyecroft--who
+somehow had imperceptibly taken on an air of mediocrity. "We're all in
+the family, you know."
+
+"Mebbe it'd be better to have it here," agreed the cabinet-maker. "You
+other two are living in the house, so I understand, because you're
+hard up; so your needing money may help what I'm after." He suddenly
+and visibly expanded with importance. "When the time comes to put my
+cards on the table, I don't waste a minute in showing my hand. That
+cabinet-maker business was all con. I'm an officer of the law."
+
+"You don't say!" cried Mr. Pyecroft with a startled air.
+
+"A detective. Brown's my name. I'm here hunting for something. I got
+part of what I wanted, but not all. What I want isn't here, or I'd
+have found it; there's only three or four places it'd have been locked
+up. I know," he ended, with driving confidence, "that a letter was
+written to Mrs. De Peyster by the Duke de Crecy saying he couldn't
+marry her. That letter is what I'm after."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mr. Pyecroft. And then with his wide-eyed mediocrity,
+"I wonder whom you represent."
+
+"Mrs. Allistair!" exclaimed Matilda.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster long since had been silently exclaiming the same.
+
+"Why, what could Mrs. Allistair want it for?" queried the
+futile-looking brother.
+
+"Never mind who I represent, or the reasons of the party," said Mr.
+Brown. "That letter is what I'm after, and I'm willing to pay for it.
+That's what ought to concern you folks."
+
+"But if there ever was such a letter," commented Mr. Pyecroft with his
+simple-minded manner, "perhaps Mrs. de Peyster destroyed it."
+
+"Perhaps she did. But I found two others he wrote her. And if she
+didn't tear it up or burn it, I'm going to have it!"
+
+He directed himself at Matilda, and spoke slowly, suggestively,
+impressively. "Confidential servants, who think a bit of number one,
+should be on the lookout for documents and letters that may be of
+future value to themselves. I guess you get me. For the original of
+the letter I'm willing to come across with five hundred dollars."
+
+"But I have no such letter!" cried Matilda.
+
+"I might make it a thousand," conceded the detective. "And," he added,
+"the money might come in very handy for your sick sister there."
+
+"But I tell you I have no such letter!"
+
+"Say fifteen hundred, then."
+
+"But I haven't got it!" cried Matilda.
+
+"Perhaps you may have it without knowing what it is. Some of his
+letters he signed only with an initial. Here is a sample of the Duke's
+handwriting--one of his letters I found."
+
+"I tell you I have--"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Brown," interrupted the ineffectual-looking Mr.
+Pyecroft. "May I see the handwriting, please?"
+
+Firmly holding it in his own hands, the detective displayed the letter
+to Mr. Pyecroft--an odd, foreign hand, the paper of superfine quality,
+but without crest or any other embossing. Mr. Pyecroft studied it
+closely; his look grew puzzled; then he turned to Matilda.
+
+"I don't exactly remember, Matilda, but it seems to me that there was
+handwriting like this among the letters you sent to me to keep for
+you."
+
+Matilda gaped at Mr. Pyecroft. Mrs. De Peyster, half-rising on an
+elbow, peered in amazed stupefaction at her incalculable young man of
+the sea.
+
+"Why, of course, she'd have turned it over to some one else for
+safe-keeping!" the detective cried triumphantly. "Where is it?" he
+demanded of Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"I'm not so sure I have it," said the shallow Mr. Pyecroft
+apologetically. "It just seems to me that I saw writing like this.
+If I have, it's over in a little room I keep. But if I really do have
+it"--with the shrewd look of a small mind--"we couldn't sell it for
+fifteen hundred."
+
+"How much d'you want?"
+
+"Well"--Mr. Pyecroft hesitated--"say--say three thousand."
+
+"Good God, that's plain blackmail!"
+
+"It may be, but poor people like us don't often get a chance like
+this."
+
+"I won't pay it!"
+
+"Perhaps, then,"--apologetically,--"we'd better deal with Mrs.
+Allistair direct."
+
+"Oh, well,--if you've got the letter, we won't scrap about the price.
+I'll come across."
+
+"Cash?" shrewdly queried the doltish brother.
+
+"Sure. I don't run no risks with checks."
+
+"I--we--wouldn't let the letter go out of our hands until it's paid
+for. And we won't go to any office. You yourself can say whether it's
+what you want or not? And you can pay right here?"
+
+"Sure. I'm the judge of what I want. And when I go for a big thing,
+I go prepared." Mr. Brown opened his coat, and significantly patted a
+bulge on the right side of his vest.
+
+"Well, then, I'll go to my room and see if I have it. But you'll have
+to wait here, for"--again with the shrewd look of the ineffectual
+man--"you might follow me, and with some more detectives you might
+take the letter from me."
+
+"Soon wait here as anywhere else. Anyhow, I'll want your sister's
+word," nodding at Matilda, "that the letter is the same. But don't
+worry--nobody's going to take anything from you."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft started out, then paused.
+
+"I just happened to remember; you said the letter might not be signed.
+Hadn't you better let me have one of the Duke de Crecy's letters, so I
+can verify the handwriting?"
+
+"I don't mind; these don't tell much." And the detective handed over
+one letter.
+
+"It may be an hour or two before I can get back; the letters are
+packed away and I've got to go through them and compare them."
+
+He slipped out. Mr. Brown, as he watched him, could hardly conceal his
+contempt.
+
+The detective sat heavily down. Mrs. De Peyster was sick with
+apprehension as to what that incomprehensible Mr. Pyecroft was about
+to do. She wanted to talk to Matilda. But the two dared not speak with
+this confident, omniscient, detectorial presence between them. Mr.
+Brown condescendingly tried to make conversation by complimenting
+Matilda on her shrewdness; he'd helped a lot of clever servants like
+her to snug little fortunes.
+
+But Matilda proved a poor conversationalist.
+
+Close upon two hours passed before Mr. Pyecroft returned. He drew a
+letter from his pocket, firmly gripped its edges with both hands, and
+held it out to Mr. Brown.
+
+"Is this the one?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you not to be afraid; no one's going to steal it from
+you."
+
+He took the letter from Mr. Pyecroft's unwilling and untrustful hands
+and glanced it through. The next moment it was as though an arc light
+of excitement had been switched on within his ample person. With
+swift, expert fingers he compared the texture of the paper of the new
+letter and the earlier ones.
+
+"Great God!" he exulted. "Same paper--same handwriting--and it says
+just what I expected--and signed 'De Crecy'!"
+
+He held out the letter to Matilda.
+
+"Of course, you identify this as the letter you found?"
+
+But Matilda shrank away as though the letter was deadly poison.
+
+"I never saw the thing before!"
+
+"What's that?" cried the detective.
+
+"She's trying to hold out for more money," explained Mr. Pyecroft.
+From behind the detective's broad back he gave Matilda a warning look;
+then said softly: "Of course, it's the letter, isn't it, sister?"
+
+Matilda thought only of saving the hour. The day would have to save
+itself.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Might--might I see it?" huskily inquired Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Sure. The more that corroborates it the better."
+
+Her face to the wall, the faint light slanting across her shoulder,
+she glanced at the letter. The Duke's own handwriting! And a jilting
+letter!--politely worded--but a jilting letter!... Mrs. De Peyster
+jilted!... If that were ever to come out--
+
+For a moment she lay enfeebled and overwhelmed with horror. Then
+convulsively she crushed the letter in her hands.
+
+"See here--wha' d' you mean?" cried the startled detective, springing
+forward; in a moment his powerful hands rescued the document.
+
+"Both of my sisters think we ought to stand out for more money,"
+apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "And I'm not so sure they're not right."
+
+"We've made our bargain already," quickly returned Mr. Brown. "And
+that's just how we'll settle."
+
+He started to slip the letter into a pocket. But Mr. Pyecroft caught
+hold of it.
+
+"How about the money?"
+
+"You mean you don't trust me?"
+
+"I'm not saying that," apologized Mr. Pyecroft. "But this means a lot
+to us. We can't afford to run any risks."
+
+"All right, then."
+
+[Illustration: "SAME PAPER--SAME HANDWRITING!"]
+
+Mr. Brown released the letter, drew a leather wallet from inside his
+vest, counted off six five-hundred-dollar bills, returned the wallet
+and held out the bills. The exchange was made. The detective carefully
+put the letter into a thick manila envelope, which he licked and
+sealed and put inside his vest to keep company with the wallet.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft counted the bills, slowly, three or four times; then
+looked up.
+
+"I bet my sisters were right; you would have paid more," he said
+regretfully, greedily.
+
+"Never you mind what I would have paid!" retorted the detective,
+buttoning his coat over the letter.
+
+"You'd have paid twice that!" Mr. Pyecroft exclaimed disappointedly.
+
+The detective, triumphant, could not resist grinning confirmingly.
+
+"We've been outwitted!" cried Mr. Pyecroft. He turned to the two woman
+contritely. "If I'd only heeded you--let you have managed the affair!"
+
+"You people got a mighty good price," commented Detective Brown.
+
+"Well--perhaps so," sighed Mr. Pyecroft. Chagrin gave way to curiosity
+in his face. "I wonder, now, how Mrs. Allistair is going to use the
+letter?"
+
+"That's none of my business."
+
+"She must think she can do a lot with it," mused Mr. Pyecroft. "If
+the letter, or its substance, were printed, say in 'Town Gossip,' I
+suppose it would mean the end of Mrs. De Peyster's social leadership,
+and Mrs. Allistair would then have things her own way."
+
+"Can't say," said the detective. But he winked knowingly.
+
+When he had gone Mr. Pyecroft stood listening until the descending
+tread had thinned into silence. Then he turned about to Mrs. De
+Peyster and Matilda, and his wide mouth twisted up and rightward into
+that pagan, delighted smile of his. He laughed without noise; but
+every cell of him was laughing.
+
+"Well, sisters dear, we're cleaning up--eh! I had the devil's own time
+matching that letter-paper at Brentanos', and I ran a pretty big risk
+leaving the house--but, say, it was worth it!" For a moment he could
+only laugh. "First, let's split the pile. I told you I was always
+square with my pals. Here's a thousand for you, Angelica,"--slipping
+two bills under Mrs. De Peyster's pillow,--"and a thousand for you,
+Matilda,"--thrusting the amount into her hands,--"and a thousand for
+your dear brother Archibald,"--slipping his share into a vest pocket.
+
+Neither of the two women dared refuse the money.
+
+"But--but," Mrs. De Peyster gasped thickly, "it's an outrageous
+forgery!"
+
+"A forgery, I grant you, my dear Angelica," Mr. Pyecroft said
+good-humoredly. "But if by outrageous you mean crude or obvious, I
+beg to correct you. Even if I must say it myself, that forgery was
+strictly first-class."
+
+"But it's a forgery!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"My dears, don't you worry about that," he reassured them soothingly.
+"There'll be no comeback. That detective and his agency, and Mrs.
+Allistair behind them, first tried robbery, then tried bribery.
+They're all in bad themselves. So stop worrying; you're in no danger
+at all from arrest for forgery or fraud. There'll never be a peep from
+any of them."
+
+This seemed sound reasoning, but Mrs. De Peyster did not acknowledge
+herself comforted.
+
+"Besides," Mr. Pyecroft went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful
+contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to slip something
+over on it's those damned vermin of private detectives! And the swells
+that employ them! I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung good and
+plenty!"
+
+"But Mrs. De Peyster!" wailed that lady--she couldn't help it, though
+she tried to keep inarticulate her sense of complete annihilation.
+"When they publish that letter the damage will have been done. It's a
+forgery, but nobody will believe her when she says so, and she can't
+prove it! She'll be ruined!"
+
+"Well," Mr. Pyecroft commented casually, "I don't see where that
+bothers us. She's pretty much of a stiff, too, and I wouldn't mind
+handing her one while we're at it. But, Lord, this won't hurt her a
+bit."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sat suddenly upright.
+
+"Not hurt her?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" chortled Mr. Pyecroft. "Why, when our excellent
+friend, Mr. Brown, presents the Duke's letter to-morrow morning to his
+chief, or to Mrs. Allistair's agent,--if he ever gets that far,--he
+will turn triumphantly over one sheet of Brentanos' very best
+notepaper--blank."
+
+"Blank?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's right eyelid drooped in its remarkable wink; his mouth
+again tilted high to starboard in its impish smile.
+
+"You see," he remarked, "the Duke's letter was written in an ink of my
+own invention. One trifling idiosyncracy of that ink is that it fades
+completely and permanently in exactly twelve hours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
+
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's grin grew by degrees more delighted: became the smile
+of a whimsical genius of devil-may-care, of an exultantly mischievous
+Pan. But he offered not a word of comment upon his work. He was an
+artist who was, in the main, content to achieve his masterpieces and
+leave comment and blame and praise to his public and his critics.
+
+He stood up.
+
+"I believe I promised to peel the potatoes and put on the roast," he
+remarked, and went out.
+
+"Matilda," breathed Mrs. De Peyster, numbed and awed, still aghast,
+"did you ever dream there could be such a man?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am,--never!"--tragically, wildly.
+
+"Whatever _is_ he going to do next?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. Almost anything."
+
+"And whatever is going to happen to us next?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it's terrible to think about! I'm sure I can't even guess!
+Mr. Pyecroft, and all the others, and all these things happening--I'm
+sure they'll be the death of me, ma'am!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sprang from her bed. Despite Matilda's cheap
+dressing-gown which she wore as appropriate to her station, she made
+a splendid figure of raging majesty, hands clenched, eyes blazing,
+furiously erect.
+
+"That man is outrageous!" she stormed. "I cannot, and shall not, stand
+him any longer! We must, and shall, get rid of him!" Her voice rang
+with its accustomed tone of all-conquering determination. "Matilda, we
+are going to do it! I say we are going to do it!"
+
+Matilda gazed admiringly at her magnificently aroused mistress. "Of
+course, you'll do it, ma'am," she said with conviction.
+
+"I cannot endure him another minute!" Mrs. De Peyster raged on. "At
+once, he goes out of this house! Or we do!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am," repeated Matilda in her adoring voice. And then
+after a moment, she added quaveringly: "But please, ma'am,--how are we
+going to do it?"
+
+The outraged and annihilatory Mrs. De Peyster gazed at Matilda,
+utterer of practical common-places. As she gazed the splendid flames
+within her seemed slowly to flicker out, and she sank back upon her
+bed. Yes, how were they going to do it?
+
+In cooler mood they discussed that question, without discovering a
+solution; discussed it until it was time for Matilda to go downstairs
+to perform her share of the preparation of the communal dinner. Left
+alone, her fury now sunk to sober ashes, Mrs. De Peyster continued the
+exploration of possibilities, with the same negative result.
+
+Matilda brought up her dinner on a tray, then returned to the kitchen;
+for though the others were all doing fair tasks, to Matilda of twenty
+years' experience fell the oversight of the thousand details of the
+house. Presently Mary appeared, on one of her visits of mercy--full of
+relief that the cabinet-maker had ended his work so soon, thus setting
+Jack free.
+
+But before beginning the anodynous "Wormwood," she launched into
+another high-voltage eulogy of Angelica's brother. Even more than they
+had at first thought was he willing and competent and agreeable in the
+matter of their common household labor; he was not intrusive; he was
+rich with clever and well-informed talk when they all laid aside
+work to be sociable. In fact, as she had said before, he was simply
+splendid!
+
+"Now, I do hope, Angelica, that you are going to forgive your
+brother," Mary insisted. "He really means well. I think he's what he
+is because he has never had a fair chance." And then more boldly:
+"I think the fault is largely yours and Matilda's. Matilda says your
+parents died when you were all young; and he admitted that he does not
+even remember them. And he also admitted, when I pressed him, that you
+and Matilda had not given him very much attention during his boyhood.
+You and Matilda are older; you should have brought him up more
+carefully; you are both seriously to blame for what he is. So I hope,"
+she concluded, "that both of you will forgive him and help him."
+
+Once more Mrs. De Peyster did not feel called upon to make response.
+
+"I have noted particularly that Matilda does not seem cordial and
+forgiving," Mary was continuing, when the prodigal brother himself
+dropped in. With her pretty, determined manner, Mary renewed her
+efforts at reconciliation in the estranged family. Mr. Pyecroft
+was penitent without being humble, and whenever a question was put
+directly to Mrs. De Peyster his was the tongue that answered; he was
+quite certain his sister Angelica would relent and receive him back
+into her respect and love once he had fully proved his worthiness.
+
+"I must say, Mr. Simpson, that I think you have an admirably forgiving
+nature," declared Mary. It was clear, though she was silent on the
+matter, that she considered his sisters to have cold, hard, New
+England hearts.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft withdrew; and Mary, in the high-pitched voice required by
+the invalid's misfortune, read "Wormwood" for an hour--until Jack came
+to the door and announced that Judge Harvey had again called on them.
+Alone, Mrs. De Peyster pondered her poignant problem, What should she
+do?--wishful that Matilda were present to talk the affair over with
+her. But Matilda was still busy in the kitchen with the odd jobs of
+night-end.
+
+Toward ten o'clock Mr. Pyecroft came in again. He stood and gazed
+silently down upon her. The one electric light showed her an odd, dry
+smile on Mr. Pyecroft's face.
+
+"What is it?" Mrs. De Peyster asked in fear.
+
+"Really, Angelica, you're not half so clever as I believed you."
+
+"What is it?" she repeated huskily.
+
+"This pearl." And from a pocket he drew out the pendant he had
+appropriated the night before in Mrs. Gilbert's boarding-house.
+"I thought we ought to be prepared with more cash in hand for our
+get-away when we decide to make it. So an hour ago I slipped out the
+back way, and made for a safe pawnbroker I know of. Angelica, you're
+easy. This pearl is nothing but imitation. And you fell for it!" He
+shook his head sorrowingly, chidingly. "Here's one case where remorse
+might be highly proper--and safest; better just mail it back to the
+party you lifted it from."
+
+With good-humored contempt he tossed the pendant upon the bed. Mrs. De
+Peyster clutched it and thrust it beneath her pillow.
+
+"I believe, Angelica, my dear," he commented, "that in view of the
+capacity this pearl incident has revealed, it is strictly up to me to
+assume charge of every detail of our plan."
+
+He sat down and in his fluent manner discussed the day's developments
+and their preparations for the future; and he was still talking when,
+fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Matilda entered. Her face,
+of late so often ashen, was ashen as though almost from habit.
+
+"Oh, oh," she quavered, "the servants' bell rang--and I answered it,
+like I'd been told to do--and in stepped four men--two of them the
+policemen we let in last night, and two men I never saw before--and
+they asked if they might speak to my brother who was visiting me. And
+I--I promised to call him down. Oh, ma'--Angelica--"
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft, what does this mean?" cried Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft's usual perfect composure was gone. His face was
+gleamingly alert; sharp as a razor's edge.
+
+"God knows how they've done it," he snapped out. "But it means they've
+tracked me here!"
+
+"As--as Thomas Preston?"
+
+"As Thomas Preston."
+
+"And if they take you--they--they may find me, and--"
+
+"Nothing more likely," grimly responded Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Then escape!" Mrs. De Peyster cried with frantic energy. "Run! For
+heaven's sake, run! You still have time!"
+
+"Running from the police is the surest way to get caught when they've
+got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've
+got every door watched--sure. Anyhow--Listen! Hear those steps? They
+haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've followed. Angelica, down with
+your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at it, be damned
+sick!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster obeyed. Mr. Pyecroft drew the room's one chair up
+beside the bed, sat down, picked up "Wormwood," and again, with the
+most natural manner in the world, he began to read in a loud voice.
+The next moment the two policemen of the previous night came in.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft arose.
+
+"I must beg your pardon, officers," he said pleasantly and with a
+slight tincture of his clerical manner. "My sister Matilda just
+told me you wished to see me, but I was almost at the end of a very
+interesting chapter which I was reading aloud to my other sister,
+who is ill, and so I thought I would conclude the scene before I came
+down. In what way can I serve you?"
+
+Neither of the officers replied. One closed the doorway with his bulk,
+and the other thumped heavily down a flight or two of stairs, from
+whence his shout ascended:--
+
+"We've got him up here, Lieutenant! Come on up!"
+
+Within the tiny room of the second maid no one spoke. Presently heavy
+footfalls mounted; the second policeman entered, and presently two
+solid men in civilian dress pushed through the door. The foremost, a
+dark-visaged man with heavy jaw, and a black derby which he did not
+remove, fixed on Mr. Pyecroft a triumphant, domineering gaze.
+
+"Well, Preston," he said, "so we've landed you at last."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft, his left forefinger still keeping the place in
+"Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.
+
+"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you are
+talking about."
+
+"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it," advised the
+lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he was something of
+a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure who you are, I'll
+put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the Jefferson letters,
+it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to yourself. Shake hands,
+gents."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began to break
+through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.
+
+"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston. I've read
+about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own way."
+
+He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities attributed
+to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those qualities to some more
+useful, and even more profitable, occupation."
+
+"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the lieutenant. "Only,
+you see, it don't go down."
+
+"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't going to
+be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas Preston."
+
+"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied the waggish lieutenant.
+"Not necessary at all. For you can't."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why,
+you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my
+two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister
+Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."
+
+That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at
+their superior dubiously.
+
+"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented
+dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."
+
+"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr.
+Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"
+
+"Y--yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four
+crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the
+stationary wash-bowl.
+
+"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"
+
+"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.
+
+"There, now, you see."
+
+"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas
+Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers on him. And there's something
+queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and
+carry downstairs the party in bed. We'll call the police ambulance for
+her, and take the whole bunch over to the station."
+
+The party in bed suddenly stiffened as if from a stroke of some kind,
+and Matilda fairly wilted away. Mr. Pyecroft alone did not change by
+so much as a hair.
+
+"One moment, gentlemen," he interposed in his even voice, "before you
+go to regrettable extremes. I believe that an even better witness to
+my identity can easily be secured."
+
+"And who's that, Tommie?"
+
+"I refer to Judge Harvey."
+
+"Judge Harvey!" The lieutenant was startled out of his ironic
+exultation. "You mean the guy that was stung by them forged
+letters--the complainant who's making it so damned hot for Preston?"
+
+"The same," said Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey is at this moment in this
+house."
+
+"In this house!"
+
+"I believe he is downstairs some place going over some bills Mrs. De
+Peyster asked him to examine. Matilda, you doubtless know in what room
+the Judge is working. Will you kindly knock at his door and ask him to
+step up here for a moment?"
+
+The lieutenant frowned doubtfully at Mr. Pyecroft, hesitated, then
+nodded to Matilda. The latter, relieved of the pressure of much
+policial avoirdupois, slipped from the room. The lieutenant turned
+and silently held a penetrating gaze upon the empty clothes-hooks. Mr.
+Pyecroft continued to look imperturbably and pleasantly upon the four
+officers. And under the bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster saw wild visions of
+Mr. Pyecroft being the next moment exposed, and herself dragged forth
+to shame.
+
+Thus for a minute or two. Then Judge Harvey appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Lieutenant Sullivan! See here, what's the meaning of this?" he
+demanded sternly.
+
+"'Evening, Judge Harvey," began the lieutenant, for the first time
+since his entrance removing his derby. "It's like this--"
+
+"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Pyecroft. "Judge Harvey, these gentlemen
+here have been upon the point of making a blunder that would be
+ludicrous did it not have its serious side. That's why I had you
+called. The fact is, they desire to arrest me."
+
+"Arrest you!" exclaimed the Judge.
+
+"Yes, arrest me," Mr. Pyecroft went on, easily, yet under his easy
+words trying to suggest certain definite contingencies. "That would be
+bad enough in itself. But, as you know, Judge Harvey, my arrest would
+unfortunately but necessarily involve the arrest of several other
+quite innocent persons--bring about a great public scandal--and create
+a situation that would be deplorable in every particular. You see
+that, Judge?"
+
+Judge Harvey got the covered meaning.
+
+"I see. But what do they want to arrest you for?"
+
+"On a most absurd charge," answered Mr. Pyecroft, smiling,--but eyes
+straight into Judge Harvey's eyes. "They seem to think I am Thomas
+Preston."
+
+"Thomas Preston!" cried the Judge.
+
+"Yes, the man that forged those Jefferson letters you bought."
+
+Mr. Pyecroft saw the puzzled semi-recognition that he had observed in
+the Judge's face the night before flash into amazed, full recognition.
+Quickly but without appearance of haste, he stepped forward diverting
+attention from the Judge's face, and made himself the center of the
+party's eyes.
+
+"You see, lieutenant and officers," he said easily, filling in time to
+give Judge Harvey opportunity to recover and think--and still aiming
+his meaning at the Judge, "you see, I have here summoned before you
+the best possible witness to my identity. You threaten to arrest and
+expose me and two other persons in this house. Judge Harvey knows, as
+well as I know, how unfortunate it would be for these parties, and
+how displeasing to Mrs. De Peyster, if you should make the very great
+blunder of arresting me as Thomas Preston. Now, Judge Harvey,"--with
+a joking smile,--"you know who I am. Will you please inform the
+lieutenant whether I am the man you wish to have arrested?"
+
+Judge Harvey stared, silent, his face twitching.
+
+"Is what he says O.K., Judge?" queried Lieutenant Sullivan. "He ain't
+the man you want arrested?"
+
+"He is not," the Judge managed to get out.
+
+"From the way you hesitated--"
+
+"The Judge's hesitation, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft interrupted in his
+pleasant tone, "was due to his amazement at the utter grotesqueness
+of the situation. He was for a moment utterly taken aback. That's it,
+isn't it, Judge?"
+
+"Yes," said Judge Harvey.
+
+The lieutenant twisted his derby in chagrined, ireful hands.
+
+"Some of my men have been damned fools again!" he exploded. He got
+himself back under control. "Judge Harvey, I hope you'll excuse our
+buttin' in like this--and--and won't find it necessary to mention it
+to the heads of the department."
+
+"It's--it's all right," said the Judge.
+
+"And you, Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"Simpson--Archibald Simpson," supplied Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Mr. Simpson, I hope you don't mind this too much?"
+
+"No ill feeling at all, Lieutenant," Mr. Pyecroft said graciously.
+"Such little mistakes must occasionally occur in the most careful
+police work."
+
+"And--and--there's another thing," said Lieutenant Sullivan with a
+note of gruff pleading. "You know how the papers are roasting the
+department just now. For every little slip, we get the harpoon or the
+laugh. I'll be obliged to you if you don't say anything that'll let
+this thing get into the papers."
+
+"Believe me, Lieutenant, I shall do everything in my power to
+protect you," Mr. Pyecroft assured him. "And now, since the matter
+is settled," he added pleasantly, "perhaps you'd like to have Matilda
+show you the way out. These upper hallways are really very confusing.
+Matilda, my dear,--if you don't mind."
+
+Wordlessly, Matilda obeyed, and four sets of policemen's feet went
+heavily down the stairs. Beneath her bedclothes Mrs. De Peyster began
+faintly, ever so faintly, to return to life. Judge Harvey glared at
+Mr. Pyecroft, hands spasmodically clutching and unclutching; his look
+grew darker and darker. Respectful, regretful, Mr. Pyecroft stood
+waiting.
+
+His left forefinger had not lost the place in "Wormwood."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE THIRD FLIGHT
+
+
+The storm broke.
+
+"You are a scoundrel, sir!" thundered the Judge.
+
+"I fear, sir, you are right," respectfully assented Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"And what's more, you've made me lie to the police!"
+
+"Not exactly, sir," Mr. Pyecroft corrected mildly. "I was careful
+about that. I did not ask you to deny that I was Thomas Preston. I
+merely asked you if I was the man you wished arrested. You answered
+that you did not want me arrested; under the circumstances I am
+certain you spoke the truth. And in explaining your hesitation to the
+lieutenant, when you said it was due to your utter amazement at the
+grotesqueness of the situation, I am certain you there also spoke the
+truth."
+
+"You are a quibbler!" fumed the outraged Judge. "You made me lie to
+the police!"
+
+"Well, even if I did," returned Mr. Pyecroft in his same mild tone,
+"is there any one else you would rather lie to?"
+
+The Judge glared, almost choking. "Have you no respect, man, for
+common decency--for order--for the law?"
+
+"For order and decency, yes,--but as for ordinary law, I fear I have
+no more respect than your honor has," Mr. Pyecroft admitted gravely.
+"And I acquired my irreverence toward law just as your honor did--from
+studying it."
+
+Judge Harvey stared.
+
+"What! You're a lawyer?"
+
+"I have been admitted to the bar, and have been a law clerk, but have
+never practiced for myself."
+
+"But last night you said you were a clergyman!"
+
+"I have gone no deeper into theology, sir, than the price of a
+clerical suit. And that was for its moral effect on the police."
+
+"Sir," exploded the Judge, "you are utterly incorrigible!"
+
+"I trust that I am not, sir," submitted Mr. Pyecroft gravely,
+hopefully.
+
+At that moment Jack and Mary appeared on tiptoe in the doorway, alive
+with curiosity; and directly behind them came Matilda. Upon the latter
+Judge Harvey turned.
+
+"Well, Matilda, I certainly want to compliment you on your brother!"
+he exclaimed with irate sarcasm.
+
+"My bro--bro--yes, sir, thank you," weakly returned poor Matilda.
+
+"No wonder, Mr. Simpson," the outraged Judge continued, "that your
+family disowned you!"
+
+"They were justified, certainly, as I told you at the very first,"
+soberly conceded Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Jack and Mary demanded enlightenment. To them Judge Harvey told of the
+visit of the four police officers, scathingly expounded the character
+of Matilda's brother, and explained how he, Judge Harvey, had been
+forced to protect the outrageous scape-grace. Through this recital,
+Mr. Pyecroft, though unbowed by shame, continued to wear his
+respectful, regretful look.
+
+"Perhaps you will not believe me, Judge Harvey," he returned
+courteously, and with the ring of sincerity, when the indictment was
+ended, "and even if you do believe me, perhaps my statement will mean
+nothing to you; but I desire none the less to state that I am sorry
+that you were the person to be deceived by those Jefferson letters. Of
+course, I had no idea to whom they were to be sold. I did them for the
+autograph dealer, so much for the job--and did them partly as a lark,
+though, of course, I do not expect you to appreciate the humor of the
+affair. It may be some consolation to you, however, to know that I
+profited very little from the transaction; the dealer got over ninety
+per cent of the price you paid."
+
+The Judge snorted, and stalked incredulously and wrathfully out, Jack
+and Mary behind him; and Mrs. De Peyster was left alone in the bosom
+of her family. Mr. Pyecroft sat silent on the foot of the bed for a
+space, grave but composed, gazing at a particular scale of the flaking
+kalsomine. Then he remarked something about its having been a somewhat
+trying day and that he believed that he'd be off to bed.
+
+When he was gone Mrs. De Peyster lay wordless, limp, all a-shiver.
+Beside her sat the limp and voiceless Matilda, gasping and staring
+wildly. How long Mrs. De Peyster lay in that condition she never
+knew. All her faculties were reeling. These crowding events seemed the
+wildest series of unrealities; seemed the frenzied, feverish phantasms
+of a nightmare. They never, never could possibly-have happened!
+
+But then ... they had happened! And this hard, narrow bed was real.
+And this low, narrow room was real. And Mr. Pyecroft was real. And so
+were Jack, and Mary, and Judge Harvey.
+
+These things could never have happened. But, then, they had. And would
+they ever, ever stop happening?
+
+This was only the eighth day since her promulgated sailing. Three more
+months, ninety days of twenty-four hours each, before Olivetta--
+
+"Matilda," she burst out in a despairing whisper, "I can't stand this
+another minute!"
+
+"Oh, ma'am!" wailed Matilda.
+
+"That Mr. Pyecroft--" Words failed her. "I've simply got to get out of
+this somehow!"
+
+"Of course, ma'am. But--but our changes haven't helped us much yet.
+If we tried to leave the house, that Mr. Pyecroft might follow and we
+might find ourselves even in a worse way than we are, ma'am."
+
+"Nothing can be worse than this!"
+
+"I'm not so sure, ma'am," tremulously doubted Matilda. "We never
+dreamed anything could be so bad as this, but here this is."
+
+There was a vague logic in what Matilda said; but logic none the less.
+Unbelievable, and yet so horribly actual as this was,--was what had
+thus far happened only the _legato_ and _pianissimo_ passages of their
+adventure, with _crescendo_ and _fortissimo_ still ahead? Mrs. De
+Peyster closed her eyes, and did not speak. She strove to regain some
+command over her routed faculties.
+
+Matilda waited.
+
+Presently Mrs. De Peyster's eyes opened. "It would be some
+relief"--weak hope was in her voice--"if only I could manage to get
+down into my own suite."
+
+"But, ma'am, with that Mr. Pyecroft--"
+
+"He's a risk we've got to run," Mrs. De Peyster cried desperately.
+"We've somehow got to manage to get me there without his knowing it."
+
+Suddenly she sat up. The hope that a moment before had shone faintly
+in her face began to become a more confident glow. Matilda saw that
+her mistress was thinking; therefore she remained silent, expectant.
+
+"Matilda, I think there's a chance!" Mrs. De Peyster exclaimed after a
+moment. "I'll get into my suite--I'll live there quiet as death. Since
+they believe the suite empty, since they know it is locked, they may
+never suspect any one is in it. Matilda, it's the only way!"
+
+"Yes--but, ma'am, how am I to explain your sudden disappearance?"
+
+"Say that your sister became homesick," said Mrs. De Peyster with
+mounting hope, "and decided suddenly, in the middle of the night, to
+return at once to her home in Syracuse."
+
+"That may satisfy all but Mr. Pyecroft, ma'am. But Mr. Pyecroft won't
+believe it."
+
+"Mr. Pyecroft will have to believe whatever he likes. It's the only
+way, and we're going to do it. And do it at once! Matilda, go down and
+see if they're all asleep yet, particularly Mr. Pyecroft."
+
+Matilda took off her shoes and in her stocking-feet went scouting
+forth; and stocking-footed presently returned, with the news that all
+seemed asleep, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Five minutes later, in Matilda's dress, and likewise in stocking-feet,
+Mrs. De Peyster stepped out of her second maid's room. Breathless, she
+listened. Not a sound. Then, Matilda at her heels, she began to creep
+down the stairway--slowly--slowly--putting each foot down with the
+softness of a closing lip--pausing with straining ears on every tread.
+With up-pressing feet she glided by the door within which Mr. Pyecroft
+lay in untroubled sleep, then started by the room that homed Jack and
+Mary, creeping with the footsteps of a disembodied spirit, fearful
+every second lest some door might spring open and wild alarms ring
+out.
+
+But she got safely by. Then, more rapidly, yet still as noiseless as
+a shadow's shadow, she crept on down--down--until she came to her own
+door. Here the attending Matilda silently vanished. With velvet
+touch Mrs. De Peyster slipped her key into the lock, stepped inside,
+noiselessly closed and locked the door behind her.
+
+Then she sank into a chair, and breathed. Just breathed ... back
+once more in the spacious suite wherein nine days ago--or was it nine
+thousand years?--inspiration had flowered within her and her great
+idea had been born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A PLEASANT HERMITAGE
+
+
+When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of perfect
+comfort. Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her. Ah! Once more she was
+in her own wide, gracious bed--of a different caste, of an entirely
+different race, from the second maid's paving-stone pallet, from
+that folding, punitive contrivance from whose output of anguish
+Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit. Also she was in sweet,
+ingratiating linen--the first fresh personal linen that had touched
+her in nine days.
+
+It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not
+too fervent benediction.
+
+About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond
+were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she
+lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom. And
+there were drawers and drawers of fresh _lingerie_; and there were her
+closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times
+more grateful after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive
+black. And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous
+implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.
+
+After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.
+
+But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and her
+dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed her. Then
+reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the night before had
+been hardly more than desperation began to take on the character of
+confidence. She saw possibilities. And the longer she considered, the
+more and greater the possibilities were. Her original plan began to
+re-present itself to her; modified, of course, to meet the altered
+conditions. If she could only remain here, undiscovered, then months
+hence, when it was announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a
+warm prayer for Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that
+unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before,
+and leave the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and
+herself of their several personalities.
+
+As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the extra-curled hair
+of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised version of her plan, in
+the first glow of its conception, seemed alluringly plausible. She
+had to be more careful, to be sure, but aside from this the new plan
+seemed quite as good as the original. In fact, in her reaction from
+the alarms of yesterday, it somehow seemed even better.
+
+Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to her
+predicament. And here it was--come unexpectedly to her aid, as was
+the way with things in life; and a very simple solution, too.
+Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and evaded her memory. What was
+it?--something about "a pleasant hermitage." That was just what this
+was: a pleasant hermitage.
+
+But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning wore
+on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable uncomfortable
+sensation. And presently the sensation became more definite; became
+localized; and she was aware that she was growing hungry. And in the
+same moment came the dismaying realization that, in their haste of
+the night before, she had not thought to plan with Matilda for the
+somewhat essential item of food!
+
+She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary
+confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have the
+sense to think of this, and if so would she have the adroitness to
+smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to be starved out?
+
+The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.
+
+She got up, and noiselessly foraged throughout her quarters. The total
+of her gleaning was a box of forgotten chocolate bon-bons and a box of
+half-length tallow candles. She had read that Esquimaux ate tallow, or
+its equivalent, and prospered famously upon it; but she deferred the
+candles in favor of the bon-bons, and breakfasted on half the box.
+
+Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate the
+second half of the bon-bons.
+
+Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying abed,
+which she had thought would be exhaustless, had inexplicably become
+transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared not move about, save with
+a caution that amounted almost to pain; for she had heard Jack and
+Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pass and re-pass her door, and she knew that any
+slight noise on her part might result in disastrous betrayal.
+
+Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew more
+wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for as has been
+remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long accustomed to
+being served sumptuously and with deferential promptitude. But she
+realized that Matilda would not dare come, if she remembered to come
+at all, until the household was fast asleep.
+
+Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it,
+cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....
+
+Ten o'clock came.
+
+She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the Esquimaux
+ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad that way....
+
+Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint, knocking
+sent her tiptoeing--for months she would dare move only on breathless
+tiptoe!--to the door of her sitting-room, where she stood and
+listened.
+
+Again the faint knocking sounded.
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated voice.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda slipped
+in and the door was softly closed upon her back.
+
+"Here's some food--just what I could grab in a second--I didn't
+dare take time to choose." Matilda held out a bundle wrapped in a
+newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare stay here a second."
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.
+
+"How did they take my going?"
+
+"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my sister, if she
+was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and asked me all sorts of
+questions--which--which I found it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,--and
+she is going to send you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft
+got me off into a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip
+again."
+
+"What is he going to do?"
+
+"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection. Outside
+some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps things might
+take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be able to help him.
+So he said he was going to stay on here till things blew over. Oh,
+please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were to hear me--"
+
+A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the door
+was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with the bundle
+of provisions on her exquisitely lacquered tea-table. In the newspaper
+was a small loaf of bread, a tin of salmon, and a kitchen knife. That
+was all. Not even butter! And, of course, no coffee--she who liked
+coffee, strong, three times a day. But when was she ever again to know
+the taste of coffee!
+
+Never before had she sat face to face with such an uninteresting menu.
+But she devoured it--opening the tin of salmon after great effort with
+the knife--devoured it every bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in
+which the provisions had been wrapped. It was part of that day's,
+Sunday's, "Record," and it was the illustrated supplement. This she
+unfolded, and before her eyes stood a big-lettered title, "Annual
+Exodus of Society Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of
+the page was her own portrait by M. Dubois.
+
+Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly illumined by
+the rays of her one candle. What poise, what breeding, what calm,
+imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came back to her be-crumbed
+tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the raggedly gaping can. She
+slipped rather limply down in her chair and covered her eyes.
+
+A day passed--and another--and another. Outside Mrs. De Peyster's
+suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity; within, they
+lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never to go, as is
+time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned. Mrs. De Peyster
+could hear Mary practicing, and practicing hard--and, yes,
+brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda told her on her later visits--and
+her later bundles contained a larger and more palatable supply of food
+than had the first package--Matilda said that Jack, too, was working
+hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the jolliest
+of honeymoons.
+
+And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive, after-midnight
+visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft, it seemed, was
+becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and Mary--particularly
+with Mary. He had confided to them that he was weary of his escapades,
+and wanted to settle down; in fact, there was a girl--the nicest girl
+in the world, begging Mary's pardon--who had promised to marry him as
+soon as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he
+knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible capacity,
+and so his last departures from strict rectitude had been for the
+purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in some small but
+independent way.
+
+His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.
+
+Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity, would on
+his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft. Nonetheless, Mr.
+Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite. Once or twice, Judge
+Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been drawn into discussions
+of points of law with Mr. Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew
+nothing about law, it had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as
+well as the Judge himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered
+himself, resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that Time stood
+still and taunted her,--each day exactly like the day before, a day
+of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless routine,--days in which she
+spoke not a word save a whisper or two at midnight at the food-bearing
+visit of the sad-visaged Matilda,--three dull, diabolic days dragged
+by their interminable length of hours. Such days!--such awful, awful
+days!
+
+On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings from the
+pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that disconsolate
+pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation--of a sort hardly
+ascribable to the danger of their situation: an agitation quite
+different from mere nervous fear. There were traces of recent crying
+in Matilda's face, and now and then she had difficulty in holding
+down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her as to the trouble; Matilda
+chokingly replied that there was nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted,
+and soon Matilda was weeping openly.
+
+"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's broke!"
+
+"Your heart broken! How?"
+
+"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserable Matilda, "I've got
+to make a confession. I've done--something awful! I've disobeyed you,
+ma'am! I've disobeyed and deceived you!"
+
+"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way I've
+trusted you for twenty years!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings one
+can't--"
+
+"But what have you done?"
+
+"I've--I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've been the same
+as engaged to William."
+
+"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect,
+reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.
+
+"Yes, ma'am,--to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, ma'am,--very
+sorry,--but I can't think about that now. For now," sobbed Matilda,
+"for now it's all off--and my heart is broke!"
+
+"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's all a
+mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken to him,
+since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me. I--I couldn't
+stand it any longer, and this evening I went out to the stable to see
+him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and as mad as--oh, William was
+never like that to me before, ma'am! I asked him what was the matter.
+'All right, if you want to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh,
+such a hard voice. 'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry, 'but,
+William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what you've done!'
+he said."
+
+"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me and walked
+away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll never explain, he's
+such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man! And I love him so, Mrs. De
+Peyster,--I love him so! Oh, my heart is broke!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled dismay.
+She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but she quickly
+realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper to know that
+her coachman had made love to her, and had--had even kissed her. Every
+drop of De Peyster blood revolted against such a degradation.
+
+"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a shaking
+voice.
+
+"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She
+paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she
+faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I deceived you?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.
+
+"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+MATILDA BREAKS IT GENTLY
+
+
+At two o'clock of the fifth night Matilda stole into Mrs. De Peyster
+with a face that would have been an apt cover for the Book of
+Lamentations. She opened her pages. That day she had had a telegram
+that her sister Angelica--the really and truly Angelica, who really
+and truly lived near Syracuse--that Angelica was seriously ill. She
+was sorry, but she felt that she must go.
+
+"Of course, you must go, Matilda!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. Then the
+significance to her of Matilda's absence flashed upon her. "But what
+will I do without any company at all?" she cried. "And without any
+food?"
+
+"I've seen to the food, ma'am." And Matilda explained that during the
+evening, in preparation for her going, she had been smuggling into the
+house from Sixth Avenue delicatessen stores boxes of crackers, cold
+meats, all varieties of canned goods--"enough to last you for a month,
+ma'am, and by that time I'll be back."
+
+Her explanation made, Matilda proceeded, with extremest caution,
+to carry the provisions up and stack them in one corner of Mrs. De
+Peyster's large, white-tiled bathroom. When the freightage was over,
+the bathroom, with its supply of crackers and zweibach, its bottles
+of olives and pickles, its cold tongue, cold roast beef, cold chicken,
+its cans of salmon, sardines, deviled ham, California peaches, and
+condensed milk--the bathroom was itself a delicatessen shop that many
+an ambitious young German would have regarded as a proud start in
+life.
+
+"But what about food for the others while you're gone?" inquired Mrs.
+De Peyster--with a sudden hope that the others would be starved into
+leaving.
+
+"I've attended to them, ma'am. I've bought a lot of things that will
+keep. And then I told the tradespeople that my niece was going to be
+here in my place, and they are to deliver milk and other fresh things
+for her every day in care of William."
+
+Matilda broke down at the last moment.
+
+"If it wasn't for you, ma'am, I wouldn't care if it was me that
+was sick, instead of my sister, and if I never got well. For with
+William--"
+
+She could say no more, and departed adrip with tears.
+
+Matilda's nightly visits were a loss; but Mrs. De Peyster had come
+to take her situation more and more philosophically. The life was
+unspeakably tedious, to be sure, and rather dangerous, too; but she
+had accepted the predicament--it had to be endured and could not be
+helped; and such a state of mind made her circumstances much easier
+to support. All in all, there was no reason, though, of course, it
+was most uncomfortable--there was no good reason, she kept assuring
+herself, why she might not safely withstand the siege and come out of
+the affair with none but her two confidants being the wiser.
+
+In this philosophic mood three more days passed--passed slowly
+and tediously, to be sure, but yet they did get by. There were
+relaxations, of course,--things to occupy her mind. She read a little
+each day; she listened to Mary's concert in the drawing-room below
+her--for Mary dared to continue playing despite Matilda's absence,
+since it was known that Matilda's niece was in the house, though Mary
+never showed her face; she listened for snatches of the conversation
+of Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft when they passed her door; at times
+she stood upon a chair at one of her windows and cautiously peered
+through the little panes in her shutters, like the lens of a camera,
+down into the sunny green of Washington Square.
+
+Also, of evenings, she found herself straining to hear the voice of
+Judge Harvey. When she surprised herself at this, she would flush
+slightly, and again raise her book close to her shaded candle.
+
+Then, of course, her meals were a diversion. She became quite expert
+with the can-opener and the corkscrew. The empty cans, since there was
+no way to get them out of her suite, she stacked on the side of the
+bathroom opposite her provisions; and daily the stack grew higher.
+
+The nearest approach to an incident during this solitary period came
+to pass on the third night after Matilda's departure. On that evening
+Mrs. De Peyster became aware of a new voice in the house--a voice with
+a French accent. It seemed familiar, yet for a time she was puzzled as
+to the identity of the voice's owner. Then suddenly she knew: the man
+below was M. Dubois, whom Olivetta, at her desire, had with unwilling
+but obedient frostiness sent about his business. She had known that
+Jack had taken up with M. Dubois at the time the artist was doing
+her portrait; but she had not known that Jack was so intimate as the
+artist's being admitted to Jack's secret seemed to indicate.
+
+Within herself, some formless, incomprehensible thing seemed about
+to happen. During these days of solitude--and this, too, even before
+Matilda had gone--a queer new something had begun to stir within
+her, almost as though threatening an eruption. It seemed a force, or
+spirit, rising darkly from hitherto unknown spaces of her being. It
+frightened her, with its amorphous, menacing strangeness. She tried to
+keep it down. She tried to keep her mental eyes away from it. And so,
+during all these days, she had no idea what the fearsome thing might
+be....
+
+And then something did happen. On the fifth day after Matilda's
+departure, and the eighteenth after the sailing of the Plutonia, Mrs.
+De Peyster observed a sudden change in the atmosphere of the house.
+Within an hour, from being filled with honeymoon hilarity, the house
+became filled with gloom. There was no more laughter--no more running
+up and down the stairs and through the hallways--the piano's song was
+silent. Mrs. De Peyster sought to gain some clue to this mysterious
+change by listening for the talk of Mary and Jack and Mr. Pyecroft
+as they passed her door. But whereas the trio had heretofore spoken
+freely and often in liveliest tones, they now were either wordless or
+their voices were solemnly hushed.
+
+What did it mean? Days passed--the solemn gloom continued
+unabated--and this question grew an ever more puzzling mystery to Mrs.
+De Peyster. What could it possibly, _possibly_, mean?
+
+But there was no way in which she could find out. Her only source of
+information was Matilda, and Matilda was gone for a month; and even if
+Matilda, by any chance, should know what was the matter, she would not
+dare write; and even if she wrote, the letter, of course, would never
+be delivered, but would doubtless be forwarded to the pretended Mrs.
+De Peyster in Europe. Mrs. De Peyster could only wonder--and read--and
+gaze furtively out of the little peep-holes of her prison--and
+eat--and stack the empty cans yet higher in her bathroom--and
+wait, impatiently wait, while the mystery grew daily and hourly in
+magnitude.
+
+Among the details that added to the mystery's bulk was the sound
+of another new but familiar voice--the voice of the competent Miss
+Gardner, her discharged secretary. And Miss Gardner's voice was not
+heard for an hour and then heard no more--but was heard day after
+day, and her tone was the tone of a person who is acquainted with the
+management of an establishment and who is giving necessary orders.
+And another detail was that William no longer kept to the stable, but
+seemed now constantly busy within the house. And another detail was
+that she became aware that Jack and Mary no longer tried to keep their
+presence in the house a secret, but went openly forth into the streets
+together. And Judge Harvey every day came openly to see them.
+
+But the most bewildering, and yet most clarifying, detail of all
+was one she observed on the twelfth day since Matilda's going, the
+twenty-fifth of her own official absence.
+
+On that afternoon she was standing on a chair entertaining herself
+by gazing through one of her shutters, when she saw Jack crossing
+Washington Square. He was walking very soberly, and about the left
+sleeve of a quiet gray summer suit was a band of crape.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster stepped down from her chair. The mystery was lifting.
+Somebody was dead! But who? Who?
+
+Early the next morning, while the inmates of the house were occupied
+in the serving or the eating of breakfast, Mrs. De Peyster was
+startled by a soft knocking at her door. But instantly she was
+reassured by the tremulous accents without.
+
+"It's me, ma'am,--Matilda. Let me in--quick!"
+
+The next instant the door opened and Matilda half staggered, half
+fell, into the room. But such a Matilda! Shivering all over, eyes
+wildly staring.
+
+"What is it?" cried Mrs. De Peyster, seizing her housekeeper's arm.
+
+"Oh, ma--ma--ma'am," chattered Matilda. "It's--it's awful!"
+
+"But what is it?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, beginning to tremble with
+an unknown terror.
+
+"Oh, it's--it's awful! I couldn't get you word before--for I didn't
+dare write, and my sister wasn't well enough for me to leave her till
+last night."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster shook the shaking Matilda.
+
+"Will you please tell me what's happened!"
+
+"Yes, ma--ma'am. Here's a copy of the first paper that had anything
+about it. The paper's over a week old. I brought it along to--to break
+the thing to you gently."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster seized the newspaper. In the center of its first page
+was a reproduction of M. Dubois's painting of herself, and across the
+paper's top ran the giant headline:--
+
+  MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUND
+  DEAD IN THE SEINE
+
+  _Face Disfigured by Water, but
+  Friends in Paris Identify Social
+  Leader by Clothes upon
+  the Body_
+
+Mrs. De Peyster sank without a word into a chair, and her face
+duplicated the ashen hue of Matilda's.
+
+Matilda likewise collapsed into a chair. "Oh, isn't it awful, ma'am,"
+she moaned.
+
+"So--so it's I--that's--that's dead!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. But that isn't all. I--I thought I'd break it to you
+gently. That was over a week ago. Since then--"
+
+"You mean," breathed the marble lips of Mrs. De Peyster, "that there's
+something more?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. Oh, the papers have been full of it. It's been a
+tremendous sensation!"
+
+"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"And Mr. Jack, since you died without a will, is your heir. And, since
+he is now the head of the De Peyster family, the first thing he did on
+hearing the news was to arrange by cable to have your body sent here."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, as though galvanized, half rose from her chair.
+
+"You mean--my body--is coming here?"
+
+"I said I was trying to break it to you gently," moaned Matilda.
+"It's--it's already here. The ship that brought it is now docking.
+Your funeral--"
+
+"My funeral!"
+
+"It takes place in the drawing-room, this morning. Oh, isn't it awful!
+But, perhaps, ma'am, if you could see what beautiful flowers your
+friends have sent--"
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster had very softly sunk back into her chair.
+
+[Illustration: "SO--SO IT'S I--THAT'S--THAT'S DEAD!"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE VEILED LADY
+
+
+As soon as that huddled mass of womanhood that was Mrs. De Peyster had
+become sufficiently reanimated to be able to think, its first thought
+came in the form of an unuttered wail.
+
+She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home again!
+
+Or if she did come home, what a scandal! A scandal out-scandalizing
+anything of which she had ever dreamed! A scandal worse ten times than
+the very grave itself!
+
+With loose face and glazed eyes she stared at Matilda while the latter
+stammered out disjointed details of the past week's happenings. As
+for Mr. Jack's lark in dwelling surreptitiously with his wife in his
+mother's house, not a breath of that had reached the public. With Mr.
+Pyecroft's aid, and Judge Harvey's, he had managed this well. He had
+told the reporters that he had been quietly married over three weeks
+before, that he and his wife had been living in seclusion, and that on
+learning of his mother's demise they had come to the house to direct
+the obsequies.... Those Paris police were trying to solve the mystery
+of what had become of Mrs. De Peyster's trunks.... If Mrs. De Peyster
+could only see the beautiful floral tributes that were arriving,
+particularly the large wreath sent by Mrs. Allistair--
+
+But Mrs. De Peyster heard none of this. She was dead! She was to be
+buried! She could never come home again!
+
+At length her lips moved--slowly, stiffly, as might the lips of a dead
+person.
+
+"What are we going to do?"
+
+"I've been saying that same question to myself for days, ma'am,"
+quavered Matilda. "And I--I don't see any answer."
+
+No, there was nothing she could do. Mrs. De Peyster continued her
+glazed stare at her faithful serving-woman. In the first few minutes
+her mind had been able to take in the significance only to herself of
+this culminating disaster. But now its significance to another person
+shivered through that her being.
+
+Poor--poor Olivetta!
+
+For Olivetta, of course, it was. Mrs. De Peyster knew what was due
+the De Peyster corpuscles that moved in stately procession along the
+avenues of her blood, and was not neglectful to see that that due was
+properly observed; but the heart from which those corpuscles derived
+their impulse was, as Judge Harvey had once said, in its way the
+kindest sort of heart. And now, for a few minutes, all that her heart
+could feel was felt for Olivetta.
+
+But for a few minutes only. Then Olivetta, and all concerns beyond
+the immediate moment, were suddenly forgotten. For in the hall without
+soft footsteps were heard, and the instant after, upon her door, there
+sounded an ominous scratching--a sound like a key in an agitated hand
+searching for its appointed hole.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster rose up and clutched Matilda's arm, and stood in rigid
+terror.
+
+"Tha--that key?" chattered Matilda. "Can--can it fit?"
+
+"There were only two keys," breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Mine here, and
+the one I gave to Olivetta."
+
+"Then it can't fit, since Miss Olivetta's--"
+
+But the key gave Matilda the lie direct by slipping into the lock.
+The two women clung to one another, knowing that the end had come,
+wondering who was to be their exposer. The bolt clicked back, the door
+swung open, and--
+
+And into the dusky room there tottered a rather tall, heavily
+veiled, feminine figure. It did not gaze at the shrinking couple in
+astoundment. It did not launch into exclamation at its discovery.
+Instead, it sank weakly down into the nearest chair.
+
+"Oh!" it moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
+
+"Who--who are you?" huskily demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" moaned the figure. "Isn't it terrible! Isn't it terrible!
+But I didn't mean to do it--I didn't mean to do it, Caroline!"
+
+"It's not--not Olivetta?" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"It was an accident!" the figure wailed on. "I couldn't help myself.
+And if you knew what I've gone through to get here, I know you'd
+forgive me."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had lifted the veil up over the hat.
+
+"Olivetta! Then--after all--you're not dead!"
+
+"No--if I only were!" sobbed Olivetta.
+
+"Then who is that--that person who's coming here this morning?"
+
+"I don't know!" Then Olivetta's quavering voice grew hard with
+indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral under
+false pretenses!"
+
+"But the papers said the body had on my clothes."
+
+"Yes--I suppose it must have had."
+
+"But how--" Mrs. De Peyster recalled their precarious position.
+"Matilda, lock the door. But, Olivetta, how could it ever, ever have
+happened?"
+
+"I followed your directions--and got to Paris all right--and
+everything was going splendid--and I was beginning to enjoy
+myself--when--when--Oh, Caroline, I--I--"
+
+"You what?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I lost my purse!" sobbed Olivetta.
+
+"Lost your purse?"
+
+"I left it in a cab when I went to the Louvre. And in it was all my
+money--my letter of credit--everything!"
+
+"Olivetta!"
+
+"And I didn't dare cable you for more. For if I had sent a cable to
+you here, it might have betrayed you."
+
+"And what did you do?"
+
+"There was nothing for me to do but to--to--sell some of your gowns."
+
+"Oh!" Mrs. De Peyster was beginning dimly to see the drift of things.
+
+Olivetta's mind wandered to another phase of her tribulations.
+
+"And the price I got for them was a swindle, Caroline. It was--it was
+a tragedy! For your black chiffon, and your silver satin, and your
+spangled net--"
+
+"But this person they took for me?" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh, whoever she is, she must have bought one of them. She could have
+bought it for nothing--and that Frenchman who cheated me--would have
+doubled his money. And after she bought it--she--she"--Olivetta's
+voice rang out with hysterical resentment--"she got us all into this
+trouble by walking into the Seine. It's the most popular pastime
+in Paris, to walk into the Seine. But why," ended Olivetta with a
+spiteful burst,--"why couldn't she have amused herself in her own
+clothes? That's what I want to know!"
+
+"And then? What did you do?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"When it came out three days later that it was you, I was so--so
+frightened that I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare deny the
+report, for that would have been to expose you. And I didn't dare
+cable to you that it was all a mistake and that I was all right,
+for that would have been just as bad. Perhaps I might have acted
+differently, but I--well, I ran away. I crossed to London with your
+trunks. There I learned that--that they were sending your remains
+home. I realized I had to get you word somehow, and I realized the
+only way was for me to come and tell you. So I sold some more of your
+gowns, and just caught the Mauretania, and here I am."
+
+So ending, Olivetta, as though her bones had melted, subsided into
+a gelatinous heap of dejection, dabbing her crimson eyes with a
+handkerchief already saturated with liquid woe.
+
+"It's a relief to know it wasn't you," said Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'm sure--it's kind of you--to say so," snuffled Olivetta gratefully.
+
+"But, aside from your being safe, our situation is unchanged," said
+Mrs. De Peyster in tremulous, awe-stricken tone. "For that--that
+person is coming here just the same!"
+
+"I know. The horrid interloper!"
+
+"She may be here any minute," said Mrs. De Peyster. "What are we going
+to do?"
+
+"We must think of something quick," spoke up Matilda nervously. "For
+it's almost time for your funeral, ma'am, and after that--"
+
+"I've been thinking all the voyage over," broke in Olivetta. "And I
+could think of only one plan."
+
+"And that?" Mrs. De Peyster eagerly inquired.
+
+There was an excited, desperate light in Olivetta's flooding eyes.
+
+"Couldn't you manage, in some way, while nobody is looking, to slip
+into that Frenchwoman's place; and then, before the ceremony was over,
+you could sit up and say you'd been in a cataleptic fit. Such things
+have happened. I've read about them."
+
+"Absurd, Olivetta! Quite absurd!" quavered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I dare say it is," agreed Olivetta, subsiding again into her limp
+misery. "Oh, why did I ever go to Paris! I hate the place!"
+
+"Don't give way; think!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster, who was in a
+condition not far removed from Olivetta's. "Think, Matilda!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda obediently.
+
+"You think, Caroline," whimpered Olivetta. "You always had such a
+superior intellect, and were always so equal to every emergency."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster thus reminded of what was expected of her life-long
+leadership, tried to collect her scattered forces, and sat with
+pale, drawn, twitching face, staring at her predicament--and her two
+faithful subjects sat staring at her, waiting the inspired idea for
+escape that would fall from her never-failing lips. Moment after
+moment of deepest silence followed.
+
+At length Mrs. De Peyster spoke.
+
+"There are only two ways. First, for me to go down and disclose
+myself--"
+
+"But the scandal! The humiliation!" cried Olivetta.
+
+"Yes, that first way will never do," said Mrs. De Peyster. "The second
+way is not a solution; it is only a means to a possible solution. But
+before I state the way, I must ask you, Olivetta, if any one saw you
+come in?"
+
+"There were a number of people coming and going, people preparing for
+the funeral--but I watched my chance, and used my latch-key, and I'm
+sure no one connected with the house saw me."
+
+"That is good. If any outsiders saw you, they will merely believe that
+you also were some person concerned in the funeral. As for my plan, it
+is simple. You must both slip out of here unseen; you, Olivetta,
+will, of course, say that you have returned to the city to attend my
+funeral. From the outside you both must help me."
+
+"Yes. But you, Caroline?" said Olivetta.
+
+"As for me, I must stay here, quietly, just as I have done for the
+last three weeks. I still have some supplies left. After everything
+has quieted down, I shall watch my chance, and steal out of the house
+late some night. That's as far as I have planned, but once away I can
+work out some explanation for the terrible mistake and then come home.
+That seems the only way; that seems the only chance."
+
+"You always were a wonder!" cried Olivetta admiringly.
+
+"Then you agree to the plan?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"And you, Matilda?"
+
+"Of course, ma'am."
+
+Thus praised and seconded, Mrs. De Peyster resumed some faint shadow
+of her accustomed dignity.
+
+"Very well, then. You must both leave here this instant."
+
+Olivetta threw her arms about her cousin's neck.
+
+"Good-bye, Caroline," she quavered. "You really have no hard feelings
+against me?"
+
+"No, none. You must go!" said Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"I'm sure, with you in charge, it's all going to come out right!" said
+the clinging Olivetta hopefully.
+
+"You must really go!" And Mrs. De Peyster pressed her and Matilda
+toward the door.
+
+But midway to the door the trio halted suddenly. Coming up the
+stairway was the sound of hurried feet--of many pairs of feet.
+The footsteps came through the hall. The trio did not breathe. The
+footsteps paused before the sitting-room door. The confederates
+gripped each others' arms.
+
+"Are you sure you saw that person come in here?" they heard a voice
+ask--Jack's voice.
+
+"I'm certain." The voice that answered was Mary's.
+
+"I'll bet it was a sneak thief," said a third voice--Mr. Pyecroft's.
+"To slip into a house at a funeral, or a wedding, when a lot of people
+are coming and going--that's one of their oldest tricks." He turned
+the knob, and finding the door locked, shook it violently. "Open up,
+in there!" he called.
+
+The three clung to one another for support.
+
+"Better open up!" called a fourth voice--Judge Harvey's. "For we know
+you're in there!"
+
+Breathless, the trembling conspirators clung yet more desperately.
+
+"But how could she get in?" queried the excited voice of Mary. "I
+understood that Mrs. De Peyster locked the door before she went away."
+
+"Skeleton key," was Mr. Pyecroft's brief explanation. "Mrs. De
+Peyster, we three will watch the door to see she doesn't get
+out--there may have been more than one of her. You go and telephone
+for a locksmith and the police."
+
+"All right," said Mary.
+
+"It's--it's all over!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Oh, oh! What shall we ever do?" wailed Olivetta, collapsing into a
+chair.
+
+"The police!--she mustn't go!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Open the door,
+Matilda, quick!" Then in a weak, quavering voice she called to her
+besiegers:--
+
+"Wait!"
+
+After which she wilted away into the nearest chair--which chanced to
+be directly beneath the awesome, unbending, blue-blue-blooded Mrs.
+De Peyster of the golden frame, whose proud composure it was beyond
+things mortal to disturb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A FAMILY REUNION
+
+
+Matilda's shaking hand unlocked the door. Jack lunged in, behind him
+Mr. Pyecroft and Judge Harvey, and behind them Mary. On Jack's face
+was a look of menacing justice. But at sight of the trembling turnkey
+the invading party suddenly halted, and Jack's stern jaw relaxed and
+almost dropped from its sockets.
+
+"Matilda!" he exclaimed. And from behind him, like a triplicate echo,
+sounded the others' "Matilda!"
+
+"Good--good-morning, Mr. Jack," quavered Matilda, locking the door
+again.
+
+Then the four sighted Olivetta.
+
+"What, you, Olivetta!" Jack and Judge Harvey cried in unison.
+
+"Yes, it's I, Jack," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I just
+thought I'd call in to express--it's no more than is proper, my being
+her cousin, you know,--to express my sympathy to your mother."
+
+"Your sympathy to my mother?"
+
+"Yes. To--to tell her how--how sorry I am that she's dead," elucidated
+Olivetta.
+
+A little hand gripped Jack's arm.
+
+"Jack!"
+
+He turned his head and his eyes followed Mary's pointing finger.
+
+"Mother!" He walked amazedly up before Mrs. De Peyster's palsied
+figure. "Mother!"
+
+In the same instant Judge Harvey was beside her.
+
+"Caroline!" he breathed, like one seeing a ghost.
+
+"Ye-yes," she mumbled.
+
+"Then you're not dead?"
+
+"N-no," she mumbled.
+
+The Judge and Jack and Mary gazed down at her in uttermost
+astoundment. To them was added Mr. Pyecroft. His bewilderment, for the
+moment, was the greatest of the group; for the likeness between the
+black-garbed, fled Angelica, and this real Mrs. De Peyster in lavender
+dressing-gown, was more remarkable than he had ever dreamed.
+
+"Thank God!" quavered Judge Harvey. And then, voicing the general
+amazement: "But--but--I don't understand! What has happened? How do
+you come here?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster, with a shivering glance at them all, and one of
+particular terror at her recent confederate, Mr. Pyecroft, made a last
+rally to save herself.
+
+"My explanation--that is, all I know about this affair--is really
+very simple. I--you see--I very unexpectedly returned home--and--and
+discovered this--this situation. That is all." She gathered a little
+more courage. "I do not need to inform you that I have been away."
+
+"Of course, we know you've been away!" said Jack. "But that Mrs. De
+Peyster at the pier--who is she?"
+
+"She's nothing--but a base--impostor!" cried Olivetta indignantly,
+lifting her face for a moment from her woe-soaked handkerchief. "Don't
+you believe a word she says!"
+
+"But we're all ready for the ceremony!" exclaimed Jack. "There are a
+dozen reporters downstairs, and no end of friends are coming from
+out of town to be present. And that person, whoever she is, will be
+here--"
+
+"I tell you she's an impostor!" cried Olivetta frantically. "Don't you
+let her in!"
+
+"Caroline, I can't tell you how--" Judge Harvey's voice, tremulous
+with relief at this unbelievably averted tragedy, broke off. "But what
+are we going to do?" he cried.
+
+"Yes, what are we going to do?" echoed Mary.
+
+Concern over this new, swiftly approaching crisis for a moment took
+precedence of all other emotions. Judge Harvey and Mary and Jack
+gazed at each other, bewildered, helpless. Something had to be done,
+quick--but what?
+
+"I tell you, don't let that impostor in!" repeated the frantic
+Olivetta.
+
+The three continued their interchange of helpless gaze.
+
+"Pardon me if I seem to intrude," spoke up the even voice of Mr.
+Pyecroft.
+
+Swiftly, but without appearing to hurry, he stepped to Mrs. De
+Peyster's writing-desk, and began running through the pages of the
+telephone book. With terrified apprehension, Mrs. De Peyster watched
+him: what--what was that terrible man going to do?
+
+The telephone was now in his hand, the receiver at his ear.
+
+"Central, give me Broad 4900.... Is this the French Line? Then connect
+me with the manager.... This the manager of the French Line?... I am
+speaking for Mr. Jack De Peyster, son of Mrs. De Peyster,--you know.
+Please give orders to the proper authorities to have Mrs. De Peyster
+held at the dock. Or if she has left, stop her at all cost. There must
+be no mistake! Further orders will follow. Understand?... Thank you
+very much. Good-bye."
+
+He turned about.
+
+"It will be all right," he said quietly.
+
+With a wild stare at him, Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and
+closed her eyes.
+
+"She's fainted!" cried Mary. "Her smelling-salts!"
+
+"A glass of water!" exclaimed Jack.
+
+"No, no," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+But the pair had darted away, Mary into the bedroom, Jack into the
+bathroom. From the bathroom came a sudden, jangling din like the
+sheet-iron thunder of the stage.
+
+Mary reappeared, fresh amazement on her face.
+
+"Somebody's been using the bedroom! The bed's not made, and your
+clothes are all about!"
+
+The next moment Jack rushed in behind her.
+
+"What a stack of empty tin cans I kicked into in the bathroom! What
+the deuce has been going on here?"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster looked weakly, hopelessly, at Olivetta.
+
+"There's no use trying to keep it up any longer. We--we might as well
+confess. You tell them, Olivetta."
+
+But Olivetta protested into her dripping handkerchief that she never,
+never could. So it fell to Mrs. De Peyster herself to be the historian
+of her plans and misadventures--and she was so far reduced that even
+the presence of Mr. Pyecroft made no difference to her; and as for Mr.
+Pyecroft, when the truth of the affair flashed upon him, that wide,
+flexible mouth twisted upward into its whimsicalest smile--but the
+next instant his face was gravity itself. With every word she grew
+less and less like the Mrs. De Peyster of M. Dubois's masterpiece. At
+the close of the long narrative, made longer by frequent outbursts of
+misery, she could have posed for a masterpiece of humiliation.
+
+"It's all been bad enough," she moaned at the end; "what's happened
+is all bad enough, but think what's yet to come! It's all coming out!
+Everybody will be laughing at me--oh!--oh!--oh!--"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster was drifting away into inarticulate lamentations, when
+there came a tramping sound upon the stairway. She drew herself up.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+There was a loud rap upon the door.
+
+"I say, Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster," called out a voice. "What's all
+this delay about?"
+
+"Who is it?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"That infernal Mayfair, and the whole gang of reporters!" exclaimed
+Jack.
+
+"Oh, Jack,--Judge Harvey! Save me! Save me!"
+
+"The hour set for the funeral is passed," Mayfair continued to call,
+"the drawing-room is packed with people, and the body hasn't arrived
+yet. We don't want to make ourselves obnoxious, but it's almost
+press-time for the next edition, and we've got to know what's doing.
+You know what a big story this is. Understand--we've simply got to
+know!"
+
+"Judge--what the devil _are_ we going to do?" breathed Jack.
+
+"My God, Caroline, Jack,--this is awful!" Judge Harvey whispered
+desperately. "We simply can't keep this out of the papers, and when it
+does get out--"
+
+"Oh! Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Judge Harvey," called the impatient Mr. Mayfair, "you really must
+tell us what's up!"
+
+Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary regarded each other in blank
+desperation; Mrs. De Peyster and Olivetta and Matilda were merely
+different varieties of jellied helplessness.
+
+"Judge Harvey," Mr. Mayfair called again, "we simply must insist!"
+
+"Caroline," falteringly whispered Judge Harvey, "I don't see what
+we--"
+
+"Pardon me," whispered Mr. Pyecroft, gently stepping forward among
+them. Then he raised his voice: "Wait just one minute, gentlemen! You
+shall know everything!"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pyecroft, don't, don't!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster. "Judge
+Harvey--Jack--don't let him! Send them away! Put it off! I can't stand
+it!"
+
+But Mr. Pyecroft, without heeding her protest, and unhampered by the
+others, stepped to Olivetta's side.
+
+"Miss Harmon," he whispered rapidly, "did you obey Mrs. De
+Peyster's instructions on your voyage home? About keeping to your
+stateroom--about keeping yourself veiled, and all the rest?"
+
+"Yes," said Olivetta.
+
+"And Mrs. De Peyster's trunks, where are they?"
+
+"At the Cunard pier,"
+
+"What name did you sail under?"
+
+"Miss Harriman."
+
+In the same instant Mr. Pyecroft had lifted Olivetta to her feet, had
+drawn from her boneless figure the long traveling-coat of pongee
+silk, and had drawn the pins from her traveling-hat. Released from his
+support, Olivetta re-collapsed. In the next instant Mr. Pyecroft had
+Mrs. De Peyster upon her feet, with firm, deft, resistless hands had
+slipped the long coat upon her, had put the hat upon her head and
+pushed in the pins, had drawn the thick veil down over her face--and
+had thrust her again down into her chair.
+
+"Matilda, not a word!" he ordered, in a quick, authoritative whisper.
+"Miss Harmon, not a word! Mrs. De Peyster, call up your nerve; you'll
+need it, for you know that Mayfair is the cleverest reporter in Park
+Row. And now, Mrs. Jack De Peyster,"--for Mary stood nearest the
+door,--"let them in."
+
+Mrs. De Peyster half-rose in ultimate consternation.
+
+"Oh, please--please--you're not going to let them in!"
+
+"We don't dare keep them out!" Mr. Pyecroft pressed Mrs. De Peyster
+firmly back into her chair. "Keep your nerve!" he repeated sharply.
+"Open the door, please,--quick!"
+
+Mary cast a questioning glance at Jack, who, bewildered, nodded his
+consent. She unlocked the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+MR. PYECROFT TAKES CHARGE
+
+
+The next moment a dozen reporters crowded into the room, the
+redoubtable Mr. Mayfair at their head; and behind them could be seen
+the pale, curious faces of William, Miss Gardner, and M. Dubois. Mrs.
+De Peyster, Olivetta, and Matilda sat in limp despair. Judge Harvey,
+Jack, and Mary gazed in breathless suspense and wonderment at Mr.
+Pyecroft. As for Mr. Pyecroft, he stood before Mrs. De Peyster,
+obscuring her, looking like one who has suffered a severe shock, yet
+withal grave and composed.
+
+"What's up?" demanded the keen-faced Mayfair.
+
+"Before I answer that," said Mr. Pyecroft, "permit me to preface what
+I have to say by touching upon two necessary personal details. First,
+I believe, at least, you, Mr. Mayfair, have known me as Mr. Simpson,
+brother of Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper. I am not her brother. This
+harmless deception was undertaken, for reasons not necessary to give,
+at the request of Judge Harvey; he wished me to remain in the house
+to arrange, and make abstracts of, certain private papers. The second
+detail is, that I am speaking at the request of Judge Harvey, as his
+associate and as the representative of the De Peyster family."
+
+Judge Harvey felt his collar; Jack stared. But fortunately the room
+was dim, and the reporters' eyes were all on the grave, candid face of
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"Yes--yes," said the impatient Mayfair. "But out with the story!
+What's doing?"
+
+"Something that I think will surprise you," said Mr. Pyecroft.
+"Something that has completely astounded all of us--particularly this
+lady who is Mrs. De Peyster's housekeeper, and Miss Harmon, here, who
+has just returned from a quiet summer in Maine to attend her cousin's
+funeral. The fact is, gentlemen, to come right to the point, there is
+to be no funeral."
+
+"No funeral!" cried Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"No funeral!" ran through the crowd.
+
+"No funeral," repeated Mr. Pyecroft. "The reason, gentlemen, is that a
+great mistake has been made. Mrs. De Peyster is not dead."
+
+"Not dead!" exclaimed the reporters.
+
+"If you desire proof, here it is." Mr. Pyecroft, stepping aside,
+revealed the figure of Mrs. De Peyster. He put his right hand upon her
+shoulder, gripping it tightly and holding her in her chair, and with
+his left he lifted the thick veil above her face. "I believe that most
+of you know Mrs. De Peyster, at least from her pictures."
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster!" cried the staggered crowd. "Mrs. De Peyster
+herself!"
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster herself," repeated Mr. Pyecroft in his grave voice.
+"You are surprised, but not more so than the rest of us."
+
+"But that other Mrs. De Peyster--the one the funeral is for?" asked
+Mr. Mayfair. "Who is she?"
+
+"That, gentlemen, is as great a mystery to us as to any of you," said
+Mr. Pyecroft.
+
+"But how the--but how did it all happen?" ejaculated Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"That is what I am going to tell you," Mr. Pyecroft answered.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster struggled up.
+
+"Don't--don't!" she besought him wildly.
+
+Mr. Pyecroft pressed her back into her chair, and held her there with
+an arm that was like a brace of steel.
+
+"You see, gentlemen," he remarked sympathetically, "how this business
+has upset her."
+
+"Yes! But the explanation?"
+
+"Immediately--word for word, as Mrs. De Peyster has just now told us,"
+said he.
+
+"Oh!" moaned Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+Olivetta and Matilda gazed at Mr. Pyecroft with ghastly, loose-lipped
+faces; Judge Harvey and Jack and Mary stared at him with an amazed
+suspense which they could hardly mask; and Miss Gardner, with whom he
+had not yet made his peace, breathlessly awaited the next move of this
+incomprehensible husband of hers. Mr. Pyecroft kept his eyes, for
+the most part, upon the shrewd, fraud-penetrating features of the
+unfoilable Mr. Mayfair--his own countenance the most truthful that son
+of Adam ever wore.
+
+"What Mrs. De Peyster has said is really very simple. As you know,
+she left Paris two or three weeks ago on a long motor trip. During her
+brief stay in Paris, one of her trunks was either lost or stolen,
+she is not certain which. As she pays no personal attention to her
+baggage, she was not aware of her loss for several days. So much is
+fact. Now we come to mere conjecture. A plausible conjecture seems to
+be that the gowns in the trunk were sold to a second-hand dealer, and
+these gowns, being attractive, the dealer must have immediately resold
+to various purchasers, and one of these purchasers must have--"
+
+"Yes, yes! Plain as day!" exclaimed Mr. Mayfair.
+
+"The face was unrecognizable," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "but since the
+gown had sewn into it Mrs. De Peyster's name, of course--"
+
+"Of course! The most natural mistake in the world!" cried Mr. Mayfair
+excitedly. "Go on! Go on!"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster had slowly turned a dazed countenance upward and was
+gazing at the sober, plausible face of her young man of the sea.
+
+"Mrs. De Peyster did not learn of what had happened till the day the
+supposed Mrs. De Peyster was started homeward. The most sensible thing
+for her to have done would have been to declare the mistake, and saved
+her family and friends a great deal of grief. But the shock completely
+unbalanced her. I will not attempt to describe her psychological
+processes or explain her actions. You may call her course illogical,
+hysterical, what you like; I do not seek to defend it; I am only
+trying to give you the facts. She was so completely unnerved--But
+a mere look at Mrs. De Peyster will show you how the shock unnerved
+her."
+
+The group gazed at Mrs. De Peyster's face. A murmur of sympathy and
+understanding ran among them.
+
+"In her hysterical condition," continued Mr. Pyecroft, "she had but
+one thought, and that was to get home as quickly as she could. She
+crossed to England, sailed on the Mauretania, kept to her stateroom,
+and arrived here at the house heavily veiled about an hour ago. I may
+add the details that she sailed under the name of Miss Harriman and
+that her trunks are now at the Cunard pier. There you have the entire
+story, gentlemen."
+
+He looked down at Mrs. De Peyster. "I believe I have stated the matter
+just as you outlined it to us?"
+
+"Ye--yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"There is no detail you would like to add?"
+
+"N--none," breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+"Then, gentlemen," said Mr. Pyecroft, turning to the reporters,
+"since you have all the facts, and since Mrs. De Peyster is in a state
+bordering on collapse, we would take it as a favor if--"
+
+"No need to dismiss us," put in Mr. Mayfair. "We're in a bigger hurry
+to leave than you are to have us go. God, boys," he ejaculated to his
+fellows, "what a peach of a story!"
+
+In a twinkling Mr. Mayfair and his fellows of the press had vanished,
+each in the direction of a telephone over which he could hurry this
+super-sensation into his office.
+
+Within the room, all were staring at Mr. Pyecroft, as though in each
+a whirling chaos were striving to shape itself into speech. But before
+they could become articulate, that sober young gentleman had stepped
+from out of their midst and, his back to them, was discreetly
+engrossing himself in the examination of the first object that came to
+his hands: which chanced to be something lying on top of the exquisite
+safe--a slender platinum chain with a pendant pearl.
+
+With him gone, all eyes fixed themselves upon Mrs. De Peyster, and
+there was a profound and motionless silence in the room, save at first
+for some very sincere and vigorous snuffling into the handkerchiefs
+of Olivetta and Matilda. As for Mrs. De Peyster, she sat below the
+awesome, imperturbable Mrs. De Peyster of the portrait, and oh, what
+a change was there in the one beneath!--huddled, shaking, not a
+duchess-like line to her person, her face dropped forward in her
+hands.
+
+"Mother--" Jack breathed at length.
+
+"Caroline!" breathed Judge Harvey. Then added: "I'm sure it--it'll
+never become known."
+
+"Oh, to think it's all over--and we're out of it!" Olivetta cried
+hysterically. "Oh! Oh!" And she limply pitched sidewise in her chair.
+
+"Mees Harmon--Olivetta!" exclaimed M. Dubois. He sprang forward, knelt
+at her side and supported her wilted figure against his bosom.
+Upon this poultice to her troubles Olivetta relaxed and sobbed
+unrestrainedly. And no one, particularly Mrs. De Peyster, paid the
+least heed to this little episode.
+
+William, the coachman, the irreproachable, irreplaceable, unbendable
+William, his clean-shaven mask of a face now somewhat pale--William
+took a few respectful paces toward his resurrected mistress.
+
+"If you will not regard it as a liberty," said he, with his cadence of
+a prime minister, "I should like to express my relief and happiness at
+your restoration among us."
+
+"Thank you--William," whispered Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+William, having delivered his felicitations, bowed slightly, and
+started to turn away. But Matilda had stepped forward behind him, an
+imploring look upon her face.
+
+"Please, ma'am,--please, ma'am!" said she, in a tone that left no
+doubt as to her meaning.
+
+"Wait, William," weakly commanded Mrs. De Peyster.
+
+William paused.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster did not yet know what she was doing; her words spoke
+themselves.
+
+"William, Matilda has--has just confessed your engagement. She has
+also confessed how, during my--my absence--one night, after driving
+with you, she--she lost control of herself and seriously offended you.
+She asks me to apologize to you and tell you how very, very sorry she
+is."
+
+"Indeed, I am, William!" put in Matilda fervently.
+
+"It is my wish, William," continued Mrs. De Peyster, "that you should
+forgive her--and make up things between you--and never speak of that
+incident again--and be happy and stay with me forever."
+
+Matilda timidly slipped an arm through William's.
+
+"Forgive me, William!" said she appealingly.
+
+William's graven face exhibited a strange phenomenon--it twitched
+slightly.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. De Peyster," said he. And bowing respectfully, with
+Matilda upon his arm, he went out.
+
+"Well, Mary, I guess we'd better be going, too," said Jack, taking his
+wife's hand. "Mother,"--respectfully, yet a little defiantly,--"I'm
+sorry that Mary and I have by our trespassing caused you so much
+inconvenience. But Mary and I and our things will be out of the house
+within an hour. Good-bye."
+
+"Wait, Jack!" Mrs. De Peyster reached up a trembling hand and caught
+his sleeve. "Olivetta," said she, "perhaps you and your--your fiance
+could find--another place for your confidences."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Olivetta, starting up with a flush.
+
+"Cousin Caroline, do you mean--"
+
+Mrs. De Peyster lifted an interrupting hand.
+
+"Do as you like, but tell me about it later."
+
+As the pair went out, Mrs. De Peyster slowly raised herself up and
+stood gazing for a moment at her son. And that strange new force which
+had menaced her with eruption during all the days of her hiding, and
+which these last few minutes had been pulsing upward toward orgasm,
+was now become resistless. It was as though a crust, a shell, were
+being burst and being violently shed. She thrilled with an amazing,
+undreamed-of, expanding warmth.
+
+"Do you really--want to--leave me, Jack?" she whispered.
+
+"I have been invited to leave," said he, "but I have never been
+invited to come back."
+
+With a timidity, shot through with tingling daring, she slipped an arm
+about his shoulders.
+
+"Then I invite you," she said tremulously. "Won't you stay, Jack?"
+
+"And Mary?" said he.
+
+She looked about at her dark-eyed daughter-in-law.
+
+"If Mary will stay, too, I'll--I'll try not to act like my petrified
+family tree."
+
+"What! Was that you that day?" gasped the horrified Mary.
+
+Mrs. De Peyster slipped her other arm about Mary, and daringly she
+kissed Mary's fresh young cheek, and she drew the two tightly, almost
+convulsively, to her. "Mother!" cried Jack; and the next instant the
+two pairs of arms were about her. And thus they stood for several
+moments; until--
+
+"Caroline," broke in the unsteady but determined voice of Judge
+Harvey, "I told you I was going to propose to you again. And I'm going
+to do it right now. Please consider yourself proposed to."
+
+She looked up--shamefaced, flushing.
+
+"What, after the foolish woman I've--"
+
+"If you were ever foolish, you were never less a fool than now!"
+
+"I don't know about that," she quavered, "but anyhow I want you to
+straighten out my affairs--and--and Allistair, for all I care, can
+have--can have--for I'm all through--"
+
+"Caroline!"
+
+The next moment Judge Harvey's arms had usurped complete possession of
+her. And she wilted away upon his shoulder, and sobbed there. And thus
+for several moments....
+
+They were aroused by a polite cough. Both looked up. Halfway to the
+door stood Mr. Pyecroft; and beside him was Miss Gardner, gazing at
+him, tremulously bewildered.
+
+"Pardon me," said he, in his grave manner; nothing was ever seen less
+suggestive of having ever smiled than his face--"pardon me, Judge
+Harvey, but I believe you failed to mention at what time your office
+opens."
+
+"What time my office opens?" Judge Harvey repeated blankly. "Why?"
+
+"Naturally," said Mr. Pyecroft, "I wish to know at what hour I am
+supposed to report for work."
+
+"Well--Well--"
+
+But for a moment Judge Harvey could get out no more. He just stared.
+
+Then in a voice of dryest sarcasm: "Would you consider it impudent on
+my part--I wouldn't be impudent for the world, you know--to inquire
+what might be your real name? I have heard you variously called Mr.
+Simpson, Mr. Preston, Mr. Pyecroft. Perhaps you have a few other
+_aliases_."
+
+"I have had--yes. My real name is Eliot Endicott Bradford. That name
+has the advantage of never having appeared in any complaint or police
+report. For that matter, I may add that under none of my names have
+I ever been arrested. Eliot Bradford is a man against whom no legal
+fault can be found."
+
+"A testimonial from you," exclaimed the Judge--"what could possibly be
+better!"
+
+"But the hour?" gently insisted the other.
+
+Judge Harvey stared; his eyes narrowed. Then, suddenly--
+
+"Nine-thirty," said he.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bradford; and slipped a hand through Miss
+Gardner's arm.
+
+But before he could turn to go, Mrs. De Peyster, from over the
+shoulder against which she leaned--Mrs. De Peyster, she couldn't help
+it ... smiled at him.
+
+And, suddenly, Judge Harvey--he couldn't help it, either ... was
+smiling, too.
+
+
+
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