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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
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+
+
+
+
+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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