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 armabout 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 howshe 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 figureenter 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 youand 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 have n't told her, and she doesn't guess it. And oh, Matilda," he bubbled out enthusiastically, "she's the kind of a little sport that will stick by a chap through anything, and she's clever and full of fun, and a regular little dear!"
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,néeMary 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—nightand 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!"
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 herselffrom 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 oftheMrs. 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 throughthe 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 aboutmeine 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," commandedMary, "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 ofMary. 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!" wailedthe 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 avery 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.
WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE CARRYING?"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 dickensisthe 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 exasperatedcall: "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.