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 any