, they suggested the somewhat unusual phenomenon of the
same person out walking with herself. But he did not speak.

At the head of Union Square they caught a roving taxicab. Their next
thought, after bare escape, was necessarily concerned with shelter, a
hiding-place. To the chauffeur's "Where to, ladies?" Mrs. De Peyster
said, "Hotel Dauphin." The instinct, the Mrs. De Peyster of habit,
which was beneath her surface of agitation, said the Dauphin because
the Dauphin was quite the most select hotel in New York. In fact, six
months before, when Mrs. De Peyster desired to introduce and honor the
Duke de Crecy in a larger way than her residence permitted, it was at
the Dauphin that she had elected to give the ball that had brought her
so much deferential praise--which occasion was the first and only time
she had departed from her strict old-family practice of limiting
her social functions to such as could be accommodated within her own
house. She had then been distinctly pleased; one could hardly
have expected good breeding upon so large a scale. And her present
subconscious impression of the Dauphin was that it was ducal, if not
regal, in its reserved splendor, in its manner of subdued, punctilious
ceremony.

She could remain at the Dauphin, in seclusion, until she had time to
think. Then she could act.

As she sped smoothly up Fifth Avenue--her second ride on the Avenue
that night--she began, in the cushioned privacy of the taxi, to
recover somewhat from the panic of dire necessity that had driven them
forth. Other matters began to flash spasmodically across the screen
of her mind. One of these was William. And there the film stopped. The
cold, withering look William had given Matilda a few minutes before
remained fixed upon the screen. That look threatened her most
unpleasantly as to the future. What if William should learn who was
the real Matilda to whom he had made love!

"Matilda," she began, calling up her dignity, "I desire to instruct
you upon a certain matter."

"Yes, ma'am," whispered Matilda.

"I expressly instruct you not to mention or hint to any one,
particularly William, that it was I and not you who went out driving
with him to-night."

"I'll not, ma'am."

"You swear?"

"I swear, ma'am. Never!"

"Remember, Matilda. You have sworn." And relieved of that menace, she
leaned back.

The taxi drew up before the Dauphin. A grenadier-lackey, who seemed
bulk and brass buttons and braid of gold, ha