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 un.o.bserved 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, n.o.body'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."