"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!"