"Jones."
"Angelica Simpson Jones. Good. Very euphonious. And how many little nieces and nephews am I the happy uncle of?"
"She—she has no children."
"That's too bad, for I have a particular fondness for children," sorrowed Mr. Pyecroft. "Still, that also simplifies matters, lessening considerably the percentage of chances for regrettable lapses of memory."
He pursued his genealogical inquiries into all possibly useful details. And then he sat meditative for a while, gazing amiably about his family circle. And it was while they were all thus sitting silent, in what in the dim light of the one shaded electric bulb might have seemed to an observer the silence of intimacy, that Jack, who had slipped cautiously downstairs, walked in, behind him Mary.
"Matilda, what's this mean?" he demanded, with a bewildered look. "We've been wondering why you didn't come upstairs."
Mrs. De Peyster turned in her chair, and held her breath, like one beneath the guillotine. Matilda arose, shaking.
"Who's this man, Matilda?" Jack continued.
"He—ah—er—he's—"
"And, pray, Matilda, who is this?" politely inquired the arisen Mr. Pyecroft, blandly assuming command of the situation.