It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not too fervent benediction.
About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom. And there were drawers and drawers of fresh lingerie; and there were her closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times more grateful after a week of Matilda's unchanged and oppressive black. And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.
After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.
But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and her dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed her. Then reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the night before had been hardly more than desperation began to take on the character of confidence. She saw possibilities. And the longer she considered, the more and greater the possibilities were. Her original plan began to re-present itself to her; modified, of course, to meet the altered conditions. If she could only remain here, undiscovered, then months hence, when it was announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a warm prayer for Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before, and leave the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and herself of their several personalities.
As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the extra-curled hair of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised version of her plan, in the first glow of its conception, seemed alluringly plausible. She had to be more careful, to be sure, but aside from this the new plan seemed quite as good as the original. In fact, in her reaction from the alarms of yesterday, it somehow seemed even better.
Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to her predicament. And here it was—come unexpectedly to her aid, as was the way with things in life; and a very simple solution, too. Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and evaded her memory. What was it?—something about "a pleasant hermitage." That was just what this was: a pleasant hermitage.
But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning wore on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable uncomfortable sensation. And presently the sensation became more definite; became localized; and she was aware that she was growing hungry. And in the same moment came the dismaying realization that, in their haste of the night before, she had not thought to plan with Matilda for the somewhat essential item of food!
She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have the sense to think of this, and if so would she have the adroitness to smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to be starved out?
The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.