Mrs. De Peyster looked weakly, hopelessly, at Olivetta.
"There's no use trying to keep it up any longer. We—we might as well confess. You tell them, Olivetta."
But Olivetta protested into her dripping handkerchief that she never, never could. So it fell to Mrs. De Peyster herself to be the historian of her plans and misadventures—and she was so far reduced that even the presence of Mr. Pyecroft made no difference to her; and as for Mr. Pyecroft, when the truth of the affair flashed upon him, that wide, flexible mouth twisted upward into its whimsicalest smile—but the next instant his face was gravity itself. With every word she grew less and less like the Mrs. De Peyster of M. Dubois's masterpiece. At the close of the long narrative, made longer by frequent outbursts of misery, she could have posed for a masterpiece of humiliation.
"It's all been bad enough," she moaned at the end; "what's happened is all bad enough, but think what's yet to come! It's all coming out! Everybody will be laughing at me—oh!—oh!—oh!—"
Mrs. De Peyster was drifting away into inarticulate lamentations, when there came a tramping sound upon the stairway. She drew herself up.
"What's that?"
There was a loud rap upon the door.
"I say, Judge Harvey, Mr. De Peyster," called out a voice. "What's all this delay about?"
"Who is it?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.