"On the way back, Olivetta, you are to preserve the same precautions as on the way over. And to avoid any possible difficulty in getting into the house, I shall provide you with a key to the house and one to my sitting-room."
"But you, ma'am," objected Matilda, "in the mean time you cannot stay cooped up all summer in this room!"
"I do not intend to," returned Mrs. De Peyster with her consummate calm, which assured her co-conspirators that they could lean untroubled upon her unblundering brain. "Matilda, will you now please have William come in?"
Matilda, bewildered but obedient, stepped to the door and a moment later followed in the most clean-shaven, the most stiffly perpendicular, the most deferentially dignified, the most irreproachably expressionless of men-servants. He was the ultimate development of his kind. It seems almost a sacrilege to add that he was past man's perfect prime, and to hint that perhaps his scanty, unstreaked hair sought surreptitious rejuvenation in a drug-store bottle.
"William, Matilda will acquaint you with certain alterations in my plans," began his mistress. "I desire to add that she will remain in the house alone during my absence; that you are to keep to your quarters in the stable and not enter the house; and that you are to arrange to take, at my expense, all your meals outside."
William inclined his body slightly, as if to say, "Yes, my lady."
"And in order to give the horses proper exercise, and to relieve Matilda's monotony, I desire you to take Matilda out driving every evening."
Again William bowed a "Yes, my lady."
"You understand this perfectly?"