Just as that fear thrummed through her, she saw, a few doors ahead, a man come out of a residence hotel. He sighted the De Peyster carriage, and paused. Mrs. De Peyster's heart stood still, for the man was Judge Harvey. If he should try to stop her and speak to her—!
But Judge Harvey merely bowed, and the carriage rolled on past him.
Mrs. De Peyster's heart palpitated wildly for a block. Then she began to regain her courage. Judge Harvey had, of course, thought her Matilda. A few blocks, and she had completely reassured herself. There was no danger of her discovery. None. Almost every one she knew was out of town; she herself was known to be upon the high seas bound for Europe; Matilda's gown and veil were a most unsuspicious disguise; and William, her paragon of a William, so rigidly upright on the seat before her—William's statuesque, unapproachable figure diffused about her a sense of absolute security. She relaxed, sank back into the upholstery of the carriage, and began fully to enjoy the rare May night.
But a surprise was lying in wait for her as she came into a comparatively secluded drive of Central Park. In itself the surprise was the most trifling of events—so slight a matter as a person twisting his vertebrae some hundred-odd degrees, and silently smiling. But that person was William!
For a moment she gasped with amazed indignation. To think of William daring to smile at her! But quickly she recognized that William, of course, supposed her to be Matilda, and that the smile was no more than the friendly courtesy that would naturally pass between two fellow-servants. Her indignation subsided, but her wonderment remained. To think that William could smile, William in whose thoroughly ironed dignity she had never before detected a wrinkle!
Just as she had re-composed herself, they rolled into another unpeopled stretch of the drive. Again William's vertebrae performed a semicircle and again William smiled.
"Fine night, Matilda," he remarked in a pleasant voice.
Mrs. De Peyster shrank back into the cushions. She had the presence of mind to nod her head, and William faced about. To put it temperately, the situation was becoming very trying. Mrs. De Peyster now realized that she had been guilty of a lack of forethought. It had not occurred to her, in working out this plan of hers, that her frigidly proper William could entertain a friendliness toward any one. What she should have done was to have given William a vacation and secured an entirely strange coachman for the summer who would have had no friendly sentiments to give play to.
But her desire was now all to escape from William's amiable attentions.