She had decided that she must somehow get away from the couple at once; in the darkness slip unobserved into her sitting-room; lock the door; remain there noiseless;--she had decided so much, when suddenly her wits were sent spinning by a new fear.
The real Matilda! Mrs.De Peyster's ears, at that moment frantically acute, registered dim movements of Matilda overhead.
Suppose the real Matilda should hear their voices; suppose she should come walking down into the scene! With two Matildas simultaneously upon the stage-- Mrs.De Peyster reached out and clutched the banister of the stairway with drowning hands.
The pair talked on to her, answering themselves.

They would take the rooms above Mrs.De Peyster's suite, they said--they would give her, Matilda, no trouble at all--they would attend to their own housework, everything--and so on, and so on, with Mrs.De Peyster hearing nothing, but reaching aurally out for Matilda's exposing tread.

To forestall this exposure, she started weakly up the stairs, only to be halted by the slipping of Jack's arm around her shoulder.

The couple chattered on about their household arrangements, and Mrs.De Peyster the prisoner of Jack's affectionate arm, stood gulping, as though her soul were trying to swallow itself, ready to sink through her floor at the faintest approach of her housekeeper's slippers.
And then again the arm of the exuberant Jack tightened about her.

"Oh, say, what a wild old time we're going to have! Won't we, Matilda ?" "Ye--yes," Mrs.De Peyster felt constrained to answer.
"But it's mighty dangerous!" cried the little figure, with a shivery laugh.
"Dangerous!" chuckled Jack with his mischievous glee.