Restful, yes.  And spiced with just the right pinch of mild adventure.

It really could not possibly have been better.

CHAPTER VII

NOT IN THE PLAN

As she rolled northward behind the miraculously erect and rigid William, the emotion which had been so mildly exciting when she had left her door grew in potency like a swiftly fermenting liquor.  It was both fearful and delightful.  She was all a-flutter.  This was a daring thing that she was doing—­the nearest to a real adventure that she had engaged in since her girlhood.  Suppose, just suppose, that some one should recognize her from the sidewalk!

The thought sent a series of pricking shivers up and down her usually tranquil spine.

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.