While she gazed she became aware of an amazing change in his face, of the possibility of which she had previously had only hints.  The bland, elderish, clerical look faded; the face grew strangely young, the right corner of his mouth twisted upward, and his right eyelid drooped in a prodigious, unreverend wink.

“Friend,” he remarked, “what’s you two ladies’ game?”

“Our game?” Mrs. De Peyster repeated blankly.

“Now don’t try to come Miss Innocence over me,” he said easily.  “I sized you two up from the first minute, and I’ve been watching you ever since.  The other one could get away with the housekeeper’s part O.K., but any one could see through your makeup.  What are the bulls after you for?”

“The—­the what?”

“Oh, come,—­you’re dodging the police, or why the disguise?” he queried pleasantly.  He picked up Mrs. De Peyster’s pearl pendant.  “Housekeepers don’t sport this kind of jewelry.  What are you?  Housebreakers—­sneak thieves—­confidence game?”

Mrs. De Peyster gaped at him.  “I—­I don’t understand.”

“It’s really a pretty fair front you’re putting up,” he commented with a dry indulgent smile.  “But might as well drop it, for you see I’m on.  But I think I understand.”  He nodded.  “You don’t want to admit anything until you feel you can trust me.  That’s about the size of it, isn’t it, friends?”

Mrs. De Peyster stared, without speaking.

“Now I know I can trust you,” he went on easily, “for I’ve got something on you and I give you away if you give me away.  Well, sisters, of course you know you’re not the only people the police are after.  That’s why I am temporarily in the ministry.”

He grinned widely—­a grin of huge enjoyment.

“Who are you?” demanded Mrs. De Peyster.

“Well, you don’t hesitate to ask, do you?” He laughed, lightly.  “Say, it’s too good to keep!  I always was too confiding a lad; but I’ve got you where you won’t squeal, and I suppose we’ve got to know each other if we’re going to do business together.  You must know, my dear ladies, that every proposition I’ve handled I’ve gone into it as much for the fun as for the coin.”  He cocked his head; plainly there was an element of conceit in his character.  “Well, fair ones—­ready?”

Mrs. De Peyster nodded.

“Ever heard of the American Historical Society’s collection of recently discovered letters of a gentleman named Thomas Jefferson?”

Mrs. De Peyster started.

“Yes.”

“And perhaps you have heard that authorities now agree that said Thomas Jefferson was dead almost a hundred years when said letters were penned; and that he must have been favored with the assistance of an amanuensis of, so to say, the present generation?”

“Yes.”

“That being the case you may have heard of one Thomas Preston, alleged to be said amanuensis?”

“Yes.”

He put his hand across his clerical vest, and bowed first to Mrs. De Peyster, then to Matilda.