“It gives Mr. Preston very great pleasure to meet you, ladies.  Only for the present he humbly petitions to be known as Mr. Pyecroft.”

Mrs. De Peyster was quite unable to speak.  So this was the man Judge Harvey was trying to hunt down!  Her meeting him like this, it seemed an impossible coincidence—­utterly impossible!  She little dreamed that the laws of chance were not at all concerned in this adventure; that this meeting was but the natural outcome of Matilda’s trifling act in picking up from the library rug a boarding-house card and slipping it into her slit-pocket.

The young man, for he now obviously was a young man, plainly delighted in the surprise he had created.

“I like to hand it to these pompous old stiffs,” he went on gleefully—­“these old boys who will come across with sky-high prices for old first editions and original manuscripts, and who don’t care one little wheeze of a damn for what the author actually wrote.  I’m sorry, though,”—­in a tone of genuine contrition,—­“that Judge Harvey was the man finally to be stung; they say he’s the real thing.”  Suddenly his mood changed; his eye dropped in its unreverend wink.  “There’s a Raphael that the Metropolitan is solemnly proud of.  It cost Morgan a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  It cost me an even five hundred to have it made.”

He laughed again:  that gay, whimsical, irresponsible laugh.  Mrs. De Peyster was recovering somewhat from her first surprise.

Mr. Pyecroft leaned forward.  “But this isn’t getting down to our business.  I’ve got a plan that’s more fun than the Jefferson letters, and that will make us a lot of money, Miss Thompson.  And it’s easy and it’s sure fire.  It depends, as I said, upon the remarkable coincidence of your likeness to Mrs. De Peyster.”

“Yes?” Mrs. De Peyster managed to say.

“You’ve read of her, of course; stiffest swell of the lot,” went on the young gentleman rapidly, in clipped phrases oddly unlike the sonorous sentences of the Reverend Mr. Pyecroft.  “Looks down on most of the Four Hundred as hoi polloi.  She’s in Europe now, and the papers say she won’t be back until the very end of summer.  We can’t do a thing till then; have to lie low and wait.  You need money, I heard you say; I suppose you’re afraid to hock this twinkler”—­touching the pearl pendant.  “Police probably watching the pawnshops and would nab you.  Well, I’ll stake you till Mrs. De Peyster comes back.”

“Stake me?” breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

“Yes.  Give you, both of you, what money you need.”

“And—­and when—­Mrs. De Peyster comes back?”

Young Mr. Pyecroft chortled with delight.