‘Oh! I am always well,’ said Little Dorrit, timidly. ‘I—yes, thank you.’
There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had met. Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had checked Little Dorrit in an instant.
‘You don’t know that you are a favourite of my husband’s, and that I am almost bound to be jealous of you?’ said Mrs Gowan.
Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head.
‘He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.’
‘He speaks far too well of me,’ said Little Dorrit.
‘I doubt that; but I don’t at all doubt that I must tell him you are here. I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you—and Miss Dorrit—go, without doing so. May I? You can excuse the disorder and discomfort of a painter’s studio?’
The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs Gowan went to a door, looked in beyond it, and came back. ‘Do Henry the favour to come in,’ said she, ‘I knew he would be pleased!’
The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him. She recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at her.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door. ‘It’s only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model to-day. I am making a study of him. It saves me money to turn him to some use. We poor painters have none to spare.’