Mattina seized hold of the heavy straw mattress with both hands, and dragged it aside.
“Have you done it?”
“Yes.”
Then slowly, very slowly, a narrow door painted exactly the same color as the rest of the room, with no handle, no crack even to show its outline or to distinguish it from the surrounding wall, a door which Mattina had certainly never seen before, was pushed open from the other side and Kyra Polyxene’s kind old face appeared in the opening.
“Not a word!” she whispered, with a finger on her lips. “Not a word for your life! Come!”
Mattina was very bewildered.
“Where shall I come? How did you get in?”
“Hush! Lest they hear us from below. Once this was all one big house, and when they made it two, they left this door. It was all painted over, and no one knew; but I remembered. Wait!” and she came right in. “Give me your coverlet! See I will hang it over the opening, so … because now that I have opened the door, when it is light they will see that the paint has cracked. And before that lazy mistress of yours takes the coverlet down to shake it, many days will pass. Come! Why are you waiting?”
“Kyra Polyxene,” said Mattina, “they all tell lies! I never saw their money!”
“And for that, will you stay here and let them take you and lock you in prison?”