Mat listened intently till the sound of Zack’s rapid footsteps died away upstairs—then walked quickly and softly down the studio to the garden door—gently unlocked it—gently drew the bolts back—gently opened it, and ascertained that it could also be opened from without, merely by turning the handle—then, quietly closing it again, left it, to all appearance, as fast for the night as before; provided no one went near enough, or had sufficiently sharp eyes, to observe that it was neither bolted nor locked.
“Now for the big chest!” thought Mat, taking the false key out of his pocket, and hastening back to the bureau. “If Zack or the Painter Man come down before I’ve time to get at the drawer inside, I’ve made sure of my second chance with the garden door.”
He had the key in the lock of the bureau, as this thought passed through his mind. He was just about to turn it, when the sound of rapidly-descending footsteps upon the stairs struck on his quick ear.
“Too late!” muttered Mat. “I must chance it, after all, with the garden door.”
Putting the key into his pocket again, as he said this, he walked back to the fireplace. The moment after he got there, Mr. Blyth entered the studio.
“I am quite shocked that you should have been so unceremoniously left alone,” said Valentine, whose naturally courteous nature prompted him to be just as scrupulously polite in his behavior to his rough guest, as if Mat had been a civilized gentleman of the most refined feeling and the most exalted rank. “I am so sorry you should have been left, through Zack’s carelessness, without anybody to ask you to take a little supper,” continued Valentine, turning to the table. “Mrs. Blyth, my dear sir (do take a sandwich!), desires me to express her best thanks for your very pretty present (that is the brandy in the bottle next to you). She admires the design (spongecake? Ah! you don’t care about sweets), and thinks the color of the center feathers—”
At this moment the door opened, and Mr. Blyth, abruptly closing his lips, looked towards it with an expression of the blankest astonishment; for he beheld Madonna entering the painting-room in company with Zack.
Valentine had been persuaded to let the deaf and dumb girl accept the scarlet pouch by his wife; but neither she nor Zack had said a word before him upstairs about taking Madonna into the studio. When the painter was well out of earshot, young Thorpe had confided to Mrs. Blyth the new freak in which he wanted to engage; and, signing unscrupulously to Madonna that she was wanted in the studio, to be presented to the “generous man who had given her the tobacco-pouch,” took her out of the room without stopping to hear to the end the somewhat faint remonstrance by which his proposition was met. To confess the truth, Mrs. Blyth—seeing no great impropriety in the girl’s being introduced to the stranger, while Valentine was present in the room, and having moreover a very strong curiosity to hear all she could about Zack’s odd companion—was secretly anxious to ascertain what impressions Madonna would bring away of Mat’s personal appearance and manners. And thus it was that Zack, by seizing his opportunity at the right moment, and exerting a little of that cool assurance in which he was never very deficient, now actually entered the painting-room in a glow of mischievous triumph with Madonna on his arm.
Valentine gave him a look as he entered which he found it convenient not to appear to see. The painter felt strongly inclined, at that moment, to send his adopted child upstairs again directly; but he restrained himself out of a feeling of delicacy towards his guest—for Mat had not only seen Madonna, but had hesitatingly advanced a step or two to meet her, the instant she came into the room.
Few social tests for analyzing female human nature can be more safely relied on than that which the moral investigator may easily apply, by observing how a woman conducts herself towards a man who shows symptoms of confusion on approaching her for the first time. If she has nothing at all in her, she awkwardly forgets the advantage of her sex, and grows more confused than he is. If she has nothing but brains in her, she cruelly abuses the advantage, and treats him with quiet contempt. If she has plenty of heart in her, she instinctively turns the advantage to its right use, and forthwith sets him at his ease by the timely charity of a word or the mute encouragement of a look.