Still more to her contentment, not hearing,
they did not see her, and she crept out again quietly as she had
entered: it would of course be to her advantage to let them know
that she had seen, and that they were in her power, but it might be
still more to her advantage to conceal the fact so long as there
was a chance of additional discovery in the same direction. Through
the success of her trick it came about that Malcolm, chancing to
look up from Honour's back to the room where he always breakfasted
with his new friend, saw in one of the windows, as in a picture,
a face radiant with such an expression as that of the woman headed
snake might have worn when he saw Adam take the apple from the hand
of Eve.
Caley was of the common class of servants in this, that she
considered service servitude, and took her amends in selfishness;
she was unlike them in this, that while false to her employers,
she made no common cause with her fellows against them--regarded
and sought none but her own ends. Her one thought was to make the
most of her position; for that, to gain influence with, and, if it
might be, power over her mistress; and, thereto, first of all, to
find out whether she had a secret: she had now discovered not merely
that she had one, but the secret itself! She was clever, greedy,
cunning; equally capable, according to the faculty with which she
might be matched, of duping or of being duped.
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