for a change. Besides, all her friends were dead long ago;

either they ought to have remained or she ought to have gone.
That was another thing her aunt often said--she was not

at all content.
"But people don't die when they like, do they?" Miss Tita inquired.

I took the liberty of asking why, if there was actually enough money
to maintain both of them, there would not be more than enough in case

of her being left alone. She considered this difficult problem
a moment and then she said, "Oh, well, you know, she takes care of me.

She thinks that when I'm alone I shall be a great fool, I shall not know
how to manage."

"I should have supposed that you took care of her.
I'm afraid she is very proud."

"Why, have you discovered that already?" Miss Tita cried with the glimmer
of an illumination in her face.

"I was shut up with her there for a considerable time, and she struck me,
she interested me extremely" target="_blank" title="ad.极端地；非常地">extremely. It didn't take me long to make my discovery.

She won't have much to say to me while I'm here."
"No, I don't think she will," my companion averred.

"Do you suppose she has some suspicion of me?"
Miss Tita's honest eyes gave me no sign that I had touched a mark.

"I shouldn't think so--letting you in after all so easily."
"Oh, so easily! she has covered her risk. But where is it

that one could take an advantage of her?"
"I oughtn't to tell you if I knew, ought I?" And Miss Tita added,

before I had time to reply to this, smiling dolefully, "Do you
think we have any weak points?"

"That's exactly what I'm asking. You would only have to mention
them for me to respect them religiously."

She looked at me, at this, with that air of timid but candid
and even gratified curiosity with which she had confronted me

from the first; and then she said, "There is nothing to tell.
We are terribly quiet. I don't know how the days pass.

We have no life."
"I wish I might think that I should bring you a little."

"Oh, we know what we want," she went on. "It's all right."
There were various things I desired to ask her: how in the world

they did live; whether they had any friends or visitors,
any relations in America or in other countries. But I judged such

an inquiry would be premature; I must leave it to a later chance.
"Well, don't YOU be proud," I contented myself with saying.

"Don't hide from me altogether."
"Oh, I must stay with my aunt," she returned, without looking at me.

And at the same moment, abruptly, without any ceremony of parting,
she quitted me and disappeared, leaving me to make my own way downstairs.

I remained a while longer, wandering about the bright desert (the sun was
pouring in) of the old house, thinking the situation over on the spot.

Not even the pattering little serva came to look after me, and I
reflected that after all this treatment showed confidence.

IV
Perhaps it did, but all the same, six weeks later,

toward the middle of June, the moment when Mrs. Prest undertook
her annualmigration, I had made no measurable advance.

I was obliged to confess to her that I had no results to speak of.
My first step had been unexpectedly rapid, but there

was no appearance that it would be followed by a second.
I was a thousand miles from taking tea with my hostesses--

that privilege of which, as I reminded Mrs. Prest, we both
had had a vision. She reproached me with wanting boldness,

and I answered that even to be bold you must have an opportunity:
you may push on through a breach but you can't batter down

a dead wall. She answered that the breach I had already made
was big enough to admit an army and accused me of wasting precious

hours in whimpering in her salon when I ought to have been
carrying on the struggle in the field. It is true that I went

to see her very often, on the theory that it would console me
(I freely expressed my discouragement) for my want of success

on my own premises. But I began to perceive that it did
not console me to be perpetually chaffed for my scruples,

especially when I was really so vigilant; and I was rather
glad when my derisive friend closed her house for the summer.

She had expected to gather amusement from the drama of my
intercourse with the Misses Bordereau, and she was disappointed

that the intercourse, and consequently the drama, had not come off.
"They'll lead you on to your ruin," she said before she left Venice.

"They'll get all your money without showing you a scrap."
I think I settled down to my business with more concentration

after she had gone away.
It was a fact that up to that time I had not, save on a single

brief occasion, had even a moment's contact with my queer hostesses.
The exception had occurred when I carried them according

to my promise the terrible three thousand francs.
Then I found Miss Tita waiting for me in the hall, and she

took the money from my hand so that I did not see her aunt.
The old lady had promised to receive me, but she apparently

thought nothing of breaking that vow. The money was contained
in a bag of chamois leather, of respectable dimensions,

which my banker had given me, and Miss Tita had to make a big
fist to receive it. This she did with extreme solemnity,

though I tried to treat the affair a little as a joke.
It was in no jocular strain, yet it was with simplicity,

that she inquired, weighing the money in her two palms:
"Don't you think it's too much?" To which I replied that that

would depend upon the amount of pleasure I should get for it.
Hereupon she turned away from me quickly, as she had done

the day before, murmuring in a tone different from any she had
used hitherto: "Oh, pleasure, pleasure--there's no pleasure

in this house!"
After this, for a long time, I never saw her, and I wondered that

the common chances of the day should not have helped us to meet.
It could only be evident that she was immensely on her guard

against them; and in addition to this the house was so big that
for each other we were lost in it. I used to look out for her

hopefully as I crossed the sala in my comings and goings,
but I was not rewarded with a glimpse of the tail of her dress.

It was as if she never peeped out of her aunt's apartment.
I used to wonder what she did there week after week and year

after year. I had never encountered such a violent parti pris
of seclusion; it was more than keeping quiet--it was like hunted

creatures feigning death. The two ladies appeared to have
no visitors whatever and no sort of contact with the world.

I judged at least that people could not have come to the house
and that Miss Tita could not have gone out without my having

some observation of it. I did what I disliked myself for doing
(reflecting that it was only once in a way): I questioned

my servant about their habits and let him divine that I
should be interested in any information he could pick up.

But he picked up amazingly little for a knowing Venetian:
it must be added that where there is a perpetual fast there

are very few crumbs on the floor. His cleverness in other ways
was sufficient, if it was not quite all that I had attributed

to him on the occasion of my first interview with Miss Tita.
He had helped my gondolier to bring me round a boatload of furniture;

and when these articles had been carried to the top of the palace
and distributed according to our associated wisdom he organized

my household with such promptitude as was consistent with the fact
that it was composedexclusively of himself. He made me in short

as comfortable as I could be with my indifferent prospects.
I should have been glad if he had fallen in love with Miss

Bordereau's maid or, failing this, had taken her in aversion;
either event might have brought about some kind of catastrophe,

and a catastrophe might have led to some parley.
It was my idea that she would have been sociable, and I

myself on various occasions saw her flit to and fro on
domestic errands, so that I was sure she was accessible.

But I tasted of no gossip from that fountain, and I