elves to very clever women!" I
answered, laughing. I spoke with great deliberation, but as my words
fell upon the air they struck me as imprudent. However, I risked them
and I was not sorry, for perhaps after all the old woman would be
willing to treat. It seemed to be tolerably obvious that she knew my
secret: why therefore drag the matter out? But she did not take what I
had said as a confession; she only asked:

"Do you think it's right to rake up the past?"

"I don't know that I know what you mean by raking it up; but how can we
get at it unless we dig a little? The present has such a rough way of
treading it down."

"Oh, I like the past, but I don't like critics," the old woman declared
with her fine tranquility.

"Neither do I, but I like their discoveries."

"Aren't they mostly lies?"

"The lies are what they sometimes discover," I said, smiling at the
quiet impertinence of this. "They often lay bare the truth."

"The truth is God's, it isn't man's; we had better leave it alone. Who
can judge of it--who can say?"

"We are terribly in the dark, I know," I admitted; "but if we give up
trying what becomes of all the fine things? What becomes of the work I
just mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets? It is all vain
words if there is nothing to measure it by."

"You talk as if you were a tailor," said Miss Bordereau whimsically; and
then she added quickly, in a different manner, "This house is very fine;
the proportions are magnificent. Today I wanted to look at this place
again. I made them bring me out here. When your man came, just now, to
learn if I would see you, I was on the point of sending for you, to
ask if you didn't mean to go on. I wanted to judge what I'm letting you
have. This sala is very grand," she pursued, like an auctioneer, moving
a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes. "I don't believe you often
have lived in such a house, eh?"

"I can't often afford to!" I said.

"Well then, how much will you give for six months?"

I was on the point of exclaiming--and the air of excruciation in my face
would have denoted a moral face--"Don't, Juliana; for HIS sake, don't!"
But I controlled myself and asked less passionately: "Why should I
remain so long as that?"

"I thought you liked it," said Miss Bordereau with her shriveled
dignity.

"So I thought I should."

For a moment she said nothing more, and I left my own words to suggest
to her what they might. I half-expected her