own there." She came nearer to me, as if,
though she mistrusted me, I had drawn her by an invisible thread. I went
on again, and she continued as she followed me: "We have a few, but they
are very common. It costs too much to cultivate them; one has to have a
man."

"Why shouldn't I be the man?" I asked. "I'll work without wages; or
rather I'll put in a gardener. You shall have the sweetest flowers in
Venice."

She protested at this, with a queer little sigh which might also have
been a gush of rapture at the picture I presented. Then she observed,
"We don't know you--we don't know you."

"You know me as much as I know you: that is much more, because you know
my name. And if you are English I am almost a countryman."

"We are not English," said my companion, watching me helplessly while I
threw open the shutters of one of the divisions of the wide high window.

"You speak the language so beautifully: might I ask what you are?" Seen
from above the garden was certainly shabby; but I perceived at a glance
that it had great capabilities. She made no rejoinder, she was so lost
in staring at me, and I exclaimed, "You don't mean to say you are also
by chance American?"

"I don't know; we used to be."

"Used to be? Surely you haven't changed?"

"It's so many years ago--we are nothing."

"So many years that you have been living here? Well, I don't wonder at
that; it's a grand old house. I suppose you all use the garden," I went
on, "but I assure you I shouldn't be in your way. I would be very quiet
and stay in one corner."

"We all use it?" she repeated after me, vaguely, not coming close to
the window but looking at my shoes. She appeared to think me capable of
throwing her out.

"I mean all your family, as many as you are."

"There is only one other; she is very old--she never goes down."

"Only one other, in all this great house!" I feigned to be not only
amazed but almost scandalized. "Dear lady, you must have space then to
spare!"

"To spare?" she repeated, in the same dazed way.

"Why, you surely don't live (two quiet women--I see YOU are quiet,
at any rate) in fifty rooms!" Then with a burst of hope and cheer I
demanded: "Couldn't you let me two or three? That would set me up!"

I had not struck the note that translated my purpose, and I need
not reproduce the whole of the tune I played. I ended by making my
interlocutress believe that I was an honorable person, though of course
I did not even attempt