give her my word of honor that I was a most respectable, inoffensive
person and that as an inmate they would be barely conscious of my
existence. I would conform to any regulations, any restrictions if they
would only let me enjoy the garden. Moreover I should be delighted to
give her references, guarantees; they would be of the very best, both in
Venice and in England as well as in America.

She listened to me in perfect stillness and I felt that she was looking
at me with great attention, though I could see only the lower part of
her bleached and shriveled face. Independently of the refining process
of old age it had a delicacy which once must have been great. She had
been very fair, she had had a wonderful complexion. She was silent a
little after I had ceased speaking; then she inquired, "If you are so
fond of a garden why don't you go to terra firma, where there are so
many far better than this?"

"Oh, it's the combination!" I answered, smiling; and then, with rather a
flight of fancy, "It's the idea of a garden in the middle of the sea."

"It's not in the middle of the sea; you can't see the water."

I stared a moment, wondering whether she wished to convict me of fraud.
"Can't see the water? Why, dear madam, I can come up to the very gate in
my boat."

She appeared inconsequent, for she said vaguely in reply to this, "Yes,
if you have got a boat. I haven't any; it's many years since I have been
in one of the gondolas." She uttered these words as if the gondolas were
a curious faraway craft which she knew only by hearsay.

"Let me assure you of the pleasure with which I would put mine at your
service!" I exclaimed. I had scarcely said this, however, before I
became aware that the speech was in questionable taste and might also do
me the injury of making me appear too eager, too possessed of a hidden
motive. But the old woman remained impenetrable and her attitude
bothered me by suggesting that she had a fuller vision of me than I
had of her. She gave me no thanks for my somewhat extravagant offer
but remarked that the lady I had seen the day before was her niece;
she would presently come in. She had asked her to stay away a little
on purpose, because she herself wished to see me at first alone. She
relapsed into silence, and I asked myself why she had judged this
necessary and what was coming yet; also whether I might venture on some
judicious remark in praise of her companion. I went so far as to say
that