the room at that moment if I had time. If I had been late for a love
tryst I would have stayed for this, and I quickly signified that I
should be delighted to wait upon the old lady. "She wants to talk with
you--to know you," Miss Tita said, smiling as if she herself appreciated
that idea; and she led me to the door of her aunt's apartment. I
stopped her a moment before she had opened it, looking at her with some
curiosity. I told her that this was a great satisfaction to me and a
great honor; but all the same I should like to ask what had made
Miss Bordereau change so suddenly. It was only the other day that
she wouldn't suffer me near her. Miss Tita was not embarrassed by my
question; she had as many little unexpected serenities as if she told
fibs, but the odd part of them was that they had on the contrary their
source in her truthfulness. "Oh, my aunt changes," she answered; "it's
so terribly dull--I suppose she's tired."

"But you told me that she wanted more and more to be alone."

Poor Miss Tita colored, as if she found me over-insistent. "Well, if
you don't believe she wants to see you--I haven't invented it! I think
people often are capricious when they are very old."

"That's perfectly true. I only wanted to be clear as to whether you have
repeated to her what I told you the other night."

"What you told me?"

"About Jeffrey Aspern--that I am looking for materials."

"If I had told her do you think she would have sent for you?"

"That's exactly what I want to know. If she wants to keep him to herself
she might have sent for me to tell me so."

"She won't speak of him," said Miss Tita. Then as she opened the door
she added in a lower tone, "I have told her nothing."

The old woman was sitting in the same place in which I had seen her
last, in the same position, with the same mystifying bandage over her
eyes. her welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me and show
me that while she sat silent she saw me clearly. I made no motion to
shake hands with her; I felt too well on this occasion that that was out
of place forever. It had been sufficiently enjoined upon me that she was
too sacred for that sort of reciprocity--too venerable to touch. There
was something so grim in her aspect (it was partly the accident of her
green shade), as I stood there to be measured, that I ceased on the spot
to feel any doubt as to her knowing my secret, though I did not in the
least suspect that Miss Tita had not