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. 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
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