-like mien except when bargaining, if only on a matter of threepence.
Such a turn-out had never been presented to her notice before. The
traffic in the street of the Consuls was mostly pedestrian and far from
fashionable. And anyhow Therese never looked out of the window. She
lurked in the depths of the house like some kind of spider that shuns
attention. She used to dart at one from some dark recesses which I never
explored.

Yet it seemed to me that she exaggerated her raptures for some reason or
other. With her it was very difficult to distinguish between craft and
innocence.

"Do you mean to say," I asked suspiciously, "that an old lady wants to
hire an apartment here? I hope you told her there was no room, because,
you know, this house is not exactly the thing for venerable old ladies."

"Don't make me angry, my dear young Monsieur. I have been to confession
this morning. Aren't you comfortable? Isn't the house appointed richly
enough for anybody?"

That girl with a peasant-nun's face had never seen the inside of a house
other than some half-ruined _caserio_ in her native hills.

I pointed out to her that this was not a matter of splendour or comfort
but of "convenances." She pricked up her ears at that word which
probably she had never heard before; but with woman's uncanny intuition I
believe she understood perfectly what I meant. Her air of saintly
patience became so pronounced that with my own poor intuition I perceived
that she was raging at me inwardly. Her weather-tanned complexion,
already affected by her confined life, took on an extraordinary clayey
aspect which reminded me of a strange head painted by El Greco which my
friend Prax had hung on one of his walls and used to rail at; yet not
without a certain respect.

Therese, with her hands still meekly folded about her waist, had mastered
the feelings of anger so unbecoming to a person whose sins had been
absolved only about three hours before, and asked me with an insinuating
softness whether she wasn't an honest girl enough to look after any old
lady belonging to a world which after all was sinful. She reminded me
that she had kept house ever since she was "so high" for her uncle the
priest: a man well-known for his saintliness in a large district
extending even beyond Pampeluna. The character of a house depended upon
the person who ruled it. She didn't know what impenitent wretches had
been breathing within these walls in the time