out, "I don't want to see 'em,
either of 'em. The docta wants to keep me he'e and make money out of me;
I undastand him; and I don't believe that consul's a bit too good to take
a pussentage. Now, don't you say a wo'd to either of 'em. If you don't do
exactly what I tell you I'll go away and leave you he'e. Now, will you?"

Clementina promised, and broke her word. She went to the vice-consul and
told him she had broken it, and she agreed with him that he had better
not come unless Mrs. Lander sent for him. The doctor promptly imagined
the situation and said he would come in casually during the morning, so
as not to alarm the invalid's suspicions. He owned that Mrs. Lander was
getting no good from remaining in Venice, and if it were possible for her
to go, he said she had better go somewhere into cooler and higher air.

His opinion restored him to Mrs. Lander's esteem, when it was expressed
to her, and as she was left to fix the sum of her debt to him, she made
it handsomer than anything he had dreamed of. She held out against seeing
the vice-consul till the landlord sent in his account. This was for the
whole month which she had just entered upon, and it included fantastic
charges for things hitherto included in the rent, not only for the
current month, but for the months past when, the landlord explained, he
had forgotten to note them. Mrs. Lander refused to pay these demands, for
they touched her in some of those economies which the gross rich practice
amidst their profusion. The landlord replied that she could not leave his
house, either with or without her effects, until she had paid. He
declared Clementina his prisoner, too, and he would not send for the
vice-consul at Mrs. Lander's bidding. How far he was within his rights in
all this they could not know, but he was perhaps himself doubtful, and he
consented to let them send for the doctor, who, when he came, behaved
like anything but the steadfast friend that Mrs. Lander supposed she had
bought in him. He advised paying the account without regard to its
justice, as the shortest and simplest way out of the trouble; but Mrs.
Lander, who saw him talking amicably and even respectfully with the
landlord, when he ought to have treated him as an extortionate scamp,
returned to her former ill opinion of him; and the vice-consul now
appeared the friend that Doctor Tradonico had falsely seemed. The doctor
consented, in leaving her to her contempt of him, to carry a message