just spoken the truth. She had not
betrayed me, but the old woman's brooding instinct had served her;
she had turned me over and over in the long, still hours, and she had
guessed. The worst of it was that she looked terribly like an old woman
who at a pinch would burn her papers. Miss Tita pushed a chair forward,
saying to me, "This will be a good place for you to sit." As I took
possession of it I asked after Miss Bordereau's health; expressed the
hope that in spite of the very hot weather it was satisfactory. She
replied that it was good enough--good enough; that it was a great thing
to be alive.

"Oh, as to that, it depends upon what you compare it with!" I exclaimed,
laughing.

"I don't compare--I don't compare. If I did that I should have given
everything up long ago."

I liked to think that this was a subtle allusion to the rapture she had
known in the society of Jeffrey Aspern--though it was true that such an
allusion would have accorded ill with the wish I imputed to her to keep
him buried in her soul. What it accorded with was my constant conviction
that no human being had ever had a more delightful social gift than his,
and what it seemed to convey was that nothing in the world was worth
speaking of if one pretended to speak of that. But one did not! Miss
Tita sat down beside her aunt, looking as if she had reason to believe
some very remarkable conversation would come off between us.

"It's about the beautiful flowers," said the old lady; "you sent us so
many--I ought to have thanked you for them before. But I don't write
letters and I receive only at long intervals."

She had not thanked me while the flowers continued to come, but she
departed from her custom so far as to send for me as soon as she began
to fear that they would not come any more. I noted this; I remembered
what an acquisitive propensity she had shown when it was a question of
extracting gold from me, and I privately rejoiced at the happy thought I
had had in suspending my tribute. She had missed it and she was willing
to make a concession to bring it back. At the first sign of this
concession I could only go to meet her. "I am afraid you have not
had many, of late, but they shall begin again immediately--tomorrow,
tonight."

"Oh, do send us some tonight!" Miss Tita cried, as if it were an immense
circumstance.

"What else should you do with them? It isn't a manly taste to make a
bower of your room," the old woman remarked.

"I do