that I had unwittingly but nonetheless deplorably
trifled. But I had not given her cause--distinctly I had not. I had
said to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her; but it had been a joke
without consequences and I had never said it to Tita Bordereau. I had
been as kind as possible, because I really liked her; but since when had
that become a crime where a woman of such an age and such an appearance
was concerned? I am far from remembering clearly the succession of
events and feelings during this long day of confusion, which I spent
entirely in wandering about, without going home, until late at night;
it only comes back to me that there were moments when I pacified my
conscience and others when I lashed it into pain. I did not laugh all
day--that I do recollect; the case, however it might have struck others,
seemed to me so little amusing. It would have been better perhaps for me
to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or
not it went without saying that I could not pay the price. I could
not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers, marry a
ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman. It was a proof that she did
not think the idea would come to me, her having determined to suggest
it herself in that practical, argumentative, heroic way, in which the
timidity however had been so much more striking than the boldness that
her reasons appeared to come first and her feelings afterward.

As the day went on I grew to wish that I had never heard of Aspern's
relics, and I cursed the extravagant curiosity that had put John Cumnor
on the scent of them. We had more than enough material without them,
and my predicament was the just punishment of that most fatal of human
follies, our not having known when to stop. It was very well to say
it was no predicament, that the way out was simple, that I had only to
leave Venice by the first train in the morning, after writing a note to
Miss Tita, to be placed in her hand as soon as I got clear of the house;
for it was a strong sign that I was embarrassed that when I tried to
make up the note in my mind in advance (I would put it on paper as soon
as I got home, before going to bed), I could not think of anything but
"How can I thank you for the rare confidence you have placed in me?"
That would never do; it sounded exactly as if an acceptance were to
follow. Of course I might go away without writing a word, but that
would be brutal and my idea was st