Was her own
kindness in receiving me a sign that I was not wholly out in
my calculation? It would render me extremely happy to think so.
I could give her my word of honor that I was a most respectable,
inoffensive person and that as an inmate they would be barely
conscious of my existence. I would conform to any regulations,
any restrictions if they would only let me enjoy the garden.
Moreover I should be delighted to give her references, guarantees;
they would be of the very best, both in Venice and in England
as well as in America.
She listened to me in perfect stillness and I felt that she was looking
at me with great attention, though I could see only the lower part
of her bleached and shriveled face. Independently of the refining
process of old age it had a delicacy which once must have been great.
She had been very fair, she had had a wonderful complexion.
She was silent a little after I had ceased speaking; then she inquired,
"If you are so fond of a garden why don't you go to terra firma,
where there are so many far better than this?"
"Oh, it's the combination!" I answered, smiling; and then,
with rather a flight of fancy, "It's the idea of a garden
in the middle of the sea."
"It's not in the middle of the sea; you can't see the water."
I stared a moment, wondering whether she wished to convict me of fraud.
"Can't see the water? Why, dear madam, I can come up to the very gate
in my boat."
She appeared inconsequent, for she said vaguely in reply
to this, "Yes, if you have got a boat.
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