It was not for me of course to make the domestics tattle,
and I never said a word to Miss Bordereau's cook.
It seemed to me a proof of the old lady's determination
to have nothing to do with me that she should never have
sent me a receipt for my three months' rent. For some days
I looked out for it and then, when I had given it up,
I wasted a good deal of time in wondering what her reason
had been for neglecting so indispensable and familiar a form.
At first I was tempted to send her a reminder, after which I
relinquished the idea (against my judgment as to what was right
in the particular case), on the general ground of wishing
to keep quiet. If Miss Bordereau suspected me of ulterior
aims she would suspect me less if I should be businesslike,
and yet I consented not to be so. It was possible she intended
her omission as an impertinence, a visible irony, to show
how she could overreach people who attempted to overreach her.
On that hypothesis it was well to let her see that one did
not notice her little tricks. The real reading of the matter,
I afterward perceived, was simply the poor old woman's desire
to emphasize the fact that I was in the enjoyment of a favor
as rigidly limited as it had been liberally bestowed.
She had given me part of her house, and now she would
not give me even a morsel of paper with her name on it.
Let me say that even at first this did not make me too miserable,
for the whole episode was essentially delightful to me.
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