From the moment you were kind to her she
depended on you absolutely; her self-consciousness dropped from
her and she took the greatest intimacy, the innocent intimacy
which was the only thing she could conceive, for granted.
She told me she did not know what had got into her aunt;
she had changed so quickly, she had got some idea. I replied
that she must find out what the idea was and then let me know;
we would go and have an ice together at Florian's, and she
should tell me while we listened to the band.
"Oh, it will take me a long time to find out!" she said, rather ruefully;
and she could promise me this satisfaction neither for that night nor for
the next. I was patient now, however, for I felt that I had only to wait;
and in fact at the end of the week, one lovely evening after dinner,
she stepped into my gondola, to which in honor of the occasion I had
attached a second oar.
We swept in the course of five minutes into the Grand Canal;
whereupon she uttered a murmur of ecstasy as fresh as if she
had been a tourist just arrived. She had forgotten how splendid
the great waterway looked on a clear, hot summer evening,
and how the sense of floating between marble palaces and
reflected lights disposed the mind to sympathetic talk.
We floated long and far, and though Miss Tita gave no high-pitched
voice to her satisfaction I felt that she surrendered herself.
She was more than pleased, she was transported; the whole thing
was an immense liberation.
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