we like it ourselves!"

"You have the use of it then?"

"Oh, yes. If it wasn't for that!" And she gave a shy, melancholy smile.

"Isn't it a luxury, precisely? That's why, intending to be
in Venice some weeks, possibly all summer, and having some
literary work, some reading and writing to do, so that I must
be quiet, and yet if possible a great deal in the open air--
that's why I have felt that a garden is really indispensable.
I appeal to your own experience," I went on, smiling.
"Now can't I look at yours?"

"I don't know, I don't understand," the poor woman murmured,
planted there and letting her embarrassed eyes wander all
over my strangeness.

"I mean only from one of those windows--such grand ones
as you have here--if you will let me open the shutters."
And I walked toward the back of the house. When I had advanced
halfway I stopped and waited, as if I took it for granted she would
accompany me. I had been of necessity very abrupt, but I strove
at the same time to give her the impression of extreme courtesy.
"I have been looking at furnished rooms all over the place,
and it seems impossible to find any with a garden attached.
Naturally in a place like Venice gardens are rare. It's absurd
if you like, for a man, but I can't live without flowers."

"There are none to speak of down there." She came nearer to me, as if,