though she mistrusted me, I had drawn her by an invisible thread.
I went on again, and she continued as she followed me: "We have a few,
but they are very common. It costs too much to cultivate them;
one has to have a man."

"Why shouldn't I be the man?" I asked. "I'll work without wages;
or rather I'll put in a gardener. You shall have the sweetest
flowers in Venice."

She protested at this, with a queer little sigh which might
also have been a gush of rapture at the picture I presented.
Then she observed, "We don't know you--we don't know you."

"You know me as much as I know you: that is much more, because you
know my name. And if you are English I am almost a countryman."

"We are not English," said my companion, watching me helplessly while I threw
open the shutters of one of the divisions of the wide high window.

"You speak the language so beautifully: might I ask what you are?"
Seen from above the garden was certainly shabby; but I perceived
at a glance that it had great capabilities. She made no rejoinder,
she was so lost in staring at me, and I exclaimed, "You don't mean
to say you are also by chance American?"

"I don't know; we used to be."

"Used to be? Surely you haven't changed?"

"It's so many years ago--we are nothing."