But so far as my small means allowed I was prepared to spend money,
and my decision was quickly taken. I would pay her with a smiling face
what she asked, but in that case I would give myself the compensation
of extracting the papers from her for nothing. Moreover if she had asked
five times as much I should have risen to the occasion; so odious would
it have appeared to me to stand chaffering with Aspern's Juliana.
It was queer enough to have a question of money with her at all.
I assured her that her views perfectly met my own and that on the morrow
I should have the pleasure of putting three months' rent into her hand.
She received this announcement with serenity and with no apparent sense
that after all it would be becoming of her to say that I ought to see
the rooms first. This did not occur to her and indeed her serenity
was mainly what I wanted. Our little bargain was just concluded
when the door opened and the younger lady appeared on the threshold.
As soon as Miss Bordereau saw her niece she cried out almost gaily,
"He will give three thousand--three thousand tomorrow!"

Miss Tita stood still, with her patient eyes turning from one
of us to the other; then she inquired, scarcely above her breath,
"Do you mean francs?"

"Did you mean francs or dollars?" the old woman asked of me at this.

"I think francs were what you said," I answered, smiling.

"That is very good," said Miss Tita, as if she had become conscious
that her own question might have looked overreaching.

"What do YOU know? You are ignorant," Miss Bordereau remarked;
not with acerbity but with a strange, soft coldness.