The old woman was sitting in the same place in which I had seen her last,
in the same position, with the same mystifying bandage over her eyes.
her welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me and show me
that while she sat silent she saw me clearly. I made no motion to shake
hands with her; I felt too well on this occasion that that was out
of place forever. It had been sufficiently enjoined upon me that she
was too sacred for that sort of reciprocity--too venerable to touch.
There was something so grim in her aspect (it was partly the accident
of her green shade), as I stood there to be measured, that I ceased
on the spot to feel any doubt as to her knowing my secret, though I did
not in the least suspect that Miss Tita had not just spoken the truth.
She had not betrayed me, but the old woman's brooding instinct had
served her; she had turned me over and over in the long, still hours,
and she had guessed. The worst of it was that she looked terribly
like an old woman who at a pinch would burn her papers. Miss Tita pushed
a chair forward, saying to me, "This will be a good place for you to sit."
As I took possession of it I asked after Miss Bordereau's health;
expressed the hope that in spite of the very hot weather it was satisfactory.
She replied that it was good enough--good enough; that it was a great
thing to be alive.

"Oh, as to that, it depends upon what you compare it with!"
I exclaimed, laughing.

"I don't compare--I don't compare. If I did that I should have given
everything up long ago."

I liked to think that this was a subtle allusion to the rapture
she had known in the society of Jeffrey Aspern--though it
was true that such an allusion would have accorded ill with