"Inhuman? That's what the poets used to call the women a hundred years ago.
Don't try that; you won't do as well as they!" Juliana declared.
"There is no more poetry in the world--that I know of at least.
But I won't bandy words with you," she pursued, and I well remember
the old-fashioned, artificial sound she gave to the speech.
"You have made me talk, talk! It isn't good for me at all."
I got up at this and told her I would take no more of her time; but she
detained me to ask, "Do you remember, the day I saw you about the rooms,
that you offered us the use of your gondola?" And when I assented,
promptly, struck again with her disposition to make a "good thing"
of being there and wondering what she now had in her eye, she broke out,
"Why don't you take that girl out in it and show her the place?"

"Oh, dear Aunt, what do you want to do with me?" cried the "girl"
with a piteous quaver. "I know all about the place!"

"Well then, go with him as a cicerone!" said Miss Bordereau
with an effort of something like cruelty in her implacable
power of retort--an incongruous suggestion that she was
a sarcastic, profane, cynical old woman. "Haven't we heard
that there have been all sorts of changes in all these years?
You ought to see them and at your age (I don't mean because
you're so young) you ought to take the chances that come.
You're old enough, my dear, and this gentleman won't hurt you.
He will show you the famous sunsets, if they still go
on--DO they go on? The sun set for me so long ago.
But that's not a reason. Besides, I shall never miss you;
you think you are too important. Take her to the Piazza;
it used to be very pretty," Miss Bordereau continued, addressing
herself to me. "What have they done with the funny old church?