we would go and have an ice together at Florian's, and she
should tell me while we listened to the band.

"Oh, it will take me a long time to find out!" she said, rather ruefully;
and she could promise me this satisfaction neither for that night nor for
the next. I was patient now, however, for I felt that I had only to wait;
and in fact at the end of the week, one lovely evening after dinner,
she stepped into my gondola, to which in honor of the occasion I had
attached a second oar.

We swept in the course of five minutes into the Grand Canal;
whereupon she uttered a murmur of ecstasy as fresh as if she
had been a tourist just arrived. She had forgotten how splendid
the great waterway looked on a clear, hot summer evening,
and how the sense of floating between marble palaces and
reflected lights disposed the mind to sympathetic talk.
We floated long and far, and though Miss Tita gave no high-pitched
voice to her satisfaction I felt that she surrendered herself.
She was more than pleased, she was transported; the whole thing
was an immense liberation. The gondola moved with slow strokes,
to give her time to enjoy it, and she listened to the plash
of the oars, which grew louder and more musically liquid as we
passed into narrow canals, as if it were a revelation of Venice.
When I asked her how long it was since she had been in a boat
she answered, "Oh, I don't know; a long time--not since my aunt
began to be ill." This was not the only example she gave me
of her extreme vagueness about the previous years and the line
which marked off the period when Miss Bordereau flourished.
I was not at liberty to keep her out too long, but we
took a considerable GIRL before going to the Piazza.