Page:The Aspern Papers.djvu/188

 V

charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness was like a solemn expression on a beautiful face and the whole air of the place divine. In the fading light my nephew's boat was too far out to be perceived. I looked for it a little and then, as I gave it up, I remarked that from such an excursion as that, on such a lake, at such an hour, a young man and a young woman of ordinary sensibility could only come back doubly pledged to each other. To this observation Mrs. Pallant's answer was, superficially at least, irrelevant; she said after a pause:

'With you, my dear sir, one has certainly to dot one's "i's." Haven't you discovered, and didn't I tell you at Homburg, that we are miserably poor?'

'Isn't "miserably" rather too much, when you are living at an expensive hotel?'

'They take us en pension, for ever so little a day. I have been knocking about Europe long enough to learn there are certain ways of doing things. Besides, don't speak of hotels; we have spent half our life in them and Linda told me only last night that she hoped never to put her foot into one again. She thinks that when she comes to such a place as this it's the least that she should find a villa of her own.'