that I remembered of Antonia if he would do
the same. We might, in this way, get a picture
of her.

He rumpled his hair with a quick, excited
gesture, which with him often announces a new
determination, and I could see that my sugges-
tion took hold of him. "Maybe I will, maybe I
will!" he declared. He stared out of the window
for a few moments, and when he turned to me
again his eyes had the sudden clearness that
comes from something the mind itself sees. "Of
course," he said, "I should have to do it in a
direct way, and say a great deal about myself.
It's through myself that I knew and felt her,
and I've had no practice in any other form of
presentation."

I told him that how he knew her and felt her
was exactly what I most wanted to know about
Antonia. He had had opportunities that I, as a
little girl who watched her come and go, had not.

Months afterward Jim Burden arrived at my
apartment one stormy winter afternoon, with a
bulging legal portfolio sheltered under his fur
overcoat. He brought it into the sitting-room
with him and tapped it with some pride as he
stood warming his hands.

"I finished it last night -- the thing about
Antonia," he said. "Now, what about yours?"

[[xiii]]

f012 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ f013w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ f014

v?