to think of it she was out of my sight most of the time.

You see, that fellow impressed upon me that what Florence needed
most of all were sleep and privacy. I must never enter her room
without knocking, or her poor little heart might flutter away to its
doom. He said these things with his lugubrious croak, and his
black eyes like a crow's, so that I seemed to see poor Florence die
ten times a day--a little, pale, frail corpse. Why, I would as soon
have thought of entering her room without her permission as of
burgling a church. I would sooner have committed that crime. I
would certainly have done it if I had thought the state of her heart
demanded the sacrilege. So at ten o'clock at night the door closed
upon Florence, who had gently, and, as if reluctantly, backed up
that fellow's recommendations; and she would wish me good
night as if she were a cinquecento Italian lady saying good-bye to
her lover. And at ten o'clock of the next morning there she would
come out the door of her room as fresh as Venus rising from any of
the couches that are mentioned in Greek legends.

Her room door was locked because she was nervous about thieves;
but an electric contrivance on a cord was understood to be
attached to her little wrist. She had only to press a bulb to raise
the house. And I was provided with an axe--an axe!--great gods,
with which to break down her door in case she ever failed to
answer my knock, after I knocked really loud several times. It was
pretty well thought out, you see.

What wasn't so well thought out were the ultimate
consequences--our being tied to Europe. For that young man
rubbed it so well into me that Florence would die if she crossed