password protecting a folder

[salewit]

Using the control panel, I password protected a folder. It works fine, but always asks for the user/password twice. Any reason for this? Here's my structure:

public_html
---private /* password protected folder */
-----index.html
-----page1.html
-----page2.html
-----etc
---normal unprotected folders


So if someone goes to:

www.website.com/private

they get the user password prompt, enter it properly and get in to the index.html file which has a menu of page1, page2, etc. When they select say page2.html, they get the password prompt AGAIN.

This happens consistantly, but only asks for it twice regardless of how much you move around inside. Is there anything *I* can do to eliminate this?

[Vin DSL]

Are you using basic auth?