One day (he was sitting there again and playing with a fan) she asked him to apologize, should the occasion present itself, to certain people in Boston for her not having returned their calls.  “There are half a dozen places,” she said; “a formidable list.  Charlotte Wentworth has written it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand.  There is no ambiguity on the subject; I know perfectly where I must go.  Mr. Wentworth informs me that the carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in a pair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat.  And yet for three days I have been putting it off.  They must think me horribly vicious.”

“You ask me to apologize,” said Acton, “but you don’t tell me what excuse I can offer.”

“That is more,” the Baroness declared, “than I am held to.  It would be like my asking you to buy me a bouquet and giving you the money.  I have no reason except that—­somehow—­it ’s too violent an effort.  It is not inspiring.  Would n’t that serve as an excuse, in Boston?  I am told they are very sincere; they don’t tell fibs.  And then Felix ought to go with me, and he is never in readiness.  I don’t see him.  He is always roaming about the fields and sketching old barns, or taking ten-mile walks, or painting some one’s portrait, or rowing on the pond, or flirting with Gertrude Wentworth.”

“I should think it would amuse you to go and see a few people,” said Acton.  “You are having a very quiet time of it here.  It ’s a dull life for you.”

“Ah, the quiet,—­the quiet!” the Baroness exclaimed.  “That ’s what I like.  It ’s rest.  That ’s what I came here for.  Amusement?  I have had amusement.  And as for seeing people—­I have already seen a great many in my life.  If it did n’t sound ungracious I should say that I wish very humbly your people here would leave me alone!”

Acton looked at her a moment, and she looked at him.  She was a woman who took being looked at remarkably well.  “So you have come here for rest?” he asked.

“So I may say.  I came for many of those reasons that are no reasons—­don’t you know?—­and yet that are really the best:  to come away, to change, to break with everything.  When once one comes away one must arrive somewhere, and I asked myself why I should n’t arrive here.”

“You certainly had time on the way!” said Acton, laughing.

Madame Munster looked at him again; and then, smiling:  “And I have certainly had time, since I got here, to ask myself why I came.  However, I never ask myself idle questions.  Here I am, and it seems to me you ought only to thank me.”

“When you go away you will see the difficulties I shall put in your path.”

“You mean to put difficulties in my path?” she asked, rearranging the rosebud in her corsage.

“The greatest of all—­that of having been so agreeable”—­

“That I shall be unable to depart?  Don’t be too sure.  I have left some very agreeable people over there.”