said that she was going back to Boston herself, but she was leaving Mr. March to continue the search; and she had no doubt he would be only too glad to see the apartment by daylight.  “But if you take it, Basil,” she warned him, when they were alone, “I shall simply renounce you.  I wouldn’t live in that junk-shop if you gave it to me.  But who would have thought she was that kind of looking person?  Though of course I might have known if I had stopped to think once.  It’s because the place doesn’t express her at all that it’s so unlike her.  It couldn’t be like anybody, or anything that flies in the air, or creeps upon the earth, or swims in the waters under the earth.  I wonder where in the world she’s from; she’s no New-Yorker; even we can see that; and she’s not quite a country person, either; she seems like a person from some large town, where she’s been an aesthetic authority.  And she can’t find good enough art instruction in New York, and has to go to Paris for it!  Well, it’s pathetic, after all, Basil.  I can’t help feeling sorry for a person who mistakes herself to that extent.”

“I can’t help feeling sorry for the husband of a person who mistakes herself to that extent.  What is Mr. Grosvenor Green going to do in Paris while she’s working her way into the Salon?”

“Well, you keep away from her apartment, Basil; that’s all I’ve got to say to you.  And yet I do like some things about her.”

“I like everything about her but her apartment,” said March.

“I like her going to be out of the country,” said his wife.  “We shouldn’t be overlooked.  And the place was prettily shaped, you can’t deny it.  And there was an elevator and steam heat.  And the location is very convenient.  And there was a hall-boy to bring up cards.  The halls and stairs were kept very clean and nice.  But it wouldn’t do.  I could put you a folding bed in the room where you wrote, and we could even have one in the parlor”

“Behind a portiere?  I couldn’t stand any more portieres!”

“And we could squeeze the two girls into one room, or perhaps only bring Margaret, and put out the whole of the wash.  Basil!” she almost shrieked, “it isn’t to be thought of!”

He retorted, “I’m not thinking of it, my dear.”

Fulkerson came in just before they started for Mrs. March’s train, to find out what had become of them, he said, and to see whether they had got anything to live in yet.

“Not a thing,” she said.  “And I’m just going back to Boston, and leaving Mr. March here to do anything he pleases about it.  He has ’carte blanche.’”

“But freedom brings responsibility, you know, Fulkerson, and it’s the same as if I’d no choice.  I’m staying behind because I’m left, not because I expect to do anything.”

“Is that so?” asked Fulkerson.  “Well, we must see what can be done.  I supposed you would be all settled by this time, or I should have humped myself to find you something.  None of those places I gave you amounts to anything?”