suites, in each case
trying to fit himself into the rooms, imagining how the window-seat
would look in such a window, how the pipe-rack would show over such a
mantel, just where on such walls the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ could be
placed to the best advantage, and if his easel could receive enough
steady light from such windows. Then he considered the conveniences, the
baths, the electric light, and the heat.

After a two weeks' search, he had decided upon one of two suites; both
of these were in the desired neighbourhood but differed widely in other
respects.

The first was reasonable enough in the matter of rent, and had even been
occupied by an artist for some three or four years previous. However,
the room that Vandover proposed to use as a sitting-room was small and
had no double windows, thus making the window-seat an impossibility.
There did not seem to be any suitable place for the Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_, and the mantelpiece was of old-fashioned white marble
like the mantelpiece in Mrs. Wade's front parlour, a veritable horror.
It revolted Vandover even to think of putting a pipe-rack over it. These
defects were offset by the studio, a large and splendid room with
hardwood floors and an enormous north light, the legendary studio, the
dream of an artist, precisely such a studio as Vandover had hoped he
would occupy in the Quarter.

The other suite was in a great apartment house, a hotel in fact, but
very expensive, with electric bulbs and bells, and with a tiled bathroom
connecting with the bedroom. The room which he would be obliged to use
as his studio was small, dark, the light coming from the west. But the
sitting-room was perfect. It had the sun all day long through a huge bay
window that seemed to have been made for a window-seat; there were
admirable, well-lighted spaces on the walls for casts and pictures, and
the mantelpiece was charming, extremely high, and made of oak; in a
word, the exact sitting-room that Vandover had in mind. Already he saw
himself settled there as comfortably and snugly as a kernel in a
nutshell. It was true that upon investigation he found that the grate
had been plastered up and the flue arranged for a stove. But for that
matter there were open-grate stoves to be had that would permit the fire
to be seen and that would look just as cheerful as a grate. He had even
seen such a stove in the window of a hardware store downtown, a tiled
stove with a brass fender and with curious flam