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."