Cynthia shook her head meaningly, and came across and took a chair beside him. "Kemp is awfully nice with Baby," she said; "she is upstairs with him now, and on the whole I've been thinking that we had better not hurry to get home again; we had better be a long time arranging matters, Humphrey! While we are here we haven't any expenses." Kent stared, and then smiled. "This is abominable morality," he said. "Paris has certainly corrupted you, young woman. And, besides, your people would worry my life out with questions. Nothing puts me in a worse temper than being asked what my news is when I haven't any." "That's all very well, my dear boy, but we have no money. There's a quarter's rent overdue now, isn't there? and we should only have a month's peace before the tradespeople began to bother. I really think we ought to take two or three weeks, at all events, finding a girl; I do indeed. Mamma and papa would beg us to stop if they knew what a state we were in; it seems to me we ought to do it without giving them the--ahem--needless pain of listening to our confession." "You're very specious," laughed Kent. The semi-serious conclusion might have been uttered by himself, and he approved the tone without recognising the model. "Has your mother noticed that you haven't got your ring on?" "No. I couldn't tell her a story about it, and I'm praying that she won't. I've been envying you your trouser-pockets ever since we arrived. Don't take ale, Humphrey--have some claret, it will do you more good. If we sold our furniture----" "What would it fetch at a sale? And apartments would cost us more than the house! No ... we'll make ourselves welcome here for a week or so. And--well, let's hope the advertisements will turn up trumps! Then we shall be independent." One of the advertisements was to appear on Monday. CHAPTER XX It was slightly disheartening to perceive how many other assistant-editors were open to offers, and he had the uncomfortable consciousness that his competitors' experience was probably a great deal wider than his own. He knew that a daily was out of the question for him, and his chance of securing a post on a periodical seemed scarcely better on Monday morning, when he saw the "Wanted" columns. Cynthia declared that his own advertisement "read nicer than any in the list" and that if she were an editor it would certainly be the one to attract her attention; but Cynthia was his wife and not an editor, and her view encouraged him no more than Sam Walford's supposition at the breakfast table, that he might "obtain the management of a sound magazine."