PASSAGE-IV: For days I trudged from one property-dealer to another, from one "to-let" notice to another, with the estimated advance money tucked safely in the inner lining of my handbag, but in vain. At one place they needed a couple, at another a young man, and at another they wished to know my employment status. And I realized that I was a freak called the single woman and the job status being nothing more than a freelance writer with hardly any assignments in hand, only dreams of making it someday. So the dream-house remained far away, gradually turning into a fantasy. The author "trudged from one property-dealer to another" means that the author