Prohack concluded that his wife's visit of inspection was over.
Doubtless she was seeking him at home at that moment to the end of
persuading him by her soft, unscrupulous arts to take the noble mansion.

The front-door was ajar. Astounding carelessness on the part of the
caretaker! Mr. Prohack's subconscious legs carried him into the house.
The interior was amazing. Mr. Prohack had always been interested, not
only in pictures, but in furniture. Pictures and furniture might have
been called the weakness to which his circumstances had hitherto
compelled him to be too strong to yield. He knew a good picture, and he
knew a good piece of furniture, when he saw them. The noble mansion was
full of good pictures and good furniture. Evidently it had been the home
of somebody who had both fine tastes and the means to gratify them. And
the place was complete. Nothing had been removed, and nothing had been
protected against the grimy dust of London. The occupiers might have
walked out of it a few hours earlier. The effect of dark richness in the
half-shuttered rooms almost overwhelmed Mr. Prohack. Nobody preventing,
he climbed the beautiful Georgian staircase, which was carpeted with a
series of wondrous Persian carpets laid end to end. A woman in a black
apron appeared in the hall from the basement, gazed at Mr. Prohack's
mounting legs, and said naught. On the first-floor was the drawing-room,
a magnificent apartment exquisitely furnished in Louis Quinze. Mr.
Prohack blenched. He had expected nothing half so marvellous. Was it
possible that he could afford to take this noble mansion and live in it?
It was more than possible; it was sure.

Mr. Prohack had a foreboding of a wild, transient impulse to take it.
The impulse died ere it was born. No further complications of his
existence were to be permitted; he would fight against them to the last
drop of his blood. And the complications incident to residence in such