an abode would be enormous. Still, he thought that he might as well see
the whole house, and he proceeded upstairs, wondering how many people
there were in London who possessed the taste to make, and the money to
maintain, such a home. Even the stairs from the first to the second
floor, were beautiful, having a lovely carpet, lovely engravings on the
walls, and a delightful balustrade. On the second-floor landing were two
tables covered with objects of art, any of which Mr. Prohack might have
pocketed and nobody the wiser; the carelessness that left the place
unguarded was merely prodigious.

Mr. Prohack heard a sound; it might have been the creak of a floor-board
or the displacement of a piece of furniture. Startled, he looked through
a half-open door into a small room. He could see an old gilt mirror over
a fire-place; and in the mirror the images of the upper portions of a
young man and a young woman. The young woman was beyond question Sissie
Prohack. The young man, he decided after a moment of hesitation--for he
could distinguish only a male overcoated back in the glass--was Oswald
Morfey. The images were very close together. They did not move. Then Mr.
Prohack overheard a whisper, but did not catch its purport. Then the
image of the girl's face began to blush; it went redder and redder, and
the crimson seemed to flow downwards until the exposed neck blushed
also. A marvellous and a disconcerting spectacle. Mr. Prohack felt that
he himself was blushing. Then the two images blended, and the girl's
head and hat seemed to be agitated as by a high wind. And then both
images moved out of the field of the mirror.

The final expression on the girl's face as it vanished was one of the
most exquisite things that Mr. Prohack had ever witnessed. It brought
the tears to his eyes. Nevertheless he was shocked.