Interminable broad corridors, carpeted with ugly Brussels and suggesting a railway hotel, branched out before Miss Drake's eyes in various directions; upon them opened not bedrooms but "suites," as Mr.Marsham pere had loved to call them, of which the number was legion, while the bachelors' wing alone would have lodged a regiment.

Every bedroom was like every other, except for such variations as Tottenham Court Road, rioting at will, could suggest.

Copies in marble or bronze of well-known statues ranged along the corridors--a forlorn troupe of nude and shivering divinities.

The immense hall below, with its violent frescos and its brand-new Turkey carpets, was panelled in oak, from which some device of stain or varnish had managed to abstract every particle of charm.

A whole oak wood, indeed, had been lavished on the swathing and sheathing of the house, With the only result that the spectator beheld it steeped in a repellent yellow-brown from top to toe, against which no ornament, no piece of china, no picture, even did they possess some individual beauty, could possibly make it prevail.
And the drawing-room! As Alicia Drake advanced alone into its empty and blazing magnificence she could only laugh in its face--so eager and restless was the effort which it made, and so hopeless the defeat.
Enormous mirrors, spread on white and gold walls; large copies from Italian pictures, collected by Henry Marsham in Rome; more facile statues holding innumerable lights; great pieces of modern china painted with realistic roses and poppies; crimson carpets, gilt furniture, and flaring cabinets--Miss Drake frowned as she looked at it.