In the exact middle of the room underneath the gas fixture was the centre-table, and upon it a pitcher of ice-water.

The blank, white monotony of one side of the room was jarred upon by the grate and mantelpiece, iron, painted black, while on the mantelpiece itself stood a little porcelain matchsafe with ribbed sides in the form of a truncated cone.

Precisely opposite the chimney was the bureau, flanked on one side by the door of the closet, and on the other in the corner of the room by the stationary washstand with its new cake of soap and its three clean, glossy towels.
On the wall to the left of the door was the electric bell and the directions for using it, and tacked upon the door itself a card as to the hours for meals, the rules of the hotel, and the extract of the code defining the liabilities of innkeepers, all printed in bright red.
Everything was clean, defiantly, aggressively clean, and there was a clean smell of new soap in the air.
But the room was bare of any personality.

Of the hundreds who had lived there, perhaps suffered and died there, not a trace, not a suggestion remained; their different characters had not left the least impress upon its air or appearance.

Only a few hairpins were scattered on the bottom of one of the bureau drawers, and two forgotten medicine bottles still remained upon the top shelf of the closet.
This had been the appearance of Vandover's new home when he had first come to it, after leaving his suite of rooms in the huge apartment house on Sutter Street.