away in the night hours.  He recognised the number.  An enormous house; the largest in the Square after Hertford House.  Over its monumental portico was an enormous sign, truthfully describing it as “this noble mansion.”  As no automobile stood at the front-door Mr. 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 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.