Meanwhile, here was the house--about which there was no mystery--least
of all, as to its cost. 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.
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