He unlocked the door of somebody’s tenantless ex-home with its lonely furniture, and Marie Louise intruded, as one does, on the chairs, rugs, pictures, and vases that other people have been born with, have achieved, or have had thrust upon them. She wondered, as one does, what sort of beings they could have been that had selected such things to live among, and what excuse they had had for them.
Mr. Hailstorks had a surprise in store for her. He led her to the rear of the house and raised a shade. Instead of the expectable back yard, Marie Louise was startled to see a noble landscape leap into view. The house loomed over a precipitous descent into a great valley. A stream ran far below, and then the cliffs rose again opposite in a succession of uplifting terraces that reminded her somehow of Richmond Hill superbly built up above the silver Thames.
“Whatever is all that?” she cried.
“Rock Creek Park, ma’am,” said Mr. Hailstorks, who had a sincere real-estately affection for parks, since they raised the price of adjoining property and made renting easier.
“And what’s the price of all this grandeur?”
“Only three hundred a month,” said Mr. Hailstorks.
“Only!” gasped Marie Louise.
“It will be four hundred in a week or two––yes ma’am,” said Mr. Hailstorks.
So Marie Louise seized it before its price rose any farther.