inatownlikethis

"I think all the rooms are much the same." Helen pauses, glancing around her Milliways lodging. "But I have brought some things from where I live." It's probably clear what's hers: the room is bland, comfortable in a perfunctory way, without much character. But some framed prints have been hung on the wall, a lace shawl makes a tidy triangle over the back of a chair, some little lacquer boxes presumably hold jewelry or writing implements or whatever other things a person might keep on a desk or a windowsill. A porcelain pug dog guards a vase of autumn flowers.

(It doesn't look conspicuously like a gradual accumulation of possessions in a secure location, but it is. Her most valuable jewels are here now, and two hundred dollars in a secret compartment of one of the boxes; the shawl was a wedding present from her sister.)

"Would you like some coffee? Hot chocolate?" The set of porcelain cups, those can't have come with the room either.