V
To have proposed to a man, and been refused, is not a soothing experience for any woman; and although the ground upon which Arthur had based his rejection was one which Irene had before known to be the obstacle between them, the refusal remained a stubborn fact to rankle in her mind. All the evening she nursed her wounded feelings, and by the time midnight brought her once more face to face with the ghost of the major, her temper was in a state which nothing save the desire to shield a lady could induce one to call by even so mild a word as uncertain.
The spirit appeared as usual, saluting, and tossing off bumpers from its shadowy wine-glass, and it had swallowed at least a dozen cups before Miss Gaspic condescended to indicate that she was aware of its presence.
“Why do you stand there drinking in that idiotic fashion?” she demanded, with more asperity than politeness. “Once is quite enough for that sort of thing.”
“But I cannot speak until I have been spoken to,” the ghost responded apologetically, “and I have to continue drinking until I have been requested to do something else.”
“Drink, then, by all means,” Irene replied coldly, turning to pick up a book. “I only hope that so much wine will not go to your head.”
“But it is sure to,” the ghost said, in piteous tones; “and in all my existence, even when I was only a man, I have never been overcome with wine in the presence of a lady.”
It continued to swallow the wraith of red wine while it spoke, and Irene regarded it curiously.
“An inebriated ghost,” she observed dispassionately, “is something which it is so seldom given to mortal to see that it would be the greatest of folly to neglect this opportunity of getting sight of that phenomenon.”
“Please tell me to go away, or to sit down, or to do something,” the quondam major pleaded.