“Then why can you not be content with guarding the ghost of the McHugh diamonds, while you let the real, live Arthur McHugh have the real stones?”
“Why, that,” the apparition returned, with true masculine perversity, “is different—quite different.”
“How is it different?”
“Now I am the guardian of a genuine treasure. I am the most considerable personage in our whole circle.”
“Your circle?” interrupted Irene.
“You would not understand,” the shape said, “so I will, with your permission, omit the explanation. If I gave up the diamonds, I should be only a common drinking ghost—a thing to be gossiped about and smiled at.”
“You would be held in reverence as the posthumous benefactor of your family,” she urged.
“I am better pleased with things as they are. I have no great faith in the rewards of benefactors; and the people benefited would not belong to our circle, either.”
“You are both selfish and cynical,” Irene declared. She fell to meditating what she had better say to him, and meanwhile she noted with satisfaction that the candle was burning blue, a fact which, to her accustomed eye, indicated that the ghost was a spirit of standing most excellent in ghostly ranks.