97

“Your sister,” he remarked to me as we were walking down to the lake for a swim just before going to bed, “is a very unusual type.”

“Not at all!” I assured him. “Beth is the true feminine type which you have never taken the trouble to know.”

“Oh, come, Lucien! Not feminine, you know. Though she is inconsistent.”

I resented the imputation hotly, but he only laughed and said that he guessed it was true that a man didn’t understand the women in his family as well as an outsider did.

“You think,” I said, “just because she says she isn’t afraid of ghosts––”

“Not at all,” he denied. “That wasn’t the reason, but––I like her type, though I always supposed I wouldn’t. It is a new one to me––anyway. I didn’t think so young a girl as she––”

98

Our discussion was cut short by the inevitable, ever-present Ptolemy, who came running up to us, clad in about four inches of swimming trunks.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” I demanded.