‘A ghost! Nonsense,’ says she, now contemptuously. ‘But’—thoughtfully—‘what a queer story!’ And again, with a wrathful glance at Jacky: ‘After all, I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘Oh, I do! I want to,’ says Betty, who revels in sensations. ‘And the ghost development is beautiful. I’d rather see a ghost than anything. As you looked, Jacky, did she vanish into thin air?’
‘No; only round the corner,’ says Jacky reluctantly. He would evidently have liked the vanishing trick.
‘Very disappointing! But perhaps that’s her way of doing it. Corners are always so convenient.’
‘If the gates are all locked,’ says Susan, turning suddenly a magisterial eye upon her brother, ‘may I ask how you saw her?’
‘Ah, that’s part of it! That,’ says Betty, ‘is where the fire and brimstone come in. That’s what makes her a ghost. It isn’t everybody can see through stone walls,’ says she, lowering her voice mysteriously, and glancing at the staring Jacky. ‘She had evidently the power to turn Mrs. Denis’s walls into glass! It’s very unlucky, Jacky, for ghosts to fall in love with people, and I’m sorry to say I think this one has developed a mad fancy for you.’
‘She hasn’t!’ says Jacky, who is now extremely pale.
‘Circumstances point to it,’ says Betty, who is nothing if not a tease. ‘And when ghosts fall in love, they do dreadful things to people. Things like this!’ She has risen, and is now advancing on the stricken Jacky with her slender arms uplifted, and long fingers pointed downwards and arranged like claws. She has taken to a sort of prance, a high-stepping walk that brings her knees upwards and her toes outward, and she has worked her face out of all recognition in an abominable grin. All this taken together proves too much for Jacky, who, his face now visibly paler, descends precipitately upon Susan.
Susan has been seeing to the comfort of her little Bonnie, and has therefore been ignorant of Betty’s flight of fancy until the moment when Jacky stumbles somewhat heavily against her, and looking up, she sees Betty’s diabolical pose.
‘Betty, don’t!’ says she, glancing back to Jacky’s face, which is, indeed, a mixture of pluck and abject terror.