“You cannot touch it,” she said. “It is the ghost of a book. And did you write it?”
“Write it? No,” I said; “I am writing it. It is not yet finished.”
“But here it is,” she said, turning over the last pages. “As a spirit book it is finished. It is very successful; it is held in high estimation by intelligent thinkers; it is a standard work.”
I stood trembling with emotion. “High estimation!” I said. “A standard work!”
“Oh yes,” she replied, with animation; “and it well deserves its great success, especially in its conclusion. I have read it twice.”
“But let me see these concluding pages,” I exclaimed. “Let me look upon what I am to write.”
She smiled, and shook her head, and closed the book. “I would like to do that,” she said, “but if you are really a man you must not know what you are going to do.”
“Oh, tell me, tell me,” cried Bentley from below, “do you know a book called ‘Stellar Studies,’ by Arthur Bentley? It is a book of poems.”
The figure gazed at him. “No,” it said, presently, “I never heard of it.”
I stood trembling. Had the youthful figure before me been flesh and blood, had the book been a real one, I would have torn it from her.