So, in great good humour, he went off with the Colonel and Master Freake.
"Your aide-de-camp's commission runs so far, I trust," said Margaret demurely, "as to permit me to choose my own cell."
"I think that might be allowed, madam," I replied, with answerable gravity, "but of course I must sit outside the door and keep strict watch over you."
"You would, I suppose, feel surer of me if you sat inside the door?"
"Naturally, madam."
"Then come along! I must know all that's knowable about that ghost. 'I never said any such thing,' quoth he! You're the cleverest man with your tongue I ever met, Oliver. And with what a pretty heat he said it! Just as, beyond a doubt, he did it with that pretty way he has."
If words were tones, and smiles, and eye-flashes, and lip-curlings, I could tell you not only what Margaret said but how she said it, and how, in saying it, she made mad sweet music ring within me.
We were out in the square again now, threading our way among people I hardly saw for being so wrapt up in her.
"Was she a pretty ghost?"
"Very," said I decidedly.