"My dear, who is prepared to contradict you?" Mrs. Van Winkle played with a morsel of jelly on the end of her fork, as she spoke. "We all love humanity too much. Yes, I wish I were a 'Soul'!"
"Well!" said Sims, reflectively, with a funny twitch of his mouth, "you fence beautifully, and I have seen you dance a pas seul—two recommendations, I believe, to Souldom." Then, turning to the large lady, who certainly looked as if she could neither fence nor dance a pas seul, he continued, "And you, princess, what do you say? Do you feel like being a 'Soul'?"
The princess paused, and looked grave, before she replied,
"I don't quite know what it all means, Mr. Sims; but if it has anything to do with ghosts, and visions, and second sight, I have the best right to join the society, for I am very croyante. I have had such experiences! Ah!"
"Do tell us about them."
"A ghost story first hand! How delightful!" said several people round the table.
"Not now, not while we are at table," returned the princess. "Perhaps by and by." And no one had the bad taste to insist further.
But Mrs. Van Winkle, who, no matter at what cost, was never content to play second fiddle, here observed,
"I once saw a ghost—or what I took to be a ghost—in St. Petersburg, in the dusk of the evening, in my room. I was dreadfully frightened. It proved to be a Russian; those foreigners are so very enterprising. He had long shown his admiration. He now sprang at me with a drawn sword in his hand. Happily, I was near the bell, or it might have been very awkward."
"And what became of the ghost?" asked Mordaunt, biting his lips. "Did you have him arrested?"