Cecil seemed to have recovered something of his normal good humour; and his face betrayed almost a grin of amusement as he replied:
“Oh, yes! We’ve got a family ghost—or so the country-folk say. I’ve never come across it myself; but it’s common talk that the family spectre is a White Man who walks in the woods just before the head of the family dies. All rot, you know. Nobody believes in it, really. But it’s quite an old-established tradition round about here.”
Sir Clinton laughed.
“You certainly don’t seem to take him very seriously. What about Family Curses? Are you well supplied?”
“You’d better apply to Maurice if you’re keen on Family Curses. He seems to have specialized in that branch, if you ask me.”
CHAPTER II.
Mr. Polegate’s Sense of Humour
“How time flies!” said Joan Chacewater, in mock despondency. “To-night I’m in my prime. To-morrow I shall be twenty-one, with all my bright youth behind me. Five years after that, I shall quite possibly be married to Michael here, if I’m still alive and he hasn’t died in the meantime. Then I shall sit o’ nights darning his socks in horn-rimmed spectacles, and sadly recalling those glad days when I was young and still happy. It’s dreadful! I feel I want to cry over it. Give me something to cry into, Michael; I seem to have mislaid my bag.”
Michael Clifton obligingly held out a handkerchief. Joan looked at it disparagingly.
“Haven’t you anything smaller than that? It discourages me. I’m not going to cry on a manufacturing scale. It wouldn’t be becoming.”
Una Rainhill laid her cigarette down on the ash-tray beside her.