"The deuce you do! How did you learn it?"
"I was present during the whole interview." I gave him an account of how I came to play the spy, adding: "How did you learn it?"
"She told me directly after parting from him. Poor Daphne! she was quite upset over it—crying, in fact."
"She might have spared her tears," I grumbled. "His love was not so disinterested that she need weep. My candid opinion is that the fellow is so mad over his art that it governs even his choice of a wife, and he selects Daphne because he thinks her figure will serve as a model for some of his pictures." And I detailed to my uncle those utterances of the artist that seemed to bear out my opinion.
"A naïve avowal, certainly. His mode of lovemaking was a fine example of 'How not to do it.' And so," he continued, after a brief interval, "Daphne still hopes and dreams that George will return. Absurd! I thought she had given up that idea long ago. However, let him return. He shall never have Daphne—never!"
He said that last word in a decidedly emphatic manner, and scarcely had he said it when a startled expression crossed his face, the cigar dropped from his lips, and he looked nervously round in all directions.
"My dear uncle, what is the matter?" said I, amused at his alarm.
"Didn't you hear a laugh?"
"A laugh? No! Why, you are becoming nervous!"
Never before had I seen my uncle looking so startled as he was at that moment. The one point of his character on which he prided himself was his disbelief in the supernatural. To see him trembling at a mere sound was a surprise to me. I had yet to learn that extremes meet. Have there not lived philosophers who, denying the existence of ghosts, have nevertheless been so apprehensive of meeting them as never to enter a dark room without a light? My uncle's philosophy savoured very much of this character.