"A dooced deal," acquiesced the General gravely.
"You're very much annoyed with vermin out there in India?" remarked Sir Paul.
"So we are, sir," agreed the General.
"It's very hard, you see, to meet with a genuine ghost, Miss Marlowe; they generally turn out impostors," said Doocey.
"I should like to think my room was haunted," said Lady Jane.
"Oh! dear Lady Jane, how can you be so horribly brave?" cried Miss Blunket.
"We have no cobras here, at all events," said Sir Paul, nodding to Sir Jekyl, with the gravity becoming such a discovery.
"No," said Sir Jekyl, gloomily. I suppose he was thinking of something else.
The ladies now floated away like summer clouds, many-tinted, golden, through the door, which Doocey held gracefully open; and the mere mortals of the party, the men, stood up in conventional adoration, while the divinities were translated, as it were, before their eyes, and hovered out of sight and hearing into the resplendent regions of candelabra and mirrors, nectar and ambrosia, tea and plum-cake, and clouds of silken tapestry, and the musical tinkling of their own celestial small-talk.