“Dear me, no!” sighed the Other wearily. “But I must confess that I am astounded at the ease with which you charming people put up with this kind of thing night after night. You might, I do assure you, just as well be locked in the perpetual shadows of Eblis. But I suppose I must stay until I have fulfilled my promise——”
“Your promise!” cried Lady Surplice. “What promise? What is the dreadful man talking about now?”
De Travest spoke sternly: “Sir, may I remind you that we of our generation are not easily frightened by invisible presences, phantoms, imps, ghosts, vampires and demons?”
“Oh, come!” laughed the Other. “Your generation, nay, your century, is more susceptible of superstition than any that has gone before. It is merely that you have altered the angle, and are now enslaved by the meanest superstition of all, which is common sense.”
“That may or may not be,” said the Lord Chancellor; “but may I point out to you, young man, that it is considered neither polite nor manly to sit at a lady’s table only to distress her?”
“A lady?” said the Other.
“A lady, certainly!” snapped my lord.
“What lady?”
“Lady Surplice, sir.”
“Well, she may be a lady,” said the Other severely, “but she is certainly no gentlewoman.”