“Do you happen to know,” continued Mrs. Bellmore, with sudden irrelevancy, “if I resemble any one of the female relatives of your restless ancestor, Captain Kinsolving?”
“Don’t think so,” said Terence, with an extremely puzzled air. “Never heard of any of them being noted beauties.”
“Then, why,” said Mrs. Bellmore, looking the young man gravely in the eye, “should that ghost have kissed me, as I’m sure it did?”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Terence, in wide-eyed amazement; “you don’t mean that, Mrs. Bellmore! Did he actually kiss you?”
“I said it,” corrected Mrs. Bellmore. “I hope the impersonal pronoun is correctly used.”
“But why did you say I was responsible?”
“Because you are the only living male relative of the ghost.”
“I see. ‘Unto the third and fourth generation.’ But, seriously, did he—did it—how do you—?”
“Know? How does any one know? I was asleep, and that is what awakened me, I’m almost certain.”
“Almost?”