“I mean her very self, listening, looking, living--waiting!”
Whether I had insanity or sorrow to deal with, I could not gainsay the unhappy man, and I only said what I really felt: “Yes, the place seems strangely full of her. I wish you would tell me about her.”
He asked, with a certain slyness, “Have you heard anything about her already? At the club? From that fool woman in the kitchen?”
“For heaven’s sake, no, Alderling!”
“Or about me?”
“Nothing whatever!”
He seemed relieved of whatever suspicion he felt, but he said finally, and with an air of precaution, “I should like to know just how much you mean by the place seeming full of her.”
“Oh, I suppose the association of her personality with the whole house, and especially this room. I didn’t mean anything preternatural, I believe.”
“Then you don’t believe in a life after death?” he demanded with a kind of defiance.
I thought this rather droll, seeing what his own position had been, but that was not the moment for the expression of my amusement. “The tendency is to a greater tolerance of the notion,” I said. “Men like James and Royce, among the psychologists, and Shaler, among the scientists, scarcely leave us at peace in our doubts, any more, much less our denials.”