"Right you are."
Leveridge waved his hand. Instantly all the inertia passed away from the
girl, she stood erect and firm. A merry twinkle kindled in her eye, a
flush was on her cheek, and mischievous devilry played about her lips.
"I feel," said she, "as another person."
"Oh! I am so glad, Miss Vincent."
"That is a pretty speech to make to a lady! Glad I am different from
what I was before."
"I did not mean that--I meant--in fact, I meant that as you were and as
you are you are always charming."
"Thank you, sir!" said Asphodel, curtsying and laughing.
"Ah! Miss Vincent, at all times you have seemed to me the ideal of
womanhood. I have worshipped the very ground you have trod upon."
"Fiddlesticks."
He looked at her. For the moment he was bewildered, oblivious that the
old personality of Asphodel had passed into his book and that the new
personality of Poppy had invaded Asphodel.
"Well," said she, "is that all you have to say to me?"
"All?--oh, no. I could say a great deal--I have ordered my supper for
nine o'clock."
"Oh, how obtuse you men are! Come--is this leap year?"
"I really believe that it is."
"Then I shall take the privilege of the year, and offer you my hand and
heart and fortune--there! Now it only remains with you to name the day."
"Oh! Miss Vincent, you overcome me."
"Stuff and nonsense. Call me Asphodel, do Joe."
* * * * *
Mr. Leveridge walked back to his lodgings as if he trod on air. As he
passed by the churchyard, he noticed the vicar, now shaven and shorn,
labouring at a laden wheelbarrow. He halted at the rails and said: "Why,
vicar, what are you about?"
"The sexton has begun a grave for old Betty Goodman, and it is
unfinished. He must dig another." He turned over the wheelbarrow and
shot its contents into the grave.
"But what are you doing?" again asked Joseph.
"Burying the Mitre hymnals," replied the vicar.
The clock struck a quarter to nine.
"I must hurry!" exclaimed Joseph.
On reaching his lodgings he found Major Dolgelly Jones in his
sitting-room, sitting on the edge of his table tossing up a tennis-ball.
In the armchair, invisible to the major, reclined Lady Mabel.
"I am so sorry to be late," apologised Joseph. "How are you, sir?"
"Below par. I have been so ever since you put me into your book. I have
no appetite for golf. I can do nothing to pass the weary hours but toss
up and down a tennis-ball."
"I hope----" began Joseph; and then a horror seized on him. He had no
personality of his creation left but that of Lady Mabel. Would it be
possible to translate that into the major?
He remained silent, musing for a while, and then said hesitatingly to
the lady: "Here, my lady, is the body you are to individualise."
"But it is that of a man!"
"There is no other left."
"It is hardly delicate."
"There is no help for it." Then turning to the major, he said: "I am
very sorry--it really is no fault of mine, but I have only a female
personality to offer to you, and that elderly."
"It is all one to me," replied the major, "catch"--he caught the ball.
"Many of our generals are old women. I am agreeable. _Place aux dames._"
"But," protested Lady Mabel, "you made me a member of a very ancient
titled house that came over with the Conqueror."
"The personality I offer you," said I to the major, "though female is
noble; the family is named in the roll of Battle Abbey."
"Oh!" said Dolgelly Jones, "I descend from one of the royal families of
Powys, lineally from Caswallon Llanhir and Maelgwn Gwynedd, long before
the Conqueror was thought of."
"Well, then," said Leveridge, and waved his hand.
In Swanton it is known that the major now never plays golf; he keeps
rabbits.
* * * * *
It is with some scruple that I insert this record in the _Book of
Ghosts_, for actually it is not a story of ghosts. But a greater scruple
moved me as to whether I should be justified in revealing a
professional secret, known only among such as belong to the
Confraternity of Writers of Fiction. But I have observed so much
perplexity arise, so much friction caused, by persons suddenly breaking
out into a course of conduct, or into actions, so entirely inconsistent
with their former conduct as to stagger their acquaintances and friends.
Henceforth, to use a vulgarism, since I have let the cat out of the bag,
they will know that such persons have been used up by novel writers that
have known them, and who have replaced the stolen individualities with
others freshly created. This is the explanation, and the explanation has
up to the present remained a professional secret.