It was when the girls were brushing out their hair together in that hour
before retiring which is traditionally sacred to feminine confidences,
that Irene asked rather abruptly:--
"Well, Fanny, what is it that you want of me?"
"Want?" replied her friend, who could not possibly help being femininely
evasive. "I want to see you, of course."
"Yes," the guest returned, smiling; "and that is the reason you gave me
this room, which I never had before."
The hostess blushed. "It is the handsomest room in the house," she said
defensively.
"And one shares it," Irene added, "with the ghost of the gallant major."
"But you know," protested Fanny, "that you do not mind ghosts in the
least."
"Not so very much now that I am used to them. They are poor creatures;
and it seems to me that they get feebler the more people refuse to
believe in them."
"Oh, you don't suppose," cried Fanny, in the greatest anxiety, "that the
major's ghost has faded away, do you? Nobody has slept here for years,
so that nobody has seen it for ever so long."
"And you want me to assure it that you think it eminently respectable to
have a wraith in the family, so you hope it will persevere in haunting
Oldtower?"
"Oh, it is n't that at all," Fanny said, lowering her voice. "I suppose
Arthur would be furious if he knew it, or that I even mentioned it, but
I am sure it is more for his sake than for my own. Don't you think that
it is?"
"You are simply too provoking for anything," Irene responded. "I am sure
I never saw a ghost that talked so unintelligibly as you do. What in the
world do you mean?"
"Why, only the other day Arthur said in joke that if somebody could only
make the major's--" she looked around to indicate the word which she
evidently did not care to pronounce in that chamber, and Irene nodded
to signify that she understood--"if only somebody could make it tell
where the McHugh diamonds are--"
"Oh, that's it, is it?" interrupted Irene. "Well, my dear, I am willing
to speak to the major, if he will give me an opportunity; but it is not
likely that I can do much. He will not care for what I say."
"But appeal to his family pride," Fanny said, with an earnestness that
betrayed the importance of this matter to her. "Tell him how we are
going to ruin for want of just the help those diamonds would give us.
He ought to have some family pride left."
Miss Gaspic naturally did not wish to draw her friend into a
conversation upon the financial straits of the family, and she therefore
managed to turn the conversation, only repeating her promise that if
the wraith of the major put in an appearance, she would do whatever
lay in her power to get from him the secret which he had kept for a
century. It was not long before Fanny withdrew, and, taking a book,
Irene sat down to read, and await her visitor.
It was just at midnight that the major's spirit made its appearance. It
was a ghost of a conventional period, and it carefully observed all the
old-time conditions. Irene, who had been waiting for it, raised her eyes
from the book which she had been reading, and examined it carefully. The
ghost had the likeness of a handsome man of rather more than middle age
and of majestic presence. The figure was dressed in Continental uniform,
and in its hand carried a glass apparently full of red wine. As Irene
raised her eyes, the ghost bowed gravely and courteously, and then
drained the cup to its depth.
"Good-evening," Miss Gaspic said politely. "Will you be seated?"
The apparition was evidently startled by this cool address, and, instead
of replying, again bowed and again drained its glass, which had in some
mysterious manner become refilled.
"Thank you," Irene said, in answer to his repeated salute; "please sit
down. I was expecting you, and I have something to say."
The ghost of the dead-and-gone major stared more than before.
"I beg your pardon?" he responded, in a thinly interrogative tone.
"Pray be seated," Irene invited him for the third time.
The ghost wavered into an old-fashioned high-backed chair, which
remained distinctly visible through his form, and for a moment or two
the pair eyed each other in silence. The situation seemed somehow to be
a strained one even to the ghost.
"It seems to me," Irene said, breaking the silence, "that it would be
hard for you to refuse the request of a lady."
"Oh, impossible," the ghost quavered, with old-time gallantry;
"especially of a lovely creature like some we could mention. Anything,"
he added in a slightly altered tone, as if his experiences in ghostland
had taught him the need of caution--"anything in reason, of course."
Irene smiled her most persuasive smile. "Do I look like one who would
ask unreasonable things?" she asked.
"I am sure that nothing which you should ask could be unreasonable,"
the ghost replied, with so much gallantry that Irene had for a moment
a confused sense of having lost her identity, since to have a ghost
complimenting her naturally gave her much the feeling of being a ghost
herself.
"And certainly the McHugh diamonds can do you no good now," Miss Gaspic
continued, introducing her subject with truly feminine indirectness.
"The McHugh diamonds?" echoed the ghost stammeringly, as if the shock
of the surprise, under which he grew perceptibly thinner, was almost
more than his incorporeal frame could endure.
"Yes," responded Irene. "Of course I have no claim on them, but the
family is in severe need, and--"
"They wish to sell my diamonds!" exclaimed the wraith, starting up in
wrath. "The degenerate, unworthy--"
Words seemed to fail him, and in an agitated manner he swallowed two or
three glasses of wine in quick succession.
"Why, sir," Irene asked irrelevantly, "do you seem to be always drinking
wine?"
"Because," he answered sadly, "I dropped dead while I was drinking the
health of Lady Betty Rafferty, and since then I have to do it whenever I
am in the presence of mortals."
"But can you not stop?"
"Only when your ladyship is pleased to command me," he replied, with all
his old-fashioned elaborateness of courtesy.
"And as to the diamonds," Irene said, coming back to that subject with
an abruptness which seemed to be most annoying to the ghost, "of what
possible use can they be to you in your present condition?"
"What use?" echoed the shade of the major, with much fierceness. "They
are my occupation. I am their guardian spirit."
"But," she urged, bringing to bear those powers of logic upon which she
always had prided herself, "you drink the ghost of wine, don't you?"
"Certainly, madam," the spirit answered, evidently confused.
"Then why can you not be content with guarding the ghost of the McHugh
diamonds, while you let the real, live Arthur McHugh have the real
stones?"
"Why, that," the apparition returned, with true masculine perversity,
"is different--quite different."
"How is it different?"
"Now I am the guardian of a genuine treasure. I am the most considerable
personage in our whole circle."
"Your circle?" interrupted Irene.
"You would not understand," the shape said, "so I will, with your
permission, omit the explanation. If I gave up the diamonds, I should be
only a common drinking ghost--a thing to be gossiped about and smiled
at."
"You would be held in reverence as the posthumous benefactor of your
family," she urged.
"I am better pleased with things as they are. I have no great faith in
the rewards of benefactors; and the people benefited would not belong to
our circle, either."
"You are both selfish and cynical," Irene declared. She fell to
meditating what she had better say to him, and meanwhile she noted with
satisfaction that the candle was burning blue, a fact which, to her
accustomed eye, indicated that the ghost was a spirit of standing most
excellent in ghostly ranks.
"To suffer the disapproval of one so lovely," the remnant of the
old-time gentleman rejoined, "is a misfortune so severe that I cannot
forbear reminding you that you are not fully familiar with the
conditions under which I exist."
In this unsatisfactory strain the conversation continued for some time
longer; and when at length the ghost took its departure, and Irene
retired to rest, she could not flatter herself that she had made any
especial progress toward inducing the spirit to yield the secret which
it had so long and so carefully guarded. The major's affections seemed
to be set with deathless constancy upon the gems, and that most powerful
of masculine passions, vanity, to be enlisted in their defense.
"I am afraid that it is of no use," Irene sighed to herself; "and yet,
after all, he was only a man when he was alive, and he cannot be much
more than that now when he is a ghost."
And greatly comforted by the reflection that whatever is masculine is to
be overcome by feminine guile, she fell asleep.