I'm going to bring it off the last night." She stopped long enough for
Verrian to revise his resolution of going away with the fellows who were
leaving the middle of the week, and to decide on staying to the end.
"I am going to call it Seeing Ghosts."
"That's good," Verrian said, provisionally.
"Yes, I might say I was surprised at my thinking it up."
"That would be one form of modesty."
"Yes," she said, with a wan smile she had, "and then again it mightn't be
another." She went on, abruptly, "As many as like can take part in the
performance. It's to be given out, and distinctly understood beforehand,
that the ghost isn't a veridical phantom, but just an honest, made-up,
every-day spook. It may change its pose from time to time, or its
drapery, but the setting is to be always the same, and the people who
take their turns in seeing it are to be explicitly reassured, one after
another, that there's nothing in it, you know. The fun will be in seeing
how each one takes it, after they know what it really is."
"Then you're going to give us a study of temperaments."
"Yes," she assented. And after a moment, given to letting the notion get
quite home with her, she asked, vividly, "Would you let me use it?"
"The phrase? Why, certainly. But wouldn't it be rather too
psychological? I think just Seeing Ghosts would be better.
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