"
"I think it's great. Are you going to let me have a chance with a
question?"
"Are you going to see a ghost?"
"To be sure I am. May I really ask it what I please?"
"If you're honest."
"Oh, I shall be honest--"
He stopped breathlessly, but she did not seem called upon to supply any
meaning for his abruptness. "I'm awfully glad you like the idea," she
said, "I have had to think the whole thing out for myself, and I haven't
been quite certain that the question-asking wasn't rather silly, or, at
least, sillier than the rest. Thank you so much, Mr. Verrian."
"I've thought of my question," he began again, as abruptly as he had
stopped before. "May I ask it now?"
Cries of laughter came up from the meadow below, and the voices seemed
coming nearer.
"Oh, I mustn't be seen!" Miss Shirley lamented. "Oh, dear! If I'm seen
the whole thing is given away. What shall I do?" She whirled about and
ran down the road towards a path that entered the wood.
He ran after her. "My question is, May I come to see you when you get
back to town?"
"Yes, certainly. But don't come now! You mustn't be seen with me! I'm
not supposed to be in the house at all."
If Verrian's present mood had been more analytic, it might have occurred
to him that the element of mystery which Miss Shirley seemed to cherish
in regard to herself personally was something that she could dramatically
apply with peculiar advantage to the phantasmal part she was to take in
her projected entertainment.
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