"This difficulty had been foreseen, too. I see that I shall have to make
the first move, and all that I shall require of the audience is that I
shall not be supposed to be in collusion with the illusion. I hope that
after my experience, whatever it is, some young woman of courage will
follow."
He passed into the foyer, and from that came into the library, where he
showed against the dark background in an attitude of entreaty slightly
burlesqued. The ghost reappeared.
"Shall I marry the woman I am thinking of?" he asked.
The phantom seemed to hesitate; it wavered like a pale reflection cast
against the pall. Then, in the tones which Verrian knew, the answer
came:
"Ask her. She will tell you."
The phantom had scored a hit, and the applause was silenced with
difficulty; but Verrian felt that Miss Shirley had lost ground. It could
not have been for the easy cleverness of such a retort that she had
planned the affair. Yet, why not? He was taking it too seriously. It
was merely business with her.
"And I haven't even the right to half a question more!" Bushwick
lamented, in a dramatized dejection, and crossed slowly back from the
library to his place.
"Why, haven't you got enough?" one of the men asked, amidst the gay
clamor of the women.
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