“What! after I have been taxing my invention to produce the most terrible illusion that was ever witnessed? Will you let a clown like Spavinger—a well-born stable-boy—baulk us of our triumph? I am sending to Paris for a powder to burn in a corner of the room, which will throw the ghastliest pallor upon your countenance. When I devise a ghost, it shall be no impromptu spectre in yellow riding-boots, but a vision so awful, so true an image of a being returned from the dead, that the stoutest nerves will thrill and tremble at the apparition. The nun’s habit is coming from Paris. I have asked my cousin, Madame de Fiesque, to obtain it for me at the Carmelites.” “You are taking a vast deal of trouble. But what kind of assembly can we muster at this dead season?” “Leave all in my hands. I will find you some of the choicest spirits. It is to be _my_ party. I will not even tell you what night I fix upon, till all is ready. So make no engagements for your evenings, and tell nobody anything.” “Who invented that powder?” “A French chemist. He has it of all colours, and can flood a scene in golden light, or the rose of dawn, or the crimson of sunset, or a pale silvery blueness that you would swear was moonshine. It has been used in all the Court ballets. I saw Madame once look as ghastly as death itself, and all the Court was seized with terror. Some blundering fool had burnt the wrong powder, which cast a greenish tint over the faces, and Henriette’s long thin features had a look of death. It seemed the forecast of an early grave; and some of us shuddered, as at a prophecy of evil.” “You might expect the worst in her case, knowing the wretched life she leads with Monsieur.” “Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. There are compensations.” “If you mean scandal, I will not hear a word. She is adorable. The most sympathetic person I know—good even to her enemies—who are legion.” “You had better not say that, for I doubt she has only one kind of enemy.” “As how?” “The admirers she has encouraged and disappointed. Yes, she is adorable, wofully thin, and, I fear, consumptive, but royal: and adorable, ‘douceur et lumière,’ as Bossuet calls her. But to return to my ghost-party.” “If you were wise, you would abandon the notion. I doubt that in spite of your powders your friends will never believe in a ghost.” “Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get them in the proper temper.” That idea of figuring in a picturesque habit, and in a halo of churchyard light, was irresistible. Hyacinth promised to conform to Malfort’s plans, and to be ready to assume her phantom _rôle_ whenever she was called upon.