"A little bird, my dear friend, a sweet little singing bird. Our London groves are vocal with such airy songsters. Pray keep your hand steady. God's curse, fellow, that wash of yours is revolting when 'tis not laid on smoothly. You are too thick over the right temple." There was a pause, during which Fétis finished his ground-colour and outlined an eyebrow with a miniature-painter's pencil. "And so you saw a ghost last night. Was it in Denmark Street, St. Giles's, as you reeled homewards after your orgy?" "No, sir, 'twas before I left Lord Lavendale's house. I had supped with his lordship and Mr. Durnford--" "A fellow I hate!" interrupted Topsparkle; "a sinister, prying knave!" "We had played cards for an hour or so, and I had been sole winner. I was in excellent spirits, elated, rejuvenated by my good luck. I had to pass through a suite of cold and empty rooms, dark except for the candle carried by my companion, Durnford, and a gleam of light from a lamp on the staircase beyond. It was in this semi-darkness I saw the shape of her whose death we compassed, in that room yonder, forty years ago!" He pointed to the door opening into Topsparkle's bedchamber. "My good Fétis, you were drunk," said his master, without moving a muscle. "His lordship had plied you with wine till your highly imaginative mind was on the alert for phantoms. An effect of light and shade in a dusky room, a white curtain perchance, an optical delusion of some kind. I should have given you credit for more sense and less superstition." "I tell you 'twas she, Margharita Vincenti. It was her face, sad, reproachful, as it has looked upon me many a time in this house. It was her figure, her attitude, standing there before me in the light of Mr. Durnford's uplifted candle, with all the reality of life." "And yet in a trice the vision vanished, melted before your eyes?" "Indeed I know not, sir, for terror overcame my senses, and I swooned." "My good Fétis, you are in a very bad state of health. You need to be monstrously careful of yourself. These signs and wonders of yours presage lunacy. Give me the hand-mirror. No, your eyebrows are not so successful as usual. There is a gouty line in the arch of the left, and you have given me a scintilla too much rouge. Pray tone down that rosy-apple appearance to a more delicate peach bloom. I think you are falling off in the composition of your red. There is a purple tinge that is too conspicuously artificial. You are a chemist, and should know more of the amalgamation of colours. You should try to imitate nature, my good Fétis. And you tell me you saw my poor Margharita's ghost, and that 'twas Mr. Durnford who held the candle that lighted the vision?" "It was just as I have told you."