Nothing changes a man, however, after he has once achieved his type: that was what I felt most keenly, at the end of the evening, as I sat with Lithway in his library. Mrs. Lithway had trailed her light skirts up the staircase with incomparable grace, smiling back at us over her shoulder; and I had gone with Lithway to the library, wondering how long I could hold him with talk of anything but her. I soon saw that he didn’t wish to talk of her. That, after all, was comprehensible--you could take it in so many ways; but it was with real surprise that I saw him sink almost immediately into gloom. Gloom had never been a gift of Lithway’s; his indolence had always been shot through with mirth. Even his absorption in the ghost had been whimsical--almost as if he had deliberately let himself go, had chosen to be obsessed. I didn’t know what to make of the gloom, the unresilient heaviness with which he met my congratulations and my sallies. They had been perfect together at dinner and through the early evening. Now he fell slack in every muscle and feature, as if the preceding hours had been a diabolic strain. I wondered a little if he could be worried about money. I supposed Lithway had enough--and his bride too, if it came to that--though I didn’t know how much. But one could not be long in the house without noticing luxuries that had nothing to do with its original unpretending comfort. You were met at every turn by some æsthetic refinement as costly as the lace and jewels in which Mrs. Lithway’s own loveliness was wrapped. It was evident from all her talk that her standard of civilization was very high; that she had a natural attachment to shining non-essentials. I was at a loss; I didn’t know what to say to him, he looked so tired. Such silence, even between Lithway and me, was awkward. Finally he spoke: “Do you remember my ghost?” “I remember your deafening me with talk of her. I never saw her.” “No, of course you wouldn’t have seen her.” “I saw one of my own, you remember.” “Oh, yes! A black man who struck at you. You never have had a black man strike at you in real life, have you?” He turned to me with a faint flicker of interest. “Never. We threshed all that out before, you know. I never even saw that particular nigger except at Braythe.” “You will see him, perhaps, if you are fool enough to go to British Central Africa,” he jerked out. “Perhaps,” I answered. But I was more interested in Lithway’s adventure. “Do you see your ghost now?” I had been itching to ask, and it seemed to me that he had given me a fair opening. Lithway passed his hand across his brows. “I don’t know. I’m not quite sure. Sometimes I think so. But I couldn’t swear to it.” “Has she grown dimmer, then--more hazy? You used to speak of her as if she were a real woman coming to a tryst: flesh and blood, at the least.”