"I would like you to do it," he said to the beautiful woman at his side, "but they will have a title here. I suppose it must be that amusing person, Lady Coral-Smith—her husband made his money out of red herrings, and we shall have to draw one across the scent. All this kind of thing devolves upon me. I have to run everything: the hotel, the races, the invalids—and even Miss Elizabeth here. Do you wonder I am growing older?" "No one should grow older in the company of a clever woman," said Miss Bessie, pouting. "It is only the consciousness of intellectual inferiority which can say such a thing. I am angry with you, Dr. Orange. Pass me the chocolates immediately." "You see," said the doctor, appealing to them generally, "she covers me with scorn and then dies for my sake. I shall have to prescribe for her to-morrow." "But I shall leave an imperishable memory behind me, and if anyone remembers that such a person as Dr. Orange lived, they will say that he was my doctor. Thank you, sir—your chocolates are beastly. I shall keep them for the ghost." Here was a new topic, and one to which they turned with gusto. Andana was not so well amused that it had not a corner to spare for this particularly disobliging phantom, who had scared the peasants out of their wits and had actually appeared to a party coming down from Vermala at midnight. Miss Bessie told the story with a sense of drama all admirable; but she prefaced her narrative with the assurance that she would as soon believe in it as in the doctor at her side. "There isn’t any ghost, and so we are going out to look for it," she said; "the doctor wouldn’t dress because he thinks he looks nicer in the green tie. The ghost might be feminine, you know. Perhaps she wants votes for women, and so appeals first to the weaker intelligence. They say that no end of people have seen her, including the Swan; but he doesn’t count. Do you know the Swan? Oh, he’s a dear, and he thinks he’s swimming when he waltzes. He went up to Vermala to dinner the other night and saw the ghost as he came down. It’s a great big black bird and makes a noise like a windmill. Dr. Orange says that it is troubled by asthma, but Mr. Benny says that its bones want greasing. He is an engineer, you know. He told me so yesterday. He is an engineer in principle, but in practice they won’t have him, for he cannot pass the exams. Some men are so unlucky, while others—well, no one knows how they manage to get through. There is Dr. Orange, for instance; I think they must have passed him because they couldn’t stand the green bow. There could not be any other reason. Well, as I was saying—what, are you going to begin already, and I haven’t finished my ice? Monster!"