And of course: "How is your aunt?" I enquired at last.
He seemed to have been awaiting the question. It fell like a stone into
a deep pool, so many expressions flitted across his long un-English
face.
"She's aged a good deal," he said softly, and broke off.
"She's been very decent," he continued presently after, and paused
again. "In a way." He eyed me fleetingly. "I dare say you heard that
she--that is, that we--had lost a good deal of money."
"No," I said.
"Oh, yes!" said Seaton, and paused again.
And somehow, poor fellow, I knew in the clink and clatter of glass and
voices that he had lied to me; that he did not possess, and never had
possessed, a penny beyond what his aunt had squandered on his too ample
allowance of pocket-money.
"And the ghosts?" I enquired quizzically. He grew instantly solemn,
and, though it may have been my fancy, slightly yellowed. But "You are
making game of me, Withers," was all he said.
He asked for my address, and I rather reluctantly gave him my card.
"Look here, Withers," he said, as we stood in the sunlight on the
thronging kerb, saying good-bye, "here I am, and it's all very well;
I'm not perhaps as fanciful as I was.
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