ns with him in the middle of the night. His
wife objected; she said it seemed hardly decent, but there was no keeping
her out.

She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. Nobody heard
her speak to him, but it seemed necessary for him to reply to her aloud,
and to see him suddenly get up from his chair and slip away to talk
earnestly to nothing in a corner disturbed the festivities.

"I should really be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a little time
to myself. She means kindly, but it _is_ a strain. And then the others
don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see it does."

One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. Whibley had been
playing whist, with the Major for a partner. At the end of the game the
Major, leaning across the table toward him, asked, in a tone of deadly
calm, "May I inquire, sir, whether there was any earthly reason" (he
emphasised "earthly") "for your following my lead of spades with your
only trump?"

"I--I--am very sorry, Major," replied Whibley apologetically.
"I--I--somehow felt I--I ought to play that queen."

"Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?" persisted the Major, who
had, of course, heard of "Maria."

Whibley admitted the play had been suggested to him. The Major rose from
the table.

"Then, sir," said he, with concentrated indignation, "I decline to
continue this game. A human fool I can tolerate for a partner, but if I
am to be hampered by a damned spirit--"

"You've no right to say that," cried Whibley hotly.

"I apologise," returned the Major coldly; "we will say a blessed spirit.
I decline to play whist with spirits of any kind; and I advise you, sir,
if you intend giving many exhibitions with the lady, first to teach her
the rudiments of the game."

Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I made
Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and water, and sent him and "Maria"
home in a cab.

Whibley got rid of "Maria" at last. It cost him in round figures about
eight thousand pounds, but his family said it was worth it.

A Spanish Count hired a furnished house a few doors from Whibley's, and
one evening he was introduced to Whibley, and came home and had a chat
with him. Whibley told him about "Maria," and the Count quite fell in
love with her. He said that if only he had had such a spirit to help and
advise him, it might have altered his whole life.

He was the first man who had ever said a kind word ab