e answered, resentfully, "It could have
been, but I don't think it was."

"I will tell her what you say. Oh, may I tell her what you say?"

"I don't see why you shouldn't. It isn't very important, either way, is
it?"

"Oh, don't you think so? Not if it involved pretending what wasn't
true?"

She bent towards him in such anxious demand that he could not help
smiling.

"The whole thing was a pretence, wasn't it?" he suggested.

"Yes, but that would have been a pretence that we didn't know of."

"It would be incriminating to that extent, certainly," Verrian owned,
ironically. He found the question of Miss Shirley's blame for the
collusion as distasteful as the supposition of the collusion, but there
was a fascination in the innocence before him, and he could not help
playing with it.

Sometimes Miss Andrews apparently knew that he was playing with her
innocence, and sometimes she did not. But in either case she seemed
to like being his jest, from which she snatched a fearful joy. She was
willing to prolong the experience, and she drifted with him from picture
to picture, and kept the talk recurrently to Miss Shirley and the
phenomena of Seeing Ghosts.

Her mother and Mrs. Verrian evidently got on together better than either
of them at first expected. When it came to their parting, through Mrs.
Andrews's saying that she must be going, she shook hands with Mrs.
Verrian and said to Philip, "I am so glad to have met you, Mr. Verrian.
Will you come and see us?"

"Yes, thank you," he answered, taking the hand she now offered him,
and then taking Miss Andrews's hand, while the girl's eyes glowed with
pleasure. "I shall be very glad."

"Oh, shall you?" she said, with her transparent sincerity. "And you
won't forget Thursdays! But any day at five we have tea."

"Thank you," Verrian said. "I might forget the Thursdays, but I couldn't
forget all the days of the week."

Miss Andrews laughed and blushed at once. "Then we shall expect you
every day."

"Well, every day but Thursday," he promised.

When the mother and daughter had gone Mrs. Verrian said, "She is a great
admirer of yours, Philip. She's read your story, and I suspect she wants
an opportunity to talk with you about it."

"You mean Mrs. Andrews?"

"Yes. I suppose the daughter hasn't waited for an opportunity. The
mother had read that publisher's paragraph about your invalid, and
wanted to know if you had ever heard from her again. Women are personal
in