Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/327

307 at the throat. And as she stood with one hand against the open door she reminded me of a silver birch. She was so thin, in fact, that she looked gaunt. About her downcast eyes was the same expression of fixed melancholy which had so disturbed me when I first saw her staring down over a stair-railing. This, together with her hollow cheeks, made her seem pathetic, pathetic in a way which I found it hard to explain. Yet, I noticed, now that I had a chance to study her at my leisure, that her face was not a dead white. There was a touch of yellow in it, just enough to give it an ivory tone.

I stood there in the doorway, waiting to see what would happen next. I watched her as she crossed the room, lifted a brocaded satin candy-box from the writing-table and took off the cover. I could hear a petulant and quite earthly exclamation of "Pshaw!" as she saw that it was empty and tossed it back on the table. And ghosts, I knew, were not given to eating bon-bons.

I saw her turn and stare studiously about the room. But I had no intention of retreating. So it was not long, naturally, before her eyes fell on me. This time, however, she did not vanish into thin air. She did not even start. She merely stared at me in a petulantly bewildered sort of way.