Page:The Sense of the Past (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/114

 passed between us; but the fact of my situation is that he did exist."

"Is the fact of your situation that you've seen a ghost?"

"Oh," Ralph raised his head high to say, "I decline to admit for a moment that he was that. He was much better than any ghost."

It seemed to make for the Ambassador a distinction that he desired to grasp. "'Better'?"

"Well, much more contrary to nature."

"I don't understand then," the Ambassador said, "why you don't rather call it worse. Isn't the impression strange in proportion as it's contrary to nature, and isn't it by the same token agitating or upsetting or appalling, for any relation with such a matter, in proportion as it's strange?" After which he went on while Ralph felt his considering look: "Do you really like such impressions?"

"I see I'm an impression to you—and of course an extraordinary one; but he wasn't one to me," Ralph pursued, "in any such sense as that for the interest of our relation, as you justly term it, is so much more interesting, you see, than any with which, even at the best, I can hope to inspire you. He was a man as substantial for me as I am—or as I was!" Ralph pulled up a moment to smile—"for myself; and interesting most of all, I suppose, because so extraordinarily interested."

"Interested in you?" his host inquired as 100