“Odd’s Life!” he said lightly. “’Tis near incest, is it not? Making merry with thine uncle.”

“You are not my uncle,” whispered Alice.

“No. Only a phantom. I should not have punished you so, Alice. We will forget about it, shall we not? Tomorrow evening we shall start our search for a husband. It is well that these balls and parties go on all night or I should find difficulty in helping you.”

Alice stared at him desperately. “Oh, Gervase,” she cried. “I l…”

He quickly put a hand over her mouth to stifle the words.

“No,” he said. And again, “No. You are tired, my child. You must not take spirits such as myself seriously. We are nothing but air and fancy. See! I disappear. A new accomplishment.”

He began to fade before her eyes.

“Please,” begged Alice. “Please stay.”

“Till tomorrow,” came a faint mocking voice from somewhere near the ceiling.

Alice sat down and stared at the flickering flames of the fire. “I don’t want a husband,” she said fiercely into the silence of the room. “I want…”

But she did not know what she wanted apart from peace and security. Her strange, tumultuous feelings when he had kissed her she put down to a sort of supernatural power emanating from him.

Then she thought bleakly of the morrow which would bring a new companion. “She will be horrible, I just know it,” Alice told the uncaring walls.

Miss Cassandra Fadden arrived at three o’clock the next afternoon. Alice entered the room, trying to hide her nervousness. She was determined to send this new companion packing. She did not trust the Duke’s taste in companions.

At first she thought the drawing room was empty. Then someone gave a quiet little cough. Miss Fadden was seated in a high-backed chair in the comer, her feet barely touching the floor. She was a gray little woman—gray face, gray hair, gray shapeless dress, even her eyes were a washed-out gray. She wore a gray velvet turban which seemed too big for her small head. All her clothes, in fact, looked as if they had once belonged to a much bigger woman. Her shoes flopped at the end of her wrinkled gray stockings, her gloves hung from her elbows, and her false front of gray curls hung down on her forehead, leaving about an inch of skin between the curls and the hairline.

She looked harmless enough but Alice was determined to assert herself in case this gray ghost of a woman should turn out to be another Miss Snapper.

Alice patted her curls in the looking glass and then turned round and faced Miss Fadden. “Miss Fadden,” she began and then said as sternly as she could, “Alors, mademoiselle, you are supposed to stand when I address you.”