"Of course you do, you silly."

"No, I don't. He--he's real."

"Well," Mary said, with a final toss of the head, "if you go seeing
ghosts like that you can't have me for your friend, Barbara Flint--you
can choose, that's all."

Barbara was aghast. Such a catastrophe had never been contemplated. Lose
Mary? Sooner life itself. She resolved, sorrowfully, to say no more
about her Friend. But here occurred a strange thing. It was as though
Mary felt that over this one matter Barbara had eluded her; she returned
to it again and again, always with contemptuous but inquisitive
allusion.

"Did he come last night, Barbara?"

"No."

"P'r'aps he did, only you were asleep."

"No, he didn't."

"You don't believe he'll come ever any more, do you? Now that I've said
he isn't there really?"

"Yes, I do."

"Very well, then, I won't see you to-morrow--not at all--not all day--I