"But Alice
has met him."
"You must go with me some time," said she. "But about the ghosts--"
"What did he say?"
"He seemed to be shy of them," laughed Mrs. Winnie. "He said it had
a tendency to lead one into dangerous fields. But oh! I forgot--I
asked my swami also, and it didn't startle him. They are used to
ghosts; they believe that souls keep coming back to earth, you know.
I think if it was his ghost, I wouldn't mind seeing it--for he has
such beautiful eyes. He gave me a book of Hindu legends--and there
was such a sweet story about a young princess who loved in vain, and
died of grief; and her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the
night-time where her lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she
carried him off into the ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I
sat out here and read it, and I could imagine the terrible tigress
lurking in the shadows, with its stripes shining in the firelight,
and its green eyes gleaming. You know that poem--we used to read it
in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning bright!'"
It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs.
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