The Bars of Iron Part 15

She frowned very slightly above her stocking. "Not particularly," she said.

"You bear with them then?" Piers tone was insistent.

She paused as though considering her reply. "I generally try to avoid them," she said finally.

"You keep aloof--and darn stockings," suggested Piers.

"And listen to your music," said Avery.

"Do you like my music?" He shot the question at her imperiously.

Avery nodded.

"Really? You do really?" There was boyish eagerness about him now. He leaned towards her, his brown face aglow.

She nodded again. "Do you ever--write music?"

"No," said Piers.

"Why not?"

He answered with a curious touch of bitterness. "No one would understand it if I did."

"But what a mistake!" she said.

"Is it? Why?" His voice sounded stubborn.

She looked suddenly straight up at him and spoke with impulsive warmth.

"Because it is quite beside the point. It wouldn't matter to anyone but yourself whether people understood it or not. Of course popularity is pleasant. Everyone likes it. But do you suppose the really big people think at all about the world's opinion when they are at work? They just give of their best because nothing less would satisfy them, but they don't do it because they want to be appreciated by the crowd. Genius always gets above the crowd. It's only those who can't rise above their critics who really care what the critics say."

She stopped. Her face was flushed, her eyes kindling; but she lowered them very suddenly and returned to her work. For the fitful gleam in Piers' eyes had leaped in response to a blaze so hot, so ardent, that she could not meet it unflinching.

She was oddly grateful to him when he pa.s.sed her brief confusion by as though he had not seen it. "So I'm a genius, am I?" he said, and laughed a careless laugh. "Are you listening, Queen of my heart? Aunt Avery says I'm a genius."

He moved to Jeanie's sofa, and sat down on the edge of it. Her hand stole instantly into his.

"Yes, of course," she said, in her soft, tired voice. "That's what I meant when I was trying to remember that other word--the word that begins 'hyp.'"

"Hypnotism," said Avery very quietly.

Piers laughed again. "It's a word you don't understand, my Queen of all good fairies. It's only the naughty fairies--the will-o'-the-wisps and the hobgoblins--that know anything about it. It's a wicked spell concocted by the King of Evil himself, and it's only under that spell that his prisoners ever see the light. It's the one ticket of leave from the dungeons, and they must either use it or die in the dark."

Jeanie was listening with a puzzled frown, but Gracie's imagination was instantly fired.

"Do go on!" she said eagerly. "I know what a ticket of leave is. Nurse's uncle had one. It means you have to go back after a certain time, doesn't it?"

"Exactly," said Piers grimly. "When the ticket expires."

"But I don't see," began Jeanie. Her face was flushed and a little distressed. "How can hypnotism be like--like a ticket of leave?"

"I told you you wouldn't understand," said Piers. "You see you've got to realize what hypnotism is before you can know what it's like. It's really the art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that other person see things as you want them to see them--not as they really are.

It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And when that power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired--and the prisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person with him. Sometimes he goes alone."

He stopped abruptly as a hand rapped smartly on the door.

Avery looked up again from her work. "Come in!" she said.

"It's the doctor!" whispered Gracie to Piers. "Bother him!"

Piers laughed with his lower lip between his teeth, and Lennox Tudor opened the door and paused upon the threshold.

Avery rose to receive him, but his look pa.s.sed her almost instantly and rested frowningly upon Piers.

"Enter the Lord High Executioner!" said Piers flippantly. "Well? Who is the latest victim? And what have you come here for?"

The doctor came in. He shook hands with Avery, and turned at once to Piers.

"I have come to see my patient," he said aggressively.

"Have you?" said Piers. "So have I." He stood up, squaring his broad shoulders. "And I'm coming again--by special invitation." His dark eyes flung a gibe with the words.

"Good-bye, Mr. Evesham!" said Avery somewhat pointedly.

He turned sharply, and took her extended hand with elaborate courtesy.

"Good-bye,--Mrs. Denys!" he said.

"I'll come down and see you off," cried Gracie, attaching herself to his free arm.

"Ah! Wait a bit!" said Piers. "I haven't said good-bye to the Queen of the fairies yet."

He dropped upon one knee by Jeanie's sofa. Her arm slid round his neck.

"When will you come again?" she whispered.

"When do you hold your next court?" he whispered back.

She smiled, her pale face close to his. "I love to see you--always," she said. "Come just any time!"

"Shall I?" said Piers.

He was looking straight into the tired, blue eyes, and his own were soft with a tenderness that must have charmed any child to utter confidence.

She lifted her lips to his. "As often as ever you can," she murmured.

He kissed her. "I will. Good-night, my Queen!"

"Good-night," she answered softly, "dear Sir Galahad!"

Avery had a glimpse of Piers' face as he went away, and she wondered momentarily at the look it wore.