"Scarcely that. But he certainly seems anxious that we should."
"You have both resolved to give them up, haven't you?"
"Certainly, doctor," Valentine replied.
"Does Marr know that?" Levillier asked of Julian.
"No. I haven't seen him to speak to since our final sitting."
The little doctor sat in apparent meditation for two or three minutes.
Then he remarked, with abruptness:
"Addison, will you think me an impertinent elderly person if I give you a
piece of advice?"
"You--doctor! Of course not. What is it?"
"Well, you young fellows know me, know that I am not a mere
sentimentalist or believer in every humbug that is the fashion of
the moment. But one thing I do firmly believe, that certain people
are born with a power to command, or direct others, which amounts to
force. The world doesn't completely recognize this. The law doesn't
recognize, perhaps ought not to recognize it. Some call it hypnotism.
I call it suggestion."
He paused, as if he had finished.
"But your advice, doctor?" Julian said, wondering.
"Oh, h'm! I don't mean to give it to you, after all."
"Why?"
Doctor Levillier became enigmatic.
"Because I have just remembered that to warn is often to supply a cause
of stumbling," he said.
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