Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/58

50 old face was flushed with excitement and hope. Owen, going straight up to him, put his two hands on his shoulders, and without uttering a word, gently forced him backwards into a chair. Then he sat down in front of him, so close that their knees touched, and fixing his strong eyes on Renouf's wavering ones, and stroking with his finger-tips the muscles behind the ears, he threw him immediately into an hypnotic trance.

"You want to stay here, don't you?" said Owen emphatically. "I want to stay here," repeated the old man through grey lips. His face was become the colour of ashes, his hands were cold to the sight. "You want your cousin to go away and not disturb you any more? Answer—answer me." "I want my cousin to go away," Renouf murmured, but in his staring, fading eye were traces of the struggle tearing him within.

Owen pressed down the eyelids, made another pass before the face, and rose on his long legs with a sardonic grin. Margot, leaning across a corner of the bed, had watched him with breathless interest.

"I b'lieve you're de Evil One himself," she said admiringly.

Owen pinched her smooth chin between his tobacco-stained thumb and fingers.

"Pooh! nothing but a trick I learned in Paris," said he; "it's very convenient to be able to put a person to sleep now and again."

"Could you put any one to sleep?"

"Any one I wanted to."

"Do it to me then," she begged him.

"What use, my girl? Don't you do all I wish without?"

She grimaced, and picked at the bed-quilt laughing, then rose and stood in front of him, her round red arms clasped behind her head. But he only glanced at her with professional interest. Rh