The Bars of Iron. Ethel M. Dell

      She smiled a little. "I expect so," she said.

      "Oh no!" said Jeanie politely. "Only because we are children and she is grown up."

      Piers, with Gracie still lounging comfortably on his knee, bowed to her.

       "I thank your majesty. I appeal to you as queen of this establishment; am

       I—as a grown-up—entitled to drop the title of Aunt when addressing the

       gracious lady in question?"

      Again he glanced towards Avery, but she did not raise her eyes. She worked on, still with that faint, enigmatical smile about her lips.

      Jeanie looked slightly dubious. "I don't think you could ever call her

       Aunt, could you?" she said.

      Piers turned upon the music-stool, and with one of Gracie's fingers began to pick out an impromptu tune that somehow had a saucy ring.

      "I like that," said Gracie, enchanted.

      He laughed. "Yes, it's pretty, isn't it? It's—Avery without the Aunt."

      He began to elaborate the tune, accompanying it with his left hand, to Gracie's huge delight, "Here we come into a minor key," he said, speaking obviously and exclusively to Gracie; "this is Avery when she is cross and inclined to be down on a fellow. And here we begin to get a little excited and breathless; this is Avery in a tantrum, getting angrier and angrier every moment." He hammered out his impertinent little melody with fevered energy, protest from Gracie notwithstanding. "No, you've never seen her in a tantrum of course. Thank your lucky stars you haven't! It's an awful sight, take my word for it! She calls you a brute and nearly knocks you down with a horsewhip." The music became very descriptive at this point; then gradually returned to the original refrain, somewhat amplified and embellished. "This is Avery in her everyday mood—sweet and kind and reasonable—the Avery we all know and love—with just a hint of what the French call 'diablerie' to make her—tout-à-fait adorable."

      He cast his eyes up at the ceiling, and then, releasing Gracie's hand, brought his impromptu to a close with a few soft chords.

      "Here endeth the Avery Symphony!" he declared, swinging round again on the music-stool. "I could show you another Avery, but she is not on view to everybody. It's quite possible that she has never seen herself yet."

      He got up with the words, tweaked Gracie's hair, caressed Jeanie's, and strolled across to the fire beside which Avery sat with her work.

      "It's awfully kind of you to tolerate me like this," he said.

      "Isn't it?" said Avery, without raising her eyes.

      He looked down at her, an odd gleam in his own that came and went like a leaping flame.

      "You suffer fools gladly, don't you?" he said, a queer inflection that was half a challenge in his voice.

      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 passed 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 passed 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.