“I’ll show you,” said Barnes. “Stand very still, with your arms at your side––there! (my, but she’s a picture!) I’ve found out the first thing––I read it in your eyes.”
“What!” in a stifled whisper.
“You don’t approve of this elopement.”
“Oh, no!” Sadie had yielded her eyes as if hypnotized.
“There, I told you so!” exulted Barnes. “You want to stop the elopement, but you don’t know how to do it.”
“Yes, that’s perfectly true,” confessed the spellbound Sadie.
“Shall I tell you how to stop it?”
“Yes, please do.”
“Then sit down.”
He motioned to a chair three feet from where he stood. The victim of this, his first excursion into the fields of mesmerism, tripped with bird-like steps to the chair and sat down. Barnes went easily toward 109 her and sat down on the arm. He was as solemn about it as if his every move were part of a ritual.