He brooded, rubbing the aide of his jaw, but with a subdued twinkle in his eye nevertheless. He had a charm of naivete which enabled him to get away with even worse social bombshells than this.
"It wasn't a very tactful question, I admit," he said.
"Under the circumstances," said Courtney, "perhaps not. Well?"
"Well, Dr. Rich got very grave. He said, yes, you could, if the girl were already inclined that way; and that it was one of the dangers of hypnotism in the hands of unprincipled persons. I saw I'd rather dropped a brick, so I tried to cover it up by saying that what I meant was: could you get her to commit a crime? I said: 'If a victim is really under the will of a hypnotist, wouldn't there be the devil to pay if you told her to commit robbery or murder?' "
Courtney drew at his pipe. "And what did Dr. Rich have to say to that?"
"He explained it. The explanation sound s reasonable, I'm bound to admit."
"What is it?"
"That under hypnotism you will only do what you're capable of doing in waking moments. Like this! Suppose Vicky Fane walks into this room now. We hypnotize her, and then say, 'Now walk up to the bar and have a big drink of whiskey.' Vicky doesn't drink much, but she does indulge occasionally. So she'd go and do it like a soldier. You follow that?"
"Yes."
"But suppose you got a real, honest, fanatical teetotaler; a Band-of-Hoper; somebody like Lady Astor, for instance. After hypnotizing her—"