“It isn’t useless. I never spend my time over useless things. When you said that your will was on the right side. And even now when you are half-crazy for that drink, aren’t you ashamed to think of what you have just suggested—that Lady Maud, your sister, should be dragged down with you? Aren’t you ashamed? You have been very candid; I want your candid opinion on that.”
Thurso frowned.
“I didn’t say that; I’m sure I didn’t say that.”
“But indeed you did. Now come back on the right side again. You’ve been suggesting things to yourself, and imagining them with remarkable vividness. So now, to make it fair, plan another evening for yourself. Come, what would be pleasant? Don’t make a long evening of it; I want you to go to bed before eleven.”
“Why?” asked Thurso.
“Just because it’s a sensible hour. I shall be treating you by then.”
“But Maud tried to treat me once on the steamer,” said he, “and the effect was that I couldn’t get to sleep at all. I thought she was in the room.”
For the moment, anyhow, the edge of his desire was dulled. There was something that compelled attention in this big, strong young man, who was so cheerful and quiet, who looked so superlatively well, and seemed to diffuse sanity and health.
“Why, that was real good of Lady Maud, wasn’t it?” he said, “and that feeling of yours that she was in the room was very likely to happen. I’ll tell you why: like everything else in science, it is so simple. The healer ought quite to sink himself; he shouldn’t be conscious of himself at all. He mustn’t think that he is controlling the working of the power of Divine Love. But that unconsciousness of self only comes with practice. At first the healer finds that his personality obtrudes itself.”
Quite unconsciously Thurso began to be more interested; consciously he knew that he did not want the drug just this moment as devouringly as he had thought. The simplicity of what Cochrane was saying struck him also; it was so exceedingly unlike the torrential inconsequence of Alice Yardly.