She had unconsciously adopted every one of the hypnotist’s brutal suggestions.
There was not a vestige of her famous grace in any of her movements. The most ungainly slattern could not have been more awkward.
Her words were spoken parrotlike, as if learned by rote, without the slightest understanding of their meaning. For the most part, they succeeded one another without any attempt at emphasis, and when emphasis was used, it was invariably in the wrong place.
It was her voice itself, however, which gave Nick and Chick their greatest shock.
The Lund, as she was generally called in Europe, had always been celebrated for her remarkably musical voice; but this sorry-looking creature’s voice was alternately shrill and harsh. It pierced and rasped and set the teeth on edge, just as the sound of a file does.
Nothing could have given a more sickening sense of Grantley’s power over the actress than this astounding transformation, this slavish adherence to the conditions of abject failure which he had imposed upon her.
It seemed incredible, and yet, there it was, plainly revealed to sight and hearing alike.
A subtler or more uncanny revenge has probably never been conceived by the mind of man. The public breakdown which Grantley had so mercilessly caused had only been the beginning of his scheme of vengeance.
He doubtless meant to hypnotize his victim again and again, and each time to impose his will upon her gradually weakening mind, until she had become a mere wreck of her former self, and incapable of ever again taking her former place in the ranks of genius.
There was nothing impossible about it. On the contrary, the result was a foregone conclusion if Grantley were left free to continue as he had begun.