"You possess the power?" asked the count.
"So I am told," laughed Harry.
"People go to sleep at his bidding," said Tristram. "He is the surest recipe I have seen for insomnia."
"Except the Rev. Dr. Fourthly," whispered Miss Milly Mills, but at this Dorothea Goodbody looked shocked.
"Shall I hypnotize you, Rosalie?" smiled Harry to his sweetheart.
But Rosalie shook her head with a little shudder.
"The count," said the Violet.
"The count! Hypnotize the count!" a chorus echoed.
"Very well," said the Spaniard; "a moment till I invoke the genii of the carbuncle. Now."
"Are you ready?" said Harry, laughing a little awkwardly. He made one or two cabalistic passes with his hands, looking straight into the eyes of the count. They were large burning eyes, the like of which Harry had never met before. Gazing into their depths, he seemed to feel a new spell. They were drawing him, drawing his soul away. Other objects disappeared. Rosalie, Tristram, the Violet—he clutched at them, but they were gone. The count himself grew shadowy. Only his eyes—fixed, haunting, luminous—remained, centering a vast drab vault, which was all that was left of the populous world and its occupants. What could Harry do but surrender his faculties and be absorbed like the rest?