"Am I? In what way?"
"I cannot tell you without seeming to give the lie to reason,"--he
answered, brusquely. "I believe to a certain extent in magnetism--in
fact, I have myself tested its power in purely nervous patients,--but I
have never accepted the idea that persons can silently and almost
without conscious effort, influence others for either malign or
beneficial purposes. In your presence, however, the thing is forced
upon me as though it were a truth, while I know it to be a fallacy."
"Isn't it too late to talk about such things to-night?" I asked,
wishing to cut short the conversation.
"Perhaps it is--but I shall probably never have the chance to say what
I wish to say,"--he replied,--and he leaned against the stairway just
where the light in the saloon sent forth a bright ray upon his face,
showing it to be dark with a certain frowning perplexity--"You have
studied many things in your own impulsive feminine fashion, and you are
beyond all the stupidity of the would-be agreeable female who thinks a
prettily feigned ignorance becoming, so that I can speak frankly. I can
now tell you that from the first day I saw you I felt I had known you
before--and you filled me with a curious emotion of mingled liking and
repulsion. One night when you were sitting with us on deck--it was
before we met that fellow Santoris--I watched you with singular
interest--every turn of your head, every look of your eyes seemed
familiar--and for a moment I--I almost loved you! Oh, you need not mind
my saying this!"--and he laughed a little at my involuntary
exclamation--"it was nothing--it was only a passing mood,--for in
another few seconds I hated you as keenly! There you have it. I do not
know why I should have been visited by these singular experiences--but
I own they exist--that is why I am rather glad you are going."
"I am glad, too,"--I said--and I held out my hand in parting--"I should
not like to stay where my presence caused a moment's uneasiness or
discomfort."
"That's not putting it quite fairly,"--he answered, taking my offered
hand and holding it loosely in his own--"But you are an avowed
psychist, and in this way you are a little 'uncanny.' I should not like
to offend you--"
"You could not if you tried," I said, quickly.
"That means I am too insignificant in your mind to cause offence,"--he
observed--"I daresay I am. I live on the material plane and am content
to remain there. You are essaying very high flights and ascending among
difficulties of thought and action which are entirely beyond the useful
and necessary routine of life,--and in the end these things may prove
too much for you." Here he dropped my hand. "You bring with you a
certain atmosphere which is too rarefied for ordinary mortals--it has
the same effect as the air of a very high mountain on a weak heart--it
is too strong--one loses breath, and the power to think coherently. You
produce this result on Miss Harland, and also to some extent on
me--even slightly on Mr. Harland,--and poor Swinton alone does not fall
under the spell, having no actual brain to impress. You need someone
who is accustomed to live in the same atmosphere as yourself to match
you in your impressions and opinions. We are on a different range of
thought and feeling and experience--and you must find us almost beyond
endurance--"
"As you find me!" I interposed, smiling.
"I will not say that--no! For there seems to have been a time when we
were all on the same plane--"
He paused, and there was a moment's tense silence. The little silvery
chime of a clock in the saloon struck twelve.
"Good-night, Dr. Brayle!" I said.
He lifted his brooding eyes and looked at me.
"Good-night! If I have annoyed you by my scepticism in certain matters,
you must make allowances for temperament and pardon me. I should be
sorry if you bore me any ill-will--"
What a curious note of appeal there was in his voice! All at once it
seemed to me that he was asking me to forgive him for that long-ago
murder which I had seen reflected in a vision!--and my blood grew
suddenly heated with an involuntary wave of deep resentment.
"Dr. Brayle," I said,--"pray do not trouble yourself to think any more
about me. Our ways will always be apart, and we shall probably never
see each other again. It really does not matter to you in the least
what my feeling may be with regard to you,--it can have no influence on
either your present or your future. Friendships cannot be commanded."
"You will not say," he interrupted me--"that you have no dislike of me?"