"I saw the sign," said Amidon, "'All Mysteries Solved,' and I came here----"

"De sign," said the professor, "iss our goncession to te spirit of gommercialism, and te gompet.i.tife system. It vas Clara's itea. But some mysteries ve do not attempt. In te realm of te supliminal, howefer, ve go up against almost any broposition. I am Cheneral Superintendent of Supliminal Enchineering; Clara is te executant. I make blance, and Clara does as she bleaces aboudt following dem. You vill, at your gonfenience, dell us all you can of your case. I vill a.n.a.lyze, gla.s.sify, and tiagnose; she vill unrafel."

It was late in the evening when the professor was through with his diagnosis. He made copious notes of Amidon's story. Several times his daughter called him away from some book in which he had lost himself while on an excursion in search of parallel cases. At last he paused, his face expressing the triumph of a naturalist at the discovery of a new beetle.

"You are not in te least insane!" said he, with the air of telling Florian something hard to believe; "ant you haf none of te stigmata of techeneration. I vould say that you are not a griminal--not much of a griminal anyhow, ant bropaply not at all!"

"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" fervently exclaimed Amidon.

"It iss a case," went on the professor, "of dual pairsonality. For fife years you haf bropaply been absent from Hazelhurst. You haf been someveres!"

"Where, where?" cried Amidon.

"Do not fear," said Madame le Claire, laying her hand on his arm. "If it is a case of dual personality, we shall soon find out all about it.

You have mysteriously disappeared. Many men do. There was Lieutenant Rogers, of the navy; and Ansel Burns, of Ohio, who woke up in Kentucky in his own store, under the name of Brooks--Brooks' store, you know."

"And Ellis, of Bergen," said the professor, "who vas lost for a year, ant tiscofered himself in te pairson of a cook in a lumber-gamp in Minnesota, unter te name of Chamison. Oh, dere are many such! Te supchectife mind, te operations of vich are normally below te threshold of gonsciousness, suddenly dakes gontrol. Pouf! you are anodder man!

You haf been Smidt; you are now Chones. As Chones you remember notting of Smidt. You go on, guided by instinct, ant te preacquired semi-intellichence of auto-hypnotismus----"

"Oh, papa!" said the tiger-lady, "those are awful words--for a sick man!"

"Vell," resumed Blatherwick, dropping into what he regarded as the vernacular, "you go on as Chones, all right all right. Some day, someveres--in dis case in a sleeping-car--you vake as Smidt again. You now do not remember Chones or te Chones life. You are all vorked up--vat you call it--flabbergasted. You come to Madame le Claire. Vat does she do? She calls te supchectife mind up abofe te threshold of gonsciousness, ant you are restored to te Chones blane of mentality.

Hypnotismus, hypnotismus: that is vat does it!"

"And shall I stay--Jones?"

"No, no!" said Madame le Claire. "I will restore you. But while you are--Jones--I shall find out all you want to know about the--Jones--life, and I will tell you when you become yourself again.

You will learn all about Bellevale, and Bra.s.sfield, and----"

"And Elizabeth?" asked Amidon.

Madame le Claire paused.

"Yes," said she, with much less cordiality, "I suppose so, if you want to know--about Elizabeth."

VI

THE JONES PLANE OF MENTALITY

My lady's eyes Ensphere the skies, Abound in lovely mysteries: Behind their bars Are pent the stars, Warm Venus' glow, the shafts of Mars.

Once, murky night Shut in my sight: One glance revealed the source of light!

Now, to be wise Or gay, I rise, By gazing in my lady's eyes!

--_Song from The Oculist_.

The process of bringing the "Jones plane of mentality" uppermost in Mr.

Amidon would not have been regarded by the masculine reader of the unregenerate sort (though to such far be it from me to appeal!) as an operation at all painful. But Mr. Amidon, I must declare, was not of the unregenerate sort.

"Now," said Madame le Claire, "sit down in the arm-chair, and in a few minutes you will feel a sensation of drowsiness. Soon you will sleep.

Think with all your power that you are to sleep."

She was sitting in a very high chair, he in a low one, so that her eyes were above his. The professor was blent with the shadows of some corner, in silent self-effacement, with a note-book in his hand.

Amidon tried to think with all his power that he was to sleep; but the lights and shadows and depths of the woman's eyes drew all thoughts to them. Uncle Toby, looking for the mote in the eye of the Widow Wadman, must have felt as did our wandering Florian. Never before had he noted for more than a fleeting glance the light that lies in woman's eyes.

Now those limpid orbs met his in a regard, kindly, steady, eloquent of unutterable things. He noted the dark, arched, ebon sweep of the eyebrow, the long dark lashes curved daintily upward, the shining whiteness in the corners, and the wondrous irises. The one which was gray was dark like a moonlit sky; the other, like the same sky necked with clouds, and filled with the golden smoke of some far-off conflagration; and at the inner margin of both, the black of the dilated pupils seemed to spread out into the iris in rays of feathery blackness. They seemed to him like twin worlds--great, capacious, mysterious, alluring, absorbing. Behind the feathery curtains of those irises lay all the lovely things of which he had ever thought or dreamed--the things which sculptors and poets and painters see, and seek to express. And without changing his gaze, he saw below the eyes the downy cheek, and the red lips so sweetly curved. A new thrill ran through the man, and a new light came into his eyes. Madame le Claire blushed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A new thrill ran through the man and a new light came into his eyes]

"Are you thinking of going to sleep?"

"I beg your pardon," said he; "I was thinking--I am afraid I was not!"

"Try again," said she; "and please control your thoughts. Think that you--are--going--to sleep. To sleep----Sleep! Sleep!---- Slee--ee--eep!"

Now Amidon's eyes sought hers again, and held there; and the twin worlds, sphered in some slowly-turning orbit, seemed swinging in their native s.p.a.ce. Now the cheeks and hair and mouth came out in their places, returning to distinctness like features of a face on a screen.

Now the eyes became twin stars again, casting on him once more the effulgence of their binary glow.

And now eyes and face and hair, and Madame le Claire--all pa.s.sed away; and Florian Amidon became as naught, and the tigrine lady and the faded professor played with the thing which had been he, as upon a machine.

The pillar of Hazelhurst society, the banker now five years lost, the bewildered wretch of the sleeping-car, was now, by his own act, given over as pa.s.sively as some inert instrument, body and soul, to the guidance and manipulation of this shady occultist, not four hours known to him--while outside droned the m.u.f.fled roar of the human cyclone which sweeps and whirls and eddies through Manhattan. So stripped of stability was the pillar, that he was now a mere feather of humanity, self-abandoned to the clasp of the storm of the modern Babylon. Madame le Claire questioned, Amidon answered (or Something answered for him), and Professor Blatherwick wrote in his book--wrote the data, of "te Chones blane of mentality."

"Dis iss enough," said the professor, "for vunce. Pring him to!"

Madame le Claire leaned back, gave her subject a long look, and then, walking to him, took his head tenderly in her hands. With the left, she held his forehead; the fingers of the right crept insinuatingly among the curls resting on his neck, swept thence over to his brow, and down across his eyelids, closing them; and Amidon sat, senseless as a statue, and almost as still.

"Right!" said Madame le Claire sharply. "Wake!"

Amidon opened his eyes wearily.

"When are you going to begin?" said he.

"Ve are t'rough," said the professor. "Ve know it all."

"And Bra.s.sfield? Did I----?"

"You have done him notting," said the professor. "You are all recht.

You need not fear----"

"And the lady--Elizabeth?" suggested Amidon, as pa.s.sing to the thing of next importance.

"It is near morning," said Madame le Claire, "and you are prostrated.

We are all very tired. Aaron must take you to your hotel. You must sleep. Never fear, no harm is coming to you. When you wake, come to me, and I will tell you all about it--'All Mysteries Solved,' you know.

Good night. You will sleep late in the morning."