r."

"Do you mean Bertrand Saton?" his friend asked, with interest.

Vandermere nodded.

"You have heard the fellow's name, of course," he said. "For the last
month or so one seems to meet him everywhere, and in all sorts of
society. The illustrated papers, and even the magazines, have been
full of the fellow's photograph. Women especially seem to regard him
as something supernatural. Look at the way they are hanging upon his
words now. That is the old Duchess of Ampthill on his left, and the
others are all decent enough people of a sort."

"I gather from your tone," his friend remarked, "that the young man is
not a favorite of yours."

"He is not," Vandermere answered. "I don't understand the breed, and
that's a fact. Apart from that, he has had the confounded impertinence
to make love to--to a very charming young lady of my acquaintance."

"He isn't particularly good-looking," the friend remarked--"striking I
suppose people would say."

"He has a sort of unwholesome way of attracting women," Vandermere
remarked. "Look how they all manoeuvre to walk out with him."

Saton was exercising his rights as lion of the party, and leaving
early. The Duchess whispered something in his ear, at which he only
laughed. Half-a-dozen invitations were showered upon him, which he
accepted conditionally.

"I never accept invitations," he said, "except with a proviso. As a
matter of fact, I never can tell exactly when I shall want to work,
and when the feeling for work comes, everything else must go. It is
not always that one is in the right mood."

"How interesting!" one of the women sighed.

"Must be like writing poetry, only far more exciting," another
murmured.

"Tell me," a girl asked him, as he stooped over her fingers to say
good night, "is it really true, Mr. Saton, that if you liked you could
make me do things even against my will--that you could put ideas into
my head which I should be forced to carry out?"

"Certainly."

"And you never make use of your power?"

"Very seldom," he answered. "That is the chicanery of science. It is
because people when they have discovered a little are so anxious to
exploit their knowledge, that they never go any further. It is very
easy indeed to dominate the will of certain individuals, but what we
really want to understand before we use our power, is the law that
governs it. Good night, once more!"

"A wonderful man!" they sighed one to another as he passed out.

"I am one