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.

[Illustration: 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 space. 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 binar