glow.

She nodded again. "Do you ever--write music?"

"No," said Piers.

"Why not?"

He answered with a curious touch of bitterness. "No one would understand
it if I did."

"But what a mistake!" she said.

"Is it? Why?" His voice sounded stubborn.

She looked suddenly straight up at him and spoke with impulsive warmth.
"Because it is quite beside the point. It wouldn't matter to anyone but
yourself whether people understood it or not. Of course popularity is
pleasant. Everyone likes it. But do you suppose the really big people
think at all about the world's opinion when they are at work? They just
give of their best because nothing less would satisfy them, but they
don't do it because they want to be appreciated by the crowd. Genius
always gets above the crowd. It's only those who can't rise above their
critics who really care what the critics say."

She stopped. Her face was flushed, her eyes kindling; but she lowered
them very suddenly and returned to her work. For the fitful gleam in
Piers' eyes had leaped in response to a blaze so hot, so ardent, that she
could not meet it unflinching.

She was oddly grateful to him when he passed her brief confusion by as
though he had not seen it. "So I'm a genius, am I?" he said, and laughed
a careless laugh. "Are you listening, Queen of my heart? Aunt Avery says
I'm a genius."

He moved to Jeanie's sofa, and sat down on the edge of it. Her hand stole
instantly into his.

"Yes, of course," she said, in her soft, tired voice. "That's what I
meant when I was trying to remember that other word--the word that
begins 'hyp.'"

"Hypnotism," said Avery very quietly.

Piers laughed again. "It's a word you don't understand, my Queen of all
good fairies. It's only the naughty fairies--the will-o'-the-wisps and
the hobgoblins--that know anything about it. It's a wicked spell
concocted by the King of Evil himself, and it's only under that spell
that his prisoners ever see the light. It's the one ticket of leave from
the dungeons, and they must either use it or die in the dark."

Jeanie was listening with a puzzled frown, but Gracie's imagination was
instantly fired.

"Do go on!" she said eagerly. "I know what a ticket of leave is. Nurse's
uncle had one. It means you have to go back after a certain time,
doesn't it?"

"Exactly," said Piers grimly. "When the ticket expires."

"But I don't see," began Jeanie. Her face was flushed and a little
distressed. "How can hypnotis