She felt that she could not look away from him, and that he was getting her into his power. The colour rose in her face. "Please don't look at me!" she said suddenly, gazing helplessly into his eyes, but his steady look did not change. "Please--oh, please look away!" she cried, half-frightened and growing pale again. He turned from her, surprised at her manner. "I'm afraid you're not in earnest about this, after all," he said, thoughtfully. "If you meant what you said, why shouldn't you look at me?" She blushed scarlet again. "It's very rude to stare like that!" she said, in an offended tone. "You know that you've got something--I don't know what to call it--one can't look away when you look at one. Of course you know it, and you ought not to do it. It isn't nice." "I didn't know there was anything peculiar about my eyes," said Brook. "Indeed I didn't! Nobody ever told me so, I'm sure. By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe it's that! I've probably done it before--and that's why you--" he stopped. "Please don't think me so silly," answered Clare, recovering her composure. "It's nothing of the sort. As for that--that way you have of looking--I dare say I'm nervous since my illness. Besides--" she hesitated, and then smiled. "Besides, do you know? If you had looked at me a moment longer I should have told you the whole thing, and then we should both have been sorry." "I should not, I'm sure," said Brook, with conviction. "But I don't understand about my looking at you. I never tried to mesmerise any one--" "There is no such thing as mesmerism. It's all hypnotism, you know." "I don't know what they call it. You know what I mean. But I'm sure it's your imagination." "Oh yes, I dare say," answered the young girl with affected carelessness. "It's merely because I'm nervous." "Well, so far as I'm concerned, it's quite unconscious. I don't know--I suppose I wanted to see in your eyes what you were thinking about. Besides, when one likes a person, one doesn't think it so dreadfully rude to look at them--at him--I mean, at you--when one is in earnest about something--does one?" "I don't know," said Clare. "But please don't do it to me. It makes me feel awfully uncomfortable somehow. You won't, will you?" she asked, with a sort of appeal. "You would make me tell you everything--and then I should hate myself." "But I shouldn't hate you." "Oh yes, you would! You would hate me for knowing." "By Jove! It's too bad!" cried Brook. "But as for that," he added humbly, "nothing would make me hate you." "Nothing? You don't know!"