To cover his own confusion, he ordered her to get up, to walk across the stage, to do various things, all of which she performed with her former obedience. But when he again made passes before her eyes, then, in a low tone to cover possible failure, again ordered her to waken, she remained as soundly, as blank-eyed asleep as before. The audience was apparently undisturbed, and seemed to take all this as part of the performance. “I’m worried,” Cynthia confided to Nancy through the muffling folds of her handkerchief. “Oh, but this stuff is strong.” Her eyes were streaming with tears, but so far she had managed to keep back that sneeze. “Worried?” Nancy turned big eyes on Cynthia. “Do you mean to say ...” “I don’t think he can get that child out of that trance. I wonder ...” Cynthia turned to look around the audience. They too were beginning, unconsciously, to reflect the professor’s concern. Quietly, three times now, he had given his command, Cynthia’s ears were abnormally keen, in spite of the cold. She glanced back again at the stage, then decided what she would do. Evading Nancy she slipped out of her seat, past the two old ladies who sat on the aisle. It was just a step to the stage, a step or two across it. Leonie’s blank stare did not turn to follow her, but Cynthia knew that she had the attention of every other soul in the house. She smiled briefly at the bewildered professor and crossed to the child. From her pocket she drew a clean handkerchief soaked with the over-powering scent of “Breathex.” “I wonder,” Cynthia spoke in English in the hope that the professor, being from Paris, knew a little of that tongue, “if the _petite enfant_ would like to smell this.” And before the hypnotist could protest, had clapped the handkerchief to Leonie’s little snub nose. It was like a double dose of smelling salts. The American makers would have been proud of their preparation, though perhaps no such strange application of it had ever been suggested to them. Leonie choked, coughed, strangled a moment. But the blank left her eyes and she struggled to escape the handkerchief. Bewildered, for a moment she gazed at Cynthia, then smiled shyly in a perfectly human, understanding fashion. Tactfully Cynthia withdrew. “Merci, Professor,” she murmured and backed down the steps. She heard little of what followed. The Professor’s florid explanation of this occurrence, of the American’s interference with his demonstration, but his willingness to let that pass ... and so on and so on. The audience murmured polite amazement, stared at Cynthia, clapped at the end of Reynaldo’s speech, and began to rise from their benches. The door swung open into the sweet, starlit night. “Well ...!” stated Nancy. “You certainly distinguished yourself. Gosh, but that was a close call for Leonie. Wonder what would have happened ...”