"Oh dear, no! He calls himself an occultist. He goes out in society a great deal, apparently. I met him at dinner first. Since then he has taken the keenest interest in my sittings with Valentine." "Indeed! You know him, Cresswell?" Valentine shook his head, and Julian laughed. "The fun of it is that Marr doesn't wish to know Valentine," he said. "Why?" the doctor asked. Julian told him the words Marr had used in reference to Valentine, and gave a fairly minute description of Marr's attitude towards their proceedings. Levillier listened with great attention. "Then this man urges you to go on with your sittings?" he said when Julian had finished. "Scarcely that. But he certainly seems anxious that we should." "You have both resolved to give them up, haven't you?" "Certainly, doctor," Valentine replied. "Does Marr know that?" Levillier asked of Julian. "No. I haven't seen him to speak to since our final sitting." The little doctor sat in apparent meditation for two or three minutes. Then he remarked, with abruptness: "Addison, will you think me an impertinent elderly person if I give you a piece of advice?" "You--doctor! Of course not. What is it?" "Well, you young fellows know me, know that I am not a mere sentimentalist or believer in every humbug that is the fashion of the moment. But one thing I do firmly believe, that certain people are born with a power to command, or direct others, which amounts to force. The world doesn't completely recognize this. The law doesn't recognize, perhaps ought not to recognize it. Some call it hypnotism. I call it suggestion." He paused, as if he had finished. "But your advice, doctor?" Julian said, wondering. "Oh, h'm! I don't mean to give it to you, after all." "Why?" Doctor Levillier became enigmatic. "Because I have just remembered that to warn is often to supply a cause of stumbling," he said.