Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/149

Tom Harkness and I were chums in prep school and college, but as so often happens in such cases we drifted rather apart after graduation, he remaining in New York to study medicine, while I went abroad to take up art. For some time we kept up a more or less desultory correspondence, which, however, gradually languished—"faded out," as they say in the movies—for we had no real, no fundamental interests in common, and I was not even deeply stirred when he wrote me of his approaching marriage; I merely set down his enthusiasm as the characteristic raptures of "a young man married," wrote him a suitably congratulatory letter, and dismissed the whole affair.

At length, after four years in Paris and one in Rome, I returned to New York, to find that Harkness, who had specialized in psychology; was already beginning to make a name for himself as an alienist, and had—for so young a man—an excellent consulting practice. He was especially interested in various investigations into the power of suggestion, had done a good deal of experimenting along these lines, and was always ready to talk about his work, so, having looked him up and got into the way of dropping in to see him at odd times, I listened to a number of very interesting monologues on the subject. One effect of these talks, though, was that I found myself losing my sentimental affection for my old friend, for Harkness had developed into a type which is particularly distasteful to me personally—cold-blooded, unemotional scientific investigator, to whom people are merely cases, specimens on which to work or to experiment. Further than this, I was always a little uncomfortable in his presence, for he possessed to a remarkable degree that curious psychic power—common to all leaders of men and found in the most unexpected individuals—which enables a man to impose his will on another, to control another's actions by a dominating personality. Not that Harkness was aggressive; for one so unemotional he was astonishingly gentle and considerate, but it was simply that when with him I felt a sense of helplessness—quite unallied, however, to fear—similar to that which one feels in the presence of any overwhelming power, a thunderstorm, for example. I repeat, there was no element of fear connected with this sensation; I knew he would not harm me, and my discomfort had its genesis solely in the conviction that did he choose to tell me to do anything I would be dominated by his unusual psychic strength and would be unable to refuse.

Alice Harkness, though, was totally different from her husband. Meeting her for the first time, I realized that Tom had not exaggerated her attractiveness—he had rather under-stated the case. I shall not attempt any description of the girl; as well try to describe the west wind, or a June rose. It would mean nothing if I should say that she was under medium height and slim, but well proportioned, and that she had