Donnegan replied by looking straight at her, and this time she did not wince from the glance.  Indeed, she seemed to be probing him, searching with a peculiar hope.  What could she expect to find in him?  What that was useful to her?  Not once in all his life had such a sense of impotence descended upon Donnegan.  Her father?  Bah!  Invalid or no invalid he would handle that fellow, and if the old man had an acrid temper, Donnegan at will could file his own speech to a point.  But the girl!  In the meager hand which held the lamp there was a power which all the muscles of Donnegan could not compass; and in his weakness he looked wistfully at her.

“I hope your talk will be pleasant.  I hope so.”  She laid her hand on the knob of the door and withdrew it hastily; then, summoning great resolution, she opened the door and showed Donnegan in.

“Father,” she said, “this is Mr. Donnegan.  He wishes to speak to you.”

The door closed behind Donnegan, and hearing that whishing sound which the door of a heavy safe will make, he looked down at this, and saw that it was actually inches thick!  Once more the sense of being in a trap descended upon him.

7

He found himself in a large room which, before he could examine a single feature of it, was effectively curtained from his sight.  Straight into his face shot a current of violent white light that made him blink.  There was the natural recoil, but in Donnegan recoils were generally protected by several strata of willpower and seldom showed in any physical action.  On the present occasion his first dismay was swiftly overwhelmed by a cold anger at the insulting trick.  This was not the trick of a helpless invalid; Donnegan could not see a single thing before him, but he obeyed a very deep instinct and advanced straight into the current of light.

He was glad to see the light switched away.  The comparative darkness washed across his eyes in a pleasant wave and he was now able to distinguish a few things in the room.  It was, as he had first surmised, quite large.  The ceiling was high; the proportions comfortably spacious; but what astounded Donnegan was the real elegance of the furnishings.  There was no mistaking the deep, silken texture of the rug upon which he stepped; the glow of light barely reached the wall, and there showed faintly in streaks along yellowish hangings.  Beside a table which supported a big reading lamp—­gasoline, no doubt, from the intensity of its light—­sat Colonel Macon with a large volume spread across his knees.  Donnegan saw two highlights—­fine silver hair that covered the head of the invalid and a pair of white hands fallen idly upon the surface of the big book, for if the silver hair suggested age the smoothly finished hands suggested perennial youth.  They were strong, carefully tended, complacent hands.  They suggested to Donnegan a man sufficient unto himself.

“Mr. Donnegan, I am sorry that I cannot rise to receive you.  Now, what pleasant accident has brought me the favor of this call?”