He changed the direction of the light; Donnegan watched him, fascinated.

“But what convinced you that I wished to keep you here?”

“To amuse you, Colonel Macon.”

The colonel exposed gleaming white teeth and laughed in that soft, smooth-flowing voice.

“Amuse me?  For fifteen years I have sat in this room and amused myself by taking in what I would and shutting out the rest of the world.  I have made the walls thick and padded them to keep out all sound.  You observe that there is no evidence here of the storm that is going on tonight.  Amuse me?  Indeed!”

And Donnegan thought of Lou Macon in her old, drab dress, huddling the poor cloak around her shoulders to keep out the cold, while her father lounged here in luxury.  He could gladly have buried his lean fingers in that fat throat.  From the first he had had an aversion to this man.

“Very well, I shall go.  It has been a pleasant chat, colonel.”

“Very pleasant.  And thank you.  But before you go, taste this whisky.  It will help you when you enter the wind.”

He opened a cabinet in the side of the chair and brought out a black bottle and a pair of glasses and put them on the broad arm of the chair.  Donnegan sauntered back.

“You see,” he murmured, “you will not let me go.”

At this the colonel raised his head suddenly and glared into the eyes of his guest, and yet so perfect was his muscular and nerve control that he did not interrupt the thin stream of amber which trickled into one of the glasses.  Looking down again, he finished pouring the drinks.  They pledged each other with a motion, and drank.  It was very old, very oily.  And Donnegan smiled as he put down the empty glass.

“Sit down,” said the colonel in a new voice.

Donnegan obeyed.

“Fate,” went on the colonel, “rules our lives.  We give our honest endeavors, but the deciding touch is the hand of Fate.”

He garnished this absurd truism with a wave of his hand so solemn that Donnegan was chilled; as though the fat man were actually conversant with the Three Sisters.

“Fate has brought you to me; therefore, I intend to keep you.”

“Here?”

“In my service.  I am about to place a great mission and a great trust in your hands.”

“In the hands of a man you know nothing about?”

“I know you as if I had raised you.”

Donnegan smiled, and shaking his head, the red hair flashed and shimmered.

“As long as there is no work attached to the mission, it may be agreeable to me.”

“But there is work.”

“Then the contract is broken before it is made.”

“You are rash.  But I had rather begin with a dissent and then work upward.”

Donnegan waited.

“To balance against work—­”

“Excuse me.  Nothing balances against work for me.”

“To balance against work,” continued the colonel, raising a white hand and by that gesture crushing the protest of Donnegan, “there is a great reward.”