“To entice you, Donnegan.  For one man, paint a rosy beginning, and once under way he will manage the hard parts.  For you, show you the hard shell and you will trust it contains the choice flesh.  I was saying, that I waited to see other qualities in you; qualities of the judgment.  And suddenly you flashed upon me a single glance; I felt it clash against my willpower.  I felt your look go past my guard like a rapier slipping around my blade.  I, Colonel Macon, was for the first time outfaced, out-maneuvered.  I admit it, for I rejoice in meeting such a man.  And the next instant you told me that I should keep you here out of my own wish!  Admirable!”

The admiration of the colonel, indeed, almost overwhelmed Donnegan, but he saw that in spite of the genial smile, the face suffused with warmth, the colonel was watching him every instant, flinty-eyed.  Donnegan did as he had done on the stairs; he burst into laughter.

When he had done, the colonel was leaning forward in his chair with his fingers interlacing, examining his guest from beneath somber brows.  As he sat lurched forward he gave a terrible impression of that reserved energy which Donnegan had sensed before.

“Donnegan,” said the colonel, “I shall talk no more nonsense to you.  You are a terrible fellow!”

And Donnegan knew that, for the first time in the colonel’s life, he was meeting another man upon equal ground.

9

In a way, it was an awful tribute, for one great fact grew upon him:  that the colonel represented almost perfectly the power of absolute evil.  Donnegan was not a squeamish sort, but the fat, smiling face of Macon filled him with unutterable aversion.  A dozen times he would have left the room, but a silken thread held him back, the thought of Lou.

“I shall be terse and entirely frank,” said the colonel, and at once Donnegan reared triple guard and balanced himself for attack or defense.

“Between you and me,” went on the fat man, “deceptive words are folly.  A waste of energy.”  He flushed a little.  “You are, I believe, the first man who has ever laughed at me.”  The click of his teeth as he snapped them on this sentence seemed to promise that he should also be the last.

“So I tear away the veils which made me ridiculous, I grant you.  Donnegan, we have met each other just in time.”

“True,” said Donnegan, “you have a task for me that promises a lot of fighting; and in return I get lodgings for the night.”

“Wrong, wrong!  I offer you much more.  I offer you a career of action in which you may forget the great sorrow which has fallen upon you:  and in the battles which lie before you, you will find oblivion for the sad past which lies behind you.”

Here Donnegan sprang to his feet with his hand caught at his breast; and he stood quivering, in an agony.  Pain worked him as anger would do, and, his slender frame swelling, his muscles taut, he stood like a panther enduring the torture because knows it is folly to attempt to escape.