o any emergency. The
colonel's jaw set and the last vestige of the smile left his eyes. Yet
it was not anger that showed in its place. Instead, it was rather a
hungry searching. He looked keenly into the face and the soul of
Donnegan as a searchlight sweeps over waters by night.

"You are a mind reader, Mr. Donnegan."

"No more of a mind reader than a Chinaman is."

"Ah, they are great readers of mind, my friend."

Donnegan grinned, and at this the colonel frowned.

"A great and mysterious people, sir. I keep evidences of them always
about me. Look!"

He swept the shaft of the reading light up and it fell upon a red vase
against the yellow hangings. Even Donnegan's inexperienced eye read a
price into that shimmering vase.

"Queer color," he said.

"Dusty claret. Ah, they have the only names for their colors. Think!
Peach bloom--liquid dawn--ripe cherry--oil green--green of powdered
tea--blue of the sky after rain--what names for color! What other land
possesses such a tongue that goes straight to the heart!"

The colonel waved his faultless hands and then dropped them back upon
the book with the tenderness of a benediction.

"And their terms for texture--pear's rind--lime peel--millet seed! Do
not scoff at China, Mr. Donnegan. She is the fairy godmother, and we are
the poor children."

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 o