CHAPTER 9In 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
