He was meant to be
straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his
imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain.
I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I
know most things. _You_ feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there
letting me tear your heart to pieces--what's left of your heart. And I
have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the
sense to patch the bits together.
"I have fascination, and I've cultivated it. Napoleon himself didn't
study more ardently than I the art of winning men. I won Don. I appealed
to the romance in him. I became his hero and--slowly--I was able to make
him my servant. Not much of my money or anything else has ever stuck to
his hands. He's too generous--too impulsive; though I taught him it was
necessary to control his impulses.
"What he did, he did for love of me, till you came along and lit another
sort of fire in his blood. I saw in one minute, when he called on me,
what had happened to his soul. It's taken you more than a year to see,
though he's lived for you and would have died for you.
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