Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/175

 the suffering of others because I know how good it is for them to suffer. But I am not. Alas, no. It is only where my indignation is aroused, and aroused justly, that I can conquer my tenderness, and then—well then... I can make my important experiments. My daughter-in-law, for instance...."

He paused, not far from Harkness, and once again his hands made a curious motion in the air as though he were transcribing a bar of music. He stepped close to Harkness. His breath, scented curiously with a faint odour of orange, was in Harkness's face. He leaned forward, his hands were on Harkness's shoulders.

"For instance, I have taken a fancy to you, my friend. A real fancy. I liked you from the first moment that I saw you. I don't know when, so suddenly, I have taken a fancy to any one. But to care for you deeply, first—yes, first—I would show you the meaning of pain...." Here his body suddenly quivered from the feet to the head. "... And I could not, liking you so much, do that unless you were seriously to annoy me, interfere in any way with my simple plans"—the hands pressed deeply into the shoulders—"yes, only then could we come really to know one another ... after such a crisis what friends we might be, sharing our power together! What friends! Dear me! Dear me!"