Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/283

 Harkness, huddled together, his red hair and little eyes and pale white soft hands alone alive. "Well, and so—in my power, are you not? The three of you. You can laugh at my ugliness and my stupidity and my bad character, but now you are in my hands completely. I can do whatever I like with you. Whatever... the last shame, the last indignity, the uttermost pain. I, ludicrous creature that I am, have absolute power over three fine young things like you, so strong, so beautiful. And then more power and then more and then more. And over many finer, grander, more beautiful than you. I can say crawl and you will crawl, dance and you will dance.... I who am so ugly that every one has always laughed at me. I am a little God, and perhaps not so little, and soon God Himself...."

He broke off, making the movement of music in the air with his hands.

"You a little overestimate the situation," said Harkness, quietly. "For the moment you can do what you like with our bodies because you happen to have two servants who, with their Jiu-Jitsu and the rest of their tricks, are stronger than we are. It is not you who are stronger, but your servants whom your money is able to buy. I guess if I had you tied to a pillar and myself with a gun in my hand I could make you look pretty small. And in any case it is only our bodies that you can do any-