She looked at him with interest in her eyes.
“What is your favourite weapon, Mr. Kara?” she asked.
“Fear,” he said.
If he expected her to give him any encouragement to proceed he was disappointed. Probably he required no such encouragement, for in the presence of his social inferiors he was somewhat monopolizing.
“Cut a man's flesh and it heals,” he said. “Whip a man and the memory of it passes, frighten him, fill him with a sense of foreboding and apprehension and let him believe that something dreadful is going to happen either to himself or to someone he loves—better the latter—and you will hurt him beyond forgetfulness. Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the stake. Fear is many-eyed and sees horrors where normal vision only sees the ridiculous.”
“Is that your creed?” she asked quietly.
“Part of it, Miss Holland,” he smiled.
She played idly with the letter she held in her hand, balancing it on the edge of the desk, her eyes downcast.
“What would justify the use of such an awful weapon?” she asked.
“It is amply justified to secure an end,” he said blandly. “For example—I want something—I cannot obtain that something through the ordinary channel or by the employment of ordinary means. It is essential to me, to my happiness, to my comfort, or my amour-propre, that that something shall be possessed by me. If I can buy it, well and good. If I can buy those who can use their influence to secure this thing for me, so much the better. If I can obtain it by any merit I possess, I utilize that merit, providing always, that I can secure my object in the time, otherwise—”