"I draw all the organs into the thorax," he explained. "When one has studied under the Swami, as I have, he gains control over all his different muscles, voluntary and involuntary. He can, to a great extent, cut off or increase the nerve force in any muscle. Simple tricks in magic become easy to him. He gains, as you may suppose, a certain influence over men, and more especially over women, if that be a part of his religion. It was not with the Swami. It is with me!"
"You are a strange man, Orme," I said, drawing a long breath. "The most dangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew."
"No," he said, reaching for his cigar case, "I was only born without what you call morals. They are not necessary in abstruse thought. Yet in some ways I retain the old influences of my own country. For instance, I lie as readily as I speak the truth, because it is more convenient; but though I am a liar, I do not break my word of honor. I am a renegade, but I am still an English officer! You have caught that distinction."
"Yes, I would trust you," I said, "if you gave me your word of honor."
He turned full upon me. "By Jove, old chap," he said, with a queer note in his voice, "you touch me awfully close. You're like men of my own family—you stir something in me that I used to know. The word of a fighting man—that's the same for yours and mine; and that's why I've always admired you. That's the sort of man that wins with the best sort of women."
"You were not worth the best sort of woman," I said to him. "You had no chance with Ellen Meriwether."
"No, but at least every fellow is worth his own fight with himself. I wanted to be a gentleman once more. Oh, a man may mate with a woman of any color—he does, all over the world. He may find a mistress in any nationality of his own color, or a wife in any class similar to his own—he does, all over the world. But a sweetheart, and a wife, and a woman—when a fellow even like myself finds himself honestly gone like that—when he begins to fight inside himself, old India against old England, renegade against gentleman—say, that's awfully bitter—when he sees the other fellow win. You won—"
"No," said I, "I did not win. You know that perfectly well. There is no way in the world that I can win. All I can do is to keep parole—well, with myself, I suppose."
"You touch me awfully close," he mused again. "You play big and fair. You're a fighting man and a gentleman and—excuse me, but it's true—an awful ass all in one. You're such an ass I almost hesitate to play the game with you."
"Thank you," said I. "But now take a very stupid fellow's advice. Leave this country, and don't be seen about here again, for if so, you will be killed."