"He spoke to me quite simply and frankly of his life. It was
wonderful to me then that he should speak of it as he did, and
still more wonderful that I should sit and listen to him as I did.
But I have often thought about it since, and have long ceased to
wonder at myself. There was an absolute magnetism about Mr.
Raffles which neither you nor I could resist. He had the strength
of personality which is a different thing from strength of
character; but when you meet both kinds together, they carry the
ordinary mortal off his or her feet. You must not imagine you are
the only one who would have served and followed him as you did.
When he told me it was all. a game to him, and the one game he knew
that was always exciting, always full of danger and of drama, I
could just then have found it in my heart to try the game myself!
Not that he treated me to any ingenious sophistries or paradoxical
perversities. It was just his natural charm and humor, and a
touch of sadness with it all., that appealed to something deeper
than one's reason and one's sense of right. Glamour, I suppose,
is the word.
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