It was the open secret of his many successes.

And he had a buoyant, boyish, disarming, chivalrous way with him.

If he desired a woman's lips he would always begin by kissing the hem of her skirt.
Had I not known what I did, I, an easy-going sort of Christian temperamentally inclined to see the best in my fellow-creatures, and, as I boastingly said a little while ago, a trained judge of men, should doubtless have fallen, like most other people, under the spell of his fascination.

But whenever I met him, I used to look at him and say to myself: "What's at the back of you anyway?
What about that business at Vilboek's Farm ?" Now this is what I knew--with the reservation I have made above--and to this day he is not aware of my knowledge.
It was towards the end of the Boer War.

Boyce had come out rather late; for which, of course, he was not responsible.