Pat stared intently, studiously, into the face of her companion. Nick’s face, certainly; here in full light there was no trace of the red-eyed horror she had fancied out there in the semidarkness of the street. Or was there? Now—when he turned, when the light struck his eyes at an angle, was that a glint of crimson? Still, the features were Nick’s, only a certain grim intensity foreign to him lurked about the set of his mouth, the narrowed eyelids.
“Well!” she said. “So this is Paris! What are you trying to do—teach me capital L—life? And where do we dance?”
“In here.”
“And what kind of quart was that you ordered? You know how little I drink, and I’m darned particular about even that little.”
“You’ll like this.”
“I doubt it.”
“I said you’ll like it,” he reiterated in flat tones.
“I heard you say it.” She regarded him with a puzzled frown. “Nick,” she said suddenly, “I’ve decided I like you better in your gentle pose; this masterful attitude isn’t becoming, and you can forget what I said about wishing you’d display it oftener.”
“You’ll like that, too.”
“Again I doubt it. Nick, dear, don’t spoil another evening like that last one!”
“This one won’t be like the last one!”
“But Honey—” she paused at the entrance of the bartender bearing a tray, an opened bottle of ginger ale, two glasses of ice, and a flask of oily amber liquid. He deposited the assortment on the red-checked table cloth.
“Two dollars,” he said, pocketed the money and silently retired.
“Nicholas,” said the girl tartly, “there’s enough of that poison for a regiment.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I won’t drink it, and I won’t let you drink it! So now what?”
“I think you’ll do both.”
“I don’t!” she snapped. “And I don’t like this, Nick—the place, or the liquor, or your attitude, or anything. We’re going to leave!”
Instead of answering, he pulled the cork from the bottle, pouring a quantity of the amber fluid into each of the tumblers. To one he added an equal quantity of ginger ale, and set it deliberately squarely in front of Pat. She frowned at it distastefully, and shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Not I. I’m leaving.”
She made no move, however; her eyes met those of her companion, gazing at her with a cold intentness in their curious amber depths. And again—was that a flash of red? Impulsively she reached out her hand, touched his.
“Oh, Nick!” she said in soft, almost pleading tones. “Please, Honey—I don’t understand you. Don’t you know I love you, Nick? You can hear me say it: I love you. Don’t you believe that?”
He continued his cold, intense stare; the grim set of his mouth was as unrelaxing as marble. Pat felt a shiver of apprehension run through her, and an almost hypnotic desire to yield herself to the demands of the inexplicable eyes. She tore her glance away, looking down at the red checks of the table cloth.
“Nick, dear,” she said. “I can’t understand this. Will you tell me what you—will you tell me why we’re here?”
“It is out of your grasp.”
“But—I know it has something to do with Wednesday night, something to do with that reluctance of yours, the thing you said you didn’t understand. Hasn’t it?”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do! And Nick, Honey—didn’t I tell you I could forgive you anything? I don’t care what’s happened in the past; all I care for is now, now and the future. Don’t you understand me? I’ve told you I loved you, Honey! Don’t you love me?”
“Yes,” said the other, staring at her with no change in the fixity of his gaze.
“Then how can you—act like this to me?”
“This is my conception of love.”
“I don’t understand!” the girl said helplessly. “I’m completely puzzled—it’s all topsy-turvy.”
“Yes,” he said in impassive agreement.
“But what is this, Nick? Please, please—what is this? Are you mad?” She had almost added, “Like your father.”
“No,” he said, still in those cold tones. “This is an experiment.”
“An experiment!”
“Yes. An experiment in evil.”
“I don’t understand,” she repeated.
“I said you wouldn’t.”
“Do you mean,” she asked, struck by a sudden thought, “that discussion of ours about pure horror? What you said that night last week?”
“That!” His voice was icy and contemptuous. “That was the drivel of a weakling. No; I mean evil, not horror—the living evil that can be so beautiful that one walks deliberately, with open eyes, into Hell only to prevent its loss. That is the experiment.”
“Oh,” said Pat, her own voice suddenly cool. “Is that what you wish to do—experiment on me?”
“Yes.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“First you are to drink with me.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “I see—dimly. I am a subject, a reagent, a guinea pig, to provide you material for your writing. You propose to use me in this experiment of yours—this experiment in evil. All right!” She picked up the tumbler; impulsively she drained it. The liquor, diluted as it was, was raw and strong enough to bring tears smarting to her eyes. Or was it the liquor?
“All right!” she cried. “I’ll drink it all—the whole bottle!” She seized the flask, filling her tumbler to the brim, while her companion watched her with impassive gaze. “You’ll have your experiment! And then, Nicholas Devine, we’re through! Do you hear me? Through!”
She caught up the tumbler, raised it to her lips, and drained the searing liquid until she could see her companion’s cold eyes regarding her through the glass of its bottom.
IX
Descent Into Avernus
Pat slammed the empty tumbler down on the checked table cloth and buried her face in her hands, choking and gasping from the effects of the fiery liquor. Her throat burned, her mouth was parched by the acrid taste, and a conflagration seemed to be raging somewhere within her. Then she steadied, raised her eyes, and stared straight into the strange eyes of Nicholas Devine.
“Well?” she said fiercely. “Is that enough?”
He was watching her coldly as an image or a painting; the intensity of
