"In no far country's silent waysShall I forget one little thing—The soft intentness of your gaze,The sweetness of your murmuringYour generously tender praise,The words just hinted by a breath—In no far country's silent way,Unless that country's name be Death—"
"In no far country's silent waysShall I forget one little thing—The soft intentness of your gaze,The sweetness of your murmuringYour generously tender praise,The words just hinted by a breath—In no far country's silent way,Unless that country's name be Death—"
"In no far country's silent ways
Shall I forget one little thing—
The soft intentness of your gaze,
The sweetness of your murmuring
Your generously tender praise,
The words just hinted by a breath—
In no far country's silent way,
Unless that country's name be Death—"
He paused abruptly, and drove silently onward.
"Oh," breathed Pat. "Why don't you go on, Nick? Please."
"No. It isn't the mood for this night, Dear. Not this night, alone with you."
"What is, then?"
"Nothing sentimental. Something lighter, something—oh, Elizabethan. That's it."
"And what's stopping you?"
"Lack of an available idea. Or—wait. Listen a moment." He began, this time in a tone of banter.
"When mornings, you attire yourselfFor riding in the city,You're such a lovely little elf,Extravagantly pretty!And when at noon you deign to wearThe habit of the town,I cannot call to mind as fairA symphony in brown."Then evenings, you blithely donA daintiness of white,To flash a very paragonOf lightsomeness—and light!But when the rounds of pleasure cease,And you retire at night,The Godling on your mantelpieceMust know a fairer sight!"
"When mornings, you attire yourselfFor riding in the city,You're such a lovely little elf,Extravagantly pretty!And when at noon you deign to wearThe habit of the town,I cannot call to mind as fairA symphony in brown.
"When mornings, you attire yourself
For riding in the city,
You're such a lovely little elf,
Extravagantly pretty!
And when at noon you deign to wear
The habit of the town,
I cannot call to mind as fair
A symphony in brown.
"Then evenings, you blithely donA daintiness of white,To flash a very paragonOf lightsomeness—and light!But when the rounds of pleasure cease,And you retire at night,The Godling on your mantelpieceMust know a fairer sight!"
"Then evenings, you blithely don
A daintiness of white,
To flash a very paragon
Of lightsomeness—and light!
But when the rounds of pleasure cease,
And you retire at night,
The Godling on your mantelpiece
Must know a fairer sight!"
"Sweet!" laughed Pat. "But personal. And anyway, how do you know I've a godling on my mantel? Don't you credit me with any modesty?"
"If you haven't, you should have! The vision I mentioned ought to enliven even a statue."
"Well," said the girl, "I have one—a jade Buddha, and with all the charms I flash before him nightly, he's never batted an eyelash. Explain that!"
"Easily. He's green with envy, and frozen with admiration, and struck dumb by wonder."
"Heavens! I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn't say he was petrified with fright!" Pat laughed. "Oh Nick," she continued, in a voice gone suddenly dreamy, "thisismarvelous, isn't it? I mean our enjoying ourselves so completely, and our being satisfied to be so alone. Why, we've never even danced together."
"So we haven't. That's a subterfuge we haven't needed, isn't it?"
"It is," replied the girl, dropping her glossy gleaming black head against his shoulder. "And besides, it's much more satisfactory to be held in your arms in private, instead of in the midst of a crowd, and sitting down, instead of standing up. But I should like to dance with you, Nick," she concluded.
"We'll go dancing, then, whenever you like."
"You're delightfully complaisant, Nick. But—you're puzzling." She glanced up at him. "You're so—so reluctant. Here we've been driving an hour, and you haven't tried to kiss me a single time, and yet I'm quite positive you care for me."
"Lord, Pat!" he muttered. "You never need doubt that."
"Then what is it? Are you so spiritual and ethereal, or is my attraction for you just sort of intellectual? Or—are you afraid?" As he made no reply, she continued, "Or are those poems you spout about my physical charms just—poetic license?"
"They're not, and you know it!" he snapped. "You've a mirror, haven't you? And other fellows than I have taken you around, haven't they?"
"Oh, I've been taken around! That's what perplexes me about you, Nick. I'd think you were actually afraid of kissing me if it weren't—" Her voice trailed into silence, and she stared speculatively ahead at the ribbon of road that rolled steadily into the headlights' glare.
She broke the interval of wordlessness. "What is it, Nick?" she resumed almost pleadingly. "You've hinted at something now and then. Please—you don't have to hesitate to tell me; I'm modern enough to forgive things past, entanglements, affairs, disgraces, or anything like that. Don't you think I should know?"
"You'd know," he said huskily, "if I could tell you."
"Then there is something, Nick!" She pressed his arm against her. "Tell me, isn't there?"
"I don't know." There was the suggestion of a groan in his voice.
"You don't know! I can't understand."
"I can't either. Please, Pat, let's not spoil tonight; if I could tell you, I would. Why, Pat, I love you—I'm terribly, deeply, solemnly in love with you."
"And I with you, Nick." She gazed ahead, where the road rose over the arch of a narrow bridge. The speeding car lifted to the rise like a zooming plane.
And suddenly, squarely in the center of the road, another car, until now concealed by the arch of the bridge, appeared almost upon them. There was a heart-stopping moment when a collision seemed inevitable, and Pat felt the arm against her tighten convulsively into a bar of steel. She heard her own sobbing gasp, and then, somehow, they had slipped unscathed between the other car and the rail of the bridge.
"Oh!" she gasped faintly, then with a return of breath, "That was nice, Nick!"
Beyond the bridge, the road widened once more; she felt the car slowing, edging toward the broad shoulder of the road.
"There was danger," said her companion in tones as emotionless as the rasping of metal. "I came to save it."
"Save what?" queried Pat as the car slid to a halt on the turf.
"Your body." The tones were still cold, like grinding wheels. "The beauty of your body!"
He reached a thin hand toward her, suddenly seized her skirt and snatched it above the silken roundness of her knees. "There," he rasped. "That is what I mean."
"Nick!" Pat half-screamed in appalled astonishment. "How—" She paused, shocked into abrupt silence, for the face turned toward her was but a remote, evil caricature of Nicholas Devine's. It leered at her out of blood-shot eyes, as if behind the mask of Nick's face peered a red-eyed demon.
The satyr beside pat was leaning toward her; the arm about her was tightening with a brutal ruthlessness, and while still staring in fascination at the incredible eyes, she realized that another arm and a white hand was moving relentlessly, exploratively, toward her body. It was the cold touch of this hand as it slipped over her silk-sheathed legs that broke the chilling spell of her fascination.
"Nick!" she screamed. "Nick!" She had a curious sensation of calling him back from far distances, the while she strove with both hands and all her strength to press him back from her. But the ruthless force of his arms was overcoming her resistance; she saw the red eyes a hand's breadth from her own.
"Nick!" she sobbed in terror.
There was a change. Abruptly, she was looking into Nick's eyes, blood-shot, frightened, puzzled, but indubitably Nick's eyes. The flaming orbs of the demon were no more; it was as if they had receded into Nick's head. The arm about her body relaxed, and they were staring at each other in a medley of consternation, amazement and unbelief. The youth drew back, huddled in his corner of the car, and Pat, breathing in sobs, smoothed out her rumpled apparel with a convulsive movement.
"Pat!" he gasped. "Oh, my God! He couldn't have—" He paused abruptly. The girl gazed at him without reply.
"Pat, Dear," he spoke in a low, tense murmur, "I'm—sorry. I don't know—I don't understand how—"
"Never mind," she said, regaining a vestige of her customary composure. "It's—all right, Nick."
"But—oh, Pat—!"
"It was that near accident," she said. "That upset you—both of us, I mean."
"Yes!" he said eagerly. "That's what it was, Pat. It must have been that, but Dear, can you forgive? Do you want to forgive me?"
"It's all right," she repeated. "After all, you just complimented my legs, and I guess I can stand that. It's happened before, only not quite so—convincingly!"
"You're sweet, Pat!"
"No; I just love you Nick." She felt a sudden pity for the misery in his face. "Kiss me, Nick—only gently."
He pressed his lips to hers, very lightly, almost timidly. She lay back against the seat for a moment, her eyes closed.
"That's you again," she murmured. "This other—wasn't."
"Please, Pat! Don't refer to it,—not ever."
"But it wasn't you, Nick. It was just the strain of that narrow escape. I don't hold it against you."
"You're—Lord, Pat, I don't deserve you. But you know that I—I myself—could never touch you except in tenderness, even in reverence. You're too dainty, too lovely, too spirited, to be hurt, or to be held roughly, against your will. You know I feel that way about you, don't you?"
"Of course. It was nothing, Nick. Forget it."
"If I can," he said somberly. He switched on the engine, backed out upon the pavement, and turned the car toward the glow that marked Chicago. Neither of them spoke as the machine hummed over the arching bridge and down the slope, where, so few minutes before, the threat of accident had thrust itself at them.
"We won't see a moon tonight," said Pat in a small voice, after an interval. "We'll never check up on Dr. Carl's astronomy."
"You don't want to tonight, Pat, do you?"
"I guess perhaps we'd better not," she replied. "We're both upset, and there'll be other nights."
Again they were silent. Pat felt strained, shaken; there was something uncanny about the occurrence that puzzled her. The red eyes that had glared out of Nick's face perplexed her, and the curious rasping voice he had used still sounded inhumanly in her memory. Out of recollection rose still another mystery.
"Nick," she said, "what did you mean—then—when you said there was danger and you came to save me?"
"Nothing," he said sharply.
"And then, afterwards, you started to say something about 'He couldn't have—'. Who's 'he'?"
"It meant nothing, I tell you. I was frantic to think you might have been hurt. That's all."
"I believe you, Honey," she said, wondering whether she really did. The thing was beginning to grow hazy; already it was assuming merely the proportions of an upheaval of youthful fervor. Such occurrences were not unheard of, though never before had it happened to Patricia Lane! Still, even that was conceivable, far more conceivable than the dark, unformed, inchoate suspicions she had been harboring. They hadn't even been definite enough to be called suspicions; indefinite apprehensions came closer.
And yet—that strange, wild face that had formed itself of Nick's fine features, and the terrible red eyes! Were they elements in a picture conjured out of her own imagination? They must be, of course. She had been frightened by that hairbreadth escape, and had seen things that didn't exist. And the rest of it—well, that might be natural enough. Still, there was something—she knew that; Nick had admitted it.
Horker's words concerning Nick's father rose in her mind. Suspected of being crazy! Was that it? Was that the cause of Nick's curious reluctance where she was concerned? Was the face that had glared at her the visage of a maniac? It couldn't be. It couldn't be, she told herself fiercely. Not her fine, tender, sensitive Nick! And besides, that face, if she hadn't imagined it, had been the face, not of a lunatic, but of a devil. She shook her head, as if to deny her thoughts, and placed her hand impulsively on Nick's.
"I don't care," she said. "I love you, Nick."
"And I you," he murmured. "Pat, I'm sorry about spoiling this evening. I'm sorry and ashamed."
"Never mind, Honey. There'll be others."
"Tomorrow?"
"No," she said. "Mother and I are going out to dinner. And Friday we're having company."
"Really, Pat? You're not just trying to turn me off gently."
"Really, Nick. Try asking me for Saturday evening and see!"
"You're asked, then."
"And it's a date." Then, with a return of her usual insouciance, she added. "If you're on good behavior."
"I will be. I promise."
"I hope so," said Pat. An inexplicable sense of foreboding had come over her; despite her self-given assurances, something unnameable troubled her. She gave a mental shrug, and deliberately relegated the unpleasant cogitations to oblivion.
The car turned into Dempster Road; the lights of the teeming roadhouses, dance halls, road-side hamburger and barbecue stands flashed by. There were many cars here; there was no longer any impression of solitude now, in the overflow from the vast city in whose shadow they moved. The incessant flow of traffic gave the girl a feeling of security; these were tangible things about her, and once more the memory of that disturbing occurrence became dim and dreamlike. This was Nick beside her, gentle, intelligent, kind; had he ever been otherwise? It seemed highly unreasonable, a fantasy of fear and the hysteria of the moment.
"Hungry?" asked Nick unexpectedly.
"I could use a barbecue, I guess. Beef."
The car veered to the graveled area before a brightly lit stand. Nick gave the order to an attendant. He chuckled as Pat, with the digestive disregard of youth attacked the greasy combination.
"That's like a humming bird eating hay!" he said. "Or better, like a leprechaun eating that horse-meat they can for dogs."
"You might as well discover that I don't live on honey and rose-petals," said Pat. "Not even on caviar and terrapin—at least, not exclusively. I leave the dainty palate for Mother to indulge."
"Which is just as well. Hamburger and barbecue are more easily budgeted."
"Nicholas," said the girl, tossing the paper napkin out of the car window, "is that an indirect and very evasive proposal of marriage?"
"You know it could be, if you wished it!"
"And do I?" she said, assuming a pensive air. "I wonder. Suppose we say I'll let you know later."
"And meanwhile?"
"Oh, meanwhile we can be sort of engaged. Just the way we've been."
"You're sweet, Pat," he murmured, as the car edged into the line of traffic. "I don't know just how to convey my appreciation, but it's there!"
The buildings drew more closely together; the road was suddenly a lighted street, and then, almost without realizing it, they were before Pat's home. Nick walked beside her to the door; he stood facing her hesitantly.
"Good night, Pat," he said huskily. He leaned down, kissing her very gently, turned, and departed.
The girl watched him from the open doorway, following the lights of his car until they vanished down the street. Dear, sweet Nick! Then the disturbing memory of that occurrence of the evening returned; she frowned in perplexity as the thought rose. That was all of a piece with the puzzling character of him, and the curious veiled references he'd made. References to what? She didn't know, couldn't imagine. Nick had said he didn't know either, which added still another quirk to the maze.
She thought of Dr. Horker's words. With the thought, she glanced at his house, adjacent to her own home. A light gleamed in the library; he was still awake. She closed the door behind her, and darted across the narrow strip of lawn to his porch. She rang the bell.
"Good evening, Dr. Carl," she said as the massive form of Horker appeared. She puckered her lips impudently at him as she slipped by him into the house.
"Not that I'm displeased at this visit, Pat," rumbled the Doctor, seating himself in one of the great chairs by the fireplace, "but I'm curious. I thought you were dating your ideal tonight, yet here you are, back alone a little after eleven. How come?"
"Oh," said the girl nonchalantly, dropping crosswise in the other chair, "we decided we needed our beauty sleep."
"Then why are you here, you young imp?"
"Thought you might be lonesome."
"I'll bet you did! But seriously, Pat, what is it? Any trouble?"
"No-o," she said dubiously. "No trouble. I just wanted to ask you a few hypothetical questions. About science."
"Go to it, then, and quickly. I was ready to turn in."
"Well," said Pat, "about Nick's father. He was a doctor, you said, and supposed to be cracked. Was he really?"
"Humph! That's curious. I just looked up a brochure of his tonight in the American Medical Journal, after our conversation of this afternoon. Why do you ask that?"
"Because I'm interested, of course."
"Well, here's what I remember about him, Pat. He was an M.D., all right, but I see by his paper there—the one I was reading—that he was on the staff of Northern U. He did some work at the Cook County Asylum, some research work, and there was a bit of talk about his maltreating the patients. Then, on top of that, he published a paper that medical men considered crazy, and that started talk of his sanity. That's all I know."
"Then Nick—."
"I thought so! So it's come to the point where you're investigating his antecedents, eh? With an eye to marriage, or what?"
"Or what!" snapped Pat. "I was curious to know, naturally."
"Naturally." The Doctor gave her a keen glance from his shrewd eyes. "Did you think you detected incipient dementia in your ideal?"
"No," said the girl thoughtfully. "Dr. Carl, is there any sort of craziness that could take an ordinarily shy person and make a passionate devil of him? I don't mean passionate, either," she added. "Rather cold, ruthless, domineering."
"None that I know of," said Horker, watching her closely. "Did this Nick of yours have one of his masterful moments?"
"Worse than that," admitted Pat reluctantly. "We had a near accident, and it startled both of us, and then suddenly, he was looking at me like a devil, and then—" She paused. "It frightened me a little."
"What'd he do?" demanded Horker sharply.
"Nothing." She lied with no hesitation.
"Were there any signs of Satyromania?"
"I don't know. I never heard of that."
"I mean, in plain Americanese, did he make a pass at you?"
"He—no, he didn't."
"Well, whatdidhe do?"
"He just looked at me." Somehow a feeling of disloyalty was rising in her; she felt a reluctance to betray Nick further.
"What did he say, then? And don't lie this time."
"He just said—He just looked at my legs and said something about their being beautiful, and that was all. After that, the look on his face faded into the old Nick."
"Old Nick is right—the impudent scoundrel!" Horker's voice rumbled angrily.
"Well, they're nice legs," said Pat defiantly, swinging them as evidence. "You've said it yourself. Why shouldn'thesay it? What's to keep him from it?"
"The code of a gentleman, for one thing!"
"Oh, who cares for your Victorian codes! Anyway, I came here for information, not to be cross-examined. I want to ask the questions myself."
"Pat, you're a reckless little spit-fire, and you're going to get burned some day, and deserve it," the Doctor rumbled ominously. "Ask your fool questions, and then I'll ask mine."
"All right," said the girl, still defiant. "I don't guarantee to answer yours, however."
"Well, ask yours, you imp!"
"First, then—Is that Satyro-stuff you mentioned intermittent or continuous?"
"It's necessarily intermittent, you numb-skull! The male organism can't function continuously!"
"I mean, does the mania lie dormant for weeks or months, and then flare up?"
"Not at all. It's a permanent mania, like any other psychopathic sex condition."
"Oh," said Pat thoughtfully, with a sense of relief.
"Well, go on. What next?"
"What are these dual personalities you read about in the papers?"
"They're aphasias. An individual forgets his name, and he picks, or is given, another, if he happens to wander among strangers. He forgets much of his past experience; the second personality is merely what's left of the first—sort of a vestige of his normal character. There isn't any such thing as a dual personality in the sense of two distinct characters living in one body."
"Isn't there?" queried the girl musingly. "Could the second personality have qualities that the first one lacked?"
"Not any more than it could have an extra finger! The second is merely a split off the first, a forgetfulness, a loss of memory. It couldn't havemorequalities than the whole, or normal, character; itmusthave fewer."
"Isn't that just too interesting!" said Pat in a bantering tone. "All right, Dr. Carl. It's your turn."
"Then what's the reason for all this curiosity about perversions and aphasias? What's happened to your genius now?"
"Oh, I'm thinking of taking up the study of psychiatry," replied the girl cheerfully.
"Aren't you going to answer me seriously?"
"No."
"Then what's the use of my asking questions?"
"I know the right answer to that one. None!"
"Pat," said Horker in a low voice, "you're an impudent little hoyden, and too clever for your own good, but you and your mother are very precious to me. You know that."
"Of course I do, Dr. Carl," said the girl, relenting. "You're a dear, and I'm crazy about you, and you know that, too."
"What I'm trying to say," proceeded the other, "is simply that I'm trying to help you. I want to help you, if you need help. Do you?"
"I guess I don't, Dr. Carl, but you're sweet."
"Are you in love with this Nicholas Devine?"
"I think perhaps I am," she admitted softly.
"And is he in love with you?"
"Frankly, could he help being?"
"Then there's something about him that worries you. That's it, isn't it?"
"I thought there was, Dr. Carl. I was a little startled by the change in him right after we had that narrow escape, but I'm sure it was nothing—just imagination. Honestly, that's all that troubled me."
"I believe you, Pat," said the Doctor, his eyes fixed on hers. "But guard yourself, my dear. Be sure he's what you think he is; be sure you know him rightly."
"He's clean and fine," murmured the girl. "Iamsure."
"But this puzzling yourself about his character, Pat—I don't like it. Make doubly sure before you permit your feelings to become too deeply involved. That's only common sense, child, not psychiatry or magic."
"I'm sure," repeated Pat. "I'm not puzzled or troubled any more. And thanks, Dr. Carl. You run along to bed and I'll do likewise."
He rose, accompanying her to the door, his face unusually grave.
"Patricia," he said, "I want you to think over what I've said. Be sure, be doubly sure, before you expose yourself to the possibility of suffering. Remember that, won't you?"
"I'll try to. Don't fret yourself about it, Dr. Carl; I'm a hard-boiled young modern, and it takes a diamond to even scratch me."
"I hope so," he said soberly. "Run along; I'll watch until you're inside."
Pat darted across the strip of grass, turned at her door to blow a goodnight kiss to the Doctor, and slipped in. She tiptoed quietly to her room, slipped off her dress, and surveyed her long, slim legs in the mirror.
"Why shouldn't he say they were beautiful?" she queried of the image. "I can't see any reason to get excited over a simple compliment like that."
She made a face over her shoulder at the green Buddha above the fireplace.
"And as for you, fat boy," she murmured, "I expect to see you wink at me tonight. And every night hereafter!"
She prepared herself for slumber, slipped into the great bed. She had hardly closed her lids before the image of a leering face with terrible bloody eyes flamed out of memory and set her trembling and shuddering.
"I suppose I really ought to meet your friends, Patricia," said Mrs. Lane, peering out of the window, "but they all seem to call when I'm not at home."
"I'll have some of them call in February," said Pat. "You're not out as often in February."
"Why do you say I'm not out as often in February?" demanded her mother. "I don't see what earthly difference the month makes."
"There are fewer days in February," retorted Pat airily.
"Facetious brat!"
"So I've been told. You needn't worry, though, Mother; I'm sober, steady, and reliable, and if I weren't, Dr. Carl would see to it that my associates were."
"Yes; Carl is a gem," observed her mother. "By the way, who's this Nicholas you're so enthusiastic about?"
"He's a boy I met."
"What's he like?"
"Well, he speaks English and wears a hat."
"Imp! Is he nice?"
"That means is his family acceptable, doesn't it? He hasn't any family."
Mrs. Lane shrugged her attractive shoulders. "You're a self-reliant sort, Patricia, and cool as iced lettuce, like your father. I don't doubt that you can manage your own affairs, and here comes Claude with the car." She gave the girl a hasty kiss. "Good-bye, and have a good time, as I'm sure I shan't with Bret Cutter in the game."
Pat watched her mother's trim, amazingly youthful figure as she entered the car. More like a companion than a parent, she mused; she liked the independence her mother's attitude permitted her.
"Better than being watched like a prize-winning puppy," she thought. "Maybe Dr. Carl as a father would have a detriment or two along with the advantages. He's a dear, and I'm mad about him, but he does lean to the nineteenth century as far as parental duties are concerned."
She saw Nick's car draw to the curb; as he emerged she waved from the window and skipped into the hall. She caught up her wrap and bounded out to meet him just ascending the steps.
"Let's go!" she greeted him. She cast an apprehensive glance at his features, but there was nothing disturbing about him. He gave her a diffident smile, the shy, gentle smile that had taken her in that first moment of meeting. This was certainly no one but her own Nick, with no trace of the unsettling personality of their last encounter.
He helped her into the car, seating himself at her side. He leaned over her, kissing her very tenderly; suddenly she was clinging to him, her face against the thrilling warmth of his cheek.
"Nick!" she murmured. "Nick! You're just safely you, aren't you? I've been imagining things that I knew couldn't be so!"
He slipped his arm caressingly about her, and the pressure of it was like the security of encircling battlements. The world was outside the circle of his arms; she was within, safe, inviolable. It was some moments before she stirred, lifting her pert face with tear-bright eyes from the obscurity of his shoulder.
"So!" she exclaimed, patting the black glow of her hair into composure. "I feel better, Nick, and I hope you didn't mind."
"Mind!" he ejaculated. "If you mean that as a joke, Honey, it's far too subtle for me."
"Well, I didn't think you'd mind," said Pat demurely, settling herself beside him. "Let's be moving, then; Dr. Carl is nearly popping his eyes out in the window there."
The car hummed into motion; she waved a derisive arm at the Doctor's window by way of indicating her knowledge of his surveillance. "Ought to teach him a lesson some time," she thought. "One of these fine evenings I'll give him a real shock."
"Where'll we go?" queried Nick, veering skilfully into the swift traffic of Sheridan Road.
"Anywhere!" she said blithely. "Who cares as long as we go together?"
"Dancing?"
"Why not? Know a good place?"
"No." He frowned in thought. "I haven't indulged much."
"The Picador?" she suggested. "The music's good, and it's not too expensive. But it's 'most across town, and besides, Saturday nights we'd be sure to run into some of the crowd."
"What of it?"
"I want to dance with you, Nick—all evening. I want to be without distractions."
"Pat, dear! I could kiss you for that."
"You will," she murmured softly.
They moved aimlessly south with the traffic, pausing momentarily at the light-controlled intersections, then whirring again to rapid motion. The girl leaned against his arm silently, contentedly; block after block dropped behind.
"Why so pensive, Honey?" he asked after an interval. "I've never known you so quiet before."
"I'm enjoying my happiness, Nick."
"Aren't you usually happy?"
"Of course, only these last two or three days, ever since our last date, I've been making myself miserable. I've been telling myself foolish things, impossible things, and it's only now that I've thrown off the blues. I'm happy, Dear!"
"I'm glad you are," he said. His voice was strangely husky, and he stared fixedly at the street rushing toward them. "I'm glad you are," he repeated, a curious tensity in his tones.
"So'm I."
"I'll never do anything to make you unhappy, Pat—never. Not—if I can help it."
"You can help it, Nick. You're the one making me happy; please keep doing it."
"I—hope to." There was a queer catch in his voice. It was almost as if he feared something.
"Selah!" said Pat conclusively. She was thinking, "Wrong of me to refer to that accident. After all it was harmless; just a natural burst of passion. Might happen to anyone."
"Where'll we go?" asked Nick as they swung into the tree-shadowed road of Lincoln Park. "We haven't decided that."
"Anywhere," said the girl dreamily. "Just drive; we'll find a place."
"You must know lots of them."
"We'll find a new place; we'll discover it for ourselves. It'll mean more, doing that, than if we just go to one of the old places where I've been with every boy that ever dated me. You don't want me dancing with a crowd of memories, do you?"
"I shouldn't mind as long as they stayed merely memories."
"Well, I should! This evening's to be ours—exclusively ours."
"As if it could ever be otherwise!"
"Indeed?" said Pat. "And how do you know what memories I might choose to carry along? Are you capable of inspecting my mental baggage?"
"We'll check it at the door. You're traveling light tonight, aren't you?"
"Pest!" she said, giving his cheek an impudent vicious pinch. "Nice, pleasurable pest!"
He made no answer. The car was idling rather slowly along Michigan Boulevard; half a block ahead glowed the green of a traffic light. Faster traffic flowed around them, passing them like water eddying about a slow floating branch.
Suddenly the car lurched forward. The amber flame of the warning light had flared out; they flashed across the intersection a split second before the metallic click of the red light, and a scant few feet before the converging lines of traffic from the side street swept in with protesting horns.
"Nick!" the girl gasped. "You'll rate yourself a traffic ticket! Why'd you cut the light like that?"
"To lose your guardian angel," he muttered in tones so low she barely understood his words.
Pat glanced back; the lights of a dozen cars showed beyond the barrier of the red signal.
"Do you mean one of those cars was following us? What on earth makes you think that, and why should it, anyway?"
The other made no answer; he swerved the car abruptly off the avenue, into one of the nondescript side streets. He drove swiftly to the corner, turned south again, and turned again on some street Pat failed to identify—South Superior or Grand, she thought. They were scarcely a block from the magnificence of Michigan Avenue and its skyscrapers, its brilliant lights, and its teeming night traffic, yet here they moved down a deserted dark thoroughfare, a street lined with ramshackle wooden houses intermingled with mean little shops.
"Nick!" Pat exclaimed. "Where are we going?"
The low voice sounded. "Dancing," he said.
He brought the car to the curb; in the silence as the motor died, the faint strains of a mechanical piano sounded. He opened the car door, stepped around to the sidewalk.
"We're here," he said.
Something metallic in his tone drew Pat's eyes to his face. The eyes that returned her stare were the bloody orbs of the demon of last Wednesday night!
Pat stared curiously at the apparition but made no move to alight from the vehicle. She was conscious of no fear, only a sense of wonder and perplexity. After all, this was merely Nick, her own harmless, adoring Nick, in some sort of mysterious masquerade, and she felt full confidence in her ability to handle him under any circumstances.
"Where's here?" she said, remaining motionless in her place.
"A place to dance," came the toneless reply.
Pat eyed him; a street car rumbled past, and the brief glow from its lighted windows swept over his face. Suddenly the visage was that of Nick; the crimson glare of the eyes was imperceptible, and the features were the well-known appurtenances of Nicholas Devine, but queerly tensed and strained.
"A trick of the light," she thought, as the street car lumbered away, and again a faint gleam of crimson appeared. She gazed curiously at the youth, who stood impassively returning her survey as he held the door of the car. But the face was the face of Nick, she perceived, probably in one of his grim moods.
She transferred her glance to the building opposite which they had stopped. The strains of the mechanical piano had ceased; blank, shaded windows faced them, around whose edges glowed a subdued light from within. A drab, battered, paintless shack, she thought, dismal and unpleasant; while she gazed, the sound of the discordant music recommenced, adding, it seemed, the last unprepossessing item.
"It doesn't look very attractive, Nick," she observed dubiously.
"I find it so, however."
"Then you've been here?"
"Yes."
"But I thought you said you didn't know any place to go."
"This one hadn't occurred to me—then."
"Well," she said crisply, "I could have done as well as this with my eyes closed. It doesn't appeal to me at all, Nick."
"Nevertheless, here's where we'll go. You're apt to find it—interesting."
"Look here, Nicholas Devine!" Pat snapped, "What makes you think you can bully me? No one has ever succeeded yet!"
"I said you'd find it interesting." His voice was unchanged; she stared at him in complete bafflement.
"Oh, Nick!" she exclaimed in suddenly softer tones. "What difference does it make? Didn't I say anywhere would do, so we went together?" She smiled at him. "This will do if you wish, though really, Honey, I'd prefer not."
"I do wish it," the other said.
"All right, Honey," said Pat the faintest trace of reluctance in her voice as she slipped from the car. "I stick to my bargains."
She winced at the intensity of his grip as he took her arm to assist her. His fingers were like taunt wires biting into her flesh.
"Nick!" she cried. "You're hurting me! You're bruising my arm!"
He released her; she rubbed the spot ruefully, then followed him to the door of the mysterious establishment. The unharmonious jangle of the piano dinned abruptly louder as he swung the door open. Pat entered and glanced around her at the room revealed.
Dull, smoky, dismal—not the least exciting or interesting as yet, she thought. A short bar paralleled one wall, behind which lounged a little, thin, nondescript individual with a small mustache. Half a dozen tables filled the remainder of the room; four or five occupied by the clientele of the place, as unsavory a group as the girl could recall having encountered on the hither side of the motion picture screen. Two women tittered as Nick entered; then with one accord, the eyes of the entire group fixed on Pat, where she stood drawing her wrap more closely about her, standing uncomfortably behind her escort. And the piano tinkled its discords in the far corner.
"Same place," said Nick shortly to the bartender, ignoring the glances of the others. Pat followed him across the room to a door, into a hall, thence into a smaller room furnished merely with a table and four chairs. The nondescript man stood waiting in the doorway as Nick took her wrap and seated her in one of the chairs.
"Quart," he said laconically, and the bartender disappeared.
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 semi-darkness 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 eye-lids.
"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. Orwasit 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.
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 his gaze was more cat-like than human. She moved her head aside; his eyes, without apparent shift, were still on hers, like the eyes of a pictured face. A resurgence of anger shook her at his immobility; his aloofness seemed to imply that nothing she could do would disturb him.
"Wasn't it enough?" she screamed. "Wasn't it? Then look!"
She seized the bottle, poured another stream of the oily liquid into her glass, and raised it to her lips. Again the burning fluid excoriated her tongue and throat, and then suddenly, the tumbler was struck from her hand, spilling the rest of its contents on the table.
"That is enough," said the icy voice of her companion.
"Oh, it is? We'll see!" She snatched at the bottle, still more than half full. The thin hand of Nicholas Devine wrenched it violently away.
"Give me that!" she cried. "You wanted what you're getting!" The warmth within her had reached the surface now; she felt flushed, excited, reckless, and desperately angry.
The other set the bottle deliberately on the floor; he rose, circled the table, and stood glaring down at her with that same inexplicable expression. Suddenly he raised his hand; twisting her black hair in his fist, he dealt her a stinging blow across the lips half-opened to scream, then flung her away so violently that she nearly sprawled from her chair.
The scream died in her throat; dazed by the blow, she dropped her head to the table, while sobs of pain and fear shook her. Coherent thought had departed, and she knew only that her lips stung, that her clear, active little mind was caught in a mesh of befuddlement. She couldn't think; she could only sob in the haze of dizziness that encompassed her. After a long interval, she raised her head, opened her eyes upon a swaying, unsteady world, and faced her companion, who had silently resumed his seat.
"Nicholas Devine," she said slowly, speaking as if each word were an effort, "I hate you!"
"Ah!" he said and was again silent.
She forced her eyes to focus on his face, while his features danced vaguely as if smoke flowed between the two of them. It was as if there were smoke in her mind as well; she made a great effort to rise above the clouds that bemused her thoughts.
"Take me home," she said. "Nicholas, I want to go home."
"Why should I?" he asked impassively. "The experiment is hardly begun."
"Experiment?" she echoed dully. "Oh, yes—experiment. I'm an experiment."
"An experiment in evil," he said.
"Yes—in evil. And I hate you! That's evil enough, isn't it?"
He reached down, lifted the bottle to the table, and methodically poured himself a drink of the liquor. He raised it, watching the oily swirls in the light, then tipped the fluid to his lips while the girl gazed at him with a sullen set to her own lips. A tiny crimson spot had appeared in the corner of her mouth; at its sting, she raised her hand and brushed it away. She stared as if in unbelief at the small red smear it left on her fingers.
"Nicholas," she said pleadingly, "won't you take me home? Please, Nicholas, I want to leave here."
"Do you hate me?" he asked, a queer twisting smile appearing on his lips.
"If you'll take me home I won't," said Pat, snatching through the rising clouds of dizziness at a straw of logic. "You're going to take me home, aren't you?"
"Let me hear you say you hate me!" he demanded, rising again. The girl cringed away with a little whimper as he approached. "You hate me, don't you?"
He twisted his hand again in her ebony hair, drawing her face back so that he stared down at it.
"There's blood on your lips," he said as if gloating. "Blood on your lips!"
He clutched her hair more tightly; abruptly he bent over her, pressing his mouth to hers. Her bruised lips burned with pain at the fierce pressure of his; she felt a sharp anguish at the impingement of his teeth. Yet the cloudy pall of dizziness about her was unbroken; she was too frightened and bewildered for resistance.
"Blood on your lips!" he repeated exultingly. "Now is the beauty of evil!"
"Nicholas," she said wearily, clinging desperately to a remnant of logic, "what do you want of me? Tell me what you want and then let me go home."
"I want to show you the face of evil," he said. "I want you to know the glory of evil, the loveliness of supreme evil!"
He dragged his chair around the table, placing it beside her. Seated, he drew her into his arms, where she lay passive, too limp and befuddled to resist. With a sudden movement, he turned her so that her back rested across his knees, her face gazing up into his. He stared intently down at her, and the light, shining at an angle into his eyes, suddenly struck out the red glow that lingered in them.
"I want you to know the power of evil," he murmured. "The irresistible, incomprehensible fascination of it, and the unspeakable pleasures of indulgence in it."
Pat scarcely heard him; she was struggling now in vain against the overwhelming fumes of the alcohol she had consumed. The room was wavering around her, and behind her despair and terror, a curious elation was thrusting itself into her consciousness.
"Evil," she echoed vaguely.
"Blood on your lips!" he muttered, peering down at her. "Taste the unutterable pleasure of kisses on bloody lips; drain the sweet anguish of pain, the fierce delight of suffering!"
He bent down; again his lips pressed upon hers, but this time she felt herself responding. Some still sane portion of her brain rebelled, but the intoxication of sense and alcohol was dominant. Suddenly she was clinging to him, returning his kisses, glorying in the pain of her lacerated lips. A red mist suffused her; she had no consciousness of anything save the exquisite pain of the kiss, that somehow contrived to transform itself into an ecstacy of delight. She lay gasping as the other withdrew his lips.
"You see!" he gloated. "You understand! Evil is open to us, and all the unutterable pleasures of the damned, who cry out in transports of joy at the bite of the flames of Hell. Do you see?"
The girl made no answer, sobbing in a chaotic mingling of pain and excruciating pleasure. She was incapable of speech or connected thought; the alcohol beat against her brain with a persistence that defied resistance. After a moment, she stirred, struggling erect to a sitting posture.
"Evil!" she said dizzily. "Evil and good—what's difference? All in a lifetime!"
She felt a surge of tipsy elation, and then the muffled music of the mechanical piano, drifting through the closed door, penetrated her befuddled consciousness.
"I want to dance!" she cried. "I'm drunk and I want to dance! Am I drunk?" she appealed to her companion.
"Yes," he said.
"I am not! I just want to dance, only it's hot in here. Dance with me, Nicholas—show me an evil dance! I want to dance with the Devil, and I will! You're the Devil, name and all! I want to dance with Old Nick himself!"
She rose unsteadily from her chair; instantly the room reeled crazily about her and she fell sprawling. She felt the grasp of arms beneath her shoulders, raising her erect; she leaned against the wall and heard herself laughing wildly.
"Funny room!" she said. "Evil room—on pivots!"
"You're still to learn," came the toneless voice of Nicholas Devine. "Do you want to see the face of evil?"
"Sure!" she said. "Got a good memory for faces!"
She realized that he was fumbling with the catch of her dress on her left shoulder; again some remnant, some vestige of sanity deep in her brain warned her.
"Mustn't," she said vaguely.
Then suddenly the catch was open; the dress dropped away around her, crumpling to a shapeless blob of cloth about her diminutive feet. She covered her face with her hands, fighting to hold that last, vanishing vestige of sobriety, while she stood swaying drunkenly against the wall.
Then Nicholas Devine's arms were about her again; she felt the sharp sting of his kisses on her throat. He swung her about, bent her backwards across the low table; she was conscious of a bewildered sensation of helplessness and of little else.
"Now the supreme glory of evil!" he was muttering in her ear. She felt his hands on her bare shoulders as he pressed her backward.
Then, abruptly, he paused, releasing her. She sat dizzily erect, following the direction of his gaze. In the half open door stood the nondescript bartender leering in at them.
Pat slid dizzily from her perch on the table and sank heavily to a chair. The interruption of the mustached keeper of this den of contradictions struck her as extremely humorous; she giggled hysterically as her wavering gaze perceived the consternation in his sharp little face. Some forlorn shred of modesty asserted itself, and she dragged a corner of the red-checked table cloth across her knees.
"Get out!" said Nicholas Devine in that voice of rasping metal. "Get out!" he repeated in unchanging tones.
The other made no move to leave. "Yeah?" he said. "Listen, Bud—this place is respectable, see? You want to pull something like this, you go upstairs, see? And pay for your room."
"Get out!" There was no variation in the voice.
"Youget out! The both of you, see?"
Nicholas Devine stepped slowly toward him; his back, as he advanced upon the bartender, was toward Pat, yet through the haze of intoxication, she had an impression of evil red eyes in a chill, impassive face. "Get out!"
The other had no stomach for such an adversary. He backed out of the door, closing it as he vanished. His voice floated in from the hall.
"I'm telling you!" he called. "Clear out!"
Nicholas Devine turned back toward the girl. He surveyed her sitting in her chair; she had dropped her chin to her hand to steady the whirling of her head.
"We'll go," he said. "Come on."
"I just want to sit here," she said. "Just let me sit here. I'm tired."
"Come on," he repeated.
"Why?" she muttered petulantly. "I'm tired."
"I want no interruptions. We'll go elsewhere."
"Must dress!" she murmured dazedly, "can't go on street without dress."
Nicholas Devine swept her frock from its place in the corner, gathered her wrap from the chair, and flung them over his arm. He grasped her wrist, tugging her to an unsteady standing position.
"Come on," he said.
"Dress!"
He snatched the red checked table cloth from its place, precipitating bottles, ash-tray, and glasses into an indiscriminate pile, and threw the stained and odorous fabric across her shoulders. She gathered it about her like a toga; it hung at most points barely below her waist, but it satisfied the urge of her muddled mind for a covering of some sort.
"We'll go through the rear," her companion said. "Into the alley. I want no trouble with that rat in the bar—yet!"
He still held Pat's wrist; she stumbled after him as he dragged her into the darkness of the hall. They moved through it blindly to a door at the far end; Nicholas swung it open upon a dim corridor flanked by buildings on either side, with a strip of star-sprinkled sky above.
Pat's legs were somehow incapable of their usual lithe grace; she failed to negotiate the single step, and crashed heavily to the concrete paving. The shock and the cooler air of the open steadied her momentarily; she felt no pain from her bruised knees, but a temporary rift in the fog that bound her mind. She gathered the red-checked cloth more closely about her shoulders as her companion, still clutching her wrist, jerked her violently to her feet.
They moved into the gulch of the alley, and here she found difficulty in following. Her tiny high-heeled pumps slipped at every step on the uneven cobbles of the paving, and the unsteady footing made her lurch and stumble until the dusty stretch of the alley was a writhing panorama of shadows and lighted windows and stars. Nicholas Devine turned an impatient glare on her, and here in the semi-darkness, his face was again the face of the red-eyed demon. She dragged him to a halt, laughing strangely.
"There it is!" she cried, pointing at him with her free hand. He turned again, staring at her with grim features.
"What?"
"There! Your face—the face of evil!" Again she laughed hysterically.
The other stepped to her side; the disturbing eyes were inches from her own. He raised his hand as she laughed, slapped her sharply, so that her head reeled. He seized her shoulders, shaking her until the checkered cloth billowed like a flag in a wind.
"Now come!" he muttered.
But the girl, laughing no longer, leaned pale and weak against a low board fence. Her limbs seemed paralyzed, and movement was quite impossible. She was conscious of neither the blow nor the shaking, but only of a devastating nausea and an all-encompassing weakness. She bent over the fence; she was violently ill.
Then the nausea had vanished, and a weariness, a strange lassitude, was all that remained. Nicholas Devine stood over her; suddenly he pressed her body to him in a convulsive embrace, so that her head dropped back, and his face loomed above her, obliterating the stars.
"Ah!" he said. He seemed about to kiss her when a sound—voices—filtered out of somewhere in the maze of dark courts and littered yards along the alley. He released her, seized her wrist, and once more she was stumbling wretchedly behind him over the uneven surface of the cobblestones.
A numbness had come over her; consciousness burned very low as she wavered doggedly along through the darkness. She perceived dimly that they were approaching the end of the alley; the brighter glow of the street loomed before them, and a passing motor car cut momentary parallel shafts of luminescence across the opening.
Nicholas Devine slowed his pace, still clutching her wrist in a cold grip; he paused, moving cautiously toward the corner of the building. He peered around the edge of the structure, surveying the now deserted street, while Pat stood dully behind him, incapable alike of thought or voluntary movement, clutching desperately at the dirty cloth that hung about her shoulders.
Her companion finished his survey; apparently satisfied that progress was safe, he dragged her after him, turning toward the corner beyond which his car was parked. The girl staggered behind him with diminishing vigor; consciousness was very nearly at the point of disappearance, and her steps were wavering unsteadily, and doggedly slow. She dragged heavily on his arm; he gave a gesture of impatience at her weakness.
"Come on!" he growled. "We're just going to the corner." His voice rose slightly in pitch, still sounding harsh as rasping metals. "There still remains the ultimate evil!" he said. "There is still a depth of beauty unplumbed, a pain whose exquisite pleasure is yet to find!"
They approached the corner; abruptly Nicholas Devine drew back as two figures came unexpectedly into view from beyond it. He turned back toward the alley-way, dragging the girl in a dizzy circle. He took a few rapid steps.
But Pat was through, exhausted. At his first step she stumbled and sprawled, dragging prone behind him. He released her hand and turned defiantly to face the approaching men, while the girl lying on the pavement struggled to a sitting posture with her back against the wall. She turned dull, indifferent eyes on the scene, then was roused to a somewhat higher pitch of interest by the sound of a familiar voice.
"There he is! I told you it was his car."
Dr. Horker! She struggled for clarity of thought; she realized dimly that she ought to feel relief, happiness—but all she could summon was a faint quickening of interest, or rather, a diminution of the lassitude that held her. She drew the rag of a table cloth about her and huddled against the wall, watching. The Doctor and some strange man, burly and massive in the darkness, dashed upon them, while Nicholas Devine waited, his red-orbed face a demoniac picture of cold contempt. Then the Doctor glanced at her huddled, bedraggled figure; she saw his face aghast, incredulous, as he perceived the condition of her clothing.
"Pat! My God, girl! What's happened? Where've you been?"
She found a hidden reserve somewhere within her. Her voice rose, shrill and hysterical.
"We've been in Hell!" she said. "You came to take me back, didn't you? Orpheus and Eurydice!" She laughed. "Dr. Orpheus Horker!"
The Doctor flashed her another incredulous glance and a grim and very terrible expression flamed in his face. He turned toward Nicholas Devine, his hands clenching, his mouth twisting without utterance, with no sound save a half-audible snarl. Then he spoke, a low, grating phrase flung at his thick-set companion.
"Bring the car," was all he said. The man lumbered away toward the corner, and he turned again toward Nicholas Devine, who faced him impassively. Suddenly his fist shot out; he struck the youth or demon squarely between the red eyes, sending him reeling back against the building. Then the Doctor turned, bending over Pat; she felt the pressure of his arms beneath knees and shoulders. He was carrying her toward a car that drew up at the curb; he was placing her gently in the back seat. Then, without a glance at the figure still leaning against the building, he swept from the sidewalk the dark mass that was Pat's dress and her wrap, and re-entered the car beside her.
"Shall I turn him in?" asked the man in the front seat.
"We can't afford the publicity," said the Doctor, adding grimly, "I'll settle with him later."
Pat's head lurched as the car started; she was losing consciousness, and realized it vaguely, but she retained one impression as the vehicle swung into motion. She perceived that the face of the lone figure leaning against the building, a face staring at her with horror and unbelief, was no longer the visage of the demon of the evening, but that of her own Nick.