"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 tablecloth. 

"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 tablecloth. 

"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?" 

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