"Be careful," she whispered. "The floor was polished only yesterday."
He mumbled something affectionate and without waiting for her to close the door, embraced her. From him exhaled the powerful odor of mixed tobacco and whisky that proclaims the drunken man to the most inexperienced, to those blindest of the blind—the blind who dare not see. She gently released herself. Several times of late he had come to her in almost this condition; she had forced herself to deny, to excuse, to minimize. Now, however, it was impossible for her to risk admitting him; and also, she suddenly realized she had reached the breaking point of her courage to keep up her self-deception. "You must go at once," she said.
"Why?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper. His befuddled mind reverted to Helen as if Courtney knew about her. "What right have you got to be jealous, if I'm not?"
She did not puzzle over this remark. "Basil, you must go at once because you've been drinking too much." The danger was too imminent to be trifled with in diplomatic phrases.
He stood, swaying unsteadily, his head hanging. "If you think so—" he muttered.
She urged him gently toward the door.
"I—I beg your pardon," he mumbled. "I—I guess you're right."
He backed two steps. As soon as he was clear of the door she closed and locked it. Slowly she went upstairs, dropped wearily into bed. She lay quiet a few minutes, staring at the arc of the night lamp. Then on an impulse from an instinct that could not be disobeyed, she rose, took a dark dressing gown, wrapped it round her. She glided along the hall, descended the stairs, opened the lake-front door. Closing it behind her, she stood at the edge of the veranda. The sky was black; a few drops of rain were falling. She made an effort, ran down the steps, hurried across the lawn and along the path to the Smoke House. The entrance door to the apartment stairway was open. She hesitated, slowly ascended. He did not appear at the sound of her steps. His bedroom door was open. She glanced in. His bed was turned down, his pajamas lay ready upon the folded-over covers. But he was not there. She went on to the door of his sitting room. It too was open. At the table desk and facing the door he sat, half-collapsed on the chair, one hand round a tall glass of whisky and water, the bottle and a carafe at his elbow. Though her mind was on him, her eyes took in and forced upon her every tiny detail of the room; she had made it over that his surroundings might always remind him of her. He lifted his heavy head, blinked stupidly at her. She noted his face with the same morbid acuteness to detail—his swollen eyes, his puffy lips, the veins in his forehead, his brows knitted in a foolishly solemn expression. Never had he seemed so homely, since her first glance at him when he came there a stranger.
After a moment of dazed sodden staring at her, he remembered his manners, rose not without difficulty and stood, stiff and unsteadily swaying. "Give me some of the whisky," said she, advancing. "I feel sort of queer." She dropped to the chair he had just left and took up his glass. "May I have your drink?" she asked, and without waiting for a reply drank eagerly. Color returned to her cheeks, and her eyes became less heavy and dull. "I'm better—very much better," she declared, as she set the glass down empty.
He had seated himself lumpishly on the sofa. They remained silent, gazing out through the open window into the darkness and hearing the soothing musical plash of rain on lake. In upon them poured a freshness rather than a breeze and the pleasant odor of drenching foliage. "As I lay there thinking," she said presently, "it came to me that I mustn't let this night pass without seeing you and making it smooth and straight between us."