“I reckon it’s no good ranting,” she said; “there’s only one thing as will make you generous, and I suppose you know what that is!”
“I reckon I do,” came the thick and lethargic response. “Pour me out some more whiskey, Becky.”
“You’ll have your own way, I suppose. Half a glass, not a drop more. Why don’t you slip into one of your chuck-me-under-the-chin moods and give me that key?”
Zeus Gildersedge’s voice seemed weaker; his voice had less edge than before.
“You leave that key alone.”
“What go you’ve got for a man of sixty!”
“You know that, eh?”
“Don’t I. Look at me; what am I here for?”
They both laughed unrestrainedly. Joan, standing in the porch, with rain dripping monotonously from the leaves, seemed to stiffen into stone. Her hands gripped the trellis of the porch. She seemed to steady herself as one who meets the onrush of some storm-driven billow or as a virgin martyr facing the flames. In these few seconds the dream-cloak had been shrivelled about her soul. She trod the furnace; fire licked her limbs. The mordant realism of life burned at last before her reason.
“I’m damned sleepy,” said the man’s voice, ending in a prolonged yawn.