"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. 9 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 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.