candlelight behind him. He looked huge, larger than she had ever seen him, a terrifying faceless black bulk that swayed slightly on its feet.
"Pray join me, Mrs. Butler," he said and his voice was a little thick.
He was drunk and showing it and she had never before seen him show his liquor, no
matter how much he drank. She paused irresolutely, saying nothing and his arm went up in
gesture of command.
"Come here, damn you!" he said roughly.
He must be very drunk, she thought with a fluttering heart. Usually, the more he drank,
the more polished became his manners. He sneered more, his words were apt to be more biting, but the manner that accompanied them was always punctilious--too punctilious.
"I must never let him know I'm afraid to face him," she thought, and, clutching the wrapper closer to her throat she went down the stairs with her head up and her heels clacking noisily.
He stood aside and bowed her through the door with a mockery that made her wince. She
saw that he was coatless and his cravat hung down on either side of his open collar. His shirt was open down to the thick mat of black hair on his chest. His hair was rumpled and his eyes
bloodshot and narrow. One candle burned on the table, a tiny spark of light that threw monstrous shadows about the high-ceilinged room and made the massive sideboards and buffet look like still, crouching beasts. On the table on the silver tray stood the decanter with cut-glass stopper out, surrounded by glasses.
"Sit down," he said curtly, following her into the room.
Now a new kind of fear crept into her, a fear that made her alarm at facing him seem very small. He looked and talked and acted like a stranger. This was an ill-mannered Rhett she had never seen before. Never at any time, even in most intimate moments, had he been other than nonchalant. Even in anger, he was suave and satirical, and whisky usually served to intensify these qualities. At first it had annoyed her and she had tried to break down that nonchalance but soon she had come to accept it as a very convenient thing. For years she had thought that nothing mattered very much to him, that he thought everything in life, including her, an ironic joke. But as she faced him across the table, she knew with a sinking feeling in her stomach that at last something was mattering to him, mattering very much.
"There is no reason why you should not have your nightcap, even if I am ill bred enough to be at home," he said. "Shall I pour it for you?"
"I did not want a drink," she said stiffly. "I heard a noise and came--"
"You heard nothing. You wouldn't have come down if you'd thought I was home. I've sat here and listened to you racing up and down the floor upstairs. You must need a drink badly.
Take it."
"I do not--"
He picked up the decanter and sloshed a glassful, untidily.
"Take it," he said, shoving it into her hand. "You are shaking all over. Oh, don't give yourself airs. I know you drink on the quiet and I know how much you drink. For some time I've been intending to tell you to stop your elaborate pretenses and drink openly if you want to. Do you think I give a damn if you like your brandy?"
She took the wet glass, silently cursing him. He read her like a book. He had always read her and he was the one man in the world from whom she would like to hide her real thoughts.
"Drink it, I say."
She raised the glass and bolted the contents with one abrupt motion of her arm, wrist stiff, just as Gerald had always taken his neat whisky, bolted it before she thought how practiced and unbecoming it looked. He did not miss the gesture and his mouth went down at the corner.
"Sit down and we will have a pleasant domestic discussion of the elegant reception we have just attended."
"You are drunk," she said coldly, "and I am going to bed."
"I am very drunk and I intend to get still drunker before the evening's over. But you aren't going to bed--not yet. Sit down."
His voice still held a remnant of its wonted cool drawl but beneath the words she could
feel violence fighting its way to the surface, violence as cruel as the crack of a whip. She wavered irresolutely and he was at her side, his hand on her arm in a grip that hurt. He gave it a slight wrench and she hastily sat down with a little cry of pain. Now, she was afraid, more afraid than she had ever been in her life. As he leaned over her, she saw that his face was dark and flushed and his eyes still held their frightening glitter. There was something in their depths she did not recognize, could not understand, something deeper than anger, stronger than pain, something driving him until his eyes glowed redly like twin coals. He looked down at her for a long time, so long that her defiant gaze wavered and fell, and then he slumped into a chair opposite her and poured himself another drink. She thought rapidly, trying to lay a line of defenses. But until he spoke, she would not know what to say for she did not know exactly what accusation he intended to make.