"Ah! Monsieur!" cried Jokai wildly. "It is inconceivable--"
"Play!" said Carl briefly. White and grim his guest obeyed.
In terrible silence they played the game through to the end.
"Let me pour you some more whiskey," insisted Carl with infernal
courtesy. "Let us understand each other. Whenever I drink, I expect
you to do the same. As for you, Hunch, you'll kindly stay sober!"
Jokai gulped the nauseating torture to the end. He was faint and sick.
By the end of the third game, every move had become convulsive. The
insidious bite of the current was getting horribly on his nerves.
Still with desperate will he played on. Drunk and dizzy--his veins hot
and pounding, he stared in fascinated horror at the face of his
merciless opponent. Through the film of smoke it loomed vividly dark,
impudent, ironic, the mobile mouth edged satirically with a slight
smile.
"Are you man or devil?" he whispered.
Carl laughed. His hand, for all his drinking, was calm and steady, his
handsome eyes clear and cold and resolute.
"Hunch," he said curtly, "if you touch that bottle again, I'll break it
over your head. You're drunk now."
To Jokai his voice trailed off into curious nothingness. Somewhere he
knew in a room stifling hot and hazy with the fumes of vile tobacco
there was a voice, musical, detached and very far away.
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