He laughed. "Oh, yes. That's why you do what I say—and always will."
"No," replied she. "I don't do it because I am afraid, but because I want to live."
"I should think! . . . You'll be all right in a day or so," said he, after inspecting her bruises. "Now, I'll explain to you what good friends we're going to be."
He propped himself in an attitude of lazy grace, puffed at his cigarette in silence for a moment, as if arranging what he had to say. At last he began:
"I haven't any regular business. I wasn't born to work. Only damn fools work—and the clever man waits till they've got something, then he takes it away from 'em. You don't want to work, either."
"I haven't been able to make a living at it," said the girl.
She was sitting cross-legged, a cover draped around her.
"You're too pretty and too clever. Besides, as you say, you couldn't make a living at it—not what's a living for a woman brought up as you've been. No, you can't work. So we're going to be partners."
"No," said Susan. "I'm going to dress now and go away."
Freddie laughed. "Don't be a fool. Didn't I say we were to be partners? . . . You want to keep on at the sporting business, don't you?"
Hers was the silence of assent.