"I want to talk to you. I've got something to propose—something that'll interest you. Will you give me—say, about an hour?"
She debated, then smiled. "You will have me arrested if I refuse?"
He flushed scarlet. "You're giving me what's coming to me," said he. "The reason—one reason—I've got on so well is that I've never been a liar."
"No—you never were that."
"You, too. It's always a sign of bravery, and bravery's the one thing I respect. Yes, what I said I'd do always I did. That's the only way to get on in politics—and the crookeder the politics the more careful a man has to be about acting on the level. I can borrow a hundred thousand dollars without signing a paper—and that's more than the crooks in Wall Street can do—the biggest and best of them. So, when I told you how things were with me about you, I was on the level."
"I know it," said Susan. "Where shall we go? I can't ask you to come home with me."
"We might go to tea somewhere——"
Susan laughed outright. Tea! Freddie Palmer proposing tea! What a changed hooligan—how ridiculously changed! The other Freddie Palmer—the real one—the fascinating repelling mixture of all the barbaric virtues and vices must still be there. But how carefully hidden—and what strong provocation would be needed to bring that savage to the surface again. The Italian in him, that was carrying him so far so cleverly, enabled him instantly to understand her amusement. He echoed her laugh. Said he:
"You've no idea the kind of people I'm traveling with—not political swells, but the real thing. What do you say to the Brevoort?"
She hesitated.