"You needn't be worried about being seen with me, no matter how high you're flying," he hastened to say. "I always did keep myself in good condition for the rise. Nothing's known about me or ever will be."
The girl was smiling at him again. "I wasn't thinking of those things," said she. "I've never been to the Brevoort."
"It's quiet and respectable."
Susan's eyes twinkled. "I'm glad it's respectable," said she. "Are you quite sure you can afford to be seen with me? It's true they don't make the fuss about right and wrong side of the line that they did a few years ago. They've gotten a metropolitan morality. Still—I'm not respectable and never shall be."
"Don't be too hasty about that," protested he, gravely. "But wait till you hear my proposition."
As they walked through West Ninth Street she noted that there was more of a physical change in him than she had seen at first glance. He was less athletic, heavier of form and his face was fuller. "You don't keep in as good training as you used," said she.
"It's those infernal automobiles," cried he. "They're death to figure—to health, for that matter. But I've got the habit, and I don't suppose I'll ever break myself of it. I've taken on twenty pounds in the past year, and I've got myself so upset that the doctor has ordered me abroad to take a cure. Then there's champagne. I can't let that alone, either, though I know it's plain poison."
And when they were in the restaurant of the Brevoort he insisted on ordering champagne—and left her for a moment to telephone for his automobile. It amused her to see a man so masterful thus pettily enslaved. She laughed at him, and he again denounced himself as a weak fool. "Money and luxury are too much for me. They are for everybody. I'm not as strong willed as I used to be," he said. "And it makes me uneasy. That's another reason for my proposition."
"Well—let's hear it," said she. "I happen to be in a position where I'm fond of hearing propositions—even if I have no intention of accepting."
She was watching him narrowly. The Freddie Palmer he was showing to her was a surprising but perfectly logical development of a side of his character with which she had been familiar in the old days; she was watching for that other side—the sinister and cruel side. "But first," he went on, "I must tell you a little about myself. I think I told you once about my mother and father?"