“Well,” he replied, “every enterprise is a risk of sorts, isn’t it? To take a chance is always amusing. Nothing flatters like picking a winner on one’s own best judgment. You’re what Broadway calls ‘sure fire.’ It doesn’t take much courage to lay odds on you, Eris.”
She nodded, her colour still high: “Yes, I suppose Mr. Smull looks at it that way. It really is a matter of business, of course.... But he is very kind to me.”
“If it were anything except a matter of business it would scarcely do, would it?” asked Annan carelessly.
“I don’t think I understand. Please tell me.”
“I mean—it’s quite all right for a man to bet on a girl if he believes her professionally capable. That’s finance—of one sort. That’s a business investment.”
“What other sort of investment is there?” she asked. “Will you tell me?”
“The other sort is to finance an enterprise out of—friendship. That’s not legitimate—on either side.... And even when it’s sheer business it’s a ticklish one.”
She remained absorbed for a while in her own reflections. Then, idling over her strawberries and orange ice: “Do you think that a girl really has no right to accept such heavy responsibility as is now mine?” she inquired.
“I’m thinking about your obligations—burdensome in success, crushing in failure.... Because you are the kind of girl who will so consider them.”
“What kind of girl do you mean?”