第267章

"And we've got everything to gain and nothing to lose,"pursued he."We'd not be adventurers, you see.Adventurers are people who haven't any money and are looking round to try to steal it.We'd have money.So, we'd be building solid, right on the rock." The handsome young man--the strongest, the most intelligent, the most purposeful she had ever met, except possibly Brent--looked at her with an admiring tenderness that moved her, the forlorn derelict adrift on the vast, lonely, treacherous sea."The reason I've waited for you to invite you in on this scheme is that I tried you out and I found that you belong to the mighty few people who do what they say they'll do, good bargain or bad.It'd never occur to you to shuffle out of trying to keep your word.""It hasn't--so far," said Susan.

"Well--that's the only sort of thing worth talking about as morality.Believe me, for I've been through the whole game from chimney pots to cellar floor.""There's another thing, too," said the girl.

"What's that?"

"Not to injure anyone else."

Palmer shook his head positively."It's believing that and acting on it that has kept you down in spite of your brains and looks.""That I shall never do," said the girl."It may be weakness--I guess it is weakness.But--I draw the line there.""But I'm not proposing that you injure anyone--or proposing to do it myself.As I said, I've got up where I can afford to be good and kind and all that.And I'm willing to jump you up over the stretch of the climb that can't be crossed without being--well, anything but good and kind."She was reflecting.

"You'll never get over that stretch by yourself.It'll always turn you back.""Just what do you propose?" she asked.

It gave her pleasure to see the keen delight her question, with its implication of hope, aroused in him.Said he:

"That we go to Europe together and stay over there several years--as long as you like as long as it's necessary.Stay till our pasts have disappeared--work ourselves in with the right sort of people.You say you're not married?""Not to the man I'm with."

"To somebody else?"

"I don't know.I was."

"Well--that'll be looked into and straightened out.And then we'll quietly marry."Susan laughed."You're too fast," said she."I'll admit I'm interested.I've been looking for a road--one that doesn't lead toward where we've come from.And this is the first road that has offered.But I haven't agreed to go in with you yet--haven't even begun to think it over.And if I did agree--which I probably won't--why, still I'd not be willing to marry.That's a serious matter.I'd want to be very, very sure I was satisfied."Palmer nodded, with a return of the look of admiration."Iunderstand.You don't promise until you intend to stick, and once you've promised all hell couldn't change you.""Another thing--very unfortunate, too.It looks to me as if I'd be dependent on you for money."Freddie's eyes wavered."Oh, we'd never quarrel about that,"said he with an attempt at careless confidence.

"No," replied she quietly."For the best of reasons.I'd not consider going into any arrangement where I'd be dependent on a man for money.I've had my experience.I've learned my lesson.If I lived with you several years in the sort of style you've suggested--no, not several years but a few months--you'd have me absolutely at your mercy.You'd thought of that, hadn't you?"His smile was confession.

"I'd develop tastes for luxuries and they'd become necessities." Susan shook her head."No--that would be foolish--very foolish."He was watching her so keenly that his expression was covert suspicion."What do you suggest?" he asked.