soon as they found you. But that was a long time
ago. And I never meant them to disturb a woman who was living
respectably with her husband. There may have been--yes, there
was a time when I'd have done that--and worse. But not any
more. You say I haven't changed. Well, you're wrong. In
some ways I have. I'm climbing up, as I always told you I
would--and as a man gets up he sees things differently. At
least, he acts differently. I don't do _that_ kind of dirty
work, any more."

"I'm glad to hear it," murmured Susan for lack of anything
else to say.

He was as handsome as ever, she saw--had the same charm of
manner--a charm owing not a little of its potency to the
impression he made of the man who would dare as far as any
man, and then go on to dare a step farther--the step from
which all but the rare, utterly unafraid man shrinks. His
look at her could not but appeal to her vanity as woman, and
to her woman's craving for being loved; at the same time it
agitated her with specters of the days of her slavery to him.
He said:

"_You_'ve changed--a lot. And all to the good. The only sign
is rouge on your lips and that isn't really a sign nowadays.
But then you never did look the professional--and you weren't."

His eyes were appealingly tender as he gazed at her sweet,
pensive face, with its violet-gray eyes full of mystery and
sorrow and longing. And the clear pallor of her skin, and
the slender yet voluptuous lines of her form suggested a pale,
beautiful rose, most delicate of flowers yet about the hardiest.

"So--you've married and settled down?"

"No," replied Susan. "Neither the one nor the other."

"Why, you told----"

"I'm supposed to be a married woman."

"Why didn't you give your name and address at the police
station?" said he. "They'd have let you go at once."

"Yes, I know," replied she. "But the newspapers would
probably have published it. So--I couldn't. As it is I've
been worrying for fear I'd be recognized, and the man would
get a write-up."

"That was square," said he. "Yes, it'd have been a dirty
trick to drag him in."

It was the matter-of-course to both of them that she should
have protected her "friend." She had simply obeyed about the
most stringent and least often violated article in the moral
code of the world of outcasts. If Freddie's worst enemy in
that world had murdered him, Freddie would have used his last
breath in shielding him from the common foe, t