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?"

"I remember," said Susan.

"Well, honestly, do you wonder that I was what I used to be?"

"No," she answered. "I wonder that you are what you _seem_ to be."

"What I come pretty near being," cried he. "The part that's
more or less put on today is going to be the real thing
tomorrow. That's the way it is with life--you put on a thing,
and gradually learn to wear it. And--I want you to help me."

There fell silence between them, he gazing at his glass of
champagne, turning it round and round between his long
white fingers and watching the b