sticking. I'm
a good gambler."

"If I were bound, but didn't want to stay, would I be of much use?"

"Of no use. You can quit on seven minutes' notice, instead of
seven days."

"And you, also," said she.

Laughingly they shook hands. She began to like him in a new
and more promising way. Here was a man, who at least was cast
in a big mold. Nothing small and cheap about him--and Brent
had made small cheap men forever intolerable to her. Yes,
here was a man of the big sort; and a big man couldn't
possibly be a bad man. No matter how many bad things he might
do, he would still be himself, at least, a scorner of the
pettiness and sneakiness and cowardice inseparable from villainy.

"And now," said he, "let's settle the last detail. How much
a week? How would five hundred strike you?"

"That's more than twelve times the largest salary I ever got.
It's many times as much as I made in the----"

"No matter," he hastily interposed. "It's the least you can
hold down the job on. You've got to spend money--for clothes
and so on."

"Two hundred is the most I can take," said she. "It's the
outside limit."

He insisted, but she remained firm. "I will not accustom
myself to much more than I see any prospect of getting
elsewhere," explained she. "Perhaps later on I'll ask for an
increase--later on, when I see how things are going and what
my prospects elsewhere would be. But I must begin modestly."

"Well, let it go at two hundred for the present. I'll deposit
a year's salary in a bank, and you can draw against it. Is
that satisfactory? You don't want me to hand you two hundred
dollars every Saturday, do you?"

"No. That would get on my nerves," said she.

"Now--it's all settled. When shall we sail?"

"There's a girl I've got to look up before I go."

"Maud? You needn't bother about her. She's married to a
piker from up the state--a shoe manufacturer. She's got
a baby, and is fat enough to make two or three like what
she used to be."

"No, not Maud. One you don't know."

"I hoped we could sail tomorrow. Why not take a taxi and go
after her now?"

"It may be a long search."

"She's a----?" He did not need to finish his sentence in order
to make himself understood.

Susan nodded.

"Oh, let her----"

"I promised," interrupted she.

"Then--of course." Freddie drew from his trousers pocket a
huge roll of bills. Susan smiled at this proof that he still
retained the universal habit