So--I propose
that we go up together."
"We've got--pasts," said Susan.
"Who hasn't that amounts to anything? Mighty few. No one
that's made his own pile, I'll bet you.
I'm in a position to do favors for people--the people we'd
need. And I'll get in a position to do more and more. As
long as they can make something out of us--or hope to--do you
suppose they'll nose into our pasts and root things up that'd
injure them as much as us?"
"It would be an interesting game, wouldn't it?" said Susan.
She was reflectively observing the handsome, earnest face
before her--an incarnation of intelligent ambition, a Freddie
Palmer who was somehow divesting himself of himself--was
growing up--away from the rotten soil that had nourished
him--up into the air--was growing strongly--yes, splendidly!
"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.
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