She leaned back in her chair to meet his eyes without
constraint. "You're trying to play me a trick," said he.
"But you're not going to get away with the goods. I'm
astonished that you are so rotten ungrateful."
"Because I'm not for sale?"
"Queenie balking at selling herself," he jeered. "And what's
the least you ever did sell for?"
"A half-dollar, I think. No--two drinks of whiskey one cold
night. But what I sold was no more myself than--than the coat
I'd pawned and drunk up before I did it."
The plain calm way in which she said this made it so terrible
that he winced and turned away. "We have seen hell--haven't
we?" he muttered. He turned toward her with genuine passion
of feeling. "Susan," he cried, "don't be a fool. Let's push
our luck, now that things are coming our way. We need each
other--we want to stay together--don't we?"
"__I__ want to stay. I'm happy."
"Then--let's put the record straight."
"Let's keep it straight," replied she earnestly. "Don't ask
me to go where I don't belong. For I can't,
Freddie--honestly, I can't."
A pause. Then, "You will!" said he, not in blustering fury,
but in that cool and smiling malevolence which had made him
the terror of his associates from his boyhood days among the
petty thieves and pickpockets of Grand Street. He laid his
hand gently on her shoulder. "You hear me. I say you will."
She looked straight at him.
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