Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider.  The thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him sent a hot flush to his cheeks.  He told himself that it could not be done, and that there was an end to the matter.  Whatever might hang upon it, it could not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor.  But at that the heavy and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon him and upon his actions, came before his mind’s eye and loomed there mountainous.  The fate of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves and adventurers—­even though his eyes were open and he knew where he stood—­that came to Ste. Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a bitter old man who was dying of grief came to him; and a mother’s face; and hers.  There could be no dishonor in the face of all this, only a duty very clear and plain.  He crept back to his place, his arms folded beneath him as he lay, his eyes at the thin screen of ivy which cloaked the balcony grille.

Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp attack of homesickness.  It may be that long confinement within the walls of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.

“Mind you,” he declared, as Ste. Marie’s ears came once more within range—­“mind you, I’m not saying that Paris hasn’t got its points.  It has.  Oh yes!  And so has London, and so has Ostend, and so has Monte Carlo.  Verree much so!  I like Paris.  I like the theatres and the vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elysees, and I like Longchamps.  I like the boys who hang around Henry’s Bar.  They’re good sports all right, all right!  But, by golly, I want to go home!  Put me off at the corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I’ll ask no more.  Set me down at 7 P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that’s where I would live and die.”  There came into the lad’s somewhat strident voice a softness that was almost pathetic.  “You don’t know Broadway, Coira, do you?  Nix! of course not.  Little girl, it’s the one street of all this large world.  It’s the equator that runs north and south instead of east and west.  It’s a long, bright, gay, live wire!—­that’s what Broadway is.  And I give you my word of honor, like a little man, that it—­is—­not—­slow.  No-o, indeed!  When I was there last it was being called the ‘Gay White Way.’  It is not called the ‘Gay White Way’ now.  It has had forty other new, good names since then, and I don’t know what they are, but I do know that it is forever gay, and that the electric signs are still blazing all along the street, and the street-cars are still killing people in the good old fashion, and the news-boys are still dodging under the automobiles to sell you a Woild or a Choinal or, if it’s after twelve at night, a Morning Telegraph.  Coira, my girl, standing on that corner after dark you can see the electric signs of fifteen theatres,