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-Elysées, 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, not one of them more than five minutes' walk away; and just round the corner there are more. I want to go home! I want to take one large, unparalleled leap from here and come down at the corner I told you about. D'you know what I'd do? We'll say it's 7 P.M. and beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the Knickerbocker--that's the hotel that the bright and happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd engage a table up on the terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend of mine whose name is Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have left the crowd he was standing in line with and he'd come galloping up, that glad to see me you'd cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace, where the potted palms grow, for our dinner, and the tables all around us would be full of people that would know Johnnie Doe and me, and they'd all make us drink drinks and tell us how glad they were to see us aboard again. And after dinner," said young Arthur Benham, with wide and smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one of the roof-garden shows. Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the Ambassadeurs or the Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And after the show we'd slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and capture the two most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to supper."
He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he, anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized, "it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the place where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and there'd be a band playing, and the electric fans would go round and round, and Johnnie Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put it all over the other pikers there."
Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet your sh--boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man. I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because he'll never, never succeed.
"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of the family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose they do--I'm going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't have to see anybody in the family at all.
"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"
"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.
There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at her lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her hands.
"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that. You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel like a criminal doing time."