III
EN GARDE, MONSIEUR!
As the motor swerved away from them, making for the up-channel of Broadway, Holt seized Stainton's arm, and began to pilot him through the crowd.
"Now," said he, "will you please tell me what the——"
"No," said Stainton, "I won't. Not yet."
"But you promised——"
"I know that. Only wait until we get to a quieter place than this. You can scarcely expect me to call out such things for all New York to hear."
They freed themselves of the whirlpool around the opera-house and began to walk northward.
Stainton was looking about him with the eyes of a man that has been for years in prison and has but just returned to his native town. He was not a New Yorker by birth, and he had never known the city well, but he had always loved it and through all his western exile he had dreamed of this triumphal return. He soon seemed to have forgotten the puzzle that he had agreed to explain to his friend.
"It's the same," he said, his gaze darting about the scurrying street, pausing now and again to rest on this or that building new to him although already old to Broadway. "It's still the same, and yet it's new—all new.—What's that place, the one over there on the corner?"