She fished out her purse and extracted a twenty-five piastre piece. He motioned her hand away. “_Mon enfant_” said he. “You are an honourable little soul. But I don’t do business on a holiday. _Raconte-moi ton affaire._” But she protested. She would not abuse his kindness. Either a consultation at the regulation price or no consultation at all. At last he said: “_Eh bien!_ give me your five francs.” She obeyed. He rose. “Come,” said he, and led the way to the stairhead by the saloon where was fixed the collecting box in aid of the Fund for Shipwrecked Mariners. He slipped the coin down the slot. “Now,” said he, “honour is satisfied.” But listening to her artless and complicated tale, he wondered, while a shiver ran over his frame, whether he would ever be able again to slip a five-franc piece into his waistcoat pocket. He felt yet older than before, incapable of piercing to the root of youth’s perplexities. He counselled with oracular vagueness, conscious of not having earned his fee. He paced the deck again. “Were it not for Abu Mohammed,” he said, “I should call it a disastrous journey.” * * * * * Meanwhile Martin, lonelier even than he, sat in the bows of a great Eastward bound steamer, his eyes opened to the staring facts of life. No longer must he masquerade as the man of fashion—never again until he had bought the right. The remains of his small capital he must keep intact for the day of need. No more the luxury of first-class travel. This voyage in the steerage was but a means of transit to the new lands where he would win his way to fortune. He needed no advice. He had spiritually and morally outgrown his tutelage. No longer, so he told himself, would he nourish his soul on dreams. It could feed if it liked on memories. The madness had passed. He drew the breath of an honest man. If he had taken Lucilla at her word and married her, what would have been his existence? Trailing about the idle world in the wake of a rich wife, dependent on her bounty even for a pair of shoe-laces; eating out his heart for the love she could not give; at last, perhaps, quarrelling desperately, or else with sapped will-power sunk in sloth, accepting from her an allowance on condition that they should live apart. He had heard of such marriages since he had mingled with the wealthy. Even had she met him with a love as passionate as his own, would the happiness have lasted? In his grim mood he thought not. He reasoned himself into the conviction that his loss had been his gain. Far better that he should be among these few poor folk who sat down to table in their shirt-sleeves, than that he should be eating the flesh-pots of dishonour in the land of Egypt. He himself dined in his shirt-sleeves, as he had done many a time before in the kitchen of the Hôtel des Grottes.