The ascent of the heights had been exciting, the descent held a sense of satisfaction.

At a more sober pace, with a finer, less exuberant sense of comradeship, the two passed down the hundred-odd steps of the Escalier de Sainte-Marie, taking an occasional peep into some dark and silent corner, halting here and there to glance into the dimly lighted hallway of some mysterious house.

On the upward way they had been all anticipation; now, with appetites appeased, they toyed with their sensations like diners with their dessert.
"Who are the people living in these houses ?" The boy put the question in a whisper, as if fearful of disturbing the strange silence, the close secrecy that hung about them.
"The people who live here?
God knows! Probably you would find a _blanchisseuse_ on the ground floor, and on the fourth a poet or perhaps a musician, like our fiddler of _Louise_.

This is the real Bohemia, you know--not the conscious Bohemia, but the true one, that is lawless simply because it knows no laws." They had come to the end of the steps and were once again traversing the dim rue Andre de Sarte, the boy's eyes and ears awake to every impression.
"Yes," he said in slow and meditative answer.

"Yes, I think I understand.