all! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments to
the letter--not one! Attack us on our own weak point and see how quickly
we run up the flag of surrender--and perhaps the poor sinner we denounce
for his guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to the weakness
that gets the best of us. _Sin is sin_, and one defect is as hideous as
another. He who breaks one part of the code of morality and
righteousness is as guilty--just exactly as guilty--as he who breaks
another. Isn't the first commandment as binding as the other nine? And
how many of us do not break that every day we live?"

And there was the whole creed of Opal Ledoux.

But as intimate as she and the Boy had become, they yet knew
comparatively little of each other's lives.

Opal guessed that the Boy was of rank, and bound to some definite course
of action for political reasons. This much she had gained from odds and
ends of conversation. But beyond that, she had no idea who he was, nor
whence he came. She would not have been a woman had she not been
curious--and as I have said before, Opal Ledoux was, every inch of her
five feet, a woman--but she never allowed herself to wax inquisitive.

As for the Boy, he knew there was some evil hovering with threatening
wings over the sunshine of the girl's young life--some shadow she tried
to forget, but could not put aside--and he grew to associate this shadow
with the continued presence of the French Count, and his intimate air of
authority. Paul knew not why he should thus connect these two, but
nevertheless the impression grew that in some way de Roannes exercised a
sinister influence over the life of the girl he loved.