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It was clear dry weather, not too cold, and the city’s buildings stood out sharply against a brilliant sky. Stacey had never liked this glittering hardness in the atmosphere of New York. The Metropolitan Tower wouldn’t be so bad and the Woolworth would be bully, he had often thought, if only they would soar up dimly into a softening haze, as they would in Paris. The whole show was good, but not good enough to stand this crude vivid light. Nothing could stand it—neither façades nor human faces. It was like an immense close-up at the movies. And to-day, since he continued to feel about him and within himself so much confusion, this effect of physical clarity really made him uneasy.

But the discomfort soon faded and he thought only that he was to have this whole afternoon and evening with Philip Blair. He took the stuffy elevator in the Harlem apartment house, stepped out, and hurried down the dark hall to Philip’s door with no other feeling than gladness.

Philip himself opened the door, and his face showed as warm a pleasure as his guest’s. He was thin and slight almost to emaciation, with keen prominent blue eyes, a sharp-cut nose whose nostrils seemed to sniff like a dog’s, and a short fair moustache. He looked like a medieval ascetic, superficially modernized. Just at present he was in shirt-sleeves and held a pair of compasses in one hand. With the other he shook Stacey’s eagerly.