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Stacey’s voice had been cool and almost expressionless, but his face had softened a little. After he had hung up the receiver he stood for a moment gazing abstractedly ahead of him. Then he put on his hat and went out of the hotel.

But he did not take a motor-bus. Instead, he set off up Fifth Avenue on foot, with an easy sauntering gait that was faster than it looked. It was not at all the way Stacey had walked in 1914. It was more graceful and fluent, revealing a perfect, harmonious and unconscious command of his whole body.

As he walked, he stared about him restlessly; but nothing that he saw disturbed the immobility of his face until he reached the triumphal arch at Madison Square. He gazed at this for some time with a most unpleasant expression indeed, then approached it more closely and read the immortal village names inscribed upon it.

“Oh, damn!” he said, and, walking quickly to the nearest subway station, took a train for Harlem.

Same dingy apartment house, looking a little dingier after five years, same dark elevator, same stuffy hall; and here came Phil and Catherine running down it to meet him. Their eagerness touched Stacey. He did not himself feel eager, though he was glad to see them.