So Stacey Carroll reflected idly, as he stepped out into the fresh dusty sunlight from the pier at the foot of West Twenty-Third Street. He wore the uniform of a captain of infantry in the American army, with the red, white and blue ribbon of the D. S. C.
He summoned a taxi with an imperious but economical gesture of the wrist and forefinger, spoke two words to the chauffeur, flung in his bags lightly, and set off for the small hotel on Tenth Street. During the whole of the brief ride he looked out of the window, observantly enough, but he did not appear to be affected one way or another by what he saw. At any rate his face remained impassive until, when he had descended from the taxi and entered the hotel, the clerk at the desk shook his hand and said: “How do you do, Captain Carroll? Glad to see you safely back, sir,” Then Stacey smiled in an odd twisted way that did not make the expression of his mouth more genial or bring any expression at all into his eyes.
In his room he lighted a cigarette, laid it on an ash-tray, and set immediately to unpacking his bags, swiftly, systematically and without haste, pausing only for an occasional puff at the cigarette. Three minutes before he had finished unpacking he turned on the water in the bath-tub. The bath was ready at almost the precise moment Stacey was ready for it. He dressed with the same smooth uninterested efficiency he had shown in unpacking and undressing. Only once did he make any wasteful gesture. This was when, his foot coming in contact with one of the puttees he had laid on the floor, he deliberately kicked the puttee across the room.
Finally, when he had bathed and dressed and everything was put away, Stacey looked in the telephone book, then called up Philip Blair’s number.
“Phil? This is Stacey. . . . Yes. . . . Yes. . . . What? . . . Oh, just now, a few minutes ago! . . . How’s that? . . . Oh, yes, perfectly sound! No wooden leg, no false face, nothing at all! . . . Why didn’t I what? (What the devil’s come over your telephone system?) . . . Oh, write oftener! Well, I did! . . . Yes, of course. ’T’s what I telephoned for. Sure! Be right up.”
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.