He wore his new uniform, in honor of the day. Suddenly he felt that he could not wear it any longer. He had no right to any uniform. He who had sold his country was of no country.
He went slowly out and up the staircase, dragging his wooden leg painfully from step to step. He heard the concierge come in below, his heavy footsteps reechoed through the building. Inside the door he called furiously to his niece. Old Adelbert heard him strike a match to light the gas.
On the staircase he met the Fraulein hurrying down. Her face was strained and her eyes glittering. She hesitated, as though she would speak, then she went on past him. He could hear her running. It reminded the old man of that day in the Opera, when a child ran down the staircase, and, as is the way of the old, he repeated himself: “One would think new legs grew in place of old ones, like the claws of sea-creatures,” he said fretfully. And went on up the staircase.
In his room he sat down on a straight chair inside the door, and stared ahead. Then, slowly and mechanically, he took off his new uniform and donned the old one. He would have put on civilian clothes, had he possessed any. For by the deeds of that day he had forfeited the right to the King’s garb.
It was there that Black Humbert, hurrying up, found him. The concierge was livid, his massive frame shook with excitement.
“Quick!” he said, and swore a great oath. “To the shop of the cobbler Heinz, and tell him this word. Here in the building is the boy.”
“What boy?”
The concierge closed a great hand on the veteran’s shoulder. “Who but the Crown Prince himself!” he said.
“But I thought—how can he be here?”
“Here is he, in our very hands. It is no time to ask questions.”