He walked to the window and flung it wide.
Below him swirled the yellow evening life of the third greatest among the world's great thoroughfares. Looking down from the height of his hotel was to Stainton like looking down upon a riverside furnace through its roof. Molten streams, swelling from the darker channels to the north, flowed along their appointed alleyways and broke and divided, hissing and spluttering against the pier that was the Times Building. And as the steam rises from the red waste that runs from the furnace into the river, there now rose to Stainton's desert-starved ears the clanging of cable-cars, the rattle of carriages, the tooting of the purring motors--all the humming chorus of the night-wakeful thing that men call New York.
He stretched his arms apart to it. He wanted to enfold it, to inhale its breath, to mix with it and become lost in it. He had come back. After all these years, he had come back, and he had come back a victor unscarred.
"I'm still young," he repeated, raising his head and spreading his nostrils to the damp air of the city-evening. And "Still young!" he continued to whisper on his way down in the elevator and through the crowded dining-room to his seat at a glittering table.
A ready waiter detached himself from a group of his fellows and dexterously steered a rapid course, between seated diners and laden serving-tables, to Stainton's broad shoulder.
Stainton was studying, with less difficulty than he had anticipated, the menu.
"Those bass are very nice, sir. I can recommend them."
"No, thank you, I think not. I want a steak, sirloin."
"Yes, sir. And shall we say potatoes _au gratin_?"
"A little cauliflower with sauce _Hollandaise_?"
"No. Only the steak, potatoes, and peas."
The waiter raised his brows ever so slightly.
"Nothing. After the meal you may bring me a demi-tasse."
The waiter suppressed surprise. A New Yorker may dine simply, but that a still obvious stranger in New York should dine upon less than five courses--that was beyond his experience.
"Very good, sir. Shall I send the wine-card?"
Stainton spoke briefly this time, even sharply, and his tone had the effect that he desired for it. He ate his dinner undisturbed.
A more pleasant disturbance than that of the waiter was, however, in store for him. As he left the dining-room and returned to the lobby, ready now for the opera, there brushed by him, _en route_ from the bar-room, a stout man of about thirty-five, with a round face and a high hat perched at the extreme rear of a head almost completely bald.