Harleston watched the proceeding from the corner of Eighteenth Street:
after which he resumed his way to his apartment in the Collingwood.

A sleepy elevator boy tried to put him off at the fourth floor, and he
had some trouble in convincing the lad that the sixth was his floor. In
fact, Harleston's mind being occupied with the recent affair, he would
have let himself be put off at the fourth floor, if he had not happened
to notice the large gilt numbers on the glass panel of the door opposite
the elevator. The bright light shining through this panel caught his
eye, and he wondered indifferently that it should be burning at such an
hour.

Subsequently he understood the light in No. 401; but then it was too
late. Had he been delayed ten seconds, or had he gotten off at the
fourth floor, he would have--. However, I anticipate; or rather I
speculate on what would have happened under hypothetical
conditions--which is fatuous in the extreme; hypothetical conditions
never are existent facts.

Harleston, having gained his apartment, leisurely removed from his
pockets the handkerchief, the roses, and the envelope, and placed them
on the library table. With the same leisureliness, he removed his light
top-coat and his hat and hung them in the closet. Returning to the
library, he chose a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his hand, struck
a match, and carefully passed the flame across the tip. After several
puffs, taken with conscious deliberation, he sat down and took up the
handkerchief.

This was Harleston's way: to delay deliberately the gratification of his