"Ah, can that guff--and beat it. The Old Man's liable to be back any
minute."
Seizing her suit-case, he urged her none too gently toward the door.
"It's awful' good of you, Butch--awful' good--"
"All right--all right. But can the gush-thing till next time."
Overwhelmed, Joan permitted herself to be thrust out of the door; and
then, recovering to some extent, masked her excitement as best she could
and trudged away across-town, back toward Central Park.
Blind instinct urged her to that refuge where she would have quiet and
peace while she thought things out: a necessity which had not existed
until within the last fifteen minutes.
Before her interview with Butch she had been penniless and planless.
But now she found herself in circumstances of comparative affluence and
independence. Twenty-two dollars strictly economized surely ought to
keep her fed and sheltered in decent lodgings for at least three weeks;
within which time she would quite as surely find employment of some
sort.
It remained to decide how best to conserve her resources. On the face of
the situation, she had nothing to do but seek the cheapest and meanest
rooming-house in the city. But in her heart of hearts she had already
determined to return to the establishment of Madame Duprat, beyond her
means though it might be, ostensibly to await the return of the Dancing
Deans, secretly that she might be under the same roof with John
Matthias.
And in the end it was to Number 289 that she turned. At half-past four
she stood again on the brown-stone stoop, waiting an answer to her ring.
And at the same moment, John Matthias, handsomely garbed in the best of
his wardrobe but otherwise invested in a temper both indignant and
rebellious, instituted a dash from room to train, handicapped by a
time-limit ridiculously brief.
As the front door slammed at his back, he pulled up smartly to escape
collision with the girl on the stoop. He looked at and through her,
barely conscious of her pretty, pallid face and the light of recognition
in her eyes. Then, with a murmured apology, he dodged neatly round her,
swung down the steps, and frantically hailed a passing taxicab.
Joan, dashed and disappointed, saw the vehicle swing in to the curb and
heard Matthias, as he clambered in, direct the driver to the
Pennsylvania Station with all possible haste.
She stared after the dwindling cab disconsolately. He hadn't even known
her!
In another minute she would have turned her back on the house and sought
lodgings elsewhere, but the door abruptly opened a second time,
revealing Madame Duprat, a forbidding but imperative figure, upon the
threshold.
Timidly in her confusion the girl made some semi-articulate enquiry as
to the address of Miss Maizie Dean.
To her astonishment and consternation, the landlady unbent and smiled.
"Ah!" she exclaimed with unction. "Mademoiselle is the friend of
Monsieur Matthias, is it not? Very good. Will you not be pleased to
enter? It is but this afternoon that the Sisters Dean have returned so
altogether unexpectedly."