He stared, perplexed, at the door, when she had shut it....
Avoiding the elevator and lobby, she slipped down the stairs and through a side door to the street.
In ten minutes she was at the Union Ferry.
Within an hour she was in Oakland, purchasing through tickets for her transcontinental flight.
XXVII
When he had finished breakfast, Matthias lighted a pipe, and setting his feet anew in the groove they had worn diagonally from door to window, began his matutinal tramp toward inspiration.
But this morning found his brain singularly sluggish: thoughts would not come; or if they showed themselves at all, it was only to peer mischievously at him round some distant corner which, when turned, discovered only an empty impasse.
Distressed, he tamped down his pipe, ran long fingers through his hair, and wrapped himself in clouds of smoke. Then a breath of cool, sweet air fanned his cheek, and he looked round in sharp annoyance. It was like that fool maid to leave the windows open and freeze him to death! And truly enough, they were both wide open from top to bottom; though, for all that, he wasn't freezing. And outside there was a bright crimson border of potted geraniums on the iron-railed balcony. He hadn't noticed them before; Madame Duprat must have set them out before he was up. Curious whim of hers! Curious weather!
Disliking inconsistencies, he stopped in one of the windows to investigate these unseasonable phenomena.