He had the door open.
"But why do you—how can you trust me with all your things?"
"Tut!" he said reprovingly from the vestibule—"nothing there but play 'scripts, and they're not worth anything. You can't get anybody to produce 'em. I know, because I've tried."
He closed the inner door and banged the outer behind him.
Joan, on the point of pursuing to the street, paused in the vestibule, and for a moment stood doubting. Then, with a bewildered look, she returned slowly to the back room, shut herself in, and shot the bolt....
On the platform of the stoop, Mr. Matthias delayed long enough to turn up his coat-collar for the better protection of his linen, and surveyed with a wry grin the slashing rush of rain through which he now must needs paddle unprotected.
"Queer thing for a fellow to do," he mused dispassionately....
"Daresay I am a bit of an ass.... I might at least have borrowed my own umbrella.... But that would hardly have been consistent with the egregious insanity of the performance....
"I wonder why I do these awful things?... If I only knew, perhaps I could reform...."