"But what is the explanation of this conduct, monsieur? Am I to look forward to future escapades of the same nature? Do you intend to make of my house a refuge for all the stray unfortunates of New York? Am I, and my guests, to be left to the mercies of God-knows-who, simply because monsieur has a heart of pity?" "Oh, here!" Matthias broke in with some impatience. "It wasn't as bad as that. It's not likely to happen again ... and besides, the girl was a perfectly good, nice, respectable girl. Madame should know that I wouldn't take any chances with people I didn't know all about." "Monsieur knew the young woman, then?" "Oh, yes; assuredly yes," Matthias lied nonchalantly. By the happiest of accidents, his glance, searching the table for a box of matches wherewith to relight his pipe, encountered a sheet of typewriter paper on which a brief message had been scrawled in a formless, untrained hand: "_Dear Sir_," he read with relief, "_thank you--Your friend, Joan Thursby_." He found the matches and used one before looking up. "Miss Thursby," he said coolly, "is the daughter of an eminently respectable family in reduced circumstances. Thinking to better her condition, she proposed to become an actress, but met with such violent opposition on the part of her father--a bigot of a man!--that she was obliged to leave her home in order to retain her self-respect. Quite naturally she thought first of her only friend in the profession, Miss Maizie Dean, and came here to find her. The rest you may imagine. Was I to turn her out to wander through the rain--at two o'clock in the morning? Madame discredits her heart by suggesting anything of the sort!" Madame's expression of contrition seemed to endorse this reproof. She hesitated with a hand on the doorknob. "Monsieur is prepared to vouch for the young woman?" "Certainly," he assented, with an imperturbable countenance masking a creepy, crawly feeling that perhaps he might be letting himself in for more than he bargained. "Very good. I go, with apologies." Madame opened the door. "Thursday, you said?" He repeated without bothering to correct her: "Joan Thursday." "Barbarous names of these mad Americans!" The door, closing, totally eclipsed the grenadier. With thoughtful deliberation Matthias (smiling guiltily) tore Joan's note into minute bits and, dropping them in a waste-basket, dismissed her message and herself entirely from his mind. Five minutes later the typewriter was rattling cheerily.