CHAPTER IX

WITH THE WORLD SHUT OUT

Ryder stopped dead in his tracks and let the boy pass on. His usually well ordered mind was a chaos.

To see Ruth deliberately send for that man whom she had declared she did not know, and seemingly make an engagement to meet him in the hotel dining-room! Well! it was enough to make any husband suspicious.

John Ryder's impulse was to follow swiftly after White. Had he done so, there would have been an ugly scene in the dining-room of Pinewood Inn. But the blaze of anger that immediately leaped up within him, and would have choked his utterance and perhaps made him disgrace himself, warned Ryder that it would be the part of wisdom for him to cool down before presenting himself in the dining-room.

He swung on his heel and returned along the corridor. The café door was right before him. He was not a drinking man--that is, one who made a practice of patronizing a bar, or drinking other than at his meals; but the swinging door of the hotel café invited him, and he felt that if ever in his life he wanted a drink it was now.

The bar had been well patronized all the evening, the trade keeping the two white jacketed men behind it on the jump. Here was the storm center of the indignant outburst against the hotel management, and Colonel Brack's frequent visits to the bar had increased his fluency and fanned the fires of his rage against what he loudly termed "this beastly imposition, suh!"

He was calling it this and harder things when Ryder entered. The latter slipped quietly up to the bar, told the man what he wanted, and waited to sip the appetizer without giving the least attention to the other patrons. But his appearance did not pass unmarked. There were plenty of trouble breeders ready to call the colonel's attention to Ryder's presence.

Suddenly there was a roar at the end of the bar and the colonel, crying, "Lemme at him! Lemme see him!" charged down the line, brushing the men along the rail away like flies.

The crowd cleared the way instantly, leaving the space open between the wrathful old campaigner and the man quietly sipping his sherry and bitters. Perhaps the suspicion that the colonel was in the habit of "going heeled" made the shrinkage of the men hanging on the bar-rail so unanimous.

Colonel Brack, afflicted with an artificial limb, was not possessed of that grace of movement necessary to make a man a personable figure in leading a cotillion; but he was getting over the floor with mighty strides until he suddenly awoke to the fact that none of his friends was restraining him.

Not a single man in the group of his adherents laid hold on his coat-tails or tried to soothe and pacify the doughty warrior, while Ryder stood coolly sipping his drink.

It was an embarrassing moment. The colonel halted midway in his flight and glanced hastily about; but nobody came tardily to his aid. They all plainly considered that John Ryder deserved all that was coming to him--and they were willing in this case to let the colonel go ahead.

Ryder meanwhile watched the colonel curiously, but made no move to guard himself from the threatened attack. For fourteen years Colonel Brack had been a picturesque figure in the café of Pinewood Inn. It was whispered among those whom the colonel had taken into his confidence at odd and various times, that he had in the West a reputation for being "a bad man to stir up, suh!"

Usually he played his cards so well that he was "saved by his friends" when upon the verge of doing something rash. In this case everybody was willing to see John Ryder get all that the colonel threatened him with. And it suddenly smote the old fire-eater, and smote him hard, that he had "overplayed his hand."

The crowd had rapidly got out of his way, and he had all the room he needed for either fisticuffs or guns. Ryder finished his sherry, and placed the glass softly on the bar. His movements were as deliberate as the colonel's had been impetuous. The latter finally found his voice.

"Suh! my contempt for you, and the interference of my friends here, are all that save you from the punishment you deserve, suh! Crippled as I am, honorably and in my country's cause" (it was not generally known that Colonel Brack had lost his leg in a premature explosion in the Leading Sinner Mine, from which still-paying proposition he drew his small income), "and old as I am, nothing less would keep me from laying violent hands upon you, suh!"

Ryder turned away from the bar and, as he did so, he snapped his fingers under the colonel's glowing nose.

"Cut it short, Colonel, I'm busy," he said. "Haven't you anything else to say to me? No? Then--good-night!" and he walked out of the café.

It was a cruel blow to the colonel's popularity. The crowd began to snicker, and the snicker grew to a loud and general laugh. Colonel Brack's prestige as a "bad man" melted, and was gone at the Pinewood Inn bar forever.

Ryder, perhaps somewhat relieved of his ill temper, it having found a vent in this incident, walked directly to the dining-room. He glanced about for White but did not see him. Was the man still with Mrs. Ryder?

The moment had perhaps arrived for the mystery to be explained. The thought made him secretly tremble. It is facing the unknown that makes cowards of us all.

But John Ryder's countenance did not betray his inward feelings. He walked into the dining-room in his usual, dignified manner. Everything was rose-tinted from the shaded lamps on each table. He almost instantly saw his wife sitting at a cozy table, and with her was Mrs. Judson.

White was not in sight. There were perhaps two dozen little parties sprinkled about; but with none of them was the individual who had earned so much of John Ryder's attention.

Ryder, appearing much calmer than he really was, approached his wife and her companion. Ruth seemed undisturbed save that her face was a trifle paler than it had been. But it lit up with pleasure and her eyes shone when she saw Ryder coming.

And this look staggered the man. There was nothing furtive--nothing secretive--in Ruth's manner. It was disgraceful to think of her having some secret from him when her beautiful face beamed such love and happiness at his approach.

"I'm a fool--a cad--a scoundrel!" he told himself savagely. "I ought to tell her what is troubling me right now and have the matter explained. Confound this old busybody, anyway!"

But he managed to hide his dislike for the widow as he sat down.

"Really, your wife looked so lonely, that I had to come over and talk with her," cried the vivacious Mrs. Judson, shaking her lorgnette at Ryder. "You shameful men--going off by yourselves--herding together socially--and in that vulgar café, I'll be bound! I declare! the ordinary man wouldn't give up his nightcap even on his wedding night. Fie! For shame!"

Ruth blushed faintly, and looked at Ryder apologetically. The latter checked his real feelings and displayed an emotionless face. The widow rambled on:

"I got into the habit of taking a late bite with poor dear Horace. He always liked it. And to-night when we were all so upset I knew I couldn't sleep without it. I really get so lonely--living alone and eating alone----"

What could Ryder do? He looked at Ruth. She made a little _moue_ with her pretty lips and shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"We shall be glad to have you take supper with us, Mrs. Judson," Ryder said, telling the lie with an expressionless face.

"Now, isn't that too, too sweet of you?" gushed the widow. "And when I know you must be just longing to be tête-à-tête--both of you. Now, don't deny it!"

Their faces did not, if their murmurs belied their expression of countenance. But Mrs. Judson ran on untiringly--she was a "fluid" speaker--and settled herself more comfortably in her chair. Evidently Ryder had her on his hands, and he beckoned the waiter so as to have it over with as soon as possible.

Ruth had said she was hungry, and Mrs. Judson looked like a woman with a hearty appetite. Her order did not belie her appearance. Ryder was too much disturbed in his mind to know whether he could eat or not; but he ordered something, and tried to be social while a dozen different threads of thought were entangled in his brain.

"I think it's so romantic, don't you know, for you two to get married and come right here when the hotel is so disrupted," gushed the widow.

"Very romantic," acquiesced Ryder grimly.

"You two poor babes in the woods. No! I'm going to call you Romeo and Juliet," she declared. "I'm sure the opportunity for your husband to be a romantic knight," looking at Ruth, "is just as good in this hotel under present conditions as he would have found in the days of the Montagues and Capulets.

"He has surely rescued one lone dame in distress--that's me!" and she laughed with a heartiness that shook her ponderous figure. "There are dragons to kill now, too. I understand that one man here in the hotel has bought up all the lamps and candles in town and refuses to let us have any save at an exorbitant price."

"How mean!" murmured Ruth, trying to be polite while Ryder smiled behind his napkin.

"Isn't it? I mean to get back to my rooms so that Marie can undress me before the lights are put out. I don't know what I would do in the dark."

"I think it is horrid of anybody to take advantage of our necessities in such a way as this," Ruth said thoughtfully. "Fancy being at the mercy of a man who would be mean enough to corner the lighting of the world--and if he'd corner the lighting of a single hotel I suppose he would a deal rather found a Universal Lighting Trust."

The little joke which he was having all to himself put Ryder in a better humor. Mrs. Judson grew more animated, and Ruth did her best to make the impromptu occasion pleasant.

"Just think! this is a bridal supper," simpered Mrs. Judson. "We ought to celebrate--just a little. It's wicked, I know, to think of champagne at such a time. But we must have something more sparkling than water to drink this pretty lady's health in. If you will allow me, Mr.--er--Romeo----"

"I could not think of your ordering anything at my table," said Ryder with an involuntary frown. "But if you ladies would enjoy a glass of wine we will have some, of course."

"Now, that is gallant of you," cried the widow, forseeing a luxury that she loved, but seldom paid for. "When poor dear Horace was alive we had it often for dinner. He was inordinately fond of the good things of life."

"But his taste in wives was not very select," thought John Ryder, his disgust growing.

Ruth had crimsoned, but her signal to Ryder to order no wine was unheeded. To tell the truth he was a little piqued. It was Ruth's fault that they were in this situation. She had made friends first with Mrs. Judson.

But when the waiter brought the bucket of ice in which nestled a quart bottle, the very atmosphere about their table seemed to be enlivened. The widow's dusky cheek soon glowed, her eyes sparkled, and her vivacity seemed to increase with the good things placed before her.

Ryder noted, too, that Ruth's eyes held in their depths a sparkle--a point of fire--that had not been there before. And those eyes, brilliant at one moment and the next swimming as though in unshed tears, rested upon his countenance most of the time. Her smile was for him. She played the hostess prettily; but her attention, after all, was for her husband, and the color came and went in her cheeks in a manner most charming.

She was a woman in love--in love with the man she had married--with every thought of her soul and every fibre of her being.

A realization of this fact swept from the chambers of her husband's mind every atom of suspicion. No woman could look at a man as Ruth looked at him and withhold in her secret heart any mystery that might bring shame upon him or disaster to herself.

"Romeo, you are a lucky man," whispered the widow, tapping him on the arm with the expressive lorgnette and leaning forward to put her full, red lips close to his ear, but with her laughing eyes on Ruth's face to see how the bride took another woman's familiarity with her husband. "She loves you as one woman in a thousand ever loves her husband."

"I am a lucky man," repeated Ryder, though more to himself than to the cynical widow.

The latter shook a playful--and diamond bedewed--finger at Ruth. "You are giving him a great advantage, Juliet. Let a man once realize that you love him so devotedly, and he'll ride rough shod over your heart. It's always the way," and she sighed heavily--"though," thought John Ryder, "the sigh may be caused more by the supper she has eaten than by any sentimental emotion."

"Yes, Juliet," rambled on the wined, and consequently quite happy, Mrs. Judson, "take the advice of a woman of experience, and do not give your heart too completely into any man's keeping. I am not old--oh, no! for we women who live and love do not grow old--but I have lived more years than have you, sweet girl, and I have loved--and been loved," she simpered, "and I tell you it is always better to keep the driving hand."

Ruth shivered in disgust. Ryder kept a stony face and began to eat the meal before him, which before he had scarcely touched.

"Do you see that woman over there?" suddenly questioned Mrs. Judson. "They say she is the most abominable----"

"Oh, Mrs. Judson," and this time Ruth spoke with decision, "in time we shall learn to know our fellow guests perhaps. Tonight let us talk about things--not people;" and with a power rare in so young and inexperienced a person, she kept the talk from again wandering to personalities or to sentimentalities.

Ryder ignored the suggestion of any more wine, and the widow finally bethought her of the fact that the lights might go out soon and leave her in the dark. So the little supper party broke up.

Almost everybody else had left the room save a young woman whom Ryder had noticed before--a plainly dressed, freckled, sharp-featured girl, who ate alone at a table near the door. That is, she was supposed to eat; but in reality she read most diligently a rather dingy paper covered pamphlet that was folded into small compass beside her plate.

As Ryder and his party passed out he saw the girl devouring the story she was reading with a mouthful from her plate poised on her fork. So eager was she over the book, and so excited, that she gestured with this mouthful, jabbing the fork to and fro as though duelling with an imaginary enemy and feeling within herself, without doubt, all the emotions of the characters in the fiction she was perusing.

Mrs. Judson, now in a very happy state, indented Ryder's ribs with an irritating thumb, and whispered shrilly: "Do you know who she is?"

"I haven't the pleasure of the young lady's acquaintance."

"She's the house detective," giggled the heavy lady. "Isn't she funny? She's reading a five-cent detective thriller. She gave me a pile of them to read once. She says--he, he!--they feed the imagination."

Ryder looked back at the plain-featured girl. She was still waving the mouthful on her fork, wrapped in her novel, as he and the two women of his party went on to the elevator. He left Ruth and Mrs. Judson to go up in that while he went for a final conference with George and the steward before retiring himself. The porters had fixed the bracket lamps in the main corridors of the hotel (and there were none too many) while one was at the clerk's desk and was already lighted.

"Back to the days of our grandfathers," said George, grinning. "'The light of other days.' Say! some of these fellows, Mr. Ryder, are frothing at the mouth about you."

"I thought Colonel Brack----"

"Not him. The old boy's been taken off to his own room by his wife. That lady is of the salt of the earth, and she knows just how to handle Aurelius. She's been handling him for a good many years. He's nowhere near such a 'howling wolf' in his own coral as he appears outside.

"But some of the others----"

He halted, for Jimson, the man with the invalid wife, suddenly appeared in a glow of indignation, and George let him speak for himself.

"See here, Mr. Ryder," he sputtered, "I am not challenging your right to make money out of our necessity--that seems to be your business," and he sneered so that it must have hurt him. "But at least you should have some humanity--some bowels of compassion. My wife is ill and almost helpless; the last time I was up there the rooms were already becoming chilled because of the decreased steam pressure.

"You positively must let me have one of those stoves Al has there in the storeroom. I don't care what you want for it. I'll pay. I _must_ have one."

"They are not for sale, Mr. Jimson," Ryder responded coldly.

"Mr. Ryder, this is outrageous! I will give you ten dollars for one of those stoves."

"That would be only about fifty per cent. profit on the large stoves, Mr. Jimson. Do you think you would care to do that if you were in my place?"

"I--I'll give you twenty--fifty dollars, then," Jimson blurted out.

Here George interfered. The clerk seemed really put out with little Jimson.

"You should take a walk around and cool off, Mr. Jimson--and Colonel Brack, too. Some of you have been insulting Mr. Ryder for two hours, and jawing your heads off about what he's done. And you don't _know_ what he's done."

"Eh?" bristled Jimson, yet puzzled.

"He has done what none of the rest of you had public spirit enough to do," went on the hotel clerk. "If anybody pays him for what he has laid out for the comfort of the guests of this hotel it will be the Barnaby estate, when this trouble is finally straightened out. Five minutes ago, Mr. Jimson, Mr. Ryder had one of the largest oil heaters he bought and a nice reading lamp sent up to your wife."

"Oh, by Jove! I--I thought---- I didn't understand----"

Mr. Jimson's words rambled off into a stammering monologue. Ryder had handed George back the list he had been looking over. "That will be about all, I guess," he said. "I'm going to turn in. Good-night!" and ignoring the apologizing Jimson he made for the stairway.

The dining-room was closed. The last elevator boy came out of his cage and locked the door. The hands of the clock in the foyer lacked but a few minutes of midnight.

"Gentlemen," said the clerk from his station at the desk. "The dynamos will run but ten minutes longer. The café is closed for the night. I advise you to go to your rooms."

The sharp-faced girl whom Ryder had noticed in the dining-room had taken up her station near the foot of the stairs. She had the folded paper novel in her hand. She looked particularly wideawake, and the literary pabulem she so enjoyed might indeed spur her imagination. She was evidently on duty for the night.

"Gad!" exclaimed one man. "We might as well be stopping at a Mills' Hotel. They send you to bed with the chickens," and with laughter and jest the company slowly broke up.

The telephone buzzed at the clerk's elbow. He took down the receiver, listened a moment, and then spoke to the house detective:

"Miss Solomons, you're wanted in Parlor A."

Ryder, in serious mood, was already climbing the stairs. The young woman passed him like a shot, and still he was not aroused from his reverie. He was tired. His work for the comfort of the hotel guests was done, and he uttered a sigh of satisfaction at the thought. There was positively nothing else that could happen to balk his desire to be alone with his wife.