CHAPTER XII

SOME EXPERIENCES OF A BRIDEGROOM

John Ryder, just here, hearing voices and laughter--even the clink of glasses--from the floor below, felt a desire for human society--for speech with sane people. His mind was in such a chaotic condition that he was not sure whether these recent remarkable incidents had really happened to him, or he had dreamed them.

He arrived at the top of the broad flight leading down to the foyer. There were candles glimmering at the clerk's desk beside the bracket lamp, and several of the guests were keeping George company. Jimson was one; there were three men whom Ryder had not before particularly noticed; and there was White, the man of mystery. The latter was sitting rather sullenly with the others, sipping some concoction in a tall glass--which, indeed, they were all doing.

If for no other reason than to get a closer look at John B. White, Ryder joined the party. He was welcomed vociferously by the clerk. Jimson considered it was up to him to pacify the man he had so foolishly and impulsively insulted.

"Hope you'll let me mix you one, Mr. Ryder," Jimson said. "Just to show there's no hard feelings, you know."

"Go ahead," Ryder said, conscious that White was watching him with clouded eyes. Indeed, the man seemed unable to keep his gaze off John Ryder.

"How's Mrs. Judson?" asked George, with a knowing grin.

"Confound her!" ejaculated the bridegroom. "She's turned me out of house and home."

"Ho, ho! And you a newly married man!" cackled one of the crowd.

"On his honeymoon," said Jimson. Then he blew a sigh. "Well, it might be worse, Mr. Ryder. You don't know what it is to have an invalid wife."

"Or a heavyweight, like the Lady Judson," chuckled another.

Ryder showed he was not deeply interested in these witticisms. George said rather lamely:

"Well, a man's got to make way for the ladies."

"Especially when they are hysterical," Jimson added. "I remember when my wife----"

He started on a story that did not interest Ryder in the least. He was the host--it was his private bottle they were sampling--so the clerk and all but White and Ryder gave the narrator some attention.

White rose up suddenly and tapped John Ryder on the shoulder. "I beg your pardon, Mr.--er--did I catch your name?"

"Ryder."

"Ah! Mr. Ryder!" The man spoke rather gaspingly, as though something interfered with his breathing. He gazed at Ryder with eyes that burned strangely. Altogether he did not seem in good health, and again Ryder wondered if he was quite right in his mind. Perhaps ill health might explain his odd actions, after all.

"I feel I owe you an apology--an explanation," said White, still in a low voice. "Will--will you come over here a moment--to this bench? Give me your attention briefly?"

"Guess I can," said Ryder. "There seems nothing much pressing on my time just now," he added grimly, and followed White to the gloomier side of the office where the two men seated themselves on one of the leather-covered divans just under the stairway.

"You see," said White, still in that stifled tone. "I--I came down here expecting to intercept--that is, to meet--er--friends. I followed her down here---- Ahem! Them, I mean; and I couldn't find----"

His voice trailed off into silence, while Ryder watched him in the dusk with reviving interest. There was surely something wrong with this man's brain. If ever John Ryder had seen a man with beclouded mind, John B. White was that man.

"And I saw--saw your--er--wife," went on White. "She looked so like--well, like what I thought my friend--one of my friends--would look----"

"My wife looks like somebody you know?" Ryder asked in that loud and cheerful tone which the average person uses in addressing one who he thinks is not mentally balanced.

"Ye-es. As I thought she'd look. And her name----"

"What name?" demanded Ryder.

White ignored the question. "You see, I've been away so long," he murmured. "I didn't know just how she would look. We had never exchanged photographs in all that time."

Ryder glanced at him curiously. "You come from Rome, the clerk tells me?"

"Yes," admitted the man, looking startled again. "I--I only recently arrived in the country."

"Recently arrived from an insane asylum, more like," thought John Ryder.

"And, then, your wife," reiterated White. "You--you haven't been married to her long?"

"I should say not!" groaned Ryder. "Not long enough to get used to being a married man. We were only married yesterday."

"Not married _here_?" gasped White.

"No. In New York. Just before coming here," replied Ryder, wonderingly. "And I wish heartily we hadn't come here. We're in a nice mess."

"Yes--unfortunate," said White. "Your case is indeed unhappy. A bridegroom and bride. Dear, dear!"

Ryder still gazed at him wonderingly. "If ever I have seen a man who has slipped his trolley, this White is that man!" he thought.

"I--I suppose you and Mrs. Ryder had looked forward to a very different sort of a honeymoon?" said White, bending forward to devour his companion's face in the dusk, his own eyes glowing in the wild way which had already attracted Ryder's notice.

"Indeed yes," Ryder admitted, with a chuckle, the drink Jimson had mixed for him having had a soothing effect. "But we were neither of us thinking of honeymoons when we embarked on the _Minnequago_."

The man started. "You--you mean when you embarked on the ship? You only landed from her yesterday morning?"

"That is when she docked," the puzzled Ryder replied. "We were married not long after. My wife, you see, is an English girl----"

"An English girl! Yes?" A faint tone of disappointment colored the remark. White subsided for a moment into deep thought. Suddenly, as Ryder was about to rise, the other clutched his arm feverishly. "I beg your pardon! One other question--if you will bear with me, Mr. Ryder. Will--will you tell me your wife's name?

"Why, Ryder!" ejaculated the other.

"I--I mean before she was married?"

"Mont--Ruth Mont," and Ryder broke away from the man and walked to the desk to set his empty glass upon the counter. George was telling a story--one of those interminably long yarns which begin, "There was an Irishman, and." He was the only person who was facing the divan on which White was sitting.

Suddenly the clerk's face turned puttylike, and he stopped, his jaw hanging. He glared over the shoulders of his audience.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded the nervous Jimson, jumping up.

"Look there!" exclaimed George. "What's the matter with that man?"

They all wheeled at his question to look. But while the others were moved first by White's appearance, as George had been, Ryder saw the face of Miss Solomons, the house detective, hanging over the balustrade of the stairs, just above the place where he had been sitting with White. She dodged back out of sight; and then Ryder saw what had startled the hotel clerk.

White had slid down in his seat, with only the small of his back resting on its edge, the back of his head rigidly against the settee back and his legs stretched stiffly before him. His face was purple in color and he was gasping for breath.

"The man's in a fit!" cried Jimson.

There was a concerted rush toward White, all but Ryder joining in the stampede. He remained by the desk, staring up the stairway and wondering what was the matter with Miss Solomons, who he supposed had gone back to her broken sleep in the parlor chair.

"What the deuce does the girl want?" he thought. "Was she spying on me or on White? And what is the matter with White, all of a sudden? What threw him into such a state? What did he ask me last? Why! Ruth's maiden name----"

George came charging back to the desk.

"I say, Mr. Ryder! isn't Doctor Hoyle up in your rooms?"

"I left him there," grumbled Ryder. "He and my wife are putting that Judson woman to bed."

George tore around the desk to the telephone. He stuck the proper plug into the board and began to pump the annunciator in Ryder's apartment. The other men picked the stiffened White up and laid him on the couch.