CHAPTER XXI

IN THE PART OF THE INJURED HUSBAND

The blaze of lights, the music, the rustle of the audience, all affected Ryder but slightly. He walked to his seat as one might walk in a dream. There seemed little tangible to him in his surroundings, or in the people he brushed past.

When he had seated himself the usher leaned over and whispered to him to remove his hat. He sat in his overcoat, staring straight before him with glassy, unwinking eyes.

A painted curtain was dropped, and between it and the footlights two men appeared who went through some sort of act. Ryder never knew what it was; nor did he appreciate the several turns that followed this act.

Ryder found a program in his hand, and he began to look through it for his wife's name. Then he remembered that it could not be there, for Marks must have arranged for her appearance here on Saturday. She could not be a feature of the regular Sunday bill.

Ryder suddenly felt a great thankfulness for this fact. Undoubtedly the only places where Miss Mont's name appeared were on the billboard and in the newspaper advertisements.

It came into his troubled mind that he was in a position to put an effectual stop to his wife's being advertised further as a public entertainer. His brain began to work clearly along this line.

She was either legally his wife, or a bigamist. In either case, if he kept his head, he would have the whip-hand.

If she acknowledged the legality of their marriage, then the law would give him control over her movements--to an extent at least. Until she instituted proceedings for a separation she must obey him.

If the marriage had been a farce because of a former marriage on her part, then his hold upon her would be stronger still. If she refused to retire from the stage and live in seclusion, he would prosecute her and put her in jail.

This thought gave him untold satisfaction for the moment; then it horrified him. His wife--Ruth--the woman he loved--in jail!

What an awful experience it would be for her. Her tender body to recline on a hard cot and be subjected to the strict rules of a prison, and to exist on jail fare!

Then he hardened his heart. She was no wife of his--only in name in any case. She had cajoled him and fooled him and ruined him. She should be made to suffer as he was suffering now.

He suddenly awoke to a stir in the audience. The orchestra burst forth into a new melody and the crowd began to applaud. Who were they welcoming?

Ryder raised his eyes from the program which was merely a blur of names to him and looked straight into the face of the woman who had come from the wings and was now bowing an acknowledgment to her welcome. It was "Miss Mont, England's most famous entertainer."

For an instant he believed she was looking straight at him--that she must see and give him some sign of greeting. He forgot the glare of the footlights in the actor's eyes which makes the entire auditorium a magnified blur of faces and forms, and seldom allows the person on the stage to descry clearly a particular face in the audience.

His eyes devoured her as though he had never seen her before. She was neither the woman she had seemed aboard the _Minnequago_, nor as she had seemed in their suite at the Pinewood Inn.

Plainly dressed aboard ship, the beauty of her face and figure had been suggested rather than displayed. It was her brightness of mind that had most deeply impressed John Ryder during the voyage.

Afterward, during their short wedded intercourse, her sweetness of disposition and lovely personality had charmed and held him in her toils. How sweet she had looked in the dressing sack which revealed her neck and arms, bustling about the room unpacking her trunks.

And now this was still another woman--a third personality. The beauty of face and form was enhanced by her costume; but it was a cold and formal beauty; not the living, breathing, loving creature whom he had folded in his arms. Nor did she seem the same woman he had talked and walked with on the steamship's deck.

This was Miss Mont in her public character--Miss Mont, the actress--a woman living for the show and applause of the stage.

She swept to the center of the stage in a trailing robe which was cut to display the line of her figure to perfection and which likewise left bare her neck and shoulders and her graceful arms.

She wore no ornament. She needed none. Ryder noted, even, that she no longer wore the fine gold chain and the locket which had so stirred his doubts and jealousy two days before.

She made another graceful courtesy and began her act. That she was troubled with diffidence--with actual stage fright--there could be little doubt. But some entertainers never get over that feeling on first appearance, so it did not disprove Ryder's belief that she was well trained in her art.

Her methods were natural and did not smell of the stage; nevertheless Ryder was unconvinced. No woman who had not had long training could have acted the part Miss Mont had played at the Pinewood Inn. Why, _this_ was an utterly different woman!

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, and her voice thrilled John Ryder where he sat with his burning gaze fixed on her face, "I am to imitate certain well-known actors and actresses whose peculiarities and oddities are more or less familiar to you, as they are to me.

"As this is my first visit to America, I cannot imitate your own local celebrities--only such of the profession as may have come to England and whom I have seen in London. For instance, I will try to imitate"--here she named a musical comedy celebrity who had made a hit on both sides of the Atlantic--"as she sings her most popular song in 'The Bridal Bell.'"

Instantly the transformation that took place in Miss Mont's attitude and facial expression carried the house by storm. Before she opened her lips to sing a line of the ditty that had been so popular in "The Bridal Bell," she looked the woman she imitated to the life.

Ryder was actually startled. He remembered that once, in a spirit of fun, while aboard ship, Miss Mont had roguishly imitated the peculiarities of a fellow-passenger for his private amusement. He had not encouraged her, because he thought it savored too much of the very thing he desired to shield her from--the stage. Ah, why had not his eyes been opened then to what manner of woman she was?

Yet during the few hours she had been with him at the Pinewood Inn she had attempted nothing of this kind. Nothing in her speech or actions then had suggested the theater. What a consummate actress this wretched woman was!

The applause of the crowd encouraged her. She did not undertake anything very difficult; but she filled her seventeen minutes acceptably; and with her beauty and personal charm there was little doubt that her act would be a hit.

Her popularity with this audience did anything but please Ryder. The more the crowd applauded the more bitter were his feelings, and the deeper was the pain he suffered.

How could he ever drag this woman off the stage after such a reception? Both she and her manager would fight to thwart his attempt to close her career. Yet he had money--much money. Marks could be bought out, he felt sure; but other managers would realize that in Miss Mont there was a fortune.

It was while these bitter feelings rankled in his mind that she came back to bow her acknowledgment for the applause that followed her encore. Her gaze swept the side of the house where Ryder sat as she went off again and once out of direct range of the footlights, she saw his face.

He saw her start, pale, and then flush underneath the grease-paint that stained her cheeks. She knew him.

Ryder rose from his seat and walked uncertainly up the aisle. Several people departed after her act, and his doing so was not conspicuous. At the door he stopped a man and asked him where the stage exit of the theater was located. The man grinned at him and said:

"Round on the other street." Then to his friend he added quite loud enough for Ryder to hear: "A hard-hit Johnny I should say. The Mont has certainly made good with him."

Ryder flushed. He could have turned and struck the man down. It was his wife who the fellow had intimated would be an attraction for "stage-door Jonnies."

He found the stage entrance and the usual Cerberus on guard. His entrance was at first denied. For a moment the maddened man was tempted to rush in past the doorkeeper and demand to see his wife of the first person he met. Better judgment prevailed. It was dark enough in the entry for the doorkeeper to miss his passion-distorted face.

"Ain't nobody allowed inside, Mister," the man said.

"I've a friend, Miss Mont----"

"Let's have your card and I'll get it back to her," said the man whose hand itched for a quarter.

"I haven't a card; but I wish to see Miss Mont. I want to surprise her, you know." The crisp banknote dropped into the man's hand. "She will be surprised to see me."

"Whew!" whistled the guard, seeing the figure on the bill. "I guess you are all right. I ain't looking at you, anyhow, boss," and he turned his back deliberately upon Ryder.

The latter darted past him and up the half-darkened passage to those regions back of the scenes which so bewilder the ordinary visitor. But Ryder well knew how to gain his goal.

He seized the first stagehand he met, crushed another banknote into his hand and whispered:

"Show me Miss Mont's dressing-room. I am an old friend--from the other side."

"Number Three. Here this way!" said the stagehand. He, too, was moved by the size of the tip he received. He led Ryder to the door of the dressing-room.

Without knocking, the injured husband opened the door and stepped swiftly into the box-like little apartment. The woman was sitting before the table and glass, removing the last traces of her makeup.

"Who's there?" she asked without turning her head. Evidently she thought somebody had knocked, and Ryder stood at such an angle that she could not easily see him in the mirror. She had removed her stage costume and sat in her petticoat and with frankly-bared shoulders and arms.

Ryder breathed heavily; the sight of her satin skin and beautifully molded neck and arms almost staggered him. He remembered how Ruth had looked for the single moment he had seen her in similar undress in their bedroom at the Pinewood Inn.

"Is that you, Mr. Marks?" cried Miss Mont. "Wait a moment."

She rose swiftly, half turning, and Ryder found his voice.

"It is not Marks, Ruth; nor yet your Mr. White. It is I."

She uttered a little scream, but it was not a cry of recognition. As she swung fully around to face him she exclaimed:

"How dare you come in here? Who are you?"

Then she really saw his strained and passion-wrung features and cried in startled amazement:

"Mr. Ryder! I thought I saw you out front."

"Yes. And now I'm here," said Ryder bitterly. "Is there anything so astonishing in that? Where else should I be? A man can scarcely be said to intrude when he enters his wife's dressing-room."

"You--you---- What do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking away from his vicinity. She quickly snatched up the nearest garment and flung it about her shoulders. "This is cruel of you, Mr. Ryder. Do leave me until I dress."

"Pah! Why so prudish? Am I not your husband?"

"Husband? What do you say? Is the man mad?" murmured the woman. "I--I am not your wife, Mr. Ryder."

"And that may be true, too," he agreed, wetting his lips before he could speak. The fires of an inward fever seemed burning him up. "That may be true," he pursued. "So much the worse for you then, Ruth. For by the living God! if you have tricked me in that, too, you shall suffer for it as a bigamist."

"Tricked you?" cried she, with sudden heat, and standing more erect before the angry man. "I did not trick you. If either of us deserves the accusation of trickster it is you. But a woman is helpless if a man makes a fool of her. Had you been the gentleman I thought you, however, you would have told me you had changed your mind and found that the affection you declared you had for me was merely a passing fancy."

"What's that?" he shouted. "Don't taunt me that way, woman! I--who loved you devotedly, who would do anything for you, who showed you my heart laid bare! And you dare accuse me of fickleness?

"A dozen suspicious acts of yours I overlooked while we were at the hotel together. I refused to believe my _wife_ guilty of any thought or act that might suggest infidelity."

She gazed at him in amazement.

"What are you talking about? You are mad, man!"

"Mad? Perhaps I am. I know I shall be before long," groaned the tortured man. "You took my name--whether you had a right to do so or not, you know--and you cast it back in scorn, as though it were a small thing for a man to give his name to a woman."

"You _are_ mad!" repeated the woman. "How dare you say I married you?"

Ryder staggered back against the door. He glared at her.

"You--you---- Do you deny it? You may have another husband; but you married me. Either you are my legal wife, or you have committed a crime which the American laws shall punish. See!" He tore open his coat, dragged out his wallet, and displayed the marriage certificate before her startled eyes. "Deny that name--deny that signature--if you can!"

She bent forward, devouring the paper with her gaze. Then suddenly she caught her breath and, with one hand at her bosom as though to stifle its throbbing, she arose to her full height and faced him.

"I do deny--both. That is not my handwriting. And my name is _Rose_ Mont," she said.

The shout of demoniacal laughter that burst from Ryder's lips and the contortion of his face were terrible.

"Do you think _that_ will work, woman? Do you think you can dodge the law on so slight a pretext as a false name and disguised handwriting? You are my wife, and by heaven I'll take you from this place by force if you will not go with me peaceably!"