CHAPTER II

"NEEDLES AND PINS"

None of his business associates, not even his head clerk, knew just when John Ryder would return to New York. He had gone across for a rest--a pleasure trip; but he had struck some splendid contracts--"the woods were full of them," he said--and he cabled orders until his agents in America fairly begged him to stop. Prices for raw material had not yet risen to top-notch, and they were skimming the cream of the manufacturing situation.

He arrived on the _Minnequago_ with none aware of his coming. Nor did he propose to tell anybody of the change he now contemplated to make in his private life.

Had he done so, he knew that certain "good fellows" of his acquaintance would undertake to make existence an agony for him and for this beautiful girl whom he was to marry. It seems to be the delight of a certain order of mankind to make the sweetest, most intimate hours of a newly-married couple a Saturnalia upon which they can only look back with horror.

Ryder was practically free to do as he pleased, and what he pleased to do was to take time to get acquainted with the charming woman at his side. They must go somewhere for their honeymoon where he would not be likely to run into people he knew, and where he and his wife could be quiet and undisturbed.

Getting the license was neither a long nor troublesome matter, for they were the first at the clerk's office. He signed his name "John Ryder," knowing that there were probably a dozen of the same name in the directory and the publication of it would scarcely warn his friends of what he was doing. The girl signed after him, and surely nobody--unless it was that detestable Sam Marks--would realize who she was.

"Who will marry us?" she asked, leaving all the details to him very prettily.

"We could be married right here in the chapel," he told her. "But if you would rather, I know of an old dominie on Bank Street."

"How funny!"

"Why?"

"That you should know anybody in that part of New York. That is Greenwich Village, isn't it?"

"Yes. You seem to have studied your map of the town."

"Oh, I have learned a little something about New York," she responded, smiling slightly.

Aside from this brief interchange of remarks, there was very little said as the taxicab rolled uptown to a quiet hotel. Both were doing some very serious thinking. It was not a situation to provoke trifling conversation.

Ryder arranged for a parlor where Miss Mont could remain quietly during his absence. He did not delay for luncheon himself, but did not forget to send up a dainty repast for his bride-to-be. He walked into the offices of John Ryder & Company about noon and cast the whole force into first a state of confusion, and then of wonder.

He was usually the most methodical of persons and went through with any business--even the routine work of the day--in a most exemplary manner. There was seldom any friction in John Ryder's offices when he was there. From his chief clerk and his personal stenographer down through the strata of employees to the very porter, system was inculcated into their daily lives both by precept and the example of the "boss."

Today he literally tore what little system there was left in his force to shreds. He started several people on the same errand; he dictated the same letter three times and in as many different ways. His stenographer, a very severe young woman, came closer to him than she ever had before in her life and sniffed his breath. Drink was the only explanation she could think of.

He gave Brumby, his chief clerk, orders which absolutely antagonized each other, and when the man tremblingly pointed out this fact to Ryder the latter actually lost his temper.

"Well, confound it!" ejaculated John Ryder, "you know what I mean, don't you? There's only one sensible way to do that thing. Do it, and don't bother me!"

Inexplicable! Nobody had ever seen Ryder in such a state of mind before. He was one minute as snappy as a mud turtle; the next he ran his hand through the curly red mop of hair on the errand boy's head, gave him a dollar, and told him to take in the next ball game at the Polo Grounds without troubling himself to tell Brumby that his grandmother had died.

But to capsheaf his entire performance on this occasion, Ryder sat down again to dictate a few notes on personal matters and began the first one by saying:

"Ahem! Are you ready, Miss Nelson? Here goes: 'My dear Rose'--Good Lord! that isn't it. Er--er--Write Hallett and Mayes about the renewal of the lease of my apartment. Tell them--er---- Well, write it yourself, Miss Nelson," he concluded in much confusion and beginning to perspire. "I shall not renew it. It runs out the first of November and I shall make--er--ahem!--a change."

She stared at him in amazement. John Ryder had occupied the same chambers on the north side of Gramercy Park for ten years and was considered as permanent a fixture in that neighborhood as the fenced and locked garden in the middle of the square.

"Well, hang it!" he demanded, catching her wondering eye and losing patience again. "Can't I make a change? I hope I'm not _married_ to those rooms?"

And then he reddened furiously. Miss Nelson gazed upon him with dawning understanding. She was not a young woman whose thoughts lingered much upon the tender passion; but she was by no means a fool. She knew now that her employer was not intoxicated.

Brumby might think Mr. Ryder suddenly bereft of his senses; the bookkeeper could say that "the old man" was about to "bust"; and the red-headed office boy could declare that the boss had felt the change before death when he gave up the dollar, but Miss Nelson knew now what the matter was. _Mr. Ryder was in love!_

When she went out for her lunch she--the frigid Miss Nelson--sentimentally bought a flower from a street vender and brought it back to the office. But by that time John Ryder had cleared up all the matters he considered really vital, had given Brumby a nervous shock by telling him to expect no word from him, Ryder, for at least a fortnight, and had left the offices.

All these petty details of business were the "needles and pins" of life. For the first time in his business career Ryder found that he hated business. He fairly walked on air as he hurried to the subway, crowded himself into an already crowded train, and was transported uptown.

A few steps to the hotel--then the elevator--then the carpeted corridor to the door of the parlor where he had left his bride. A knock, a swift patter of feet in answer, the turning of the key, and----

She was there--a vision of delight to him! Her coat and hat were already on. His heart glowed. She had been as eager for his return as he had been to get back to her.

"Are--are you ready?" was all he could say.

"Yes," she murmured, quite as embarrassed.

Ryder remembered the old parsonage on Bank Street very well. He had been wont to go to the church hard by when he was a boy. The same minister was not there now, but the present incumbent had a peaceful, old-world face, was silver-haired and kindly spoken, and might have been the same whom Ryder remembered.

The clergyman welcomed them as though he were well used to such calls.

Miss Mont was shy and kept her veil down until the clergyman's wife and a servant were brought in to witness the ceremony. Then she plucked up courage, raised her veil, and if her cheeks were tear-stained nobody remarked it. The old man stood before them and pronounced the simply worded ritual with grace and kindliness.

Ryder himself felt confused. It was really the first time he had ever been present at such a ceremony.

"With a ring?" the minister asked him softly before he began, and Ryder knew just enough to nod and then fumble in his inner pocket for a tiny leather case which he always carried.

Out of this he brought forth, happily at the right moment, a plain gold band, worn rather thin, and with letters engraved on the inner side that were almost indecipherable. It had been his mother's wedding ring--the one keepsake that had come into his possession as a boy from the parent he scarcely remembered.

The girl evidently understood when he produced the ring. She smiled at him tremulously and, before the band was slipped on her finger, she touched her lips to it.

Then: "You, John, do take this woman, Ruth--" and so on to the end. Ryder responded as though in a dream. It all seemed unreal. Serious as was the moment, the undercurrent of his thought was: "'Ruth?' That is a pretty name. But I got the idea somehow that her name was Rose."

They were married. Ryder feed the minister with a liberality that made his withered cheeks flush with pleasure. The clergyman's wife kissed Ruth heartily, and the servant, who was sentimentally inclined, wiped her eyes furtively on the corner of her kitchen apron, which she had forgotten to take off when she came into the study.

They went out to the taxicab again, the chauffeur of which was grinning knowingly.

"Now, dear, where shall we drive?" asked John Ryder.

"My trunks are at the Pennsylvania station by this time I am sure. May I choose where we shall go?"

"Of course," he answered, though he felt some surprise.

"Then let it be Pinewood."

"Why--why," Ryder cried, "you must have studied this business all out. Ah, you sly girl! What put Pinewood in your head?"

"They say it is very nice there--and quiet--at this time of year. It will remind us of old times," she added dreamily.

Afterward when he was attending to the checking of her baggage and arranging for his own to be sent on from the steamship dock, it suddenly smote Ryder that her remark about Pinewood reminding them "of old times" was peculiar.

This was Ruth's first visit to America and surely he had never been at Pinewood in all his life! Later he forgot to speak about it. Indeed, he was too busy and too happy to be curious.

He telephoned ahead for a suite of rooms at the only hotel which, he understood, was open at this time of year at Pinewood. This was the Pinewood Inn, one of the oldest and best-known hotels on the coast.

Somehow there is a "newness" sticking to bridal couples that no amount of deception can hide--from the eagle eye of the railroad porter least of all! The colored functionary on their car hovered about them as though they had been especially placed in his care, and his attentions were so marked that they might as well have come aboard showered with rice and old shoes. Everybody in the coach very soon knew that they were newly wed.

To tell the truth, John Ryder was inordinately proud of it. He was as delighted as a boy. It was an effort for him to retain his usual dignified bearing. A smile was continually breaking through the calm of his features. He wanted to shout or sing--and he sang like a crow!

From a heretofore modest and retiring man socially he suddenly became bold and daring. He secretly wished to strut about and brag of himself, and show off his wife. He would have liked to distribute "largess" (whatever that might be) to the people at the stations where the train stopped; and he tipped the porter three separate times before the train was ten miles on its way.

He had reason, good reason, for being proud. When Ruth removed her veil and hat she was startlingly beautiful. Somehow there had come a new expression into her face that increased her attractiveness. She had never seemed so sweet, so gentle and modest, so altogether adorable before.

They reached their railroad destination just as dusk was falling. Pinewood Inn was exclusive--so exclusive, indeed, that it was back among the pines quite twelve miles from the station. A motor bus met all trains and transferred the arriving guests to the hotel.

"Just a pleasant half hour's run," Ryder told his bride, helping her into the vehicle and getting in himself with several other arrivals. "We shall have an appetite for dinner I fancy."

He was just then reminded that he had eaten nothing since a modest breakfast in his stateroom on the _Minnequago_--not even on the train. The bus rumbled away from the hamlet that surrounded the railroad station. They swept into the brown shadows of the pines and rolled almost silently over the velvet carpet of the needles.

"Needles and pins, needles and pins! When a man marries----" The old rhyme came into his mind again. But he had thrown off all petty details. The needles and pins of business, or of anything else, should not rankle in his mind. This was the beginning of his honeymoon.

And just then the motor bus slid down a slight slope to a long bridge that crossed the salt creek dividing the island, which the railroad crossed, from the higher ground where the hotel was located. Ryder, glancing ahead, thought he saw the flash of a red light.

Then a woman screamed and the forward truck of the motor bus crashed through the loosened planking of the bridge. The passengers were tumbled together, but nobody was hurt. Ryder found himself holding Ruth in his arms--and somehow he did not care to let her go.

Men and women began to scramble out of the bus, having hastily gathered together what hand baggage they had taken inside with them. It was a time of confusion. A handbag was dropped, calling forth a grunt of protest from someone whose toes had been hurt. An umbrella, caught crosswise in the door, caused delay and more confusion.

"I--I fancy we shall have to get out with the rest of them," Ruth whispered.

"Oh, I suppose so," Ryder admitted.

They were the last to leave the stalled bus. The driver was explaining:

"I didn't suppose these country fools would begin to repair the bridge flooring tonight. I didn't see the light. 'Twas all right when I came down from the hotel. Guess you'll hafter walk. It'll take half the night to jack this old car up out of the hole. And see! they've left only a footpath the length of the bridge. I bet they'll leave it that way till over Sunday. Just like 'em."

The guests, already in sight of the hotel lights, went on with laughter or grumbling, as their dispositions dictated. The incident seemed quite unimportant to John Ryder, bemused as he was in the very first quarter of his honeymoon.