CHAPTER V
THE ARROW OF SUSPICION
The first excitement having worn away, the Council of War was now organized. Colonel Brack had gathered together those men best fitted to form a working committee—and likewise best able to finance any scheme decided upon for the keeping open of Pinewood Inn.
The situation was already thoroughly canvassed. No other hotel in the vicinity was open. To escape from the place by either motor or train—at least for some hours, if not days—was impossible. Local residents could not take in the hotel guests had they so desired. Here were women and children used to every luxury who were threatened with dismissal from the hotel at once. As the colonel loudly said, it was brutal.
The track to Pinewood was for the accommodation of freight for the most part. For the very reason that the owners of the Barnaby property wished to keep the hotel exclusive, they had fought any improvement in railroad accommodations.
At this time of night even the station telegraph office was closed; and George had already informed the guests that there had been a break in the long-distance telephone service since dark.
Any such thing as a special train to transport the guests to New York could not be arranged for until the following day.
"And we'd have to put up with vile accommodations from here to the Junction," explained the excitable Jimson. "Do you realize that this spur-track roadbed is scarcely fit to pull coal cars over? My wife couldn't stand it, I am sure."
"How about getting across to the island and to the regular railroad station at Barr?" John Ryder asked.
"That bridge is practically a wreck. Do you know the bus slumped clear through it, and will have to be raised by a derrick? And the road to any other station is impossible for autos. No, we can't get away and that's all there is to it."
This was the consensus of opinion. The disorganization of the hotel employees which would follow the closing of the doors of the house and its abandonment by the guests would make it unsafe to leave personal property in the hotel. There were half a hundred reasons, and all very good ones, that proved the guests must remain.
"And in union there is strength," quoted Mr. Jimson.
"We must hang together," declared another.
"Speaking of hanging," observed one, "how would it do to begin with Bangs? I'd like to see him dangling at the end of a rope."
"Better starve him," murmured another.
But these futile remarks were cut off when John Ryder began to speak seriously. He suggested that a committee be appointed to confer in a quiet way with Bangs and try to pacify him if possible—even if it cost some money. Some arrangement should be made, too, for the retention of the servants.
Ryder was at once elected by acclamation to head this committee. The colonel refused to be a member.
"You want cool men—calm men, suh," said the bristling old fellow. "I am a fire-eater. I'd rather wring that skunk's neck than take a drink!"
"Oh, Colonel!" exclaimed Jimson, "that is a very strong statement."
"I know it. But it's a fact. I know my weaknesses," said the colonel modestly.
First the committee were to make sure of the truth of the manager's statement regarding the coal supply. Then they were to sound the help through the steward, Al, to find out how many would remain. To learn what the prospect was for feeding the people in the house, including the help, was likewise important.
"If the coal gives out," Ryder said, "there is surely coal in the village here that may be bought. Perhaps not tonight, but early in the morning. We should be able to find oil lamps and heaters in that big store which I see is still open for business. The town has no gas plant, I understand. We are dependent upon the hotel's lighting plant."
The committee divided to attend to several of these matters before going to see Bangs, agreeing to meet at the desk in ten minutes.
"I must not leave Ruth alone any longer," thought John Ryder, pulling himself up short. "By thunder! there must be something more important for a bridegroom to do on his wedding night than running about as I am, shouldering other people's troubles. I must go and take a peep at the dear girl and cheer her up a bit. She'll be frightened by my remaining so long away, perhaps. No doubt she has heard by this time of the manager's threat."
As his suite was on the second floor he did not use the elevator, but ran up the broad, main stairway which led out of the office. Here the hotel seemed to be running in its usual quiet way.
A white-capped and aproned maid passed him; a bellboy bustled by with a tray of pitchers in which the ice tinkled; he heard the dull whir of the elevators. He walked along the broad, central corridor and turned off at his own proper "alley."
He saw that the door of his suite was open. There were voices which reached his quickened ear—a man's deep tones and then (and this startled him) a woman's sharp cry.
He was not yet sufficiently familiar with Ruth's voice to recognize its tone under stress of emotion. But he felt, somehow, that it was her cry.
He quickened his step. There was a man standing in the doorway of the suite. Instantly, from the side view Ryder obtained of his face, he knew him to be the stranger who had come last to the hotel on this fateful evening.
"The bungling fool!" thought John Ryder. "Is he going from room to room in this hotel looking for his friends? Maybe he is not honest. The disturbed state of the hotel guests would open very easily the way to business for an industrious burglar."
"I—I don't know you," Ruth said just as Ryder reached the spot.
She stood within the room, clinging with both hands to the edge of the door and staring at the stranger with such a wild look in her eyes that her husband was frightened. He turned on the man furiously.
"What do you want? What are you disturbing this lady for?"
"I—I beg your pardon," stammered the stranger, backing away from both John Ryder and the open door of his suite, his face now displaying nothing but pain and anxiety. "I have made a mistake—a terrible mistake."
"Oh, I am so glad you have come," Ruth said quickly to Ryder. "I—I thought you were lost—or something had happened. And then this man came——"
She was still staring at the stranger with eyes in which lurked actual terror. Ryder's fierce aspect seemed to trouble the strange man.
"I—I beg your pardon—and the lady's," he murmured. "I thought I was acquainted with her. It—it is a mistake."
"I never saw him in my life!" gasped Ruth.
"It's all right. Mistakes will happen," said Ryder, and entered the room, shutting the door abruptly in the man's face. He caught Ruth quickly in his arms with a sort of fierceness this time that was his man-way of claiming possession, as well as a desire to defend her from annoyance. "Were you frightened, dearie?" he asked.
"Yes. He—he startled me so. He is a strange looking man. Do you think him quite—quite right?"
"Not right to come bungling up here and disturbing you," Ryder responded, tenderly.
She blushed, slipping out of his arms suddenly. "Here, dear," she said softly. "I have a visitor."
Ryder looked down the room and saw for the first time a large, smiling woman sitting in a chair beyond the line of half-unpacked trunks. She was a person whom he knew he had never seen before, and he was not particularly happy to see her now.
She was a richly dressed—indeed a gaudily dressed—person wearing many jewels and lacking that quiet demeanor and appearance that Ryder admired most in womankind. Nevertheless, he walked in with as good a grace as he could summon while Ruth introduced him.
"This is my husband, Mrs. Judson," she said, and there was a thrill of pride in her sweet voice that delighted the man. "Mrs. Judson has been telling me how dreadfully this Mr. Bangs, the hotel manager, is behaving. Are they actually going to close the hotel? Mrs. Judson is all upset about it. Being alone here with only a maid, she doesn't know what to do."
"A committee of the older guests is trying to arrange now to keep the house open in spite of Bangs," said John Ryder. "But Bangs is a sharper. He may have fixed things so that we shall be without light or heat for a part of the night. But to-morrow——"
"Oh, dear!" broke in the large lady in horror. "I'll never dare stay in my rooms in the dark. And all stark alone. What shall I do? You know how very helpless we widows feel, Mister—er——" She did not speak the name, which evidently had escaped her, but her smirk caused Ryder a feeling of sudden nausea.
"You don't look helpless," he thought, with much disapproval of the visitor. Mrs. Judson gave one the impression of being a woman amply able to take care of herself in any emergency. Aloud he said:
"There are men now seeing about obtaining candles and lamps. Perhaps heat may be furnished some of the rooms with the aid of oil stoves. Of course, the furnace fires are not out yet."
"It is not cold in here," Ruth said brightly.
"But it will be if what Bangs says is true. He hasn't coal enough to last until midnight. Oh, he was ready weeks ago for this trick, without any doubt."
"And we can't get away!" wailed the heavy woman in the armchair. "When poor, dear Horace was alive nothing like this ever happened to me. And an oil stove! Horrid, smelly things! Oh, I never could sleep with one in my room! I am delicate, you know, quite delicate! Dear Horace always took the greatest care of me!"
Ryder looked at the huge, over-fed woman before him, and had some difficulty to keep from snorting aloud at her claim of delicate health.
"And candles!" she wailed on. "You surely can't expect a woman to dress and undress by the aid of candle light! Oh, it's all horrid—perfectly horrid!"
She seemed on the verge of tears, and from her size Ryder expected nothing less than a deluge. He made for the door.
"I'll see what can be done about it," he whispered to Ruth, who followed him swiftly, to squeeze his hand in both her own. "Don't you be troubled, dearie. I will not remain away long."
"I was troubled," she confessed in the same tone. "Then I sent a bellboy to page you and he couldn't find you anywhere."
"The stupid! I was right down there in the foyer. We'll be all right when this tangle is straightened out. But, for the beginning of a honeymoon——"
"Yes," she suddenly giggled. "Isn't it just too funny? Shall we really stay?"
"To be sure. Dispossessing a manager who won't pay his rent is all right; but to try to dispossess a guest who is ready and willing to pay is quite another matter. It can't be done."
"Then shall I continue to unpack my trunks?"
Ryder smiled at her, then glanced back at the boxes. They were more than half empty already and the open wardrobe doors gave him a view of a number of pretty gowns which Ruth had shaken out and hung away.
"Go ahead," he said, easily. "You'll want the furbelows out of the boxes, anyway. They look as though they'd muss pretty easily."
She glanced at him sidewise with a little blush, and squeezed his hand again. "Don't you think they're sweet?" she whispered. "I made them almost all myself."
"Is that so?" responded Ryder, with another curious glance at the gowns in display. Then he went out and she closed the door after him. When he had walked half the length of the corridor he halted and came near going back to the suite again. Two startling facts had finally made an impression on his busy mind.
One was the nature of Ruth's wardrobe. Ryder was not much versed in women's apparel, and all those pretty, dainty, gray and cream colored dresses could mean but one thing. To his mind, they were bride's gowns.
He had met his wife first aboard the Minnequago and had known her just seven days before they were married. He had seen her wear no dress on shipboard like these she had brought out of her trunks. Indeed, Miss Mont had been gowned with severity and with no more style than the average English woman displays.
"Why," muttered Ryder, "she has a complete bridal outfit—or, it seems so to me. How could she have got those dresses? And she says she made them herself!"
He turned back, but bethought him of Mrs. Judson. He could have no private word with Ruth now. So he walked slowly on toward the main stairway, and his mind reverted to the second puzzling circumstance he had noted. There were few if any labels on his wife's trunks.
No trunk can cross the ocean without being plastered over with the various marks and stamps of the European agencies, and of the steamship companies. It was a small matter, perhaps—this lack of the usual labels—but it continued to puzzle John Ryder until he had descended to the office once more and found himself again in the thick of the circumstances connected with the attempt of the hotel manager to turn his guests out of house and home.
CHAPTER VI
BUSINESS METHODS
The members of the committee had regathered and were awaiting their chairman. Matters had been found to be in a much worse condition than the guests had really believed.
From the steward they had learned that the whole kitchen was disorganized, and had been so for some days. He had had the greatest difficulty in preventing an eruption there.
"Why?" demanded Ryder, having been told this.
"They are afraid they will lose their pay. These French and Italians are easily excited anyway," explained Jimson, who was not a little excited himself. "The waiters and the upstairs help are in a blue funk for the same reason."
"How about the coal?" Ryder asked another man.
"It's every whit as bad as Bangs said. There is only a little furnace coal. If they use the coal intended for the kitchen fires there would not be enough to keep the boilers warm until daylight."
"Hang that Bangs!"
"With all my heart," agreed Ryder, grimly. "But that will not get us any coal tonight—nor keep the hotel warmed and lighted."
"The scoundrel certainly deserves to figure in a necktie party," growled one man. "My wife's in hysterics upstairs right now."
"Let us interview this Bangs before he gets away," Ryder said. "I understand he has really given orders to shut everything down at nine o'clock, and it only lacks ten minutes of that time now."
The committee moved in a body on the private office. The door was closed, but Ryder did not give the manager a chance to refuse them admittance. He entered without knocking and the other determined men filed in. Bangs sat at his desk scratching off a letter at a furious pace. But he dropped his pen and turned toward them with a snarl.
"Well, what is it now?"
"We want your attention for a few moments, Mr. Bangs," John Ryder said quietly.
"Who the deuce are you?" demanded the hotel manager. "You're not like Brack and Jimson and these other old stagers, who have been here so long they think they own the house. I never remember of seeing you before."
Ryder handed him his card. "That is my name," he said, "and I came into this house for the first time tonight. That, however, is quite aside from the matter we have come to discuss.
"We, the guests of this hotel, cannot be treated in this cavalier manner, Mr. Bangs. We will not stand for it. There will be damage suits after this night's work if you dare follow out your program—damage suits against the Barnaby estate of course. But I, for one, shall not be satisfied until I see you properly punished unless you immediately change your attitude."
He spoke so firmly, and the threatening attitude of his co-workers was so impressive, that the manager began to cower.
"I tell you I can't do a thing!" he began; but John Ryder stopped him with raised hand.
"We demand your co-operation in keeping the hotel force together until the owners can be communicated with and until they send somebody to take charge here in your place."
"I'll be hanged if I will!" cried Bangs, jumping up.
"And you may be hanged if you don't," declared another of the committee, putting a rather broad back against the office door.
Again Bangs cowered. These five men might do him bodily injury if they wished to.
"I can't do a thing, I tell you," he whined. "There's no coal——"
"We know all about that," Ryder interrupted sternly. "And we know why there is none. You knew this dispossessory proceeding was pending, and you made your plans to checkmate Giddings by shutting up the hotel in this way. Without regard for the comfort of your guests or the rights of your employees, you have tried to whip your enemy, Giddings, over our shoulders.
"Now we, the guests, have taken the affair into our hands inasmuch as we propose to keep the hotel open and make the ladies and children, at least, as comfortable as may be. And we shall not let you leave, Mr. Bangs, until you have done all in your power to repair the damage you have already done."
"What can I do?" snarled the manager. "I'm not going to pay for heat and light and for service in a hotel which I no longer manage."
"You are legally in charge here until the Court puts you out."
"I'll not run this hotel for that Giddings after he's served me in dispossess proceedings," Bangs said, turned sullen.
"You will help us make the house as comfortable as possible until we can communicate with this Giddings and inform him of what has occurred," said Ryder quietly but severely. "You have given orders for everything to shut down at nine o'clock. You must rescind that command."
"You can none of you get away after that hour," Bangs said.
"Nor at that time," said Ryder promptly. "If any of your guests are going on that jerkwater train they are already over there at the station. But the stampede of the help must be stopped."
"What do you want me to do?" growled Bangs, rather afraid of this determined John Ryder.
"To tell the engineers to keep the dynamos and boilers running as long as they have a shovelful of coal. Likewise to send word throughout the building for all employees who wish to retain their situations under the new management——"
"What new management?" cried Bangs, leaping up again.
"The management which will follow your régime," Ryder told him coolly. "You do not suppose for a moment, do you, that the owners of this property will allow the hotel to close?"
Bangs grinned like an angry dog. "I don't care a hang what they do," he said. "I only know I'm out of it."
"You're not out of it yet, Mr. Bangs," Ryder grimly said. "Telephone to the engine room at once."
The manager picked up the receiver with bad grace. "You are intimidating me," he complained.
"You bet we are!" exclaimed the man with his back to the door. "And thank your lucky stars we don't manhandle you in the bargain."
Ryder raised his hand for silence and the manager gave the order to the engineer. "Now," said Ryder, "call the head chef and have him inform the kitchen help that the hotel will not be closed and that their wages will be paid."
"Who's going to pay 'em?" demanded Bangs.
"You do as you are told. The courts will decide that."
Bangs began to bluster; then he caught the look in the eye of the man with his back against the door and he once more subsided. Together, Ryder and the burly committeeman were too much for Bangs' courage.
The steward was called in; likewise George, the clerk on duty. The two were told, Bangs agreeing doggedly, that the employees of the hotel were to be pacified and the guests to be made as comfortable as possible until Giddings could be communicated with.
Then the committee of five went back to the crowd in the foyer and reported progress. Colonel Brack led in acclaiming them public benefactors. But their work was not yet finished.
Those who knew, declared there was no possibility of finding even a small supply of coal without considerable delay. The hotel manager had had an arrangement with the railroad company to furnish coal by the carload, and the local dealers would not put themselves out to accommodate the hotel now. Indeed, Bangs had made himself locally disliked.
"The best we can do is to send our committee over to Cal Crabtree's store and buy up all the lamps and oil stoves he's got in stock," Colonel Brack said. "I'd head such a foraging party if it wasn't for my artificial limb. I'm afraid I'll get rheumatism in that if I go out at night," and the jovial colonel chuckled.
But when it was vociferously agreed that the already elected committee, of which John Ryder was chairman, should do this purchasing and it had started out to do what Colonel Brack suggested, one of them observed:
"Now, isn't that the colonel all over? That bum peg of his keeps him out of a lot of trouble. He's off this committee because some of us will have to put up money and then run the risk of getting it back from the estate, or from that slippery Bangs. The colonel gets cold in that artificial foot plaguey easy if the cards go against him at poker."
And indeed, before they got to the general store, the committee was in a wrangle over this very thing. Who was going to put up the money for the lamps and stoves? Nobody seemed to care to step info the breech. John Ryder listened and said nothing at first. Finally he suggested:
"Let's divide it among us. Think of the ladies——"
"Let those who have got 'em, think of 'em," snapped one bachelor. "That's nothing in my young sweet life."
"Oh, I say, Long, you wouldn't mind putting up a share for Mrs. Judson, would you?" chuckled another.
"By jove! that's what I am afraid of," declared the bachelor. "If the widow ever heard I put up money to buy her an oil heater, she'd have me in court in breach of promise proceedings."
It was evident the large lady was a standing joke among the men at the hotel. Ryder frowned. He was sorry that she had forced her society on Ruth.
Meanwhile, the four other members of the committee agreed that they would not put their hands in their pockets. On the very steps of the store they halted and vociferously stated this decision.
"Let's go back and take up a collection," said the bachelor member. "I know those ginks back there. There are more hard boiled eggs in that bunch at Pinewood Inn than you could find anywhere else along the coast. I'm not going to be nicked for more than my share."
With this his brother-committeemen seemed to agree. All but Ryder. The latter looked at his watch. It was already half after nine. There was every sign as they came along the street that the villagers were retiring for the night; and as they stood discussing the matter the proprietor of the store began to put out his lights.
"You can go back and ask for further instructions if you wish to, gentlemen," said Ryder in disgust. "But I will go in and see what I can do. There is no time to waste."
"At your peril, Mr. Ryder," said one. "Don't drag us into it."
"I never forced a man into a deal yet—especially if he was a bad loser," declared John Ryder, and turned his back on the others to enter the store alone.
He found the proprietor, a shrewd, long-headed countryman, ready to be affable, or businesslike, as the case might be. Ryder knew well how to tackle such a character. He had been doing business with all kinds of men all his life. He went directly to the point of the matter.
"I want every oil lamp you've got in the shop, and all your candles, and those oil heaters yonder. If you have oil, I want a barrel. And I want you to find me a truckman right now to cart 'em over to the hotel. I'll give you cash, or my check, in full for the whole amount. What say?"
"It's a bargain," laconically said the storekeeper, and there was little haggling either, over the price of the articles bought. Ryder did not believe that Crabtree was over-reaching him on that point, for he seemed to sympathize with the situation of the people in the hotel.
"That bridge breaking down is a bad business. Foolish, too," Crabtree agreed. "The Highway Department of this town is about as useful as a left-handed boot to a man who's only got a wooden leg on that side of him. And let me tell you, Mr. Ryder, the bridge won't be repaired again in a hurry. Nothing ever is done in a hurry by our road menders and bridge builders."
Ryder was more intimately interested in the supplies he could buy. There were two full boxes of so-called "waxlights" and a box of tallow candles of the double-six size. There were over a hundred lamps of all kinds and sizes, and the oil stoves numbered twenty-three. The check Ryder made out was a substantial one.
In half an hour he was back at the hotel where the guests were wrangling in the foyer over how the bill for supplies should be apportioned. The other members of the committee were finally instructed to pay for the goods out of a collection of about two hundred dollars that had been grudgingly made.
"Here's Ryder!" exclaimed Colonel Brack, red-faced and excited. "He should head this committee again. He is a chap who does things. Ryder forever!"
The colonel's evening potations began to show upon him. Ryder tried to brush by on his way to the desk.
"You're just the man we want on this committee," reiterated the colonel, following him.
"What committee?" the business man asked.
"The committee on buying supplies."
"It discharged itself half an hour ago," said Ryder, bruskly. "And now there is nothing for it to do."
"Why not?" gasped several, including the colonel, who asked the question truculently.
John Ryder bit off the end of his cigar and lit it calmly.
"As far as I know, gentlemen, I've bought up every lamp, every oil stove, every candle, and all the surplus supply of oil in this village tonight. I bought them on to my own private account. If I decide to resell them I'll let you know later."
CHAPTER VII
SHOCK UPON SHOCK
The clamor of those who heard John Ryder's statement drew most of the crowd surging toward the desk, before which the business man stood. Colonel Brack, reddening and with glittering eyes, advanced upon Ryder with his "step-clump" stride, demanding:
"Suh! do you call this a gentlemanly thing to do? Why, suh, the women and children in this hotel are at your mercy. It's an outrage, suh!"
"The rest of the committee backed out on the steps of the store," said Ryder coolly. "Time was passing."
"Why, the money is already put up for the supplies," cried somebody with much bombast.
"Not for these supplies that I have obtained," said Ryder decisively. "In the first place two hundred dollars will not go far toward the purchase of the goods."
"You mean to profit upon our necessities, do you, Mr. Ryder?" cried Jimson shrilly.
"Shylock!" exclaimed another of the angry men.
Ryder turned his back upon them and approached George.
"I've bought the stuff," he said shortly. "It was a perfectly legitimate transaction."
"By gad, suh!" reiterated the wrathful colonel, "you have taken an unfair advantage of a party of gentlemen who trusted you. You're a——"
Ryder failed to hear the remainder of the colonel's sputterings. But a voice nearer to his ear could not be drowned. This said:
"By George! that Ryder's a cleaner. He was never known to let a good chance slip in the Street, they say, and I can believe it. He's got us where the hair's short—and it's our own fault."
John Ryder was angry. The manner in which the other members of the committee had dodged financial responsibility and were now declaiming against his "grasping" methods, exasperated him. He would not give them the satisfaction of an explanation. He took nobody but the steward and the clerk into his confidence.
It was while he was discussing matters with these two employees of the hotel that the engineer sent up word that he had been forced to bank the fires under the boilers, but that the dynamos would be kept running until midnight.
"That man seems faithful," Ryder observed. "Has word been sent around for the help to come together for a talk with us? We want to know how many will remain here."
The steward turned red and blurted out: "I don't believe—that is, it will be difficult to get many of them together, sir."
"Why?"
"It is believed that Mr. Bangs will not pay wages beyond today, and the men and girls are deserting. Some went on that nine o'clock train, and others have found means of getting away from the hotel."
"By thunder!" ejaculated Ryder. "Where's Bangs? We'll get what's left of the help together and make him assure them——"
"I—I don't think Mr. Bangs is here," hesitated George.
"What's that?"
"I couldn't help his going, sir. I could not hold him by force, you know. You gentlemen should have had him watched."
"What has he done?" asked Ryder, recovering his calmness.
"Right after you gentlemen left I heard him telephoning to the railroad station. The operator and agent were not there, but the conductor of that combination was. He's a friend of Bangs'. The train was held ten minutes. It did not get away until ten minutes past nine. And I think Mr. Bangs went on it."
"And his going has disorganized the whole household," the steward added, sadly. "The chef has the kitchen fairly under control now. He's an Italian—Vitalli is his name—not a bad fellow at all and attached to the house rather than to Bangs—as I am and George, here, is."
"You believe the estate will do the right thing by you?" Ryder asked curiously.
"Yes," said the steward. "The heirs will not wish the house closed. In such a way, too! They would consider it a disgrace. Pinewood Inn is one of the oldest hotels on the coast. This Mr. Giddings, the lawyer, doesn't know much about the hotel business, I fancy, or he would not have acted so precipitately and given Mr. Bangs a chance to put the guests out. If all the help would work together we'd come out all right. But most of them care nothing about the hotel or the welfare of its guests," and the steward wagged his head.
"Where are the other clerks?" Ryder asked of George.
"Mr. Manger, the head clerk, went to town day before yesterday. Somehow, I feel that he had some wind of what was coming. But heaven knows I didn't, Mr. Ryder."
"Or you would have gone, likewise?" asked the man of business, with a grim smile, but watching the ruddy young fellow with his plastered yellow hair in some curiosity.
"Well—no," hesitated George. "I think I should have hung on in any case. You see," he added, "I'm rather fond of a scrap. And Jim Howe—he relieves me at midnight—he'll see it through, no fear!"
"Well, gentlemen," Ryder finally said with a sigh, "there doesn't seem to be much now that we can do save to sit tight. You two influence all the employees you can to stick by the ship. These lights and stoves and oil are already at the door, I have no doubt. You take charge of them all," he said to the steward, "and get somebody to fix up the lamps and fill them. But give none of them out until George, here, has listed them. He knows more about the guests and their needs than any of us, I presume."
Ryder had no time to go upstairs just then; but fearing Ruth would be again disturbed by his continued absence, he scratched off a little note and handed it to one of the boys.
"Now, give that to nobody but Mrs. Ryder," he told the boy, remembering Mrs. Judson, who he feared might still be hovering about the suite.
Ryder observed that the male guests who had heretofore been so friendly with him now eyed him askance and that Colonel Brack had gathered around him a group that he was haranguing vigorously. By the fiery glances cast in his direction by the old campaigner Ryder was quite sure Brack spoke of him.
"I am certainly getting persona non grata in this hotel," murmured Ryder, with grim humor.
Then, of a sudden, he saw that one of those listening to Colonel Brack was the man who had disturbed Ruth at the door of their suite. Ryder turned back to speak once more with the clerk:
"Who is that fellow?" he asked, calling George's attention to the stranger.
"That man? Let's see—he came tonight. Refused to be turned away although at that time, being under Mr. Bangs' instructions, I told him we could not accommodate him. And I have not yet assigned him a room. But his name's White."
George whirled the register about and pointed to the last name on the page. Ryder murmured it over to himself: "'John B. White, Rome.'
"Rome, what? New York, Georgia, or the original home of the Cæsar family?" Ryder asked carelessly.
"I don't know, sir. He just wrote that down. I don't really know what do to with him. I think from something he dropped that he came here expecting to find friends."
"And didn't find them?" Ryder's curiosity prompted him to demand.
"He hasn't seemed to."
"Who are his friends? Don't you know their names?"
"I—I—— Well, I declare, sir, he did mention one name. That of a Miss—Miss—— Well, it escapes me," said George, in confusion. "It was just at the outburst of this trouble, and I was all mixed up. I am sure it was a lady he asked me about. Perhaps it is a runaway match and the lady has backed out," and George chuckled at his own joke.
"He doesn't act much like a bridegroom," observed Ryder, still watching White.
"I might say that about you, Mr. Ryder," ventured the clerk slyly.
"By thunder! that's so," admitted Ryder. "Nor do I feel like one. This is a nice mess for a fellow to get into at such a time. I can't say that I am glad I came to Pinewood Inn for my honeymoon, George."
But as he strolled away from the hotel desk his mind was still fixed on the man, White. He remembered the bellboy coming through the foyer paging "John B. White" and saying that Mrs. White wanted him upstairs. Now, hang it! if Mrs. White was here, didn't the hotel clerk know her?
"Odd—deucedly odd," thought John Ryder. "And how startled that fellow was when he heard the boy. Or was he? Not a bad looking fellow; but he's queer. Ruth says he is touched in the upper story, and I believe myself that some of his buttons are loose.
"Or, if he is a crook—and that would not be so strange," added Ryder, letting his mind run upon this train of thought. "A crook with a woman accomplice in this hotel might easily make a good haul tonight, considering the state affairs are in. I wonder if there isn't a detective attached to Pinewood Inn."
Before he could turn back to ask George about this, his attention was attracted from the man, White, to an old gentleman who had just left the elevator leaning on the arm of a colored man. The old fellow was in some excitement, and he hobbled quickly to the desk, his gray hair bristling from under the rim of the round black cap he wore, his feet shuffling in gay carpet slippers.
It was evident that he had retired to his room for the night, and had made himself comfortable there. Something had routed him out and he had merely shrugged himself into a coat before coming down to the office.
"Look here, sir! Look here, sir!" the old man cried, shaking his cane at George in a hand that quivered with palsy. "What does this mean? How dare that Bangs turn us out of the hotel in such a way? I'll write Mr. Giddings about it. Mr. Giddings is my friend. He will not see me so insulted and annoyed."
Ryder heard an amused bystander say:
"Here's old Pop Cudger; he's on the warpath, too. Now there'll be something doing."
"Get him and the colonel together and there will be fireworks, sure enough," agreed another man, with a chuckle.
George was trying to pacify the angry old man, but the latter would not accord the clerk's explanation much attention.
"It is nonsense! It is preposterous!" cried Mr. Cudger. "Mr. Giddings is my friend——"
"And if Giddings hadn't been so anxious to put Bangs out we wouldn't all be in this pickle," somebody remarked loud enough for Mr. Cudger to hear.
"Ha!" exclaimed the latter, turning a withering glance upon the speaker, and then immediately turning back to George. "Is it true that the lights are to be put out?"
"The dynamos can't run later than midnight. Then the lights will naturally have to be shut off all over the hotel, Mr. Cudger. I'm sorry, sir——"
"Lights turned out—and half the help running away?" cried Cudger. "Next thing, I suppose, James, here, will be leaving me in the lurch," and he glared at the colored man.
"Oh, no, suh! I'se gwine to stay right heah by yo'," declared James.
"And what's going to become of my picture?" demanded the old gentleman, beginning on another tack. "What provision has been made to guard my picture, sir—— Van Scamp's famous 'Cheesemonger'? That was hung in the parlor by special permission of Mr. Giddings, sir."
"I don't think anybody will touch your picture, Mr. Cudger," said the clerk, soothingly.
"Ha! How do you know that? In the state of confusion the house is now in, some vandal might easily cut the canvas out of its frame. It cost me many thousands of dollars, sir—and it's the finest example of Van Scamp's art in existence today. I will not trust it unguarded in that parlor under present circumstances."
"But I can't furnish a watchman to guard your picture," George urged.
"Well, where's the house detective?" demanded the old gentleman. "I must have protection for my picture."
"You certainly can't expect Miss Solomons to stand guard over it!" the clerk exclaimed. "You'd better have it removed to your room."
"You clown!" exclaimed the crotchety old man. "It wouldn't go through the door of my room. That is why it has to be hung in your miserable parlor." And as the clerk restrained both his temper and his tongue, he added: "If you will not furnish a watchman—and Mr. Giddings shall hear of your refusal, sir!—then James will have to guard the picture."
"Oh, no suh!" murmured the colored man. "Dat ain't no place fo' me all night. No, suh! Yo' might need me——"
"You will have to do it, James," repeated the old man. "If the lights go out what is going to prevent that canvas being cut out of the frame?"
"Das jest it, suh!" rejoined the colored man. "I don't want to stay dere in de dark—no, suh!"
"You are a coward, James—a pusillanimous coward!"
"Yes, suh! Dat may be, suh. But yo' might need me in de night."
"Of course I shall need you. I'll likely have one of my choking spells—or something. But I can't risk losing my Van Scamp. We shall both have to watch it, James. We will camp in the parlor all night.
"Young man," turning to George, "have a bed brought into the parlor for me. I will sleep there, and James shall keep watch."
"But, Mr. Cudger, that is the main parlor of the hotel. We cannot very easily let you sleep there," cried the distracted George.
At this point Ryder lost interest in the entire affair. The boy he had sent upstairs with the note to Ruth tugged at his sleeve.
"I can't find the lady, sir," he said, returning the letter to Ryder.
"Can't find who?"
"Mrs. Ryder, sir."
The man was amazed, and for an instant he was a little frightened. "Where did you go, boy?" he demanded.
"To Suite Three—where you told me. She wasn't there."
"How do you know she wasn't there?"
"The lady told me so. The lady who was there. She told me I'd made a mistake."
Ryder started for the staircase, his mind in a whirl. Where could Ruth have gone? Possibly to Mrs. Judson's apartment. Yet if so, who had met the boy and sent him away from Suite Three with such a message?
CHAPTER VIII
THE BRIDAL NIGHT
The excitement among the guests had now spread to the floors above. Too, there was a noticeable dearth of serving people. In the parlor on this second floor into which Ryder glanced curiously on his way to his own rooms, was a crowd of women with a sprinkling of husbands, discussing the situation in varying degrees of anxiety.
The corridors and parlor were ablaze with electric lights, and Ryder saw the great picture, covering half the further end-wall of the room, about which Mr. Cudger was making such a row at the clerk's desk.
An especially arranged string of lights over the picture cast the proper glow upon it. It really was the work of a master of color, but that its owner should consider it in danger of suffering the fate of some of the great paintings that have been stolen, rather amused John Ryder.
While he stood for a moment looking at the picture he realized that a sudden hush had fallen upon the several groups in the parlor, and he saw that the majority of the guests there assembled were staring at him. Whether their interest was aroused because he was a bridegroom or because he had cornered the lighting and heating supplies of the village, the man of business did not know—nor did he care. He shrugged his shoulders and passed on.
A bridegroom! Well, this did not seem a very fortunate beginning for one's honeymoon. Another man might have easily slipped from under the duties that had settled on John Ryder's shoulders. But it was his way, when he saw things going wrong, to step in and right them.
He had given his mind to this business of trying to bring some order out of the chaotic condition of affairs in the hotel with as much zest as he ever gave to business matters. Now, as he approached the apartment in which he and Ruth had expected to be so happy in each other's society for the next few weeks, he tried to throw off all the anxieties that had recently accumulated in his mind.
This was his bridal night. He had fallen in love with the most beautiful and charming woman he had ever met, and had married her offhand. Were it not for this troublesome matter of the hotel closing, he would be the happiest man alive.
Indeed, he was the happiest man alive in any case. Had he not just been married to the loveliest and sweetest girl in the world? Was not his wife (John Ryder almost strutted) waiting for him in their rooms at this very moment?
Then a feeling of humility, unusual humility in this successful business man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted, overcame him. What was he to have won this jewel of a woman in so short a time? Seven days, and she had consented to become his wife! Men sometimes strove and worked for the love of a woman for months—for years! But no—that could not be real love! When two people loved as he and Ruth loved, there was no waiting in uncertainty. They knew it—they must know it—at once.
In spite of his thirty-five years and his somewhat ruthless business career, John Ryder was undoubtedly still very much of a boy. And indeed, in love matters, he was but a boy, inasmuch as never before had he even imagined himself in love.
"Confound this old ranch, anyway!" John Ryder muttered. "Why should I bother my head about it—or about these silly folks in it? I declare! we'll find some way of getting out of the pickle ourselves tomorrow morning and go to some place where we can enjoy our honeymoon undisturbed."
Then he remembered that Ruth had chosen Pinewood particularly. It might be only a whim on her part; but he was in a mind just then to satisfy even her whims, if it could be done.
"This man, Giddings, will show up, and things will probably be running all right before tomorrow night. And Ruth—God bless that sweet name!—has taken all the trouble to unpack. By thunder!" he added, "it's funny about those dresses of hers. I must ask her——"
He had come to the door and opened it softly—so softly indeed that the occupant of the room did not hear him. His heart throbbed and his eyes actually smarted with unshed drops as he looked down the long apartment and saw his wife sitting reading in the radiance of the drop-light at the table.
She was alone. The other lights had been extinguished, and she sat awaiting his return, evidently with her mind not wholly upon the book in her lap, for she turned no leaves while Ryder watched her.
In her attitude and in the loosely flowing gown she had donned since dinner, she made a delightful picture. Ryder drank in the details as he stood, shrinking from breaking the spell of her reverie.
It was by no means a sad mood which held her, for her lips slowly parted in a most ravishing smile. He could see this, though it was her profile only he watched from his station at the door.
He was about to close the latter softly when she dropped her book and her fingers fluttered about her throat for a moment. She loosened her gown there, thrust one hand within the laces, and drew forth a tiny object attached to a thin gold chain which he had already noticed about her throat. The ornament she held for a moment in her palm was a locket.
When she snapped it open and gazed upon what it contained she turned a little so that he saw her expression of countenance more clearly. It startled him.
He was a sane and level-headed man. He was thirty-five, and the foolish emotions of adolescence should not have ruffled his calm. Yet aboard the steamship he had felt an unrecognized pang of jealousy whenever he saw Miss Mont talking with Marks, the theatrical man. A similar pang smote him now.
No human being ever looked as Ruth looked unless the object of such gaze was a dearly loved one, or the memento of a loved one! While Ryder watched, his wife raised the locket reverently and pressed her lips to the object it contained.
He must have uttered some sound, or moved, or the door latch clicked as he closed it. She started, saw him, and hastily concealed the locket in her bosom, rising in some confusion to greet him.
The arrow of suspicion first driven into his mind when he had seen that stranger at their door and Ruth had seemed so frightened, was barbed. Now that he sought to cast it out of his thought, it rankled.
What! was he of a low, suspicious, jealous nature? Was he the kind of cur to make himself and his wife miserable by a jealousy that was insulting to them both?
This woman and he had known each other but a short time before their hasty marriage, but Ryder flattered himself that he had drawn from her a rather full and connected story of her life up to the day she had stepped aboard the Minnequago.
There had been nothing in her story, he was positive, of which she needed to be ashamed. There had been no man but him. She had told him that frankly.
She might possess some keepsake; but only such as an honorable wife might have. He knew it—he would stake his life upon it!
Perhaps it was some dear reminder of the mother she had scarcely known. He had carried his mother's wedding ring all these years until he had given it to the clergyman to slip on Ruth's finger. He saw the glint of that ring now as she advanced to meet him with hands outstretched and the same light in her eyes that he had seen just now while she bent above the locket.
"I am a fool!" bethought. "A wicked fool."
He hurried down the room and clasped her yielding body within the circle of his arms. There was a passion in his embrace which he had scarcely expressed before, and she seemed to feel it.
"Dearest!" she whispered. "I am glad you have come back, I was getting lonesome again," and she gave him her lips of her own accord.
The heart of John Ryder beat higher. He remembered what he had told her aboard ship:
"I'll never bring tears to your eyes, but always laughter to your heart!"
"And a villain I'd be to break my word. Now is not the time to ask an explanation of such a simple act. It might show her how mean and vile a thought I had," was his thought.
"I sent a message up to you a while ago, but the boy seemed unable to find you," he said.
"Why, I never saw such stupid boys as they have at this hotel! Another knocked on our door while Mrs. Judson was here and asked for somebody else."
"Oh, the guests are all around, visiting in each other's rooms, I presume," he observed. "The whole household is upset. And you never saw such a lot of cranks as there are here in your life. A circus sideshow has no more freaks, I guess, than a hotel like this Pinewood Inn."
Ryder, laughing, told of old Mr. Cudger and his picture, and sketched the character of Colonel Aurelius Brack. Incidentally he told her something of what had been done, though in an impersonal way, to make the guests comfortable and to keep the employees of the hotel on their jobs.
"Dear me, John!" she cried, leading him to a couch where they could sit side by side, "I thought this was to be a vacation for both of us," looking at him roguishly. "A honeymoon! It should begin pretty soon, don't you think?"
"Do you want to pack those trunks again and leave in the morning?"
"No-o. I want to stay here if we can. But can't some of the other men attend to all these things?"
"They are attending to them. They are discussing them to beat the band! But nobody seemed to have any really practical ideas—not when it touched their pocketbooks," and Ryder laughed grimly.
"I'm going down once more to see about something particular. The dining-room is still open. It will be late before we get to bed, and you only pecked at your dinner, I noticed. Don't you want to come down for a bite—or will it be too much trouble?"
"Ah-ha!" she said shaking a finger at him, "you have the late-supper habit. I believe you are a gay boy. I certainly shall not let my hubby go out alone to suppers. And—whisper it!—I am hungry. I was so excited when we arrived. And people stared so at us down there——"
"They'll stare now," he said smiling.
"Especially if I should go down in this robe?" and she blushed as she sprang up from the couch. "I will put on one of my nicest and," looking at him from across the room with sparkling eyes, "bridiest gowns!"
She disappeared within the curtains of the bedchamber. Ryder started up.
"Oh, by the way, about those gowns—" he began awkwardly, when a summons at the door terminated his proposed speech abruptly. The steward had sent up for him to come down in haste. The supplies from the store had arrived, and the guests were clamoring at the storeroom door for a distribution of the lamps and candles.
Ryder stepped back to the door of the inner room.
"I've got to run down again, Ruth," he said.
She uttered a little scream when he appeared in the doorway; but then she came to kiss him without affectation. Her white shoulders and arms, bared for the moment, almost dazzled him. Ryder smiled down into her eyes and saw in their depths what he wished to see.
"Come below when you are ready. There is a little waiting room at the foot of the main stairway and you can see all over the office from there. I'll probably see you come down; but if I'm not in sight, go to the dining-room, if you like, and select a table."
He said this, kissed her again, and hastened after the steward's messenger. Descending in the elevator he found a crowd about the little office in which the steward made up his accounts, just back of the café.
Colonel Brack was foremost in the disturbance, and when Ryder appeared the old campaigner turned upon him wrathfully.
"See here, Ryder!" he exclaimed, "you can't do this. You must have some of the instincts of a gentleman about you, and you should remember the women——"
"I can excuse a man who has been drinking," interposed Ryder sharply; "and I cannot strike a cripple. But I advise you to have a care how you address me."
Brack threw himself forward at him; but two of his friends held back the unsteady old fire-eater. "By gad, suh, I'd call you out for that if you were not such a dog, suh!"
"I am not dog enough to run at every fool's call," responded Ryder. And then he ignored the sputtering Brack, turning to the remainder of the party: "Gentlemen, I shall see that you make no raid on these supplies I have secured. They are my private property and I shall do with them as I see fit."
"My goodness, man! you don't intend to freeze us out completely, do you?" gasped Jimson, whose wife was an invalid.
"I shall distribute them as I choose and under such terms as I see fit," Ryder repeated calmly. "The steward is to have direct control of them. Within the next hour, and before the electric lights are put out, the matter will all be arranged.
"None of you at first wished to take any financial responsibility for the good of the general herd. I took that responsibility. Why should I not reap my proper reward?" and he smiled at them grimly.
Then he shut the door of the office in their faces and consulted with the steward again.
"How many of the help will stay?" he asked.
"Perhaps half, sir. Some of the guests' private servants—the maids and valets—have gone already with the others on that train. There are drafts being made on George and me for some of the maids and waiters——"
"Cut that off. Refuse everybody," advised Ryder. "These people will have to get along without such personal service for the present. They should know that without explanation. You need every man and woman you've got on your roster, don't you?"
"Why, sir, I don't see how we shall get along at all with so few in the morning."
"So I thought. Now, follow out my instructions to the letter in the matter of the placing of the oil lamps. Send the porters around through the corridors to screw up the brackets for the bracket lamps. There are more than four dozen of those. We'll decide about the stoves later. It is not getting very cold out of doors, and nobody will suffer much before bedtime."
He left the steward's room and went back to the office, ignoring the men who stood about and looked at him as though he were a dog in a strange town. As he walked down the long corridor and came in sight of the stairway he observed Ruth standing at the foot of the flight. Half the men in the foyer had turned to look at her, and Ryder saw her color and shrink toward the curtained entrance of the dining-room.
Ryder did not wonder that the other guests stared at her. This did not fan any foolish jealousy into flame. It was because she was so very, very beautiful that she attracted attention.
If she had been attractive in the traveling dress she had worn at dinner, this gray and pink costume enhanced her beauty marvelously.
The wonder of it smote Ryder again. How came his wife by such gowns? When did she get them? What did it mean?
And then something occurred to draw his mind from this thought. He saw Ruth whisper to a passing bellboy and then she disappeared into the dining-room.
Ryder walked slowly forward expecting the boy would come directly to him. But to his amazement the messenger did not glance in his direction. Instead the boy approached a group in one corner and Ryder saw that the man calling himself "John B. White" was a member of that group.
The bellboy said something. Ryder was watching White's face. He saw the man pale, then color, and with quick steps he crossed the foyer and entered the dining-room as though directly in answer to the summons from Mrs. Ryder!
The half-stunned bridegroom caught at the sleeve of the bellboy as he came back.
"See here!" he whispered, fiercely, in the ear of the startled messenger, "who did the lady send for?"
"Mr. White," was the answer of the boy, and looked at Ryder in wonder.
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."