"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----"