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.