Ruth had crimsoned, but her signal to Ryder to order no wine was unheeded. To tell the truth he was a little piqued. It was Ruth's fault that they were in this situation. She had made friends first with Mrs. Judson. But when the waiter brought the bucket of ice in which nestled a quart bottle, the very atmosphere about their table seemed to be enlivened. The widow's dusky cheek soon glowed, her eyes sparkled, and her vivacity seemed to increase with the good things placed before her. Ryder noted, too, that Ruth's eyes held in their depths a sparkle--a point of fire--that had not been there before. And those eyes, brilliant at one moment and the next swimming as though in unshed tears, rested upon his countenance most of the time. Her smile was for him. She played the hostess prettily; but her attention, after all, was for her husband, and the color came and went in her cheeks in a manner most charming. She was a woman in love--in love with the man she had married--with every thought of her soul and every fibre of her being. A realization of this fact swept from the chambers of her husband's mind every atom of suspicion. No woman could look at a man as Ruth looked at him and withhold in her secret heart any mystery that might bring shame upon him or disaster to herself. "Romeo, you are a lucky man," whispered the widow, tapping him on the arm with the expressive lorgnette and leaning forward to put her full, red lips close to his ear, but with her laughing eyes on Ruth's face to see how the bride took another woman's familiarity with her husband. "She loves you as one woman in a thousand ever loves her husband." "I am a lucky man," repeated Ryder, though more to himself than to the cynical widow. The latter shook a playful--and diamond bedewed--finger at Ruth. "You are giving him a great advantage, Juliet. Let a man once realize that you love him so devotedly, and he'll ride rough shod over your heart. It's always the way," and she sighed heavily--"though," thought John Ryder, "the sigh may be caused more by the supper she has eaten than by any sentimental emotion." "Yes, Juliet," rambled on the wined, and consequently quite happy, Mrs. Judson, "take the advice of a woman of experience, and do not give your heart too completely into any man's keeping. I am not old--oh, no! for we women who live and love do not grow old--but I have lived more years than have you, sweet girl, and I have loved--and been loved," she simpered, "and I tell you it is always better to keep the driving hand." Ruth shivered in disgust. Ryder kept a stony face and began to eat the meal before him, which before he had scarcely touched. "Do you see that woman over there?" suddenly questioned Mrs. Judson. "They say she is the most abominable----"