"Miss Solomons, this is a perfect outrage--an outrage not to be permitted in a well-ordered house, such as the Pinewood Inn is supposed to be," stormed the hard-featured woman, and there was the ring of war in her voice. "Now, Mrs. Dent," put in the oily voice of a large brawny woman, another of the three ejected committee women, "Miss Solomons is not to blame. Miss Solomons, no doubt, is deeply interested in our work"--Miss Solomons sniffed and the woman with the "transformation" glared angrily at the house detective--"but this awful Bangs----" "Miss Solomons is to blame!" interrupted Mrs. Dent, in a hard, decisive tone. "If she had the judgment of a kitten----" "Now, see here, ladies!" flared out the house detective, "we're not a-goin' to have any meanderings around the hallways in the dark this night. There go the lights now. You go, and go now!" The women scuttled away without further words, and Miss Solomons disappeared in the darkness. John Ryder, vastly amused, changed his opinion then and there regarding the appointment of a woman for such a position as Miss Solomons held. No man could have handled this situation with such vigor and promptness. A smile wreathed his lips as he went on to his own door. Along the corridor before him, now illumined only by an occasional bracket lamp, he saw flitting the lighted candles of the other late guests seeking their beds. Ryder opened the door of his suite expecting to see a picture similar to the one he had observed when he had come to the room before supper. But, although the lamp he had sent up was burning on the reading table, Ruth was not present. The room was empty and the atmosphere of it seemed chill as he stepped in. Nor was there a light in the inner room. He did not hear a sound. Where had his wife gone? Was she with Mrs. Judson in that lady's rooms? And where were they? Ryder was suddenly disgusted again. For heaven's sake! couldn't Ruth break away from that woman? And after the experience they had had with her at the supper table, too! He had heard certain of his married acquaintances occasionally curse the interference of some "woman friend" in the otherwise quiet pool of their domesticity. Was he going to butt up against something like that at the very start? It could not be possible that Ruth was enamored of the society of such a woman as the vulgar Mrs. Judson! He turned up the wick of the lamp and strode with it to the door of the bedroom, flinging back the hangings. Instantly the light flooded the chamber, and a prettily disheveled figure started up out of a nest of pillows. "Oh! I was napping!" she cried with a tremulous little laugh. "What a bad girl I am! You were so long, Johnny, and I was so sleepy. It must be very late."