# Ruth of the U. S. A. (McClurg)/Chapter 3

THE man who advanced from the group which had just entered the hotel, appeared to be about thirty years old; he was tall and sparely built and stooped very slightly as though in youth he had outgrown his strength and had never quite caught up. He had a prominent nose and a chin which, at first glance, seemed forceful; but that impression altered at once to a feeling that here was a man of whom something might have been made but had not. He was not at all dissolute or unpleasant looking; his mouth was sensitive, almost shy, with only lines of amiability about it; his eyes, which looked smaller than they really were because of the thick lenses of his glasses, were gray and good natured and observant. His hair was black and turning gray—prematurely beyond doubt. It was chiefly the grayness of his hair, indeed, which made Ruth suppose him as old as thirty. He wore a dark overcoat and gray suit—good clothes, so good that one noticed them last—the kind of clothes which Sam Hilton always thought he was buying and never procured. He pulled off a heavy glove to offer a big, boyish hand.
"How do you do, Cy—Miss Gail?" he greeted her. He was quite sure of her but doubtful as to use of her given name.
"Hubert Lennon!" Ruth exclaimed, giving her hand ​to his grasp-a nice, pleased, and friendly grasp. She had ventured that, whoever he was, he had known Cynthia Gail long ago but had not seen her recently; not for several years, perhaps, when she was so young a girl that everyone called her Cynthia. Her venture went well.
She was able to learn from him, without his suspecting that she had not known, that she had an engagement with him for the afternoon; they were to go somewhere—she could not well inquire where—for some event of distinct importance for which she was supposed to be "ready."
"I'm not ready, I'm sorry to say," Ruth seized swiftly the chance for fleeing to refuge in "her" room. "I've just come in, you know. But I'll dress as quickly as I can."
"I'll be right here," he agreed.
She stepped into a waiting elevator and drew back into the corner; two men, who talked together, followed her in and the car started upwards. If the Germans had sent someone to the hotel to observe her when she appeared to take the place of Cynthia Gail, that person pretty clearly was not Hubert Lennon, Ruth thought; but she could not be sure of these two men. They were usual looking, middle-aged men of the successful type who gazed at her more than casually; neither of them called a floor until after Ruth asked for the third; then the other said, "Fourth," sharply while the man who remained silent left the elevator after Ruth. She was conscious that he came behind her while she followed the room numbers along the hallway until she found the door of 347; he passed her while she was opening it. She entered and, putting the key on the inside, she locked herself in, pressing close to the panel ​to hear whether the man returned. But she heard only a rapping at a door farther on; the man's voice saying, "I, Adele;" then a woman's and a child's voices.
"Nerves!" Ruth reproached herself. "You have to begin better than this."
She was in a large and well-furnished bedroom; the bed and bureau and dressing table were set in a sort of alcove, half partitioned off from the end of the room where was a lounge with a lamp and a writing desk. These were hotel furniture, of course; the other articles—the pretty, dainty toilet things upon the dressing table, the dresses and the suit upon the hangers in the closet, the nightdress and kimono upon the hooks, the boots on the rack, the waists, stockings, undergarments, and all the other girl's things laid in the drawers—were now, of necessity, Ruth's. There was a new steamer trunk upon a low stand beyond the bed; the trunk had been closed after being unpacked and the key had been left in it. A small, brown traveling bag—also new—stood on the floor beside it. Upon the table, beside a couple of books and magazines, was a pile of department-store packages—evidently Cynthia Gail's purchases which she had listed in her letter to her mother. The articles, having been bought on Saturday, had been delivered on Monday and therefore had merely been placed in the room.
Ruth could give these no present concern; she could waste no time upon examination of the clothes in the closet or in the drawers. She bent at once before the mirror of the dressing table where Cynthia Gail had stuck in two kodak pictures and two cards at the edge of the glass. The pictures were both of the same young man—a tall, ​straight, and strongly built boy in officer's uniform; probably Lieutenant Byrne, Ruth thought; at least he was not Hubert Lennon; and the cards in the glass betrayed nothing about him, either; both, plainly, were "reminder" cards, one having "Sunday, 4:30!" written triumphantly across it, the other, "Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, Superior 9979."
Ruth knew—who in Chicago did not know?-of Mrs. Malcolm Corliss, particularly since America entered the war. Ruth knew that the Superior number was a telephone probably in Mrs. Corliss' big home on the Lake Shore Drive. Ruth picked up the leather portfolio lying upon the dressing table; opening it, she faced four portrait photographs; an alert, able and kindly looking man of about fifty; a woman a few years younger, not very unlike Ruth's own mother and with similarly sweet eyes and a similar abundance of beautiful hair. These photographs had been but recently taken. The third was several years old and was of a handsome, vigorous, defiant looking boy of twenty-one or two; the fourth was of a cunning, bold little youth of twelve in boy-scout uniform. Ruth had no doubt that these were Cynthia Gail's family; she was very glad to have that sight of them; yet they told her nothing of use in the immediate emergency. Her hand fell to the drawer of the dresser where, a moment ago, Ruth had seen a pile of letters; she recognized that she must examine everything; yet it was easier for her to open first the letters which had never become quite Cynthia Gail's—the three letters and the dispatch which the clerk had given Ruth.
She opened the telegram first and found it was from ​her father. She was thinking of herself, not as Ruth Alden, but as actually being Cynthia Gail now. It was a great advantage to be able to fancy and to dream; she was Cynthia Gail; she must be Cynthia henceforth or she could not continue what she was doing even here alone by herself; and surely she could not keep up before others unless, in every relation, she thought of herself as that other girl.
Letter received; it's like you, but by all means go ahead; I'll back you. Love.Father.
That told nothing except that she had, in some recent letter, suggested an evidently adventurous deviation from her first plan.
She looked away, half expecting the sound of the music, and the roses, and palms, and Gerry Hull would vanish
​him, it appeared; but they had quarreled on Sunday; he felt wholly to blame for it now; he was very, very sorry; he loved her and could not give her up. Would she not write him, please, as soon as she could bring herself to?
The letter was all about themselves—just of her and of him. No one else at all was mentioned. The letters in the drawer—eight in number—were all from him; they mentioned, incidentally, many people but all apparently of Decatur; there was no reference of any sort to anyone named Hubert or Lennon.
She returned the letters to their place in the drawer and laid with them those newly received. The mail, if it gave her small help, at least had failed to present any immediately difficult problem of its own. There was apparently no anxiety at home about her; she safely could delay responding until later in the afternoon; but she could not much longer delay rejoining Hubert Lennon or sending him some excuse; and offering excuse, when knowing nothing about the engagement to which she was committed, was perhaps more dangerous than boldly appearing where she was expected. The Germans had told her that they believed she had no close friends in Chicago; and, so far as she had added to that original information, it seemed confirmed.
The telephone bell rang and gave her a jump; it was not the suddenness of the sound, but the sign that even there when she was alone a call might make demand which she could not satisfy. She calmed herself with an esfort before lifting the receiver and replying.
"Cynthia?" a woman's voice asked.
"Yes," she said.
​"It's a large afternoon affair, dear," the voice said easily. "But quite wartime. I'd wear the yellow dress."
"Thank you, I will," Cynthia said, and the woman hung up
That shocked Cynthia back to Ruth again; she stood in the center of the room, turning about slowly and with muscles pulling with queer, jerky little tugs. The message had purported to be a friendly telephone call from some woman who knew her intimately; but Ruth quickly estimated that that was merely what the message was meant to appear. For if the woman really were so intimate a friend of Cynthia Gail, she would not have made so short and casual a conversation with a girl whom she could not have seen or communicated with since Sunday. No; it was plain that the Germans again were aiding her; plain that they had learned—perhaps from Hubert Lennon waiting for her in the hotel lobby—about her afternoon engagement; plain, too, that they were ordering her to go.
A new and beautiful yellow dress, suitable for afternoon wear, was among the garments in the closet; there was an underskirt and stockings and everything else. Ruth was Cynthia again as she slipped quickly out of her street dress, took off shoes and stockings and redressed completely. She found a hat which evidently was to be worn with the yellow dress. So completely was she Cynthia now, as she bent for a final look in the glass, that she did not think that she looked better than Ruth Alden ever had; she wondered, instead, whether she looked as well as she should. She found no coat which seemed distinctly for the afternoon; so she put on the coat which she had bought. She carried her knitting bag with her ​as before—it was quite an advantage to have a receptacle as capacious as a knitting bag which she could keep with her no matter where she went. Descending to the ground floor, she found about the same number and about the same sort of people passing back and forth or lounging in the lobby. Hubert Lennon was there and he placed himself beside her as she surrendered her room key.
"You're perfectly corking, Cynthia!" he admired her, evidently having decided during his wait that he could say her name.
Color—the delicate rose blush in her clear skin which Sam Hilton so greatly liked—deepened on her cheek.
"All ready now, Hubert," she said; her use of his name greatly pleased him and he grasped her arm, unnecessarily, to guide her out.
"Just a minute," she hesitated as she approached the telegraph desk. "I've a wire to send to father."
The plan had popped out with the impulse which had formed it; she had had no idea the moment before of telegraphing to Charles Gail. But now the ecstasy of the daring game—the game beginning here in small perils, perhaps, but also perhaps in great; the game which was swiftly to lead, if she could make it lead, across the sea and through France into Switzerland and then into the land of the enemy upon the Rhine—had caught her; and she knew instinctively how to reply to that as yet uncomprehended telegram from her father.
She reached for the dispatch blanks before she remembered that, though her handwriting would not be delivered in Decatur, still here she would be leaving a record in writing which was not like Cynthia Gail's. So she merely ​took up the pen in her gloved fingers and gave it to Hubert Lennon who had not yet put his gloves on.
"You write for me, please," she requested. "Mr. Charles F. Gail," she directed and gave the home street number in Decatur. "Thanks for your wire telling me to go ahead. I knew you'd back me. Love. Thia."
"What?" Lennon said at the last word.
"Just sign it 'Thia.'"
He did so; she charged the dispatch to her room and they went out. The color was still warm in her face. If one of the men in the lobby was a German stationed to observe how she did and if he had seen her start the mistake of writing the telegram, he had seen also an instant recovery, she thought.
A large, luxurious limousine, driven by a chauffeur in private livery, moved up as they came to the curb. When they settled side by side on the soft cushions, the driver started away to the north without requiring instructions.
"You were fifteen years old when I last had a ride with you," Hubert obligingly informed her.
That was nine years ago, in nineteen nine, Cynthia made the mental note; she had become twenty-four years old instead of twenty-two, since the morning.
"But I knew you right away," he went on. "Aunt Emilie would have come for you but you see when she telephoned and found you weren't in at half-past one, she knew she couldn't call for you and get to Mrs. Corliss' on time. And she's a stickler for being on time."
So it was to Mrs. Corliss' they were going—to her great home on the drive. The car was keeping on northward along the snow-banked boulevard with the white ​and arctic lake away to the right and, on the left, the great grounds of Mrs. Potter Palmer's home.
"She'd have sent a maid for you," Hubert explained, "but I said it was stupid silly to send a maid after a girl who's going into the war zone."
"I'm glad you came instead for another ride with me," Cynthia said.
He reddened with pleasure. In whatever circles he moved, it was plain he received no great attention from girls.
"I tried to get into army and navy both, Cynthia," he blurted, apropos of nothing except that he seemed to feel that he owed explanation to her as to why he was not in uniform. "But they turned me down—eyes. Even the Canadians turned me down. But Aunt Emilie's giving an ambulance; and they're going to let me drive it. They get under fire sometimes, I hear. On the French front."
"They're often under fire," Cynthia assured. "A lot of ambulance men have been killed and wounded; so that's no slacker service."
"Not if you can't get in anything better," he said, "but mighty little beside what Gerry Hull's been doing."
She startled a little. He had spoken Gerry Hull's name with far less familiarity than Sam Hilton had uttered it that morning; but Hubert Lennon's was with the familiarity of one who knows personally the man mentioned.
"You've seen him since he's back?" Cynthia asked. It came to her suddenly that they—he and she—were going to meet Gerry Hull!
​The car was slowing before the turn in the driveway for Mrs. Corliss' city home; a number of cars were ahead and others took line behind for the porte cochère where guests were entering the house.
"Yes; I know him pretty well," Hubert said with a sort of pitiful pride. He was sensitive to the fact that, when he had spoken of Gerry Hull, her interest in him had so quickened; but he was quite unresentful of it. "I'll see that he knows you, Cynthia," he promised.
She sat quiet, trying to think what to say to Hubert Lennon after this; but he did not want the talk brought back to himself. He spoke only of his friend until the man opened the door of the car; the house door was opened at the same moment; and Cynthia, gathering her coat about her and clutching close to her knitting bag, stepped out of the car and into the hall, warm and scented with hot-house flowers, murmurous with the voices and movement of many people in the big rooms beyond. A man servant directed her to a room where maids were in attendance and where she laid off her coat. She had never in her life been at any affair larger than a wedding or a reception to a congressman at Onarga; so it was a good deal all at once to find oneself a guest of Mrs. Corliss', for it was plain that this reception was by no means a public affair but that the guests all had been carefully selected; it was more to be present carrying a knitting bag (fortunately many others brought knitting bags) in which were twenty-three hundred dollars and a passport to France; and something more yet to meet Gerry Hull—or rather, have him meet you. For when she came out to the hall again, Hubert was waiting for her.
​"I can't find Aunt Emilie just now, Cynthia," he said. "But I've Gerry. There's no sense in getting into that jam. We'll go to the conservatory; and Gerry'll come there. This way, Cynthia. Quick!"