II
He did go down to the office and glance through the Australian mail, but at a few moments before twelve he took a California Street car up to the Fairmont Hotel and went directly to the ballroom. Mrs. Thornton was standing just within the doorway, but came toward him with lifted eyebrows.
"This is like old times," she said playfully.
"I found less mail than I expected and thought I would come and have a dance with my wife." His eyes wandered over the large room, gayly decorated, and filled with dancing couples.
Mrs. Thornton laughed. "A belle like your wife? She is always engaged for every dance on her program before she is halfway down this corridor."
"Oh, well, husbands have some rights. I'll take it by force. I don't see her—she must be sitting out."
Mrs. Thornton slipped her arm through his. "This dance has just begun.
Walk me up and down. I am tired of standing on one foot."
They strolled down the corridor and through the large central hall. Older folks sat or stood in groups; a few young couples were sitting out. Ruyler did not see his wife, and concluded she had been resting at the moment in the dowager ranks against the wall of the ballroom. The music ceased sooner than he expected and Mrs. Thornton, who had been talking with animation on the subject of several fine pictures she had bought while abroad for the Museum in Golden Gate Park, including one by Masefield Price, broke off with an impatient exclamation: "Bother! I must run up to my room at once and telephone. Wait for me here."
She steered him toward a group of men. "Mr. Gwynne, keep Mr. Ruyler from causing a riot in the ballroom. He insists upon dancing with his wife. Hold him by force."
They were standing near the staircase and some distance from the lift. Mrs. Thornton ran up the stairs, pausing for an irresistible moment and looking down at the company. As she stood there, poised, she looked a royal figure with her cloth of gold train covering the steps below her and her high and flashing head. "Wait for me," she said, imperiously to Price. "I cannot meander down that corridor, deserted and alone."
Ruyler smiled at her, but said to Gwynne: "I'll just go and engage my wife for a dance and be back in a jiffy—"
Gwynne clasped his hand about Ruyler's arm. "Just a moment, old chap. I want your opinion—"
"But there is the music again. I'll be knocking people over—"
"You will if you go now, and there'll be dancing for hours yet. Your wife has been dividing up—now, tell me if you back me in this proposition or not. I'm going to Washington to represent you fellows—"
But Ruyler had broken politely away and was walking down the long corridor. When he arrived at the ballroom he saw at a glance that his wife was not there, for the floor was only half filled. But there were other rooms where dancers sat in couples or groups when tired. He went hastily through all of them, but saw nothing of his wife. Nor of Doremus.
Mrs. Thornton had gone in search of her.
And Gwynne knew.
This time the hot blood was pounding in his head. He felt as he imagined madmen did when about to run amok. Or quite as primitive as any Californian of the surging "Fifties."
He was in one of the smaller rooms and he sat down in a corner with his back to the few people in it and endeavored to take hold of himself; the conventional training of several lifetimes and his own intense pride forbade a scene in public. But his curved fingers longed for Doremus' throat and he made up his mind that if his awful suspicions were vindicated he would beat his wife black and blue. That was far more sensible and manly than running whining to a divorce court.
The effort at self-control left him gasping, but when he rose from his shelter he was outwardly composed, and determined to seek Gwynne and force the truth from him. He would not discuss his wife with another woman. And whatever this hideous tragedy brooding over his life he would go out and come to grips with it at once.