Of course Ruth was aware of this. What girl or woman can ever fail to be? Nevertheless on their way back to the hotel Ruth turned to Jim.
"Would you mind, Mr. Colter, staying in the sitting room with me for a little while after the girls have gone to bed. I am so anxious to talk to you?" And there was a gentleness and a hesitation in her manner that made it impossible for the man to refuse. Also, he understood what it was she wished to discuss.
Although Jim's manner was gay enough as he told the four girls good-night, Ruth saw with regret that it altered as soon as the last one of them had disappeared. He did not even sit down, but waited by the door, awkwardly fingering his hat like an embarrassed boy who wished to run away but did not quite dare.
Ruth did not ask him to have a chair. She, too, was standing by the open fire, with one foot resting on the fender and her head half turned to gaze at him. She looked a little unlike herself tonight, or else like her best self. For the Ranch girls had seriously objected to their chaperon's nun-like costumes, which she had had made in Vermont, and insisted on getting her some new clothes in Paris, while they were making their own purchases. Ruth had objected but Olive had solved the problem. Each one of the four girls had presented Ruth with a toilet shortly before leaving Paris. And so much care and affection had each donor put into her gift that she had not had the heart to decline.
Tonight she was wearing Jean's offering, which had been voted the prettiest of the lot. Over an underdress of flame-colored silk there were what Jim considered floating clouds of pale gray chiffon. And at her waist, with a background of the chiffon, was a single flame-colored flower.
Ruth had lost a good deal of her Puritan look; somehow the man thought she seemed more human, more alive. She had a vivid color, and her hair, which Jean had insisted upon dressing, was looser about her face. Jim remembered the moonlight ride they had had together when a lock of her hair had blown across his cheek. Then he brought himself sharply to task.
Ruth had already begun speaking.
"Mr. Colter," she said, "there are so many, many things I want to say to you I hardly know where to begin. I know how you must feel toward me, how you must feel that I have utterly failed in my duty toward Jack, and how nearly I have come to allowing her to wreck her life. There is nothing that you can think about me that I do not about myself. Of course, you know, I erred through ignorance, and yet ignorance is no excuse. A woman with so little knowledge, so little tact—" Ruth's face was crimsoning all over and she had to put her handkerchief to her eyes to wipe away her tears.
Jim had stepped forward and stood towering above her so that he had to bend his handsome head to see into her face.
"Miss Drew, you are not to go calling yourself bad names and then declare that I feel as you say I do. Honest Injun, Miss Ruth, I haven't had a single one of those feelings about you. Since I have known about this tragedy that poor Jack has nearly gotten us all into, I have been plumb sorry for you with all my heart. How could a little New England girl like you know anything about an accomplished rascal like this fellow Madden? Yet I guessed if Jack wouldn't give in (and she is usually a hard-headed customer), why you'd be blaming yourself for a thing you couldn't prevent until the end of your days. I tell you, Miss Ruth, that thought, besides my love for Jack, kept me hot on that man's trail. And it even helped me break the news to Jack today, which was the hardest part."