The woman immediately moved away and left the conservatory. No one
could have observed her speaking to Ruth except, perhaps, Hubert
Lennon, who now had reappeared and, finding Ruth alone, offered his
escort shyly. If he had noticed and if he wondered what acquaintance
Cynthia had happened upon here, he did not inquire.
“We’d better go into the other rooms,” he suggested. “They’re
starting speeches.”
She accompanied him, abstractedly. Whatever question she had held as
to whether the Germans held her under surveillance had been
answered; but it was evident that so far, at least, her appearance
in the part of Cynthia Gail had satisfied them--indeed, more than
satisfied. What beset Ruth at this moment was the fact that she now
knew the identity of an unsuspected enemy among the guests in this
house; but she could not accuse that woman without at the same time
involving herself. It presented a nice problem in values; Ruth must
be quite confident that she possessed the will and the ability to
aid her side to greater extent than this woman could harm it; or she
must expose the enemy even at the cost of betraying herself.
She looked for the woman while Hubert led her through the first
large room in the front of the big house, where scores of guests who
had been standing or moving about were beginning to find places in
the rows of chairs which servants were setting up. Hubert took Ruth
to a small, nervously intent lady with glistening black hair and
brows, who was seated and half turned about emphatically conversing
with the people behind her.
“Aunt Emilie, here’s Cynthia,” Hubert said loudly to win her
attention; she looked up, scrutinized Ruth and smiled.
“I had to help Mrs. Corliss receive, dear; or I’d have called for
you myself. So glad Hubert has you here.”
Ruth took the hand which she outstretched and was drawn down beside
her. Aunt Emilie (Ruth knew no name for her in relation to herself
and therefore used none in her reply) continued to hold Ruth’s hand
affectionately for several moments and patted it with approval when
at last she let it go. Years ago she had been a close friend of
Cynthia Gail’s mother, it developed; Julia Gail had written her that
Cynthia was in Chicago on her way to France; Aunt Emilie had asked
Mrs. Corliss to telephone to Cynthia on Saturday inviting her here;
Aunt Emilie herself had telephoned on Sunday and Monday to the hotel
to find Cynthia, but vainly each time.
“Where in the world were you all that time, my dear child?”
A man’s voice suddenly rose above the murmur in the room. The man
was standing upon a little platform toward which the chairs were
faced and with him were an officer in the uniform of the French
Alpine chasseurs, Lady Agnes Ertyle, and Gerry Hull. For an instant
the start of the speaking was to Ruth only a happy interruption
postponing the problem of explanations to “Aunt Emilie”; but the
next minute Ruth had forgotten all about that small matter. Gerry
Hull, from his place on the platform, was looking for her.
The French officer, having been introduced, had commenced to address
his audience in emphatic, exalted English; the others upon the
platform had sat down. Gerry Hull’s glance, which had been going
about the room studying the people present, had steadied to the look
of a search for some special one; his eyes found Ruth and rested.
She was that special one. He looked away soon; but his eyes had
ceased to search and again, when Ruth glanced directly at him, she
found him observing her.
She leaned forward a little and tried not to look toward him or to
think about him too much; but that was hard to do. She had
recognized that, when Hubert Lennon had summoned Gerry Hull out to
the conservatory, something had been troubling him and he had been
on the brink of a decision. He had met her during the moments when
he must decide and, in a way, he had referred the decision to her.
“They’re going to make me say something here this afternoon; and
this time I’m going to say exactly what I think. Wouldn’t you?”
She had told him that she would, without knowing at all what it was
about. Now it seemed to her that, as his time for speaking
approached, he was finding his determination more difficult.
The French officer was making an extravagant address, praising
everyone here and all Americans for coming into the war to save
France and civilization; he was complimenting every American deed,
proclaiming gratitude in the name of his country for the aid which
America had given; and, while he was speaking thus excessively, Ruth
was aware that Gerry Hull was watching her most intently; and when
she glanced up at him she saw him draw up straighter in his chair
and sit there, looking away, with lips tight shut. The French
officer finished and, after the applause, Lady Agnes Ertyle was
introduced and she spoke earnestly and simply, telling a little of
the work of Americans in Belgium and in France, of the great value
of American contributions and moral support; she added her praise
and thanks for American aid.
It seemed to Ruth that once Gerry Hull was about to interrupt. But
he did not; no one else appeared to notice his agitation; everyone
was applauding the pretty English girl who had spoken so gracefully
and was sitting down. The gentleman who was making the introductions
was beginning to relate who Gerry Hull was and what he had done,
when Gerry suddenly stood up. Everyone saw him and clapped wildly;
the introducer halted and turned; he smiled and sat down, leaving
him standing alone before his friends.
Men here and there were rising while they applauded and called his
name; other men, women, and girls got to their feet. Hubert Lennon,
on Ruth’s left, was one of the first to stand up; his aunt was
standing. So Ruth arose then, too; everyone throughout the great
rooms was standing now in honor of Gerry Hull. He gazed about and
went white a little; he was looking again for someone lost in all
the standing throng; he was looking for Ruth! He saw her and studied
her queerly again for a moment. She sat down; others began settling
back and the rooms became still.
“I beg your pardon,” Ruth heard Gerry Hull’s voice apologizing first
to the man who had tried to introduce him. “I beg the pardon of you
all for what I’m going to say. It’s not a word of what I’m supposed
to say, I know; it’ll be just what I think and feel.
“We’re not doing our part, people!” he burst out passionately
without more preparation. “We’re still taking protection behind
England and France, as we’ve done since the start of the war! We
ought to be there in force now! God knows, we ought to have been
there in force three years ago! But instead of being on the battle
line with them in force even with theirs, our position is so
pitiable that we make our allies feel grateful for a few score of
destroyers and a couple of army divisions holding down quiet sectors
in Lorraine. That’s because our allies have become so used to
expecting nothing--or next to nothing--of America that anything at
all which we do fills them with such sincere amazement that they
compliment and overwhelm us with thanks of the sort you have heard.”
He turned about to the French officer and to Lady Agnes, who had
just spoken. “Forgive me!” he cried to them so that all in the rooms
could hear. “You know I mean no offense to you or lack of
appreciation of what you have said. You cannot tell the truth to my
people; I can for you, and I must!”
He straightened and spoke to his own people again. “On the day that
German uhlans rode across the Belgian border, Belgium and England
and France--yes, even Russia--looked to us to come in; or, at least,
to protest and, if our protest was not respected, to enforce it by
our arms. But we did nothing--nothing but send a few dollars for
Belgian relief, a few ships of grain and a few civilians to
distribute it. The outrages of the Boche beasts went on--Termonde,
Louvain, the massacres of the Armenians, the systematic starvation
and enslavement of Belgians, Poles, Serbians; and we subscribed a
little more money for relief. Here and there American missionaries
saved a life or two. That’s all we did, my friends! So here in our
country and in our own newspapers the German Imperial Embassy paid
for and had printed advertisements boasting that they were going to
sink without warning ships sailing from our ports with our own
people aboard; and they sank the _Lusitania_!
“Then England and France and the remnant of Belgium said, ‘Surely
now America must come in!’ But you know what we did!”
He stopped, breathless, and Ruth was leaning forward, breathless
too. The passion which had seized and was swaying him was rousing
like passions in the others before him; his revolt had become their
revolt; and they warmed and kindled with him. But she did not.
Though this outburst of his soul brought to her feeling for him,
himself, beyond what she could have believed, the meaning of what he
said did not so inflame her. Her feeling was amazingly personal to
him.
“We protested,” he was going on. “Protested; and did nothing! They
sank our ships and murdered our own people under the American flag;
and we continued to protest! And England and France and the nations
holding back the Boche with them ceased to honor us with
expectations of action; so, expecting nothing, naturally they became
more grateful and amazed at anything which we happened to do. When
the Kaiser told us he might allow us--if we were very good--one ship
a week to Europe, provided we sent him notice in advance and we
painted it in stripes, just as he said, and when that at last was
too much for us to take, they honored us in Europe with wondering
what we would do; and they thanked and complimented us, their new
ally, for sending them more doctors and medical supplies without
charging them for it, and after a while a few divisions of soldiers.
“God knows I would say no word against our men who have gone to
France; I speak for them! For I have been an American in France and
have learned some of the shame of it! The shame,” he repeated
passionately, “of being an American! I have gone about an ordinary
duty, performing it much after the fashion of my comrades in the
French service--or in the British--and when I have returned, I have
found that what I happened to do is the thing picked out for special
mention and praise to the public, when others who have done the same
or more than myself have not had that honor. Because I was an
American! They feel they must yet compliment and thank Americans for
doing what they have been doing as a matter of course all this time
that we have stayed out; so they thank and praise us for beginning
to do now what we ought to have done in 1914.
“We have been sitting here--you and I--letting our allies thank us
for at last beginning to fight a little of our war! Think of that
when they have been giving themselves and their all--all--in our
cause for three and a half years!”
He stepped back suddenly and stood with bowed head as though--Ruth
thought--he had meant to say more, but suddenly had found that he
could not. She was trembling as she sat staring at him; she was
alone in her chair now; for the people all about, overswept by their
feelings, were standing up again, and clapping wildly, and calling
out: “France! France!... England! France!... Belgium!... England!”
they were crying in adulation.
She saw him again for an instant; he had stepped back a little
farther, and raised his head, and was gazing at the people
acclaiming him and the allies for whom he had spoken. He stared
about and seemed to seek her--at least, he gazed about when this
great acclaim suddenly bewildered him, as he had gazed before he had
spoken and when his eyes had found her. She stood up then; but he
turned about to Lady Agnes, who had risen and was beside him; the
people in front of Ruth screened him from sight and when she got
view of the platform again he was gone.
The guests were leaving their chairs and moving toward the rooms
where refreshments were being served; but it was many minutes before
Ruth heard anyone mention other matters than the war and Gerry
Hull’s speech. That had been a thoroughly remarkable and sincere
statement of the American position, Ruth heard the people about her
saying; to have heard it was a real experience.
It had come as the climax of what for Ruth was far more than that;
the darkening of the early winter night outside the drawn curtains
of the windows, the tinkling of a little clock for the half
hour--half-past four--brought to her the amazing transformation
worked upon Ruth Alden since, scarcely six hours before, the
wonderful wand of war had touched her. With the dawn of this same
day which was slipping so fast into the irrevocable past, she had
awakened to dream as of a wish unrealizable that she might welcome
Gerry Hull home; now she knew him; she had talked with him alone;
when she had been among all his friends in the other room, he had
sought her with his eyes. He had disappeared from the rooms now; and
no one seemed to know where he had gone, though many inquired. But
Ruth knew; so she slipped away from Hubert Lennon and from his Aunt
Emilie, who had forgotten all about asking where Cynthia had been
the last two days; and Ruth returned to the conservatory.
Upon that bench where they had sat together, hidden by the palms,
and hanging vines, and the roses, she saw him sitting alone, bent
forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands,
staring down at the floor.
He looked up quickly as he heard her step; she halted, frightened
for a moment by her own boldness. If he had chosen that spot for his
flight from the others, it would mean--she had felt--that he was
willing that she should return there. But how did she know that?
Might it not be wholly in her fancy that, since they had separated,
he had thought about her at all?
“Hello, Miss Gail!” he hailed her quickly, but so quietly that it
was certain he wished no one else to know that he was there. “I was
wondering how I could get you here.”
Her heart began beating once more. “I wondered if you’d be here,”
she said; he could make of that a good deal what he liked.
He stood up. “Let’s stay here, please,” he asked her, whispering;
and he bent a little while he waited for her to be seated, hiding
from sight of anyone who might glance over the tops of the palms. He
was beside her on the bench now.
“I want you to tell me what I did in there just now, Miss Gail,” he
asked. “Agnes Ertyle can’t, of course; others, whom I know pretty
well, won’t. But you will, I think.”
The complete friendliness of this confidence made Ruth wonder what
he might have known about Cynthia Gail, which let him thus so
instinctively disclose himself to her; but it was not to Cynthia
Gail; it was to her, herself, Ruth!
“I’ve only known you for an hour, Miss Gail; but I’d rather have
your honest opinion than that of any other American.”
From the way he said that, she could not tell whether he had chosen
his word purposely to except Lady Agnes Ertyle from any comparison
with her; and she wanted to know!
“I think you meant to say a very, very fine thing,” Ruth told him
simply.
“But I actually said----”
“You’ve been a long time away from home--from America, our country,”
Ruth interrupted him before he could get her into greater
difficulties. “You’ve only known me an hour; but, of course, I’ve
known you--or about you--for a good many years. Everyone has. You’ve
been away ever since the start of the war, of course; and even
before that you were away, mostly in England, for the greater part
of your time, weren’t you?”
“I was at school at Harrow for a while,” he confessed. “And I was at
Cambridge in 1913-1914.”
“That’s what I thought. So while you’ve called yourself an American
and you’ve meant to stay an American--I know you meant that--you
couldn’t quite really become one, could you?”
He drew back from her a trifle and his eyes rested upon hers a
little confused, while color crept into his brown face and across
his forehead.
“Please tell me just what you want to,” he begged.
“I don’t want to tell you a thing unpleasant!” she cried quietly.
“And I can’t, unless you’ll believe that I never admired anyone so
much as you when you were speaking--I mean anyone,” she qualified
quickly, “who was saying things which I believed all wrong!”
Terror for her boldness caught her again; but it was because he had
seen that with him she must be bold--or honest--that he had wanted
her there; for he did want her there and more than before. While he
had been speaking, she had been thinking about him--thinking as well
as feeling for him; and she had been thinking about him ever
since--thinking thoughts her own, or at least distinct from his and
from those of his friends in the other rooms who had so acclaimed
him and from whom he had fled. He realized it; and that was why he
wanted her.
“I believe that to be a true American is the highest honor in the
world today,” she said with the simplicity of deep feeling. “I
believe that, so far from having anything to be ashamed about, an
American--particularly such an American as you might be----”
“Might be!” he repeated.
“Has more to be rightly proud of than anyone else! And not alone
because America is in the war now, but because--at the cost of
staying out so long--our country came in when and how she did! You
understand I say nothing against our allies--nothing like what you
have said against our own country! Belgium got the first attack of
the Germans and fought back, oh, so nobly, and so bravely, and
hopelessly; but Belgium was invaded! France fought, as everyone
knows, in self-defense and for a principle; England fought in
self-defense, too, as well as for a principle--for were not the
German guns almost at her shores? But we have gone in for a
principle--and in self-defense, too, perhaps; but for the principle
first! Oh, there is a difference in that! A hundred million people
safe and unthreatened--for whether or not we really were safe and
unthreatened, we believed we were--going into a war without idea of
any possible gain or advantage solely for a principle! Oh, I don’t
mean to make a speech to you.”
“Go on!” he ordered. “I’ve just made one; you go on now.”
“You spoke about the Kaiser’s order to us about how to paint our
ships, as if the insult of that was what at last brought us in! How
little that had to do with it for us! It merely happened to come at
the time we could at last go in--when a hundred million people, not
in danger which they could see or feel, decided to go in, knowing
even better than those who had decided earlier what it was going to
mean. For the war was different then from what it was at first; the
Russia of the Czar and of the empire was gone; and in France and in
England there was a difference, too. Oh, I don’t know how to say it;
just France, at first, was fighting as France and for France against
Germany; and England, for England, was doing the same. And America
couldn’t do that--I mean fight for America; she couldn’t join with
allies who were fighting for themselves or even for one another. The
side of the allies had to become more than that before we could go
in; and it is and we’re in! Oh, I don’t know how or when it will
appear; but I know--know that before long you will be prouder to be
an American than you ever dreamed you could be if we had gone in
like the others when you thought we should.”
She had been gazing at him and, for a few moments, he had been
staring in bewilderment at her; but now he was turned away and she
could see from the set of his lips, from the pulse throbbing below
his temple as the muscles of his face pulled taut, how she had
offended him.
“Thank you,” he said to her shortly.
“I’ve hurt you!”
“Didn’t you mean to?”
“Not this way.”
“You told what you thought; I asked to know it. How do you happen to
be here, Miss Gail?” he asked with sudden directness after a pause.
Ruth recollected swiftly Cynthia Gail’s connections through Hubert
Lennon’s aunt with Mrs. Corliss and she related them to Gerry Hull,
perforce; and this unavoidable deception distressed her more than
all the previous ones she had played. She realized that, in order to
understand what she had said, he was trying to understand her; and
she wished that she could tell him that she was Ruth Alden, working,
only as late as that morning, in Hilton Brothers’ office.
“You’re not like anyone else here,” he said, without pressing his
inquiry further. “Hub Lennon told me that he had a different sort of
girl with him. These other people are all like myself; you saw the
way they took what I said. They didn’t take it as said against them;
they’ve been in the war, heart and soul, since the first. You’ve
only come in when we--I mean America,” he corrected with a wince,
“came in. I think I felt that without knowing it; that’s why I
talked to you more than to all the rest together. That’s why I
needed to see you again; you’re more of an American, I guess, than
anyone else here.”
He said that with a touch of bitterness which prevented her offering
reply.
“You haven’t hurt me as me,” he denied. “If you just told me that my
country believed I was wrong and had been fighting for something
lower than it was willing to fight for until April, 1917, why that
would be all right. But what you have said is against the finest,
noblest, most chivalrous men the world ever knew--a good many of
them dead, now, fallen on the field of honor, Americans--Americans
of the highest heart, Norman Prince, Kiffen Rockwell, Vic Chapman,
and the rest! If being American means to wait, after you see beasts
like the Germans murdering women and children, until you’ve
satisfied your smug soul that everyone who’s fighting the beast is
just your sort, they weren’t Americans and I’m not an American
either, thank God!”
He arose from beside her in his overwhelming emotion; and she,
without knowing what she did, put out a hand, and caught his sleeve,
and pulled him down beside her again.
“Wait!” she almost commanded him. “I can’t have you misunderstand me
so! This morning when I woke up--it was before I knew I was to meet
you--I tried to imagine knowing you!”
“To tell me what you have?”
“To thank you for what you have done!”
“You’re a strange person!”
“Oh, I can’t explain everything even to myself!” Ruth cried. “I only
know that you--and the men you’ve mentioned--had the wonderful right
to do, of yourselves, fine and brave things before our country had
the right!”
That was sheer stupidity to him, she saw; and she could not make it
clearer. He wanted to leave her now; but he did not forget himself
as he had the moment earlier. He waited for her to rise and he
accompanied her to the other rooms. They separated without formal
leave-taking as others claimed him, and Hubert Lennon found her.
Hubert and his aunt took her back to the hotel, where Aunt
Emilie--Ruth yet had no name for her--offered an invitation for
luncheon tomorrow or the day after. Ruth accepted for the second day
and went up to her room, where she locked herself in, took off the
yellow dress, and flung herself face downward across the bed.
Except for the chocolate and little cakes served at Mrs. Corliss’,
she had eaten nothing since breakfast; but she scarcely thought to
be hungry or considered her weariness now. What a day had been given
to her; and how frightfully she had bungled it! She had met Gerry
Hull, and he had found interest in her, and she had taken advantage
of his interest only to offend, and insult him, and turn him away!
The Germans, upon whose support she must depend in all her plans,
had given her a first definite order; and she had completely
disregarded it in her absorption in offending Gerry Hull. At any
moment, therefore, they might take action against her--either direct
action of their own, or give information which would expose her to
the American authorities, and bring about her arrest and disgrace. A
miserable end, now, not only to her great resolves of that morning,
but to any possible rehabilitation with Gerry Hull! For if that
morning she had dreamed of meeting him, now this night a thousand
times intensified she thought of him again and again--constantly, it
seemed. And yet she would not have taken back a word of that which
had angered him and turned him away.
She got up at last and went down alone to dinner; and, when nothing
more happened, she returned to her own room, where after more
carefully going over all Cynthia Gail’s things, she took plain paper
and an envelope and wrote a short note to Sam Hilton, informing him
that most important personal matters suddenly had forced her to give
up her position with him; she wrote the landlady at her boarding
house that she had been called home and would either return or send
for her trunk later. She mailed these herself and went to bed.
The next morning she bought a small typewriter, of the sort which
one can carry traveling, and took up Cynthia Gail’s correspondence.
Neither the mail of that day nor the telephone presented to her any
difficult problem; and she had no new callers. Indeed, except for
Hubert Lennon, who “looked by”--as he spoke of it--just before noon,
she encountered no one who had anything to say to her until, walking
out early in the afternoon, she met upon the street the woman in
gray who had given her the order about Gerry Hull on yesterday
afternoon.
Ruth went a little weak with fright when the woman caught step
beside her; but the woman at once surprised her with reassurance.
“Gerry Hull returns to France from here,” the woman informed
abruptly. “He will be transferred to the American air service there;
he will sail from New York probably on the _Ribot_ next week. That
is a passenger vessel, carrying cargo, of course; but not yet used
for troop shipments. Passengers proceed as individuals. You will
probably be allowed a certain amount of choice in selecting your
ship. So you shall report at New York and endeavor to secure passage
upon the _Ribot_. Understand?”
“Perfectly,” Ruth said.
“Your friendship with Gerry Hull will prove invaluable in France! Do
nothing to jeopardize it! You have done with him, well! But you are
in too much danger here; go East tonight; wait there.”
The woman went away. How much did she know about what had passed
with Gerry Hull, Ruth wondered. She had seen, probably, that Ruth
was with him again in the conservatory after his speech and that
they had stayed there a long time together. She had done with him,
well! She smiled woefully to herself; at least it seemed to have
aided her that the Germans thought so.
It would have puzzled her more, certainly, if she had known that
after the time when Gerry Hull and she forgot to whisper and forgot,
indeed, everyone but themselves, the woman had heard almost every
word which was said; and that the woman’s opinion of the girl who
was playing the part of Cynthia Gail was that she was a very clever
one to know enough and dare enough to take single and violent
opposition to Gerry Hull. For the Germans, in preparation for this
war, had made a most elaborate and detailed study of psychology of
individuals and of nations. That study of nations has not shown
conspicuously successful results; but their determination of factors
which are supposed to influence individuals is said to have fared
far better.
Their instructions to a woman--or a girl--who is commanded to make
an impression upon a man inform that a girl in dealing with a weak
character progresses most certainly and fastest by agreeing and
complying; but when one has to do with a man of strong character,
opposition and challenge to him bring the surest result.
Of course that is not an exclusively German discovery; and to act in
accordance with it, one is not obliged to be truly a German spy and
to know it from the tutorings of a German psychologist. Indeed, one
does not have to know it at all; one need merely be a young girl,
thoughtful and honest, as well as impulsive and of quick but deep
passions, who admires and cares so very much for a young man who has
talked serious things with her, that she cannot just say yes to his
yes and no to his no, but must try at once to work out the
difference between them.
Not to know it is hard on that girl, particularly when she is
setting out upon an adventure which at once cuts her off from
everyone whom she has known.
Ruth had no companion at all. She had to write to her own mother in
Onarga, of course; and, after buying with cash an order for two
thousand dollars, she sent it to her mother with a letter saying
that she was assigned to a most wonderful work which was taking her
abroad. She was not yet free to discuss the details; but her mother
must trust her and know that she was doing a right and wise thing;
and her mother must say nothing about it to anyone at all. It might
keep her away for two years or more; so the people who were paying
her expenses had forwarded her this money for home. Ruth wished her
mother to send for her clothes and her trunk from the boarding
house; Ruth would not need them. And if any inquiry came for Ruth
from Hilton Brothers or elsewhere, Ruth had gone East to take a
position. There was no use writing her at the old addresses; she
would send an address later.
She knew her mother; and she knew that her mother was sure enough of
her so that she would do as asked and not worry too much.
So upon that same afternoon, Ruth packed up Cynthia Gail’s things;
and she wrote to Cynthia Gail’s parents and to Second Lieutenant
George Byrne at Camp Grant, signing the name below the writing as
Cynthia Gail had signed it upon her passport.
That passport was ceasing to be a mere possession and was soon to be
put to use; so Ruth practiced long in signing the name. The
description of Cynthia Gail as checked on the passport was almost
faultless for herself; height, five feet six and a half inches;
weight, 118 pounds; face, oval; eyes, blue; hair, yellow; and so
with all the rest. The photograph of Cynthia Gail was pasted upon
the passport and upon it was stamped the seal of the United States,
as well as a red-ink stamping which went over the edge of the
photograph upon the paper of the passport. It was very possible,
Ruth thought, that the German girl for whom this passport was
intended would have removed that picture of Cynthia Gail and
substituted one of herself; to do that required an emboss seal of
the United States, besides the rubber stamp of the red ink. Ruth did
not doubt that the Germans possessed replicas of these and also the
skill to forge the substitution. But she possessed neither.
Moreover, the photograph of Cynthia Gail seemed to Ruth even more
like herself than it had at first. The difference was really more in
expression than in the features themselves; and Ruth, consciously or
unconsciously, had become more like that girl in the picture. She
had, also, the identical dress in which the picture was taken. She
determined to wear that when she presented the passport and risk the
outcome. Her advantage so far had been that no one had particular
reason to suspect her; she had fitted herself into the relations
already arranged to take Cynthia Gail to France and they seemed
capable, of their own momentum, to carry her on.
Hubert Lennon “looked by” again later in the afternoon and she asked
him to tell his aunt that she was going away. He was much concerned
and insistent upon doing what he could to aid her.
“Do you know when you’ll be sailing?” he asked.
“I hope next week,” she said.
“Could you possibly go on the _Ribot_?”
“Why on the _Ribot_?”
“Gerry Hull’s just got word that he’s to join again on the other
side,” Hubert said, “so he’ll be going back next week on the
_Ribot_, he thinks.”
Ruth checked just in time a “Yes, I know.”
“I’m going to try to get across with him,” Hubert added. Ruth felt
liking again for this young man who always put his friend before
himself.
“That’s good. I hope surely I can get on the _Ribot_.”
“Aunt Emilie knows people in New York who’ll help arrange it for
you, if I ask ’em. You’ll let me?”
“Please!” Ruth accepted eagerly. She wanted exceedingly to know one
other thing; but she delayed asking and then made the query as
casual as she could.
“Lady Agnes stays in Chicago a while?”
Hubert colored as this question ended for him his pretense with
himself that she wanted to be on the _Ribot_ because of him.
“No; she’s going when Gerry goes. She plans to be on the _Ribot_
too. They always intended to return at the same time.”
“Of course,” Ruth said. What wild fancies she followed!
Hubert went off; but returned to take her to the train. He brought
with him letters from his aunt--credentials of Ruth as Cynthia Gail
to powerful people who did not know Cynthia Gail, and who were asked
to further her desires in every way.
Thus, at the end of seven days, Ruth Alden sailed for the first time
away from her native land upon the _Ribot_ for Bordeaux to
become--in the reports of the American authorities who approved and
passed her on--a worker in the devastated districts of France; to
become, in whatever report the agents of Hohenzollernism in America
made to their superiors, a dependable and resourceful spy for
Germany; to become--in the resolution she swore to herself and to
the soul of Cynthia Gail and the prayers she prayed--an emissary for
her cause and her country into the land of the enemy who would know
no mercy to such as herself.