So far so good.  Granted that Ruth was presumably Elinor Ruth Farringdon of Australia.  Was she or was she not married?  There had been no opportunity in the cables to make inquiry about one Geoffrey Annersley though Larry had put that important question first in his letter to the consul which as yet had received no answer.  The lawyers stated that when Miss Farringdon had left Australia she was not married but unsubstantiated rumors had reached them from San Francisco hinting at her possible marriage there.

All this failed to stir Ruth’s dormant memory in any degree.  There was nothing to do but wait until further information should be forthcoming.

Not unnaturally these facts had a somewhat different effect upon the two individuals most concerned.  Ruth was frankly elated over the whole thing and found it by no means impossible to believe that she was a princess in disguise though she had played Cinderella contentedly enough.

On the strength of her presumable princessship she had gone on another excursion to Boston carrying the Lambert twins with her this time and had returned laden with all manner of feminine fripperies.  She had an exquisite taste and made unerringly for the softest and finest of fabrics, the hats with an “air,” the dresses that were the simplest, the most ravishing and it must be admitted also the most extravagant.  If she remembered nothing else Ruth remembered how to spend royally.

She had consulted the senior doctor before making the splendid plunge.  She did not want to have Larry buy her anything more and she didn’t want Doctor Philip and Margery to think her stark mad to go behaving like a princess before the princess purse was actually in her hands.  But she had to have pretty things, a lot of them, had to have them quick.  Did the doctor mind very much advancing her some money?  He could keep her rings as security.

He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should worry.  He also told her to go ahead and be as “princessy” as she liked.  He would take the risk.  Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an amused smile at the femininity of females.  And Ruth had gone and played princess to her heart’s content.  But there was little enough of heart’s content in any of it for poor Larry.  Day by day it seemed to him he could see his fairy girl slipping away from him.  Ruth was a great lady and heiress.  Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms?

Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new idea into his head.  Roderick was reported “missing.”  Was it not possible that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category?  Missing men sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses.  What if this should be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth’s husband?  Certainly it put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry’s mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely that the way was clear.