Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/266

 —recurred to her and brought her out of this pleasant, peaceful Lethe from realities in which Lucerne, for a few hours, had let her live. Tension returned; and, with the tension, grief but not tears; instead, that determination imbued her which she had witnessed often enough in others, when loss of their own was made known to them. Gerry Hull, she thus knew, was her own; and as she had seen men and women in France giving themselves for the general cause, and for one particular, personal vengeance, too, so Ruth thought of her errand into Germany no longer as solely to gather information for the army but to find and free Gerry Hull, if he was a prisoner; and if he was killed, then to take some special, personal vengeance for him.

She had come to Lucerne—ostensibly—to rest and to recuperate; and Mrs. Mayhew had given her letters to friends who were staying at one of the large hotels. Ruth had registered at the same hotel and a Mrs. Folwell, an American, had taken Ruth under her chaperonage. Ruth's name, upon the hotel register, of course stood as Cynthia Gail; and as Miss Gail, she met other guests in the hotel, which was one of those known as an "allied hotel" in the row of splendid buildings upon the water front devoted to the great Swiss peace and war industrie des etrangers. The majority of its guests, that is, designated themselves as English or French, Italian or American—whatever in fact they might be. The minority laid claim to neutral status—Norwegian, Danish, Hollandish, Swedish, Spanish. But everyone recognized that in this hotel, as in all the others, the Germans and Austrians possessed representatives among the guests as well as among the servants.