Then, Ruth must be shown to her room.

Who was to do it?
He flew to find the house-keeper, and after repeated injunctions to the house-maid, whom he met in the passage, not to forget the hot water, took Mr.Alwynn off to his apartment.
The concert had begun, as concerts always seem to do, at the exact time at which it is usual to dine, so that it was late before the principal performers and Mr.Alwynn reached Vandon.

It was later still before supper came, but when it came it was splendid.

Dare looked with anxious satisfaction, over a soup tureen, at the various spiced and glazed forms of indigestion, sufficient for a dozen people, which covered the table.
It grieved him that Ruth, confronted by a spreading ham, and Mr.Alwynn, half hidden by a bowlder of turkey, should have such moderate appetites.
But at least she was there, under his roof, at his table.

It was not surprising that he could eat nothing himself.
After supper, Mr.Alwynn, who combined the wisdom of the worldly serpent with the harmlessness of the clerical dove, fell--not too suddenly--asleep by the fire in the drawing-room, and Ruth and Dare went into the hall, where the piano was.