"But what have I done?" the husband questioned, perplexed anew by this charming wife of many moods.
"What have you done?" Cicily repeated, joyously. "Why, you've made me the happiest woman in the world—a partner!" Again, the rounded arms were wreathed about his neck; her face was hidden on his shoulder.
Hamilton's eyes were turned ceilingward, as if seeking some illumination from beyond. He listened, stupid, bemused, to that word echoing wildly through his brain: "Partner!" He understood fully at last, and with understanding came utter dismay. "Partner!... Oh, Lord!"
In the days that followed, Cicily was almost riotously happy. The schemes that had been formulating themselves dimly in her mind following the altruistic suggestion made to her by Mrs. Delancy now took on definite shape and became substantial. In view of the fact that her husband had explicitly brought her into a business partnership with himself, it occurred to her that she might well combine the idea of making other people happy with practical uses in behalf of business. To this end, then, she devoted her intelligence diligently, with the result that she soon had concrete plans of betterment for the many, and these of a sort to redound directly to her husband's advantage in a business way. In brief, she conceived certain philanthropic operations to be carried out for the enjoyment of her husband's employés; the effect of such changes would inevitably be a better understanding between them and their employer, and an increased loyalty and efficiency on the part of theworkers. With this laudable purpose, Cicily, after broaching the subject in detail to Hamilton, who made no objection, since her helpfulness was to be operated out of her private fortune, at once busied herself with the execution of the project. The factory downtown was soon a-chatter with excitement over the startling innovations that were under way. The employés cursed or cheered according to their natures, as they learned of the gifts bestowed by the wife of their employer. They regarded the new bath-tubs with wonder, albeit somewhat doubtfully. They discussed the library with appreciation, or lack of appreciation, according to their degrees of illiteracy or learning: the socialistic element condemned the inanity of the volumes selected; there were only histories, biographies, books of travel, foolish novels and the like—nothing to teach the manner by which the brotherhood of man must be worked out.
In addition to her activities for good in this direction, Cicily added something actual to her ideas in reference to the up-lift of woman. She made herself known to the wives of some of the men who worked in the factory, and called on them in their homes. She invited them to visit her in return, and she matured aproject to make the Civitas Society her ally in this noble work of up-lift and equalization in the social order. With such eager works, her days were filled full, and she was glad in the realization that it was, indeed, become her splendid privilege to share in her husband's broader life.... She was his—partner!
It may be doubted if Hamilton had more than the shadow of knowledge as to his wife's happiness in the changed order. The episode, as he deemed it, in which she had been given a partnership with him, hardly remained in his memory. When he thought of it at all, he smiled over it as over the vagary of one among a woman's innumerable varying moods. But he thought of it very rarely, for his time was absorbed in the desperate struggle to find a way out from the destruction that loomed very close at hand. In the end, he decided not to reject the offer made by Morton in behalf of the trust. Otherwise, he would be confronted by Carrington's competition in selling to the independent trade at a dead loss. But he was determined ultimately to combat this competition to the limit of his ability and capital. It was apparent to him that success would be impossible from the outset unless heshould reduce his operating expenses to the minimum. For this reason, he planned to make the cut in wage-scale that had been suggested by Morton, although in reality it was to overcome the machinations of the trust, not to further them. He solaced his conscience by reiteration of the truth: that, in the event of winning, the reduction would have been but a temporary thing; whereas, without it, he must close down the factory immediately. For the sake of his workers, as well as for his own, he was resolved to pursue the one course that offered a hope of victory.
Naturally enough, the employés did not understand or approve. When news of the proposed cut in the scale was made known, there came clamor and wrath and sorrow. Meetings of the workers were held, and in due time a committee of three waited on Hamilton by appointment in the study of his house uptown. Schmidt, the most garrulous of the three, was a man in the prime of life, heavily built, bald, with a white mustache that gave him a certain grotesque resemblance to Bismarck. The other two members of the committee were Ferguson, a thin, alert-mannered Yankee of forty, who spoke with a pronounced drawl; and McMahon, a short, red-headed,shrewd Irishman, with a face on which shone a volatile good-humor. The three, on entering the library and being greeted by Hamilton, found that their employer had fortified himself for the conference by the presence of Mr. Delancy, in whose business judgment the younger man had great confidence. The men received the pleasant salutation of Hamilton with awkwardness, but without any trace of shamefacedness, for they had the consciousness of their righteous cause to give them confidence in a strange environment. Hardly were they seated at their host's request in chairs facing him and Mr. Delancy, when Schmidt bounced up, and, after squaring himself resolutely in a position of advantage before the empty fireplace, proceeded to declaim vigorously as to the rights between labor and capital, speaking sonorously, with a pronounced German accent. After some five minutes of this, Mr. Delancy, who was both nervous and irritable, as the orator paused for breath at a period, ventured to protest.
"Yes, yes, man," he exclaimed, testily. "But I don't care a damn about Schopenhauer and socialism, and I'm sure Mr. Hamilton doesn't. Let's get to the wages paid in the Hamilton factory."
Ferguson came to the support of Delancy, as did McMahon, who said amiably:
"Give the boss a chance, Smitty."
Schmidt, however, was inclined to be recalcitrant.
"There was no arrangement yet to give the boss a chance," he argued.
"Just give him a chance then because he's a friend of mine," urged the Irishman with a grin of such exceeding friendliness toward the German himself that it was not to be resisted. Schmidt nodded in token that the employer should be allowed to speak, but he retained his position as a presiding officer before the fireplace.
Hamilton forthwith set out to present his side of the case to the men before him.
"As you know," he said briskly, "I'm the owner of the Hamilton factory. I pay the wages. Now, the Hamilton factory has been kept running through good times and through bad times for more than thirty years. Sometimes, too, it has been run at a loss, without any cut in the wage-scale to help the owner in that period of loss. Well, it seems to me under the circumstances that I have a right to run my own business."
"Oh, certainly!" Ferguson agreed, languidly.
But Schmidt added a correction to the general concession.
"As long as you run it in our way, and don't cut wages."
"I'm sorry, men," Hamilton retorted, without any avoidance of the issue; "but that cut must go."
The members of the committee looked from one to another, and shook their heads dolefully. They knew too well the hardships that would be wrought among their fellows by a ten per cent. cut the length of the scale. It was McMahon who spoke first, with his usual air of good-nature in the sarcasm, but a note of grimness underlying the surface pleasantry.
"Well, now, you see," he said in his rich brogue, addressing Ferguson and Schmidt, "the boss has to save a mite to pay for the new bath-tubs and that natty bit of a gymnasium and the library they've been putting in lately."
"Ach, Himmel!" Schmidt snorted, disgustedly. "We will have manicures soon already!" He stared at his pudgy fingers with the work-begrimed nails, and grinned sardonically.
Hamilton flushed under the taunts.
"I have nothing to do with those improvements," he declared, in self-justification. "They are all being put in by Mrs. Hamilton at her own expense. She is doing it to make you men and women there more contented with your lot—to make you happy."
"To make us happy!" Schmidt grunted. "Bathtubs!"
McMahon's sense of humor led him to indulge in another flight of pleasantry, which shadowed forth the grim reality of these lives.
"Sure, but the gymnasium is great," he said, blandly. His tone was so deceptive that Hamilton smiled in appreciation of the compliment to his wife's undertaking, and even Mr. Delancy relaxed the harsh set of his features. "The longer you work in it," the Irishman continued innocently, "outside of hours of course, the stronger you get, and the more you can do in hours for the boss.... Sure, it's great!"
Hamilton hastily changed the subject. He explained that, the cut would not be applied to the wages of the women in the packing-department, where a hundred were employed. He declared frankly that their pay was insufficient to stand such a reduction.
"And do you think we make enough to stand it?" Ferguson exclaimed, indignantly.
"Somebody has to stand it," was Hamilton's moody retort. "You have threatened to strike, if I make this cut. Well, I am forced to threaten you in turn. If you won't accept the cut, I shall strike—I must strike!"
Schmidt, from his position before the fireplace, rose on his toes in high indignation.
"You strike!" he clamored, huffily. "Who has given you that permission to strike? You are no union. Bah!"
Hamilton shrugged his shoulders, wearily.
"Listen, men," he requested. "I'll put the facts before you plainly, for I place my whole confidence in your loyalty. You think, perhaps, that you're being strung in this deal. Well, we'll all be strung, and hung over the side of the boat, too, unless we work together. You men are dissatisfied, because, although you are working full time, you are asked to take a ten per cent. cut. The truth of the matter is that the factory is not making a cent of profit. I have to make the boxes for sale at a loss now, on account of the competition of the trust factory, which is trying to put meout of business. I must work at cost, or even at a loss, for a time. With the ten per cent. cut, I can keep going. Without it, I must close down. As soon as this crisis is over, if I win out, the old wage-scale will be restored. I hope that time will not be long away. I may venture to tell you something in confidence: I'm planning to take on some side lines—some things in which I hope to make big money. As soon as they're started, I'll give you back the present scale."
"Why don't your wife help pay the wages?" Schmidt questioned, shrewdly. "She has plenty of money for foolishness."
"Faith, and that isn't a bad idea at all, at all, Mr. Hamilton," McMahon agreed. "It's a better use for her money. Since she's been coming around to the house these last few weeks, it's cost me a week's pay to get a hat for my old woman in imitation of hers.... Women have no place in business, I'm thinking."
Ferguson added his testimony to the like effect:
"That's right," he declared. He looked about for a place in which to spit by way of emphasis, but, seeing none, forbore. "My girl, Sadie, she put twodollars in false hair this very week. Your wife is sure making it mighty hard for us, Mr. Hamilton. How can I buy false hair with a ten per cent. cut? Durned if I can see!"
Again, Hamilton was afflicted with embarrassment over the infelicitous results of his wife's benevolent activity, and again he changed the subject.
"Well, boys," he said frankly, "I've put the matter to you straight. I'm sorry. But, unless you take the cut, I don't see any future for any of us.... It's up to you."
"The men decide for themselves," Ferguson replied, glumly. "We only report back to them."
"But you three really decide," Hamilton persisted. "Come, give me your decision now."
Ferguson and McMahon regarded each other doubtfully, in silence, as if uncertain how to proceed. But Schmidt was not given to hesitation in expressing himself on any occasion. He spoke now with an air of phlegmatic determination, brandishing his right arm at the start:
"Well, speaking for myself only, I want to say—How do you do, Mrs. Hamilton."
As Schmidt concluded his oratorical flourish in this astonishing fashion, the other occupants of the room turned amazedly, to behold Cicily herself, standing in the open doorway of the study.
The young wife was a very charming, radiant vision, as she rested there motionless. She was gowned for the street, wearing that ravishing hat which had been the cause of McMahon's undoing, a dainty and rather elaborate device in black and red, and a black cloth gown, short and closely cut, which showed to delightful advantage the lissome curves of her form. Beneath, a luxuriouschaussurein black showed the inimitable grace of tiny feet and ankles. Now, as she regarded the company in some astonishment, the perfect oval of her cheeks was broken by the play of dimples as she smiled a general welcome on the men before her. But her attention was particularly arrested by Schmidt, who, after his first greeting in words, was now bowing stiffly from the hips, a featof some difficulty by reason of his girth. Cicily watched the formal performance with mingled emotions of amusement and alarm. When, at last, it was successfully accomplished, however, and the pudgy figure straightened, she recognized the socialist, and came forward.
"Why, it's Mr. Schmidt!" she exclaimed, cordially. "I'm so glad to see you!" To this, the German murmured a guttural response, too much overcome by pleasure for coherent speech. The new-comer passed on, and made her greetings to Ferguson and McMahon with the like pleasant hospitality, shaking hands with each.
"This is, indeed, charming," she exclaimed heartily. "Did you bring your wives along?"
Schmidt, as usual, constituted himself the spokesman.
"Mrs. Hamilton," he stated, with somber impressiveness, "this is business."
"Good gracious!" Mrs. Hamilton exclaimed, with some trepidation. "I hope it's nothing that they would not approve of."
"Be easy," Ferguson, admonished, soothingly. "Sure, it's only that we're talking business. It's amatter of wages. The woman folk always approve of them."
Schmidt rolled his eyes heavenward in despair.
"But, when we tell them of the ten per cent. cut!Ach, Himmel!"
Cicily turned a startled glance on her husband.
"A ten per cent. cut!" she exclaimed, involuntarily. "Why, Charles!"
Hamilton was annoyed by this unexpected irruption of the feminine into the most serious of business discussions—the intrusion of the female on the financial. He spoke with distinct note of disapproval in his voice:
"Now, Cicily, you know nothing of this."
Delancy, too, added the weight of his accustomed authority.
"Don't bother with things that do not concern you, Cicily." There was a patronizing quality in the admonition that irritated the wife.
Ferguson spoke to the same effect, but with a radically different motive underlying his words:
"Of course, it don't concern you, Mrs. Hamilton. I guess you'll be glad to have some more money to put in bath-tubs and libraries and gymnasiums. No,ma'am, it don't concern you. But it'll make some difference to our wives and daughters, I'm thinking—ten per cent. out of the pay-envelope every week. It'll take the curl out of my Sadie's false hair, all right."
"There will be always some good in everything," Schmidt murmured cynically, but not loud enough for the Yankee to hear.
Cicily was aware of the tension about her, and deemed it the part of wisdom to create a diversion.
"What a coincidence!" she exclaimed, gayly. "Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Ferguson and Mrs. McMahon are all coming around here this afternoon. I invited them to attend a meeting of our club."
The dignified face of Mr. Delancy, which was that of the old-school business man, clean-shaven save for the white tufts of side-whisker, was distorted by an emotion of genuine horror; his pink cheeks grew scarlet.
"Cicily!" he gasped.
Hamilton, too, was hardly less disconcerted, for all his familiarity with his wife's equalization whimsies.
"Invited them here?" he questioned, frowning.
The manner of both utterances was of a sort thatmust inevitably offend the husbands of the women. Cicily, with the sensitiveness of her sex, sought to cover the impression by speaking with a manner of increased enthusiasm.
"Oh, yes," she answered. "Isn't it good of them? They have promised to return my call this afternoon."
Ferguson yielded to a Yankee propensity for dry humour:
"I only hope that Mr. Delancy and Mr. Hamilton won't be too nice to them."
McMahon, too, would have made some comment; but Hamilton, who now perceived his blunder, which might have a disastrous effect on the attitude of these men toward him, hastened to make a diversion on his own account.
"Now, men," he said, as affably as he could contrive, "I've made you acquainted with the difficulties and the necessities of the situation. As I said before, I depend on your loyalty.... Will you let me hear from you later in the afternoon to-day?"
"You'll hear from us, all right," the Yankee assured his employer, with significant emphasis, before Schmidt had a chance to speak; and McMahon nodded agreement.
Once again, Cicily strove to lighten the mood of the men.
"If you're going away to think something over, be sure you come back in time to take your wives home, after they've joined the club. It's the Civitas Society, you know, for the up-lift of women."
No sooner were the members of the committee out of the room than Cicily turned anxiously to her husband.
"Oh, Charles," she exclaimed, "tell me! It's not true, is it, that there's to be a cut in wages at the factory?"
Hamilton turned away impatiently from the appealing face.
"Cicily," he said shortly, "Uncle Jim and I are very busy. We have business of the highest importance to discuss."
Delancy, who from long experience knew much concerning his niece's wilfulness, now read aright the resolute expression on her face. He tugged nervously at his tufts of whisker, and spoke in a tone of resignation:
"Oh, tell her, Charles, and have done with it.... Or, listen, Cicily. It's this way: Thesemen are getting more money than they ought to get. Charles can't make a penny profit, running his business this way. That's all there is to it—he's got to cut them ten per cent. I've advised it, myself."
Cicily's charming nose was now distinctly tip-tilted, whatever might be its normal line.
"Yes, I'd expect you to advise it, Uncle Jim," she remarked, dryly. She turned to her husband, accusingly. "But, Charles, there is no reason why you should follow his advice. Why didn't you ask me? I'm your partner. I don't think you have treated me fairly in this."
Hamilton, overwrought and exasperated by the multiplication of his worries, began a sharp answer; but it was interrupted by the decisiveness with which his wife went on speaking:
"Charles, you have treated me like a child, like a fool.... And you said that you'd let me help you!"
This reproach appealed to Hamilton as grossly unfair.
"Why, Cicily," he exclaimed, "I did let you help. I've let you do everything that you wanted to do—no matter how—" In a sudden access of discretion, he choked back the "foolish."
Delancy, presuming on the right of criticism that had been his during the years of guardianship, spoke with a candor that was not flattering.
"He let you do more than I'd have let you do. He let you waste your money on bath-tubs and libraries, and such foolishness, to make the men dissatisfied. I wish somebody would tell me what a man working for two dollars a day can do with a bath-tub and a library at the works."
"If anybody were to tell you, you wouldn't listen," was Cicily's pert retort.
Delancy tugged at his wisp of whisker, and wagged his head dolefully.
"I don't know what young women these days are coming to," was his melancholy comment.
"What you men are driving us to, you mean!" Cicily fairly snapped. It was difficult enough to manage her husband, without having her position jeopardized by the interference of this meddlesome old man, who stood for that exclusion of her sex against which she was fighting. She went to the chair in which Ferguson had been sitting, and reclined there in aposture of graceful ease that was far from expressing the turmoil of her spirit. As he watched her movements, and studied the loveliness of her, with her delicate face aglow and her amber eyes brilliant in this mood of excitement, Hamilton forgot his worriment for the moment in uxorious admiration. He was smiling fondly on his wife, even as Delancy uttered an exclamation of rebuke to him:
"And you're her husband!" His emphasis made it clear that a husband like himself would have suppressed such insubordination long ago.
"Well," Hamilton replied placidly, and with a hint of amusement in his voice, "you brought her up, you know."
"I did not—no such thing!" the old man spluttered. In his indignation, he pulled so viciously on a whisker that he winced from the pain, which by no means tended to soothe his ruffled temper.
"You're quite right, Uncle Jim," Cicily agreed, with dangerous sweetness in the musical voice. "Of course, you never had any time to pay attention to me, or to Aunt Emma either, for that matter. Oh, no, you were too much absorbed in that horrid business of yours. You drove Aunt Emma into workingfor the heathen, and incidentally, you did teach me one thing: you taught me what sort of a wife not to be. I learned from you never to be married after the fashion in which you and Aunt Emma are married."
Delancy was not blest with an overabundant sense of humor. Now, he forgot the general charge against him in shocked surprise over the final statement, which he took literally.
"Look here, Cicily," he remonstrated. "It took twenty-two minutes in the old First Presbyterian Church to marry your Aunt Emma and me. You couldn't possibly get a more binding ceremony."
Cicily laughed disdainfully.
"Well, it's my opinion that you've never been married at all, really," she persisted, with a bantering seriousness. "You wouldn't have been really married if you had spent two whole days in the church." Then, in answer to the pained amazement expressed on her uncle's face, she continued succinctly: "Yes, I mean it, Uncle Jim. Aunt Emma has been second wife ever since those twenty-two minutes in the old First Presbyterian Church, to which you referred so feelingly.... And she has my sympathy. You married business first, and Aunt Emmaafterward. Business had the first claim, and has always kept first place. That's why Aunt Emma has my sympathy."
Delancy rose from his chair, greatly offended, now that he perceived the manner in which he had been bamboozled by the wayward humor of his niece. He moved toward the door at a pace as hurried as dignity would permit. There, he turned to address his disrespectful former ward.
"Charles has my sympathy!" he growled; and stalked from the room.
"Don't forget that you are coming to dinner on Sunday—with your second wife!" the irrepressible Cicily called after him impertinently. But, if the reminder was heard, it was not answered; and husband and wife were left alone together.
Hamilton would have remonstrated with his bride over her wholly unnecessary irritating of her uncle, but he was not given an opportunity. Before the door was fairly shut behind her offended relation, Cicily took the war into the enemy's camp by a curt question:
"Now, Charles, why do you cut wages?"
"Because I have to," was the prompt response.
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell you? Nonsense!" The man's tone was expressive of extreme annoyance.
"But I'm your partner," Cicily persisted bravely, although her heart sank under the rebuff. "You yourself said that I was."
"Well, and so you are, since you want it so," Hamilton admitted; "and you're attending to your end, aren't you?"
"Yes, the little end," Cicily agreed, disparagingly.
At that, Hamilton was plainly exasperated.
"What end did you expect?" he demanded. "I tell you, Cicily," he continued, in the tone of one arguing with labored patience to convince a child of some truism, "that business is too big, too serious, too strong for a woman like you, my dear."
"Yes, that's just the fear that grips my heart sometimes, Charles," the wife admitted. With an ingenuity characteristic of her active intelligence, she had perceived a method whereby to twist his words to her own purpose. "Look here!" she went on in a caressing voice, utterly unlike the emphatic one in which she had spoken hitherto. "Do you for a moment imagine that I really like business? Well,then, I don't—not a little bit! For that matter, hardly any woman does, I fancy. As to myself, Charles, I'm afraid of it—that's the whole truth. I'm only in it to watch it—and you!"
The change in her manner had immediate effect on the husband. Again, he was surveying her with eyes in which admiration shone. For the ten-thousandth time, he was reveling in the beauty of that oval contour, in the tender curves of the scarlet lips.... But he forgot to voice his thoughts. Indeed, what need? He had told her so many times already!
"You talk as if business were a woman," he said, with a smile of conscious sex superiority, "and as if you were jealous."
Cicily concealed her resentment of the patronizing manner, and replied with no apparent diminution in her amiability:
"That's just it: I am jealous!"
"Good heavens!" Hamilton cried, indignantly. "Surely, you know that I never think twice of any woman I meet in business."
The wife smiled in high disdain.
"Woman!" she ejaculated, with scornful emphasis. "I'm not in the least afraid of any woman beingmore to you than I am, Charles. Just let one try!"
"Why, what would you do?" Hamilton inquired, curiously.
The answer was swift and vigorous, pregnant with the insolent consciousness of power that is the prerogative of a lovely woman. Cicily leaned forward in her chair, and the golden eyes darkened and flashed.
"Why, I'd beat her! I'd be everything to you that she was—and more. I'd outdress her, I'd out-talk her, I'd outwit her, I'd out-think her. I'd play on your love and on your masculine jealousy. Oh, there'd be plenty of men to play the play with me. I'd be more alluring, more fascinating, more difficult, until I held you safe again in the hollow of my hand, and then—why, then, I'd be very much tempted to throw you away!"
The verve with which this girl-woman thus vaunted her skill in the use of those charms that dominate the opposite sex thrilled and fascinated the lover, pierced the reserve that possession had overcast on ardor. His cheeks flushed, under the provocation of the glances with which she marked the allurements of which she was the mistress. As she finished speaking, he sprang up from his chair, caught her in his arms,and drew her passionately to his breast. But Cicily avoided the kiss he would have pressed on her lips. With her mouth at his ear, she whispered, plaintively now, no longer boastful, only a timid, fearing, jealous woman:
"Yes, I can fight a rival who is a woman, Charles, and I can win. But this other rival, this fascinating monstrous, evil goddess—ah!"
Hamilton held his wife away from him by the shoulders, mid regarded her in bewilderment.
"Evil goddess!" he repeated, half in doubt as to her meaning.
"Surely, she must be that," Cicily declared, firmly; "this spirit who is the goddess of modern business, whom I feel absorbing you day by day, taking from me more and ever more of your thoughts, of your heart, of your soul, changing you in every vital way, and doing it in spite of all that I can do, though I fight against her with all my strength! Oh, it's terrible, the hopelessness of it all! Some day all of you will be gone, forever!"
"Swallowed up by the evil spirit?" Hamilton asked, quizzically, with a smile.
"Yes!" The answer was given with a seriousnessthat rebuked his levity in the presence of possible catastrophe.
The husband repeated his threadbare argument.
"But, dear," he urged gently, "you know that I love you just the same."
There was a curious, cynical sadness in the wife's voice as she replied:
"Probably, a man under ether loves one just the same. But who wants to be loved by a man under ether?"
"Cicily, you exaggerate!" Hamilton exclaimed. He dropped his hands from her shoulders, and reseated himself, while she remained standing before him. There was petulance in his inflection when he spoke again: "I have you, and I have my business."
Cicily made amouéthat sufficiently expressed her weariness of this time-worn fact.
"Your two loves!" she said, bitterly. "Now, at this moment, you think that they're equal. Well, perhaps they are—at this moment. Some day, the crisis will come. Then, you'll have to choose. It's a new triangle, Charles—the twentieth-century triangle in America: the wife, the husband and the business. Butremember: when the choice comes for us, I shall not be an Aunt Emma!"
The manner of his wife, as well as her words, disturbed the husband strangely. Never had she seemed more appealing in her loveliness, never more daintily alluring to the eye of a man; yet, never had she seemed to hold herself so coldly aloof, to be so impersonally remote. He felt a longing to draw her again into the gentle trustfulness of the maiden who had gloried in his love.
"What do you want me to do, dear?" he questioned. "I told you that you could help me. I let you help."
Cicily seated herself again before she replied. When, at last, she spoke, her voice was listless:
"Yes; you let me spend some of my own money for luxuries. It seems that I could have used it to better advantage in helping to pay the men their wages, and thus save you from a possible strike."
"No," was the serious response. "At best, that would have been only a makeshift—putting off the evil day. No; this thing must be fought out, once for all. We are running at a loss. To take moneyfrom you would be merely to waste it. Let me tell you, too, that there isn't a chance in the world for the Hamilton factory in the event of a strike."
Cicily seized on the admission as favoring her side of the argument.
"Then, you must not cut the wages," she declared, with spirit. "You must fight Morton and Carrington."
"How can one man fight the trust?" Hamilton questioned, in return. "No, I'm caught between the two millstones: Morton, Carrington, the trust, above; the men, labor, below. To live, I must cut into the men. That's business."
"Now, I know it isn't right," Cicily exclaimed. "Tell me," she continued, bending forward in her eagerness, until he could watch the beating pulse of her round throat, "if I were to give you all my money, couldn't you fight, and yet keep up the wages? I have quite a lot, you know. It was accumulating, uncle said, all the time while I was growing up." She refused to be convinced by her husband's shake of the head in negation. "I've met a lot of their women and children, in these last few weeks, while I have been—playing at being in business. None of thefamilies have any more than enough for their needs—I know! Some of them have barely that. A cut in wages will be something awful in its effects. Why, Charles, some of the families have six or seven children."
"I know," the harassed employer acknowledged, with a sigh that was almost a groan. "But, Cicily, my dear, unless there is a cut, I shall be ruined. That is the long and the short of the matter. Unless I make the men suffer a little now, the factory must be closed down; all Dad's work must go for nothing. It's either I or them. If they don't take the cut for the time being, they'll soon be without any wages at all. Now, if you really want to help me, in a way to count, just do all you possibly can to prevent a strike. Then, you'll be helping me, and, too, you'll be helping them as well. Of course, you understand that I shall put back the wages as soon as ever I can."
"Good!" the wife cried, happily. "I'll help." Despite her distress over the situation as it affected both the workmen and her husband, she was elated by the fact that, at last, she was wholly within her husband's confidence; that, at last, she was actually tocoöperate with him in his business concerns: a practical, no longer merely a theoretical, partner! Hamilton himself gave the cap to the climax of her delight.
"Now," he said, with a tender smile, "you're positively in business, according to your heart's desire. You're on the inside, all ready to fight the what-do-you-call-it."
But a new thought had changed the mood of the impulsive bride. Of a sudden, she sobered, and her eyes widened in fear.
"Yes," she said slowly, tremulously; "I'll help you, Charles, in any way that I can, for a strike would be too terrible. It would come between you and me."
Small wonder that, Hamilton was astounded by this declaration on the part of his wife. His usually firm jaw relaxed, dropped; he sat staring at the fair woman opposite him with unrestrained amazement.
"How under heaven could a strike at the factory come between you and me?" he queried, at last.
The answer was slow in coming; but it came, none the less—came firmly, unhesitatingly, unequivocally.
"If there were to be a strike, I could not let those women and those children suffer without doing something to help them."
At this candid statement as to what her course would be, the husband stiffened in his chair. His expression grew severe, minatory.
"What?" he ejaculated, harshly. "You'd use your money to help them? My wife use her money to fight me?" His frown was savage.
Cicily preserved her appearance of calm confidence, although she was woefully minded to cower back, and to cover her eyes from the menace in his. She was a woman of strongly fixed principles, however chimerical her ideas in some directions, and now her conscience drove her on, when love would have bade her retreat.
"I'd use my money to keep women and children from starving to death," she said, in a low voice, which trembled despite her will.
Hamilton smothered an angry imprecation. He strove to master his wrath as he spoke again, very sternly:
"Cicily, you are my wife. You have said that you were my partner. As either, as both, you haveresponsibilities toward my welfare that must be respected."
"I'm a woman, with responsibilities as a human being first of all," was the undaunted retort. "I wouldn't be fit to be a wife, if I were to let women and children starve without trying to help."
"Nonsense, Cicily!" Hamilton's anger was controlled now; but he remained greatly incensed over this stubborn folly on his wife's part, as he esteemed it. "Strikers don't starve to death, nowadays. They have benefits and funds, and all sorts of things, to help them. They don't even go hungry."
"Then, why do they ever give in?" was the pertinent query. "I tell you they do go hungry—often, even at the best of times. I've been down among those people. I've seen them with three, six, children to feed and clothe, and rent to pay, on two to four dollars a day. What chance have they to save? I tell you, if there's a strike, some of them will starve, and, if you let them starve, Charles, you won't be my husband!"
"Cicily!"
"I mean it." The wife rose from her chair, wentto her husband, and kissed him, tenderly, sorrowfully. Then, she turned to leave the room.
But, before she reached the door, Hamilton spoke again, gravely, quite without anger:
"Cicily, my dear," he said, "I give you credit for being as sincere and honest as you are foolish. So, the only chance for all of us is that you should do your best now, at once, to prevent an issue that may spell catastrophe for all of us. It's up to you now, my dear partner, to do your best to win them, to keep them from striking."
The young wife paused in the doorway, and faced her husband. There was a trace of tears veiling the radiance of the golden eyes. Her voice quivered, but the low music of it was very earnest:
"I will, Charles—I will fight hard—my hardest—for my happiness and for yours!"
Mrs. Schmidt, Mrs. McMahon and Miss Sadie Ferguson, whom Cicily had selected as the principal beneficiaries in her initial work of up-lift, arrived a half-hour before the time set for the meeting of the Civitas Society, and were shown into the drawing-room. Mrs. Schmidt, a thin wisp of faded womanhood, effaced herself in a remote corner, while Mrs. McMahon, a brawny Amazon with red, round face and shrewdly twinkling eyes, frankly wandered about the room, scrutinizing the furnishings and ornaments and commenting on them without restraint. Sadie Ferguson, on the other hand, seated herself elegantly upright on an upholstered chair, and disported herself altogether after the manner of heroines of high degree as described by her favorite Brooklyn author. At times, she stared intently, as some impressive thing strange to her experience caught her eye; but always she recalled her manners speedily, and forthwith relapsed into a languid indifferenceof demeanor such as becomes the Vere De Vere. The trio had not long to wait before their hostess appeared, and greeted them with a genuine cordiality that put them at their ease, as far as ease was possible in an environment so novel. She was at pains to pay a compliment to the girl:
"Prettier than ever, Sadie!" she exclaimed, with honest admiration. And, in fact, the girl would have been charming, but for the disfiguring effects of an over-gaudy dress and an abominable hat.
"Aw, quit yer kiddin'," Sadie answered coquettishly, intensely pleased and quite forgetting the Vere De Vere manner in her pleasure over the compliment. An expression of horror came in her face, as she realized her violent departure from the ideal; and she added stammeringly: "I mean, you're really too kind, my dear Mrs. Hamilton." Having achieved this, the girl drew a long breath of relief. She felt that she had redeemed herself in the matter of social elegance.
Cicily smiled pleasantly on Sadie, then turned to Mrs. McMahon, for she was minded to put these women in the best of humors, in order thus to work toward the avoidance of a strike by means of theirinfluence over their husbands. She observed the hat that had been the cause of McMahon's complaint, which was, in truth, a riot of variegated ugliness. Cicily believed, however, that in this instance the end must justify the means.
"What a beautiful hat!" she cried, in a tone of convincing sincerity. She even clasped her hands to emphasize her admiration.
Mrs. McMahon preened herself, and tossed her head; so that feathers and flowers dashed their hues worse than before.
"It's nothing so much! It's just some odds and ends they threw together for me!"
"Odds and ends!" Cicily repeated, in a hushed voice; and she added, truthfully: "I never saw anything like it in my life." She purposely avoided directly addressing Mrs. Schmidt, for she was aware of the woman's painful shyness. "It was ever so good of you to come around this afternoon," she went on. "I'm going to have some friends here to meet you."
"Gentleman friends?" Sadie questioned, eagerly. Her face fell when Cicily answered in the negative,and she could not restrain an ejaculation of disappointment.
Mrs. McMahon felt it incumbent on her to administer a rebuke to the girl.
"What do you care, Sadie, so long as they're Mrs. Hamilton's friends?" And she added majestically, turning to her hostess: "Excuse her, ma'am."
At this public correction, Sadie flushed scarlet, and glanced appealingly toward Mrs. Schmidt.
"What a nerve!" she commented, angrily. Then, she addressed Mrs. McMahon herself. "If you will pardon me, Mrs. McMahon," she said, very haughtily, "I prefer to present my own apologies in individual person." And, finally, she turned to Cicily. "Mrs. Hamilton, if you consider my interrogation regarding the sex of your guests impertinent, my humblest apologies are at your disposal."
"And she didn't choke!" the Irishwoman murmured, admiringly.
Cicily insisted that there was no occasion for apology, and afterward went on to explain something as to the character and aims of the Civitas Society for the Uplift of Women. But here, at once, shefound herself beset with unexpected difficulties. Mrs. McMahon drew herself up with all the dignity of her great bulk, and voiced her feeling by the tone in which she asked:
"I would like to know, Mrs. Hamilton, if you think we are subjects for uplifting?"
"Can you beat it!" Sadie cried, in outraged pride.
Cicily hastened to soothe her guests by an explanation that was more ingenious than ingenuous.
"You don't understand," she remonstrated. "This is the club I spoke to you about. I want you to become members of the society. We need you to help in the work."
"You're on!" Sadie declared, with gusto. Again, she realized how she had departed from her idols. "I would say," she went on mincingly, "it will afford me great pleasure."
"You mean, then," Mrs. McMahon inquired, "that you've picked us out to help uplift the other women?" As Cicily nodded assent, she continued, condescendingly: "Well, if I do have to say it myself, there's many of them as needs it."
Presently, Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Morton were shown into the drawing-room, and welcomed by Cicily,who insisted on introducing them to "three other earnest workers." The newcomers submitted to the introductions with obvious unwillingness, and their acknowledgments were of the frigidest.
"They," Cicily explained, with a wave of her hand toward the three, "have had large practical experience in the work of the club."
"Sure, and I have that," Mrs. McMahon agreed, expansively; "and so have Frieda and Sadie—in a smaller way, of course."
Mrs. Carrington unbent so far as to ejaculate, "Indeed!" the while she surveyed the speaker through a lorgnette; and Mrs. Morton added an unenthusiastic, "Really!"
Cicily, who was all anxiety to establish harmonious relations between the two parties of her guests, since so much might depend on the result of her efforts, spoke placatingly to the company:
"I'm sure you ladies will find one another entertaining."
"Oh, vastly entertaining, no doubt!" Mrs. Morton replied; but her tone was far from satisfactory to the worried hostess. Nor was the manner of Mrs. McMahon calculated to relieve the tension.
"If I live, I'll have the time of my life!" she declared, grimly. She turned to Mrs. Morton: "Is your husband's family any relation to the Mortons of County Clare, if I may make so bold as to ask?"
"Yes," Mrs. Morton answered, with much complacency. "Mr. Morton at present keeps up his old family estate in Ireland."
"Sure, and that wouldn't bust him," Mrs. McMahon commented caustically. "I remember the estate—a bit of a cabin in a bog." The Amazon's huge frame shook as she chuckled. "Just ask your husband; he'll remember me well. Sure, the last time I saw him was when his aunt, Nora, married Tom McMahon, my husband's uncle. Faith, it's cousins we are by marriage."
What might have been Mrs. Morton's attitude toward this suddenly discovered kinship must remain forever in doubt; for, to Cicily's unbounded relief, a diversion was now offered by the appearance on the scene of Mrs. Flynn, Miss Johnson and Ruth Howard. Once again, the necessary introductions were made. Mrs. Flynn displayed astonishment at the style of these "ladies," but contrived a neutral manner that was void of offense. Miss Johnson wasdistant, but Ruth was honestly pleased with this opportunity for sisterly association for the sake of uplift, and rolled her large eyes ecstatically.
"These ladies," Cicily explained anew, "are the members whom the club has met to consider. They have had wide experience in the great work of helping women."
"Indeed, and you're right, Mrs. Hamilton," Mrs. McMahon affirmed. "Whenever anything happens on the block, it's Katy McMahon they send for. Faith, setting-ups and laying-outs are my specialties."
Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Morton had withdrawn to atête-à-têteat some distance, where they were engaged in a low-toned conversation, punctuated by many head-shakings. The hostess had seated the new arrivals in chairs opposite Mrs. McMahon and Sadie. It was evident by their exclamations that Mrs. Flynn and Ruth were mystified and impressed by the Irishwoman's explanation. But Miss Johnson maintained an air of impenetrable reserve.
"Setting-ups!" quoth the militant suffragette.
"Laying-outs!" sighed Ruth; and she turned up her eyes, with a blink of inquiry.
"Yes," Mrs. McMahon went on, unctuously; "setting up with the sick, and laying out the dead. Faith, sometimes, I have to be nurse and undertaker, all in one."
"So," Ruth gushed, unrolling her eyes with some difficulty, "sitting up with the sick, and laying out the dead, is your great work!"
"Oh, not that entirely," the Irishwoman continued, "not that entirely! Of course, I have to run my house; and, now and then, when a family's too poor to have a doctor, 'tis myself that brings a baby into the world on the side, so to speak. Having had five myself, I'm quite familiar with the how of it."
There came a horrified gasp from the women listening.
"Cheese it!" Sadie whispered, fiercely. From her study of the favorite author, she surmised that Mrs. McMahon was wandering far afield from the small talk of a Clara Vere De Vere. "Your subject for conversation is really positively shocking and disgusting," she added, aloud.
Cicily attempted yet once again to establish harmony among discordant elements.
"Mrs. McMahon has done so much good in homesof suffering," she said gently, "that she's very direct in her speech."
The good-natured Irishwoman herself chose to make theamende honorable, but after her own fashion.
"Sure, excuse me, ladies," she exclaimed, heartily. "Faith, I didn't mean to speak of anything so unfashionable as the bearing of children."
Mrs. Delancy and a friend entered at this moment, to the great relief of Cicily, who greeted her kinswoman warmly, and at once led her toward Mrs. McMahon.
"Here is someone whom you know, Aunt Emma," she said, with significant emphasis.
Mrs. Delancy, after one look of shocked amazement at the unwieldy figure squeezed into a gilt chair, which threatened momentarily to collapse under the unaccustomed burden, recovered the poise of the well-bred woman of unquestioned social position, and went forward cordially, holding out her hand.
"Oh, it's Mrs. McMahon!" she exclaimed, with a pleasant smile. "I'm delighted to have you with us in this work."
Under this geniality, all of the Irishwoman'sresentment vanished, and she returned the greeting warmly.
"And how is little Jimmy?" Mrs. Delancy continued, returning to Mrs. McMahon, after having spoken to Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie.
Thus addressed, the maternal Amazon displayed certain evidences of confusion, and, indeed, seemed inclined to evade the issue, for she replied after a little hesitation:
"Sure, ma'am, Michael and Terence and Patrick and Katy and Nora are all fine."
"And Jimmy?" Mrs. Delancy persisted, albeit somewhat puzzled by the woman's manner.
"Well, ma'am," Mrs. McMahon made answer, with an embarrassment that was a stranger to her "you see, ma'am, there's only five, at present.... We haven't had Jimmy yet!"
There came a gasping chorus from the whole company. Cicily, who had taken her position behind the table set for the presiding officer of the Civitas Club, lifted a scarlet face, as she beat a tattoo with the gavel, and called out bravely:
"The Civitas Society will now come to order!"
There was a little delay while the members of the club shifted positions in such manner as to bring them facing the president. When this had been accomplished, the militant suffragette at once stood up, and spoke with the aggressive energy that marked her every act.
"I move that we dispense with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting."
"Yes, I think we ought to," Cicily agreed, and she smiled approval on Mrs. Flynn. "In fact, there were no minutes."
But Mrs. Carrington nourished rancor against her rival for the presidency, and the fact that Mrs. Flynn had made a suggestion, was reason enough why she should combat it.
"I think," she remarked coldly, getting to her feet slowly, "that we should certainly read the minutes. It's most interesting to read the minutes." She re-seated herself, with an air of great importance.
"But," Cicily objected, "there are no minutes."
Mrs. Carrington did not trouble to rise for her retort:
"I don't see what that has to do with the question at issue."
"Oh, very well, then," Cicily rejoined, with one of those flashes of inspiration that were of such service to her as a presiding officer, "you read them yourself, Mrs. Carrington." At this happy suggestion, Mrs. Carrington uttered an ejaculation, but vouchsafed nothing more precise. Cicily waited for a few seconds, then continued gaily: "Now that the minutes are read, the specific business before the house is the consideration of new members. All working clubs to be successful must take in constantly virile, live members."
Mrs. Morton, who had by no means forgotten her conversation with Mrs. McMahon and cherished a distinct grudge against that excellent woman, voiced a caution:
"But, Mrs. Hamilton," she objected, "due care should be exercised in the selection."
"The club cannot be too careful," Mrs. Carrington agreed.
Mrs. McMahon was fuming in her chair, evidently on the edge of an outbreak. Mrs. Delancy saved the situation by prompt action.
"I think," she said, rising, "that, if new members are to be voted on, they should not be present in the meeting during the discussion."
"Oh, yes," Cicily made decision, with a smile of gratitude for her aunt. She nodded brightly toward the three candidates, and addressed them in her most winning voice.
"Mrs. McMahon, will you and Mrs. Schmidt and Miss Ferguson kindly await the club's action in the next room?" She indicated the curtained archway that led into the withdrawing-room at the back.
"Certainly, ma'am," the Irishwoman answered, with a rough haughtiness all her own. She heaved herself up from the gilt chair, which seemed to creak a sigh of relief; and the trio went out in the midst of a deep silence.
Their departure set free a babel of chatter, a great part of it addressed in personal remonstrance to the presiding officer. Cicily lost patience, and called out sharply, with the authority of her office:
"Any member addressing the chair will please follow the usual parliamentary procedure!"
Mrs. Carrington was the first to take advantage of the formal method. Sitting elegantly in her place, she spoke:
"Madam Chairman, I rise to a point of order."
"Very well, then, Mrs. Carrington," Cicily rejoined, with her most official manner, "please rise."
The outraged member bounced to her feet with an alacrity that was not her habit. It was evident that the lady was angry.
"Really," she declared in an acid voice, "I never in my whole life—"
"What was your point of order?" Cicily interrupted, blandly.
"Why, well—well—that is, I've forgotten it now. But it was very big!"
The presiding officer's sense of humor ran away with her discretion.
"The chair," she announced gravely, "regrets exceedingly that the member found her point of order too big to raise."