When Mrs. McMahon, Mrs. Schmidt and Miss Ferguson were ushered into the drawing-room of the Hamilton house, Cicily was there, ready to welcome her guests warmly.
"And how is Madam President of our club?" she said with a delightful assumption of deference to Mrs. McMahon, who bridled and simpered in proud happiness over this recognition of the honor she enjoyed.
"Indeed, she's as proud as a peacock, that she is," she avowed candidly. "And, if you noticed, Mrs. Hamilton, I didn't so much as say how do you do to the man at the door, as I always have before, nor even so much as look at him.... For such is the high-society way of it, they're after telling me."
Cicily smiled, and then addressed Sadie with a like cordiality.
"Everything is shipshape, Miss Secretary?" she inquired.
"This club could go ten rounds without turning a hair," was the spirited reply. Then, the ambitious girl recalled her most esteemed author, and paraphrased her statement: "I mean, every thing is really quite splendid."
Mrs. Schmidt, too, smiled in appreciation, although without committing herself to words, when she was addressed as Madam Vice-President. Then, after all were seated, the Irishwoman delivered herself of a message of gratitude.
"Mrs. Hamilton," she said, and her great, round face was very kindly, "we want to thank you here and now for that last cheque. You'll be glad to know that Murphy's babies are fine and dandy; and those Dagos—you know, the ones in the sixth floor front in Sadie's house—faith, the wife come home from the hospital last night looking just grand."
"And say, Mrs. Hamilton," Sadie interrupted enthusiastically, again forgetful of niceties in diction by reason of her excess of feeling, "maybe you ain't in strong with that bunch! They were all singing and praying for you all last night to beat the band. They made so much fuss Pop had to go up with a club, and threaten to bust some heads in before anybodycould get to sleep in the house. Of course, father didn't understand. He heard them say something about Hamilton, and guessed they might be some sort of poor connection of the boss."
Cicily, pleased by this information as to the gratitude of those whom she had sought to serve, yet tried to change the subject for modesty's sake.
"You, Mrs. McMahon," she directed briskly, "must be in charge. You must let me know about the sick ones and the hungry ones, and then I'll see what can be done."
"'Deed, and I will that," was the eager response. Then, the Irishwoman shook her huge head admiringly. "Sure, when the women get the votes, you'll be elected alderman from the ward." But, as Cicily would have laughingly protested against this arrant flattery, a sudden thought came to the President of the new club, and she spoke with an increase of seriousness: "And, oh, I was forgetting one thing! What do you think now, Mrs. Hamilton? Carrington's men have been around!" In answer to her hostess's look of bewildered inquiry, she explained the significance of the fact: "Yes, Carrington—bad luck to him!—is getting ready to start anotherfactory, they say; and, so, he wanted to see how many of the boys he could get." Cicily uttered an exclamation of astonishment, mingled with alarm, at the news. "Yes, ma'am. I was talking to Mike McMahon, and telling him that, after all, I thought Mr. Hamilton was on the level, and that it would be a good thing to take the cut for a little while. And, then, he got mad, and he blurted out the whole thing to me. It's Tim Doolin, him what used to work in the Hamilton factory, and was discharged, and so went over to Carrington's. He's come around as a sounder. He's been advancing the boys a little on the side, and promising them good jobs and steady wages, if they'll hold out until Carrington is ready to use them at his place." The Amazon, who had raced through her narrative, paused, panting for breath.
Cicily was tense in her chair, with her cheeks flaming indignation, her golden eyes darkened with excitement.
"So," she exclaimed fiercely, "that's the way they are fighting! Shameful!"
Cicily was in the throes of a righteous wrath. Unaccustomed to the sharp practices that are enduredalmost without rebuke in the world of business affairs, this revelation of trickery on the part of her husband's enemies filled her with a disgusted horror. There was in the girl-wife a strong quality of the protecting maternal love in her attitude toward her husband. It was in obedience to its impelling force that she had followed so steadfastly her ambition to help him in his business, to be his partner. It was the dominance of this feeling that had caused her to stay on in her husband's house to comfort him, and if possible to save him, in the time of his tribulation. So, now, this phase of character caused her to resent as something unspeakably vile the machinations just revealed to her. There and then, she uttered a silent vow to worst these sinister foes by fair means or by foul. Her will commanded their undoing, no matter how unscrupulous the method; and conscience voiced no protest.
A movement of expectancy among the three visitors aroused Cicily from the fit of abstraction into which she had fallen, and on which the others had not ventured to obtrude themselves. She looked up, and then, following the direction of her guests' gaze, turned to see her husband, standing motionless justwithin the doorway of the drawing-room. He was staring with obvious amazement at the trio of women in his wife's company. Moreover, it was easy to judge from the expression on his face, with the brows drawn and the mouth set sternly, that his amazement was not builded on pleasure.... Cicily immediately rose, forgetful for the moment of her plans for vengeance against the plotters, and went forward with a pleased smile. She was well aware that her husband would not regard this visitation with equanimity, but she hoped to prevent any overt act on his part that might fatally antagonize these women, whose good will she had struggled so hard to regain for his sake. So, she faced him with an air of happy self-confidence, and spoke with the most musical cadences of her voice, the while the caress of her eyes sought to beguile the frown from his face.
"Charles, you know Mrs. McMahon, and Mrs. Schmidt, and Miss Ferguson."
"Yes, I know them," came the uncompromising answer. The grimness of his face did not relax. He had had a day of tedious worries, and the sight of the women here in his own home exasperated himalmost beyond the point of endurance. "An unexpected pleasure!" he added, with an inflection that was unmistakable.
"Oh, we didn't come to see you, Mr. Hamilton," Sadie declared resentfully, in answer to that inflection. "We came to see your wife."
"These are the officers of our new woman's club," Cicily interposed, hastily. "Do sit down for a moment, Charles." She returned to her own chair; but Hamilton made no movement to obey her request. Instead, he addressed the visitors in a tone even more unpleasant than that which he had used hitherto.
"Oh, you came to get something from Mrs. Hamilton," he sneered.
"Indeed, and we did not!" the Irishwoman retorted roughly, furious at the insinuation. But her anger melted as she caught Cicily's pleading eyes. There was a grateful softness in the brogue as she added: "Sure, she's given too much already, and that's the truth."
There was no hint of relaxing in the tense severity of Hamilton's face, as he replied, without a glance toward his wife:
"So, Mrs. Hamilton has been helping the wives of the men?"
"'Tis that same she's been doing—the saints preserve her!" Mrs. McMahon answered, with pious fervor. "Faith, if the women could vote, it's president they'd make her, so it is."
Cicily could not resist a temptation to appeal.
"Charles," she urged, "if only you'll have a little patience, you'll find that they can be of service—of great service!"
Still, Hamilton ignored his wife utterly, while he addressed the three women impersonally.
"I did not know that the men were in the habit of using their wives in a strike like this." His manner was designedly offensive.
Again, it was Sadie who was first to retort, which she did with a manner that aped his own insolence.
"Well, if Mrs. Hamilton can butt into it, it's a cinch we can!"
The man's face darkened with wrath. His voice, when he spoke, sounded dangerously low and controlled.
"Mrs. Hamilton has nothing whatever to do with my business affairs," he declared, explicitly. "Shehas nothing whatever to do with this strike. If you women come from the men, go back and tell them that I'm not dealing with women—neither now nor in the future. If they want anything at any time, let them come for it themselves."
"Can you beat it?" Sadie demanded wonderingly, of the universe at large.
But the Irishwoman took it on herself to answer, with an explicitness equal to Hamilton's own:
"Faith, and we didn't come to see you, as you know very well, I'm thinking. If it wasn't for Mrs. Hamilton—God bless her—we wouldn't be here at all.... And 'tis sorry I am we are."
"Then, you'd better go, and relieve your feelings," was the tart rejoinder. "And you will please remember one thing: Mrs. Hamilton has absolutely no influence of any kind in this strike. I do not know in the least what she may have been doing; but, whatever it is, it's entirely apart from me."
"Charles, please—" Cicily would have protested. It seemed to her a vicious violation of good taste thus to air their marital disagreements in the presence of others. There was a perilous fire in the golden eyes; but Hamilton had no heed just now forniceties of conduct. He went on speaking, ruthlessly breaking in on his wife's attempted plea:
"Whatever Mrs. Hamilton has accomplished has been done without my consent and with her own money—entirely apart from me.... Good-day!"
Now, at last, Hamilton moved from the position he had steadily maintained before the doorway. He stepped to one side, and bowed formally to the three women, who rose promptly as they realized the significance of his action. Cicily, too, stood up, wordless in her suffering. For the moment, at least, her indomitable spirit was overwhelmed by this crowning misfortune, and she felt all her ambition hopelessly baffled. Through this last catastrophe, her benevolent scheming must be brought to nought. It was impossible for her to believe that these women, on whose support she had relied for so much that was vital to her plans, could remain loyal to her after the gross insult to which they had been subjected in her own house. She realized that, deprived of their aid, she could not hope to cope with the situation that threatened ruin to the man whom she loved. In that instant of disaster, she hated her husband as muchas she loved him, for his folly had destroyed all the structure of safety that her devotion had builded. So, she stood silent, watching the discarded guests as they walked toward the door. Her slender form was drawn to its full height; the scarlet lips were set tensely; the clear gold of her eyes burned with the fires of bitter resentment against this man whose blundering had wrought calamity.
Even as the three outraged women moved forward slowly toward the door with that slowness which their dignity demanded of them under the circumstances, there came an interruption.
A servant appeared in the doorway, and then stood aside to usher in three newcomers. These were no others than Mr. McMahon, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Ferguson, who halted in astonishment on the threshold, at beholding their wives thus unexpectedly bearing down on them in the house of the enemy. In their turn, the women came to an abrupt standstill, regarding the men with round eyes. For a few seconds, the six remained thus facing one another, too dumfounded by the encounter for speech.
Then, presently, the German uttered a guttural ejaculation in his own tongue, which seemed to relieve the general paralysis.
"Caught with the goods!" Ferguson exclaimed sardonically, with a scowl of rebuke directed toward his daughter.
At the same moment, McMahon fairly shouted an indignant question at his wife as to her presence in this house. But that Amazonian female did not shrivel before the blistering growl of her husband.
"Sure, I'll trouble you, Mike McMahon," she declared fiercely, "if it's endearing terms you're about to use, to wait till we get home." Under the spell of this admonition, the Irishman contented himself with subterranean mutterings, to which his wife discreetly paid no attention.
"But what's it all about?" Ferguson inquired sharply, of his daughter.
"Ah, forget it!" came the unfilial retort. Then, recalling the Vere De Vere, she amended her statement: "I mean, father dear, do not make a scene, I beg of you."
"A scene!" Ferguson exclaimed, savagely. "Why, I'll—"
What the irate Yankee might have done was never revealed, for he was interrupted by Cicily, who had now recovered her poise, so that she spoke pleasantly, favoring the tumultuous parent with her sweetest smile.
"Sadie and the other ladies came to call on me,Mr. Ferguson," she exclaimed, well aware that this announcement left the mystery of the women's presence as it had been before.
Mrs. McMahon, however, shed a ray of light on the puzzle.
"Faith, and 'tis that," she agreed, glibly. "We just dropped in for a cup of tea with a member of our club."
It was Hamilton who now interrupted further questions by the three husbands. He had been nervously fidgeting where he stood, and at last his impatience found vent in words.
"I'm not interested in these domestic affairs," he snapped. "If you men have anything to say to your wives and daughters, take them home, and say it to them there. This is not the place for it. There's only one thing that I have time to listen to from you."
Schmidt waddled forward a pace beyond his fellows, and addressed his former employer with the dignity born of constituted authority.
"Well, Mr. Hamilton," he said ponderously, with his accent more pronounced than usual by reason of the emotion under which he labored, "I speak asthe chairman of the committee. So, sir, you will listen to us right here and now." He paused for a moment to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with an adequately huge handkerchief.
Ferguson seized on the opportunity thus given to voice the rancor that was in his heart.
"Yes, yes," he cried excitedly, "you want to understand that we're men! We're striking—yes! But we're fighting you in the open, like men. And we've come to tell you that we're not going to stand for the way you fight.... Is that plain enough for you, Mr. Hamilton?"
The amazement of Hamilton over the charge thus brought against him was undoubtedly genuine. He stepped forward as if to strike, but checked himself almost instantly. There was no longer any look of boyishness in the drawn fare, with the chin thrust forward belligerently, the brows drawn low, the eyes blazing.
"The way I fight!" he repeated challengingly, menacingly.
Schmidt, having restored the handkerchief to its pocket, took up the accusation.
"Yes," he declared, with surly spitefulness. "Ihave been in a dozen strikes, and this is the first time any employer ever attacked me in my affections—through my Frieda." The German's narrow eyes were alight with venomous resentment, as he glowered at Hamilton.
Astounded by this attack, Hamilton forgot rage in stark bewilderment.
"What on earth do you—can you—mean?" he stormed.
"It is not right," was the stolid asseveration of the German. "The home is sacred." The speaker's tone was so malevolent that Hamilton was impressed, in spite of himself. And then, suddenly, a suspicion upreared itself in his brain—a suspicion so monstrous, so absurd, so baseless, so extravagantly impossible, that he would have laughed aloud, but for the sincerity of the feeling manifested in the faces of the men before him. His eyes roved from Schmidt to the faded woman who was the man's wife. He saw her shrinking behind the ample bulk of Mrs. McMahon, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as if in a wordless soliloquy. Then, again, his eyes returned to the man who had just uttered the preposterous accusation, and he beheld the usuallyjocund face distorted by a spasm of jealous fury, the insensate fury of the male in the loathed presence of a rival. No, here was no room for laughter. However ludicrous the mistake in its essence, its fruits were too serious for mirth. He turned his gaze on McMahon, and saw there the like virile detestation of himself. He ventured a glance toward the Amazon, who loomed over-buxom and stalwart. Again, he was tempted to amusement; but, again, a look toward the husband checked any inclination toward lightness of mood. Finally, he regarded Ferguson, and there, too, he beheld a passionate reproach. He did not trouble to stare at the girl. He remembered perfectly her cheap prettiness, her mincing manner, her flamboyant smartness of apparel from Grand Street emporiums of fashion. The strain of a false situation gripped him evilly, so that for the moment he faltered before it, uncertain as to his course. Denial, he felt, must be almost hopeless, since how could men capable of such crude stupidity digest reason? He hesitated visibly, and in that hesitation his accusers read guilt.
It was evident from a sudden, flaming red that suffused Mrs. McMahon's expansive countenance thatshe was beginning to grasp the purport of the accusations against Hamilton. She started toward her husband with a demeanor that augured ill for peaceful conference, when she was stayed by Cicily's grasp on her arm.
"Wait!" came the command, in a soothing voice. "Let me speak to these foolish men. You'll only stir them up, and make them worse." The Amazon yielded reluctantly, for she loved as well as honored the woman who had won her friendship by so much endeavor; but there was dire warning of things to come in the gaze she fixed on her suspicious husband.
"I'll not listen to this foolishness any longer," Cicily declared, dearly, in a cold voice that held the attention of all. "You men are too utterly absurd. There's no love lost between your wives and my husband, I assure you. If you had chanced in a few minutes earlier, you would have been well aware of the fact." Her statement was corroborated by the vehement nods of the women and the glances of disdainful aversion that they cast on the master of the house at this reference as to the status of their mutual affection. "Your wives and daughters," Cicily concluded haughtily, with a level look at the threehusbands, which was not wanting in its effect, "are my friends."
But Ferguson was not dismayed by the reproof.
"Yes, Mrs. Hamilton," he answered, with bitter emphasis, "you're the one—we know that! You're the cat's-paw, with your clubs and your benefits." He turned to Hamilton, and went on speaking with even greater virulence. "It's through her that you're fighting; it's through her that you're attacking us in our homes; it's through her that you're turning our wives and our daughters against us until our lives are miserable with them, morning, noon and night. They're forever talking against the strike, trying to make us come back to you, and to take the cut. And it ain't fair, I tell you! No honest employer would fight that way from behind a woman's petticoats. Women haven't got any place in business, according to our way of thinking. We didn't mind your wife's butting in with bath-tubs and gymnasiums and libraries, and such foolish truck as that; but, when it comes to mixing up in the strike, and organizing our wives and daughters against us, why, we kick. That's the long and the short of it, Mr. Hamilton. No real man would stoop to that sort of work. It's a woman'strick, that's what it is—and women have no place in business." Schmidt and McMahon, almost in unison, rumbled assent.
At last, the badgered employer felt himself sure of his ground.
"You're right, Ferguson," he declared, with intense conviction. "Women have no place in business. You don't need to argue to convince me of that fact. If you doubt my sentiments in that respect, just ask my wife—she knows what my ideas on the subject are. But I knew nothing of all this. Mrs. Hamilton has mixed herself up with this affair entirely without my knowledge or consent. She has nothing whatever to do with my business affairs. As for the future, you may rest assured—"
"You may rest assured," Cicily interpolated, "that Mrs. Hamilton will continue to do precisely as she pleases."
"But, Cicily—" Hamilton would have protested.
"Precisely as she pleases," came the repetition, with an added emphasis, which, Hamilton knew from experience, it would be useless to combat.
"Faith," exclaimed McMahon, in humorousappreciation of the scene, "the filly has the bit in her teeth and is running away."
Cicily, however, was not to be diverted from a frank exposition of her position. Now, she faced the men, and made clear her attitude:
"Let me tell you that Mrs. Hamilton is proud to be merely a member of the club which you have heard referred to and certainly she is not going to resign her membership in it. You men have your union. There's no reason why we women should not have our club as well. You say that I've been helping them. Very well, what of it? Yes, I have been helping them. Why shouldn't the women take money from me, I'd like to know. For that matter, it's nothing like what you men have been doing—taking money from Carrington and Morton.... And you talk about fighting fair!"
At the final statement made by his wife, Hamilton whirled on the men.
"What's that?" he fairly barked. "Are Morton and Carrington supplying you fellows with money to prolong the strike?"
"Yes," Cicily replied, as the men maintained a sullen silence. "And these men of yours have beenlistening to their lying promises about starting a new factory, as soon as you are down and out for keeps." She eyed the men scornfully, as she continued: "Haven't you the sense to see that it's merely a plan to ruin Mr. Hamilton completely? They want to kill him off for good and all. Then, when he's out of the way, you'll have to work for any sort of wages they are willing to give you. Good gracious, the scheme is plain enough! Why can't you see it as it is—a plot to do him up through you? A woman can see the inside of it easily enough!"
But her sensible argument was wasted on the men, who already had their opinions formed, and were not likely to change them readily at a word.
"Women have no place in business," Schmidt reiterated, heavily. "We have proved that. Now, Mr. Hamilton, you just keep your wife to yourself. We don't want her meddling around in our concerns. And we'll keep our wives to ourselves. They don't want you!" he added significantly; and McMahon and Ferguson endorsed the sentiment by vigorous nods of assent. "So," the German concluded, "we will settle this strike ourselves, like men, without any more woman's interference. Am I right?"
"That's exactly what I want you to do," Hamilton replied. "And any time you want to come back with the cut, let me know."
"I hope you won't hold your breath while you're waiting," the Irishman advised grimly.
"And I hope you won't be hungry," Hamilton retorted.
With this exchange of civilities, the meeting between the men and their former employer came to an abrupt end. Without any further farewells than a series of curt nods, the men filed from the room.
"I'm thinking that it's a pleasant talk we'll be having together, this night," Mrs. McMahon remarked judicially, after the departure of the committee. "So, it's thinking I am that we'd better start early, and then we'll have time a plenty to thrash it out with the boys. Good-by, Mrs. Hamilton.... And please to remember that the next meeting of the club is to be on the Thursday."
"I'll surely be there," Cicily promised.
The adieux were quickly spoken, and the women took their departure, leaving husband and wife alone together, standing silently.
Hamilton stirred presently, turned, and threw himself heavily into the nearest chair, whence he stared curiously at his wife with morose eyes of resentment. Cicily felt the scrutiny, but she did not lift her gaze to his. She was not shirking the conflict between them, which seemed inevitable after this last episode; but she was minded to let her husband begin the attack. In her turn, she sought a chair, into which she sank gracefully, and rested in a pose of languid indifference that was fascinating in itself, but at this moment for some inexplicable reason peculiarly aggravating to the man. It may be that her apparent ease at a critical period in their fortunes appealed to him as hatefully incongruous; it may be that the gracious femininity of her, her desirability as a woman, thus revealed by the lissome lassitude of her body, emphasized the fact that she was a creature created for joy and dalliance, not for the rasping stratagems of the market-place. Whatever the cause, it is certain that the lazy abandon of herposture irritated him, and it was with an attempt to veil his chagrin that at last he spoke:
"Well," he exclaimed petulantly, "some more of your work, I see!"
Cicily, however, disguised the fact that she winced under the contempt in his tone.
"Yes," she answered eagerly. "Now, don't you see that I was right?"
The device did not suffice to divert Hamilton from his purpose of rebuke.
"So," he went on, speaking roughly, "not content with forgetting your duty, not satisfied with your dreary failure as a wife, you've turned traitor, too."
"You seem to forget that it was yourself who failed in your duty—not I," Cicily retorted.
"Is that trumped up, farcical idea, your excuse for fighting me?"
"I'm not making any excuses," Cicily replied, stiffly. "And for the simple and very sufficient reason that I am not fighting you."
"Then, what under heaven do you call it?" Hamilton demanded, with a sneer. "Is it by any chance saving me?"
"Yes, I'd do that," came the courageous statement, "if only you'd let me."
"And your manner of doing it," Hamilton went on, still in a tone of sneering contempt, "I suppose would be by going on the way you have been going—giving money to my enemies, and so prolonging the strike, and so ruining me!"
"I do believe you are blind!" Cicily declared, angrily. She changed her pose to one of erect alertness, and her eyes flashed fire at her husband. "Is it possible that you don't appreciate why I gave those women money—why I helped them? Why, I wouldn't be a woman, if I didn't. As I've told you before, I was a woman before I became a wife. If keeping other women and little children from going hungry isn't wifely, isn't businesslike, then thank God I'm not wifely, not businesslike!"
"Well, you're not, all right," Hamilton announced succinctly. "I'm glad that you're satisfied with yourself—nobody else is."
"Oh, I know what you want," was the contemptuous answer. "You want the conventional, old-time wife, the sort that is always standing ready and waiting to swear that her husband is right, even when herinstinct, her brain, her heart, all cry out to her that he is wrong. Well, Charles, I am not that sort of wife, nor ever will be. The real root of the trouble is that we women are changing, developing, while you men are not: you are the same. We, as a sex, are growing up, at last; your sex is standing still. The ideas our grandmothers held, the lives they led, would kill us of dry rot. But you men are just where your grandfathers were in relation to your homes and your beliefs as to the duty of your wives. Of course, your old-time wife looked up to her over-lord with reverence; she hung on his every word with profound respect; she swore by his every careless opinion, without ever daring to call her soul or her mind her own. For that matter, why shouldn't she have done so? He was educated, after some sort of fashion at least; and he went abroad into the world, where he mixed with his fellows, where he did things, good or bad; while she, poor, pretty, ignorant doll, snatched up by him in early girlhood, and afterward kept sequestered, forced to assume the tragic responsibilities of a wife and mother before she was old enough to appreciate her difficult position—what chance did she have? Now, to-day, I tell you, it is all different.We're as well educated as you men—better, oftentimes. We have discovered that we can think intelligently; we do think. We, too, go abroad into the world; we, too, do things. Best of all, we see with a new, clearer vision. And we see certain things that you men have become blinded to through centuries of usage, of selfish, careless struggling for your own ends. We are able to see with the distinctness of truth the right relation of the man and the woman—an equal relation, with equal rights for each, with equal claims on each other, with equal duties to each other in the home and in the world outside the home—partners, held together by love."
"My dear," Hamilton remarked dryly, as his wife paused, "you have omitted one salient qualification of the modern woman: she is, preëminently an orator. Why, you, yourself, are a feminine Demosthenes—nothing less." But he abandoned, his tone of raillery, as he continued: "And so, what you've been doing—that's your idea of partnership, is it?"
"Yes," Cicily declared, spiritedly. "When one partner makes a mistake, it's the duty of the other to set things straight."
"By ruining him!" the husband ejaculated, in savage distrust.
"Have I ruined you?" There was a flame of indignation in the amber eyes, and the curving lips were turned scornfully; but there was a restrained timbre of triumph in the music of her voice. "No! Why, let me tell you something: Those women are for you, already. They are helping me against their husbands. You'll win in the end—in spite of all the damage you tried to do to-day with your colossal blundering. But they're loyal to me, and they'll forgive you for my sake, and they'll give you the victory in the fight.... Just wait and see!"
"Nonsense!" Hamilton mocked. He considered his wife's assertions as merely the maunderings of an extravagant enthusiast. She was sincere—more the pity!—but she knew absolutely nothing of the problems with which she insisted on entangling herself so futilely.
"I promise you," Cicily persisted, undismayed by her husband's jeering attitude of scepticism, "that you will win in the end. Yes, you will; because it is right: that you should. I am doing my part, not onlyto help you; but, too, because it is right. We owe a duty not only to ourselves, but to those people as well.... Even you must see that!"
"Well, I don't," Hamilton maintained, consistently. But he winced involuntarily under the expression of pity for his ignorance that now showed in his wife's face.
"Well, it only serves to illustrate what I said," Cicily went on, with a complacency that annoyed the man almost beyond endurance. "The woman has the clearer visions nowadays. That's where we differ from our dear departed grandmothers, from our mothers even. They had a personal conscience that stopped short at the front and back doors of the home. We women of to-day have a bigger conscience, which takes in the bigger family. It's a social conscience, and that it is which makes us different from those women of the earlier generations. Don't you see, Charles, that you and I are really a sort of big brother and sister to those in our employ? So, let us help them, even if we have to do it against their own mistaken efforts of resistance."
"Of course," Hamilton suggested, still sneeringly,"Morton and Carrington, too, are our dear brothers."
For an instant, Cicily was nonplused by the question; but, of a sudden, she received one of those inspirations on which she usually relied for escape from a predicament.
"Oh, yes, indeed," she replied happily, and beamed radiantly on her astonished husband, in anticipatory enjoyment of her repartee. "They're our bad brothers, whom we must spank—hard!"
"If there's any spanking to be done, I'll attend to it, myself," Hamilton declared, gruffly.
"Oh, very well," Cicily agreed. "But you don't seem to be doing it effectively at present.... Tell me, why are they paying the men to stay on strike?"
"It must be that they recognize the brotherhood claim of which you were speaking so eloquently." The man's voice was vibrant with sarcastic indignation.
"Now, see here, Charles," Cicily remonstrated, the flush in her cheeks deepening under the rebuff in his flippant answer. "You know why they're doing itjust as well as I do. It's simply because they want to keep you closed down, so that they can go on charging the independents twenty-two cents a box."
"No," the husband declared, enticed despite his will into discussing business for a moment with his wife, "they could charge them that anyhow. I couldn't interfere, because they have me tied up with a contract at eleven cents."
"Then, if I were you," Cicily argued with new animation, "I'd break that contract. Yes, I'd open up right away, pay full wages, and sell to the independents at fifteen cents a box. They'd come to you fast enough."
"Break a contract with a trust!" Hamilton jeered. He laughed aloud over the folly of this idea as a means of escape from disaster.
"What are contracts when the men are starving?" The question came with an earnestness that did more credit to the heart than to the head of the wife.
"If that isn't like a woman!" The man's tone was surcharged with disgust. "Cicily, I've had enough of this."
"Then, you won't fight?" An energetic shake ofthe head was the answer. "You won't help the men?" Again, the gesture of refusal. "You won't make any move at all?" A third time, the man silently denied her plea. "Then, I will!" Cicily concluded, defiantly. She leaned back in her chair, clasped her slender hands behind her head, and stared ceilingward, with the air of one who has pleasantly solved all the perplexities of life.
"Good heavens, what do you mean to do next?" Hamilton questioned, in frank alarm.
"Never mind: you'll see," came the nonchalant answer.
The contented air of the woman, coupled with her tone of assurance as she spoke, goaded the man to an assertion of authority.
"I demand that, as long as you're in my house—"
He was interrupted by the cold voice of his wife. She did not turn her eyes from their dreamy contemplation of the ceiling, nor did she alter in any way the languor of her posture, the indifference of her manner. But, somehow, the quality in her voice was insistent, and the gentle, musical tone broke on his delivery with a subtle force sufficient to halt it against his will.
"You can't demand," Cicily said, evenly. "We stopped that relationship three weeks ago."
"It is true," Hamilton answered, more quietly, "that you've refused to live with me as my wife. But, if you are to remain in my house, I must insist that you keep out of meddling with my business affairs. Otherwise, I shall be forced—"
Again, the softly spoken words from his wife's lips held a spell that checked his own, and compelled him to listen grudgingly.
"You cannot force me, Charles—for the simple reason that I won't leave. No, indeed! I am quite certain that when you think things over in a saner mood, you will be convinced of the fact that just at this time it would be highly inadvisable for you to complicate your affairs further by a public scandal. So, I tell you that I sha'n't go. I shall stay here until you are out of this mess. Since I feel that to be my duty, I shall do it!"
"Oh, Lord, if you were a man—!" Hamilton choked helplessly.
"If I were a man," was the placid conclusion offered by Cicily, "I suppose I'd sit still, and do nothing, like you. But I'm not a man, thank Heaven!...The only pity is, you won't take my perfectly good advice."
"Your advice—oh, the devil!" Hamilton sprang from his chair. His face was distraught, as he stood for a moment staring in baffled anger at his wife, who still held her eyes meditatively content on the ceiling. He clenched his hands fiercely, and shook them in impotent fury. "Your advice!" he repeated, in a voice that was nigh moaning. Then, he whirled about, and strode from the room, trampling heavily.
Cicily listened until she heard the door of the library slam noisily. In the interval, she retained her attitude of consummate ease. But, with the sound of the closing door, she was suddenly metamorphosed. Her eyes drooped wearily. She cowered within the chair as one stricken with a vertigo. The slender hands unclasped from behind her head, and shut themselves over her face. Her form was bowed together, and shaken violently. There came the sound of muffled sobs.
In the days that followed, Cicily found herself on the very verge of despair. She had pinned the hope of success for her husband on a restored influence with the wives of the leaders in the strike. She had felt confident that, with them fighting in her behalf, she would achieve victory. She had not doubted that these women could mold the men to their will. Now, however, she had, to a great extent, lost faith in the efficacy of this method. She had seen and heard those husbands defy their womankind openly. They, too, were obstinate in their belief that women should not obtrude into business affairs. She realized that she was combating one of the most tangible and potent factors in human affairs, the pride of the male in his dominion over the female—an hereditary endowment, a thing of natural instinct, the last and most resistant to yield before the presentations of reason. The resolute fashion in which her husband held to his prerogative of sole control was merely typical. These other men of a humbler class were like unto him.Evidently, then, she must contrive some other strategy, if she would save her husband from the pit he had digged for himself by yielding to the specious processes of Morton and Carrington. Yet, she could imagine no scheme that offered any promise of success.... She grew thinner, so that her loveliness took on an ethereal quality. Her nights were well nigh sleepless; her days became long hours of harrowing anxiety.
She was sitting in her boudoir late one afternoon, still revolving the round of failure in her plans. She had dressed to go out; but, at the last moment, a wave of discouragement had swept over her, and she had sunk down on a couch, moodily feeling that any exertion whatsoever were a thing altogether useless. She was disturbed from her morbid reflections by the entrance of a servant, who announced the presence of Mr. Morton and Mr. Carrington in the drawing-room, who had called to see Mr. Hamilton. In sheer desperation, with no precise idea as to her course, Cicily resolved to interview these callers, since her husband had not yet returned home. So, she bade the servant inform the gentlemen that Mr. Hamilton was expected to return very soon, and that in themeantime she would be glad to give them a cup of tea. As soon as the servant had left the room, she regarded herself minutely in the mirror, made some adjustments to the masses of her golden brown hair, pinched her pale checks until roses grew in them, observed that her skirt hung properly, and then descended to the drawing-room, which she entered with an air of smiling hospitality, of luminous loveliness, of radiant youthfulness, calculated to beguile the sternest of men from their habitual discretion.
The two gentlemen rose to greet her with every indication of pleasure. As a matter of fact, they enjoyed the charm that radiated from the beautiful young woman, but, in addition, they rejoiced in this opportunity to gather from her carelessness some information that the reserve of her husband would certainly have withheld. It was with deliberate suggestion that Morton addressed her heartily as "Mrs. Partner," having in mind a former interview, in which she had so declared herself. But it was Carrington who, after the three were seated, and while waiting for the tea-equipage, ventured to introduce the topic of his desires directly by asking how business was.
"Oh, business is booming!" Cicily answered, withsuch a manner of enthusiasm that it hoodwinked her hearers completely. They uttered ejaculations of surprise involuntarily, but managed to refrain from any more open expressions of wonder. "Oh, yes, indeed!" Cicily continued, following blindly an instinct of prevarication that had been suddenly born within her brain. "Isn't it splendid? We just ended our strike to-day." She stared intently at Carrington with sparkling eyes. It filled her with secret delight to witness the expression of consternation on that gentleman's face; and she could not resist the temptation to add maliciously, although she veiled her voice: "I know that you're glad for us, Mr. Carrington. I can just tell it by looking at you."
"Er—oh—yes, of course," Carrington stammered hastily, the while he attempted a wry smile. He pulled his handkerchief from a pocket, and wiped his forehead.
"Yes, indeed; we're both delighted," Morton added quickly, to cover the too evident confusion of his associate.
"Ah," Cicily went on gloatingly, turning the iron in the wound relentlessly, "it does surely make you feel good when you win a strike, doesn't it? Nextto an Easter hat, I think the winning of a strike is the grandest sensation!"
"So, you really won?" Morton inquired, half-suspiciously.
"Oh, yes!" Cicily assured him, with an inflection of absolute sincerity. Then, abruptly, the expression of her face changed to one of alarm, mingled with cajolery. "But, please, Mr. Morton," she pleaded, "you won't say anything about it, will you? Charles doesn't wish to have it announced just yet, for some reason or another."
"No, certainly not, Mrs. Hamilton," Morton assured her. "We won't tell of it."
"Thank you so much!" was the grateful response; and Cicily fairly dazzled the puzzled gentlemen by the brilliancy of her smile. "You know," she continued mournfully, "Charles did scold me so after you were here that other time when I talked to you. He scolded me really frightfully for talking so much.... It didn't do a bit of good my telling him that I didn't say a thing. But I didn't, did I?" She asked the question with the ingenuous air of an innocent child, which imposed on the two men completely.
"Indeed, you didn't!" Morton declared with much heartiness, as he darted a monitory glance toward Carrington. "Why, for a business woman, I thought you a very model of discretion, Mrs. Hamilton. And so did Carrington—eh, Carrington?"
"Exactly!" Carrington agreed under this urging of his master. "If all women in business were like Mrs. Hamilton here, business would not be so difficult."
Cicily felt the sneer in the words, but she deemed it the part of prudence to conceal any resentment. On the contrary, she assumed a hypocritical air of triumph.
"Good! I'll tell that to Charles," she declared, joyously. "You know he's such a horribly suspicious person that he doesn't trust anyone." Once again, she turned to Morton with an alluring smile. "Of course, he ought to be very glad, indeed, to trust you, his father's oldest friend."
"I hope that you told him that," Morton replied primly, albeit he was hard put to it to prevent himself from chuckling aloud over the naïveté of this indiscreet young woman.
Cicily maintained her mask of guilelessness.
"Yes, indeed, I did!... He said that was why he didn't trust you."
Morton saw fit to change the rather delicate subject.
"It must be a matter of great satisfaction that you have at last won this strike," he remarked, somewhat inanely.
"Of course, it is," Cicily agreed, with a renewal of her former enthusiasm. "Oh, I'm so glad, because now we can pay our men their old wages! That's how we won the strike, you know," she went on, with a manner of simplicity that was admirably feigned; "just by giving in to them. All we had to do was to give them what they wanted, and everything was all settled right away."
"Ahem!" Morton cleared his throat to disguise the laugh that would come. "Yes. I've known a good many strikes that were won in that same way."
Carrington, who had been ruminating with a puzzled face, now voiced his difficulty.
"To save my life," he exclaimed to Morton, "I don't see how Hamilton can pay the old wages, and deliver boxes at eleven cents. I couldn't do it!"
"Why, you see, that's just it," Cicily declared blithely, still following her inspiration with blind faith. "We're not going to deliver boxes at eleven cents."
At this amazing statement, the two men first regarded their hostess in sheer astonishment, then stared at each other as if in search of a clue to the mystery in her words. The entrance of a maid with the tea-tray afforded a brief diversion, as Cicily rose and seated herself at the table, where she busied herself in preparing the three cups. When this was accomplished, and the guests had received each his portion, Carrington at once reverted to the announcement that had so bewildered him.
"You say, you're not going to deliver boxes for eleven cents?" he said, tentatively.
"No," Cicily replied earnestly, without the slightest hesitation; "we're going to sell to the independents at fifteen. We've gone in with them, now." She felt a grim secret delight as she observed the unmistakable confusion with which her news was received by the two men before her.
"You say you've gone in with the independents?" Carrington repeated, helplessly. His mouth hungopen in indication of the turmoil in his wits as he waited for her reply.
"Yes, that's it!" Cicily reiterated, with an inflection of surpassing gladness over the event. "Oh, it does make me so happy, because now, you see, we can all be genuinely friendly together. We're not competitors any more."
But now, at last, Morton's temper overcame his caution. He turned to Carrington with a frown that made his satellite quake; but the fierceness of it was not for that miserable victim of his machinations: it was undoubtedly for Hamilton, who, according to the wife's revelations, dared pit himself against the trust by violating his contracts with it.
"We'll see Meyers about this," Morton declared, savagely. "So, he'd go in with the independents, would he? Well, let him try it on—that's all!"
Cicily stared from one to the other of the two men, with her golden eyes wide and frightened.
"Oh," she stammered nervously, "did I—have I said anything?... Oh, my goodness, Charles will be so angry!"
She maintained her attitude and expression of acute distress, while the two men rose, and, very rudely,without a word of excuse to their hostess, moved to the far end of the drawing-room, where they were out of earshot. But, on the instant when their backs were turned, the volatile young wife cast off her mock anxiety, and, in the very best of spirits, wrinkled her nose saucily at the disturbed twain.... And, as long as they conferred together, with no eyes for her, she sat alertly erect, smiling to herself, as one highly gratified by the course of events.
"Now, if only Charles doesn't spoil things again!" she murmured.
Morton and Carrington were just finishing their low-toned, but very animated, conference at the end of the drawing-room, when their attention, together with that of Cicily, was attracted by a noise at the door. All three looked up, to see Hamilton striding into the room. Behind him came Delancy. At a gesture of warning from his wife, Hamilton faced about, and saw his two business foes.
"Well, well, I didn't know that you were here," he exclaimed, with a fair showing of cordiality, as he advanced, and shook hands with the visitors. Delancy contented himself with bowing to each in turn, then went to Cicily, and asked for a cup of tea. During the few moments spent in offering this hospitality, Cicily whispered rapidly to the old gentleman, who appeared mightily startled at her words.
"Mrs. Hamilton has been entertaining us again," Morton remarked, in an acid tone, to his host. "Really, she has been rather more interesting than she was before."
At this statement, Hamilton shifted uneasily. He turned an indignant stare on his wife, wondering dismally what new imbroglio had been precipitated by her lack of restraint.
"Oh, you needn't look at me in that fashion," Cicily objected, with a pout. "I didn't say anything this time, either. I only told them about our winning the strike, and—"
"What!" Hamilton brought out the word like a pistol-shot.
"Surely, you couldn't mind my telling them that," Cicily said, in a voice suspiciously demure. "And that's all I told them, except—"
"Except what?" Hamilton fairly shouted.
"Why, except about the contracts to do the work for the independents at fifteen cents—that's all."
"You—you told them that!" the astounded husband gasped. He whirled toward Morton. "Why, it isn't so, Mr. Morton—not a word of it! You must realize that it isn't—that it couldn't be so."
Morton, however, was not convinced by the earnestness of the young man's repudiation. Instead, he looked his host up and down with a sneering scrutiny that was infinitely galling.