"Sure, and you don't need to trouble yourself, Mrs. Hamilton," the Irishwoman declared, viciously. "The likes of us know how you rich people have a habit of bringing us into your parlors to make fun for their friends. You come to our homes, and we treated you like a lady.

Faith, now we come here, and you treat us like monkeys--that's all the difference. We're much obliged to you for the lesson. Sure, and we won't bother you again, not a bit of it. And we'll be pleased if you'll treat us the same.... Good-day to you, Mrs. Hamilton." The irate woman bobbed her head energetically at her hostess, and strode toward the doorway into the hall. But she halted for a moment as Cicily addressed her impetuously.

"Mrs. McMahon, you must listen to me! I had no idea that this would turn out as it did. I have been your friend--I am your friend. When the club refused to admit you, I resigned from the club. There is nothing more that I can do. Oh, I am so sorry that it all occurred!"

"Faith, we'll take your explanation for all it's worth," was the wrathful woman's comment, uttered with scorn. She was too deeply hurt to be solaced by explanations that did not alter the shameful fact one whit. She turned again toward the doorway, only to be halted by the appearance there of her husband, accompanied by Schmidt and Ferguson.

McMahon paused just within the room, and stood rubbing his hands, and grinning jovially, his round face aglow with satisfaction. He addressed his wife banteringly, evidently in high good spirits:

"Faith, Katy McMahon," he exclaimed, "but you're looking proud the day!

Sure, now, I'll have the automobile to take us all up to Sherry's in just a minute, when we've done talking with Mr. Hamilton. Bedad, with our wives and daughters moving in such elegant society and members of such a grand club with the boss's wife, we wouldn't dare take them any less place at all!"

"It's a bad mind-reader you are!" fairly shouted the outraged wife.

Sadie added something unintelligible, it was so rapidly uttered and so venomously hissed. Even Mrs. Schmidt displayed every symptom of speech save sound.

"What's the matter, Sadie?" Ferguson demanded, not unkindly, as he observed the expression on his daughter's face. "Wasn't your false hair the right shade? I'm sorry, if it ain't, because I don't see as how I can buy you any more with this ten per cent. cut we're taking."

Instantly, Cicily aroused to new hope. She moved a stop forward, her hands up-raised in eagerness. A glow of color burned in either cheek, and her eyes sparkled again.

"Oh," she questioned tensely, "then you're not going to strike--you'll take the cut?"

It was Schmidt who answered, beaming happily on his hostess.

"Strike? Ah, no! When you make friends with our wives, and Mr. Hamilton, he tells us the truth just like one man with another, we appreciate it, yes; we stand by and help, yes!"

"Schmidt's right," Ferguson added. "Mr. Hamilton and you, ma'am, are human. So, we've decided to stick it out for a while, anyhow."

McMahon, too, yielded his tribute of commendation.

"Yes, Mrs. Hamilton," he said seriously, "there's one thing that the bosses generally don't understand; but the men always appreciate it when the boss, and the boss's wife, too, are on the level."

To the amazement of everyone, Mrs. Schmidt broke into speech; find that outburst was like the eruction of Krakatao in its unexpectedness, its suddenness, its overwhelming virulence.

"Yes, yes, yes," she clamored, addressing her hapless husband, who stood appalled before the attack, "you are one big, fat fool! You always were.

You are in love with her--no? You let her bring your wife here, make her for a joke to her rich friends, let her get insults. They laugh and make fun of me, Frieda Schmidt, your wife; and then, when they have had the good laugh, they say: 'What do you think we want of you? You are not like us. We are grand ladies: you are a working woman. Get out! Get out!

We have had our laugh at you. Now, go! We are through; we are tired of you. It was very good of Mrs. Hamilton to bring you here for us to laugh at; but it is over. Get out!'... And then you come and thank her because she insults your wife, insults your name; and you take less wages from her husband because she insults your name and me. If you take that cut, you are not my man--never with me no more!" With the last words, she darted from the room, and a moment later the street-door slammed violently behind her.

"Good for Frieda!" Mrs. McMahon applauded. "When she does talk, sure she says something.... You heard her, Mike McMahon? Well, what she said, them's my sentiments. You know what she did now." A jerk of the head indicated the wretched hostess. "She pretended to ask us to join a club.

She brought us here to insult us, to make fun of us. She made us the laughing-stock of Morton and Carrington's wives. Do you hear that?

Morton and Carrington! Put the names of them in your pipe and smoke it.

Mike McMahon, listen to what I'm telling you. If you take a cut from them that insult your wife, you can forget to come home for good, my bucco." In her turn, the Irishwoman stalked out of the room and from the house with a tread of heavy dignity.

"That goes with me, Pop!" Sadie declared, as she flounced out.

"It's all been a terrible mistake," Cicily ventured to the three men who stood regarding her with sullen faces and baleful eyes after the revelations that had just been made.

"I'm thinking you're right," McMahon agreed. There was something sinister in his voice. "But it's us that made the mistake. We thought the boss and his wife could be on the level with us. What a bunch of d.a.m.n fools we were!" And his two confreres nodded gloomy a.s.sent.

It was at this most unpropitious moment that Hamilton came briskly into the room. He stopped short in the doorway, at sight of the three men of the committee, who turned to face him.

"Well, boys," he exclaimed briskly, "have you decided?" The men nodded without speaking. "Well?"

"I'll do the talking," Ferguson said, holding up a hand to check Schmidt. "We've decided, Mr. Hamilton. We're going to strike. We'll make you come to terms, or we'll bust you if we can."

Hamilton's face hardened, and he squared his shoulders.

"I suppose you know what you're up against?" he questioned harshly.

"Yes, we've just found out," Ferguson retorted, with gusty rage. "We'd been thinking that you were on the level--you and your wife, too. We swallowed that funny story of your being crushed by the trust. Oh, we were suckers, all right. We were suckers for fair! We were going to fall for it. We were going take your cut. And then your wife brings our wives and daughters here, pretending she's going to put them in her club--brings them here to make a laugh for Morton and Carrington's wives. Yes, Morton and Carrington, the very men you say are crushing you, your enemies! Oh, your enemies are all right! Do you think we are fools? No, to h.e.l.l with you!" The furious man's voice rose to a shriek with the last words. He whirled, and made for the door, and the other two followed him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"One minute," Hamilton called. "You needn't go back to the works. We close down in ten minutes. Come back to see me when you are hungry." He stood motionless as the men pa.s.sed silently out, and until he heard the sound of the street-door closing behind them. Then, he turned to Cicily, who had waited pallid and shaken, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped distressedly. His voice, as he spoke, was not softened; even, it was harder than before. "You see what you have done," he said simply. "This settles it. I'm going into a big fight. I can't be handicapped. For the future, you will stay where you belong. You will confine your activities to the house, where they will be less dangerous, let us hope--less fatal!" Without awaiting any reply, he wheeled, and strode from the room.

CHAPTER XII

Cicily sent word of a severe headache, and did not appear at the dinner-table that night, nor did she see her husband during the evening.

She retired to her bed-chamber at an early hour, but not to sleep.

Instead, she abandoned herself to torturing reflections on the malevolent predicament into which she had been brought. She did not attempt to disguise from herself the hideous fact that her own precipitancy of action in the matter of the candidates for the club had been the primary cause of the peril that now beset her husband's business prosperity by reason of the strike thus induced. She bewailed the impetuous character of her emotions, which had so evilly led her into an action fraught with such dire consequences. She had no regret for the motives that had impelled her, but she was profoundly sorrowful over the thoughtless haste with which she had entered on a course of more than doubtful expediency. Her one relief was in a reiteration that she would, that she must, find some way by which to make amends for the catastrophe she had so ingenuously engineered. To the discovery of a method for retrieving her error, she gave her mind with an almost frenzied concentration; but the effort was fruitless. Cudgel her wearied brain as she would, it could not make pace to the goal she sought. When, after a sleepless night, she rose, it was with the maze of disaster still unthreaded. Her usual ingenuity of resource was become impotent.

Raging against her own supineness, she was yet forced into ign.o.ble inactivity.

Cicily learned that her husband had breakfasted early, and had left the house, without any message to her, or any statement as to when he might return. The sight of food sickened her, but she managed to drink a cup of coffee, which put a little heart into her after the wearing hours of the night. A turn around the Park and along the Drive still further quickened her spirits; but the day pa.s.sed without any flash of inspiration as to a means for undoing the ill she had wrought. She made a toilette for dinner by a brave effort. Yet, she might have spared her pains, for Hamilton did not appear. She idled through the meal with as much cheeriness of demeanor as she could summon for the benefit of the servants. Afterward, she sought the seclusion of her boudoir, leaving word that she should be notified immediately in the event of her husband's return.

In the meantime, Hamilton himself had opportunity for meditation, and this had softened his mood to some degree. He admitted to himself that her interest in the wives of his workmen had been the prime factor in their determination to endure a temporary cut in the wage-scale without striking. To be sure, his own att.i.tude of confidential intercourse with the leaders in stating his position frankly had had its influence; but he did not for a moment believe that this alone would have sufficed to bend the men to his will. No, it had been the happy effect of his wife's intimate a.s.sociation on terms of equality with the women that had been the chief factor in creating a sentiment of sympathy for him to the extent of cooperation. Without her work in his behalf, the men would certainly have struck. Now, since her mistake in judgment had been the immediate cause of the strike, in justice she could hardly be held guilty of more than an act of folly. Essentially, the final situation was what it would have been without any intervention whatsoever on her part. In going over the succession of events logically and calmly, Hamilton came to the decision that he would absolve his wife from any real guilt in the affair. He even felt a half-hearted kindliness toward her for her blundering good-will. But he was none the less resolved that he would tolerate no further injection of this charming feminine personality into his business concerns. The wife must mind her own business--the home--and that alone; she must have no part in his.... It was in this mood that he returned to his house late in the evening, and shut himself into the study. There, presently, Cicily came, seeking him.

The bride was very beautiful to-night, with a touch of sadness in her expression that gave her a new spirituelle charm. She had chosen a black gown as becoming the melancholy of the time, but its austere lines, without any touch of adornment, only brought into full relief the exquisite outlines of the slenderly rounded form, and served to emphasize the creamy whiteness of a complexion that was flawless. There was hardly a glimpse of rose in the ivory curve of the cheeks, but there was no lessening of the bending scarlet in the lips and the amber eyes were luminous even beyond their wont, as their gentle radiance shone forth above the dark circles traced by a sleepless night.

Hamilton turned a little as the door opened. He regarded his wife quizzically as she walked forward with a step of native grace, now grown a trifle languid from the weight on her spirit. He did not speak, however, until she had seated herself in the chair facing his. Then, when at last she looked up, and her somber gaze encountered his, he spoke lightly:

"Cicily, my dear, I think you are well rid of that coterie of cats."

"Why, how did you know?" Cicily questioned, in some astonishment as to his knowledge of her break with the members of the Civitas Society.

"Oh, in a very simple way. Aunt Emma told Uncle Jim, and Uncle Jim told me," Then, out of the kindness of his heart, the young husband went on speaking in such wise, according to his best judgment, as should console the very apparent misery of his wife. "My dear," he said gently, "I want you to know that I don't really blame you for this wretched strike. I'd have had it on my hands just the same, if you'd never had a finger in the pie. So, don't go grieving over something that can't be helped. And, of course, I give you all credit for the very best of intentions in the matter. Only--" he broke off discreetly; but the discretion had come too late.

"Only what?" Cicily questioned, quietly. There was something ominous in the quiet, and this the man realized.

Nevertheless, Hamilton was not one to shirk that which he deemed his duty. So, now, he answered lucidly with just what was in his mind as to the future relations between them, although he understood sufficiently well the ambitions of the woman before him to know that he must wound her deeply.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, "I don't wish to grieve you in any way.

Yet, I must insist calmly now on what I said yesterday in the heat of anger. You must attend to your duty in the home. It is for me, and for me alone, to conduct matters of business outside. Can you not understand that you are by nature and training utterly incompetent for the role you seek to play? Business apt.i.tude is not a thing to be picked up in an instant, haphazard, at the wish of anyone. It is something acquired by long striving and experience. The man has it in greater or less degree, as the result of generations of the work; he inherits an apt.i.tude; he develops it by systematic training. Feminine intuition cannot give you a subst.i.tute for the practical needs of business. So, my dear, I beg you to be reasonable. You must not meddle further in my affairs. But, don't, for heaven's sake, be melancholy over it. I love you, my dear, and I want you to be happy. You will be, if only you can get the right point of view. Try! Won't you, dear?" As he finished speaking with this appeal, Hamilton leaned forward anxiously, pleadingly. Deep down in his heart he felt a glow of pride over the mildness and the reasonableness with which he had presented the case in its true light to this irrational, dear creature.

For a long minute, Cicily vouchsafed no answer, although she felt the intensity of his gaze fixed upon her. She remained motionless, leaning back in the chair, her taper fingers loosely clasped on her lap, her eyes downcast, as one absorbed in earnest, yet not disquieting, thought.

Finally, however, she raised her head slowly, and her gaze met that of her husband fairly. It seemed to him that perhaps the faint touch of color in her cheeks had grown a little brighter, but of this he could not be sure. Otherwise, certainly, she betrayed no sign of particular emotion; whereat he rejoiced, since he knew from experience that her temperament might manifest tumultuously on occasion.