It was a half-hour after the breaking up of the conference when Hamilton
at last raised his head from his arms. He looked about him dazedly for a
little while, as if endeavoring to put himself in touch once again with
the humdrum facts of existence. Then, when his brain cleared from the
lethargy imposed by the strain to which it had so recently been
subjected, he gave a sudden defiant toss of his head, and muttered
wrathfully: "Go broke, or starve your men!" He got out of his chair, and
paced to and fro swiftly for a little interval, pondering wildly. But,
of a sudden, he reseated himself, drew a pad of paper to him, and began
scrawling figures at the full speed of his pencil. And, as he wrote, he
was murmuring to himself: "There is a way out--there must be!"
It was while the husband was thus occupied that the door opened softly,
without any preliminary knock, and the wife stepped noiselessly into the
room. The anxiety that beset her was painfully apparent in her bearing
and in the expression of her face. Her form seemed drooping, as if under
shrinking apprehension of some blow about to fall. The eyes of amber,
usually so deep and radiant, were dulled now, as if by many tears; the
rich scarlet of the lips' curves was bent downward mournfully. She stood
just within the doorway for a brief space, watching intently the man who
was so busy over his scrawled figures. At last, she ventured forward,
walking in a laggard, rhythmic step, as do church dignitaries and
choir-boys in a processional. By such slow stages, she came to a place
opposite her husband. There, she remained, upright, mute, waiting. The
magnetism of her presence penetrated to him by subtle degrees.... He
looked up at her, with no recognition in his eyes.
"They've gone, dear?" She spoke the words very softly, for she
understood instinctively something as to the trance in which he was
held.
Hamilton's abstraction was dissipated as the familiar music of Cicily's
voice beat gently on his ears.
"Yes--oh, yes, they've gone." His voice was colorless. His eyes went out
to the array of figures that sprawled recklessly over the sheet before
him.
But the young woman was not to be frustrated in her intention by such
indifference on his part. She spoke again, at once, a little more
loudly:
"Tell me: Did you come out all right?"
Hamilton raised his head with an impatient movement. Evidently, this
persistence was a distracting influence--a displeasing. There was
harshness in his voice as he replied:
"Did I come out all right? Well, yes--since I came out at all. Oh, yes!"
His voice mounted in the scale, under the impulse of a sudden access of
rage against his enemies. He spoke with a savage rapidity of utterance:
"And I can lick Carrington any day in the week. Why, I've already put
him out. It's Morton--that old fox Morton who's got me guessing.... What
do you think? They even had the nerve to threaten me. Of course, it was
in a round-about way; but it was a threat all the same. They threatened
to close up the Hamilton factory. Gad! the nerve of it!"
"They threatened to close up your factory, Charles?" Cicily exclaimed,
astonished and angry. "But you own the Hamilton factory. What have they
to do with it? The impudence of them!"
"Yes, I own the factory, all right," the husband agreed. "But, you
see--" Hamilton broke off abruptly, and was silent for a moment. When he
spoke again, the liveliness was gone from his voice: it was become
quietly patronizing. "Oh, let's forget it, dear. I must be going dotty.
I'll be talking business with you, the first thing I know."
"I only wish you would!" Cicily answered, with a note of pleading in her
tones.
"Nonsense!" was the gruff exclamation. "The idea of talking business
with you. That would be a joke, wouldn't it?" He spoke banteringly, with
no perception of the gravity in his wife's desire to share in this phase
of his life. But he looked up from the papers after a moment into his
wife's face. She had turned from him, and then had reclined wearily in
the chair opposite him, whence she had been staring at him with a
tormenting feeling of impotence. The expression on her face was such
that Hamilton realized her distress, without having any clue to its
cause.
"Now, sweetheart, what's wrong?" he questioned. He was half-sympathetic
over her apparent misery, half-annoyed.
Cicily, with the intuitive sensitiveness of a woman to recognize a
lover's hostile feeling beneath the spoken words, was acutely conscious
of the annoyance; she ignored the modicum of sympathy. To conceal her
hurt, she had resort to a fictitious gaiety that was ill calculated,
however, to deceive, for the stress of her disappointment was very
great.
"The matter with me?" she repeated, with an assumption of surprise.
"Why, the matter with me is that I'm so happy--that's all!"
"Cicily!" Now, at last, the husband was both shocked and grieved over
his wife's mood.
"Yes, that's it--happy!" the suffering girl repeated. "Why, I'm so
happy--just so happy--that I could scream!"
Hamilton leaned forward in his chair, to regard his wife scrutinizingly.
He was filled with alarm over the nervous, almost hysterical, condition
in which he now beheld her.
"Cicily, are you well?" he asked. There was a distinct quaver of fear in
his voice. "You look--strange, somehow."
"Oh, not at all!" came the flippant retort. "It's merely that you
haven't really taken a good look at me lately--until just this minute.
So, of course, I'd look a bit strange to you."
It must be remembered that Hamilton, although usually intelligent, had a
clear conscience and no suspicion whatsoever as to any culpability on
his part in his relations with his wife: thus it was that now he was
wholly impervious to the sarcasm of her reference, which he answered
with the utmost seriousness.
"My dear, I saw you this morning, last night--oh, heaps of times, every
day."
"Oh, your physical eyes have seen; but your mind, your heart, your
soul--the true you--hasn't seen me for I don't know how long."
This cryptic explanation was too subtle for Hamilton to grasp while yet
his brain was fogged by the intricacies of his business affairs. He
gazed on his wife in puzzled fashion for a few seconds, then abandoned
the problem as one altogether beyond his solving. To clear up a vague
suspicion that this might be some new astonishing display of a woman's
indirect wiles, he put a question:
"My dear, do you want a new automobile, or a doctor?"
"Neither!" came the crisp reply; and for once the musical voice was
almost harsh, "I want a husband!"
"Good Lord! Another?" Hamilton was pained and scandalized, as, indeed,
was but natural before a confession so indecorous seemingly and so
unflattering to himself.
"I don't want the one I have now," Cicily affirmed, with great emphasis.
She rather enjoyed the manner in which the man shrank under her
declaration. But he said nothing as she paused: he was momentarily too
dumfounded for speech, "I want my first one back," Cicily concluded.
Hamilton gaped at his wife, powerless to do aught beyond grope in mental
blackness for some ray of understanding as to this horrible revelation
made by the woman he loved.
"You--you want your first one back!" he repeated stupidly, at last. Of a
sudden, a gust of fury shook him. "God!" he cried savagely. "And I
thought I knew that girl!"
Cicily rested unperturbed before the outbreak. She was absorbed in her
own torment, with no sentiment to spare for the temporary anguish she
was inflicting on her husband, which, in her opinion, he richly
deserved.
"You did know me once," she answered, coldly. "That was before you
changed toward me."
The injustice of this charge, as he deemed it, was beyond Hamilton's
powers of endurance. He sprung from his chair, and stood glowering down
on Cicily, who bore the stern accusation of his eyes without flinching.
The pallor of her face was a little more pronounced than usual, less
touched from within with the hue of abounding health, and her crimson
mouth was less tender than it was wont to be. But she leaned back in her
chair in a posture of grace that displayed to advantage the slender,
curving charm of her body, and her eyes, shining golden in the soft
light of the room, met the man's steadfastly, fearlessly.
"I--changed--to you!" Hamilton stormed. "Cicily! Cicily! What madness!
You know--oh, absurd! Why, Cicily, I love you.... I think of you
always!"
"Oh, yes, you love me," Cicily agreed, contemptuously, "You think of me
always--when your other love will let you."
"Cicily!"
"I mean it," came uncompromisingly, in answer to Hamilton's look of
horror. "I mean every word of it!"
"Cicily," the husband besought, as a great dread fell on his soul,
"remember, you are my wife--my love!"
"Yes, I'm one of them." The tone was icy; the gaze fixed on his face was
unwavering.
But this utterance was too sinister to be borne. The pride of the man in
his own faithfulness was outraged. His voice was low when he spoke
again, yet in it was a quality that the young wife had never heard
before. It frightened her sorely, although she concealed its effect by a
mighty effort of will.
"That is an insult to you and to me, Cicily. It is an insult I cannot--I
will not--permit."
It was evident to Cicily that she had carried the war in this direction
far enough; she hastened her retreat.
"Oh, I didn't say that you were in love with another woman," she
explained, with an excellent affectation of carelessness. "For that
matter, I know very well that you're not." Then, as Hamilton regarded
her with a face blankly uncomprehending, she went on rapidly, with
something of the venomous in her voice: "Sometimes, I wish you were.
Then, I'd fight her, and beat her. It would give me something to do."
She paused for a moment, and laughed bitterly. "Oh, please, Charles, do
fall in love with some other woman, won't you?"
Hamilton started toward the telephone in the hall.
"It's the doctor you want, not the automobile," he called over his
shoulder.
"Nonsense!" Cicily cried. "Stop!" And, as he turned back reluctantly,
she went on with her explanation: "No, it isn't the lure of some siren
in a Paquin dress--or undress: it's the lure of the game--the great,
horrid, hideous business game, which has got you, just as it's got most
of the American husbands who are worth having. That's the lure we
American women can't overcome; that's the rival who is breaking our
hearts. You are the man of business, Charles--I'm the woman out of a
job! That's all there is to it."
Hamilton listened dazedly to this fluent discourse, the meaning of which
was not altogether clear to him. He frowned in bewilderment, as he again
seated himself in the chair opposite his wife. He could think of
nothing with which to rebuke her diatribe, save the stock platitudes of
a past generation, and to these necessarily he had immediate recourse.
"You have the home--the house--to look out for, Cicily. That's a woman's
work. What more can you wish?"
"The home! The house!" The exclamation was eloquent of disgust. "Ah,
yes, once on a time, it was a woman's work--once on a time! But, then,
you men were dependent on us. Marriage was a real partnership. Nowadays,
what with servants and countless inventions, so that machinery supplies
the work, the home is a joke. The house itself is an automatic machine
that runs on--buttons, push-buttons. You men can get along without us
just as well. You don't really depend on us for anything in the home.
Your lives are full up with interest; every second is occupied. Our
lives are empty. My life is empty, Charles. I'm lonely, and
heart-hungry, I've no ambition to go in for bridge. I'm not a gambler by
choice. I don't wish to follow society as a vocation. I'm not eager even
to be a suffragette. I want to be an old-fashioned wife--to do something
that counts in my husband's life. I want him to depend on me for some
things, always. I want to be my husband's partner." Little by little,
while she was speaking, the coldness passed from the woman's voice; in
its stead grew warmth; there was passionate fervor in the final plea. It
moved Hamilton to pity, although he was ignorant as to the means by
which he might assuage his wife's so great discontent. Manlike, he
attempted to overcome emotion by argument.
"Cicily," he urged, "just now, I'm up to my ears and over in work. They
are crowding me mighty hard. There's dissatisfaction at the mill--danger
of a strike. Morton is heading a syndicate--a trust, really--trying to
absorb us. I'm fighting for my very life--my business life.... Cicily,
you wouldn't throw obstacles in my way now, would you?"
"Obstacles! No; I want to help you."
"In business?" Hamilton queried, astounded. "You--help me--in business?"
"Yes," Cicily answered, steadily. "I can do something, I know." There
was intensity of purpose in the glow of the golden eyes, as they met
those of her husband; there was intensity of conviction in the tones of
her voice as she uttered the assurance. She realized that the crisis of
her ambition was very near at hand.
"You can do nothing." The man's blunt statement was uttered with a
conviction as uncompromising as her own. The egotism of it repelled the
woman. There was a hint of menace in her manner, as she replied:
"Take care, Charles. Don't shut me out. You're making a plaything of
me--not a wife.... And I--I won't be your plaything!"
"You mean--?"
"I mean," went on the wife relentlessly, "that this is the most serious
moment of our married life. If you put me off now, if you shut me out of
your life now--out of your full life--I can't answer for what will
happen."
There followed a long interval of silence, the while husband and wife
stared each into the other's eyes. In these moments of poignant emotion,
the profound feeling of the woman penetrated the being of the man,
readied his heart, and touched it to sympathy--more: it mounted to his
brain, which it stimulated to some measure of understanding. That
understanding was fleeting enough, it was vague and incomplete, as must
always be man's inadequate knowledge of woman. But it was dominant for
the time being. Under its sway, Hamilton spoke in gracious yielding,
almost gratefully.
"Very well. You can help."
The young wife sat silent for a time, thrilling with the joy of
conquest. The roses of her checks blossomed again; the radiance of her
eyes grew tender; the scarlet lips wreathed in their happiest curves. At
last, she rose swiftly, and seated herself on the arm of her husband's
chair. She wound her arms about his neck, and kissed him fondly on cheek
and brow and mouth.
Hamilton accepted these caresses with the pleasure of a fond bridegroom
of a year, and, too, with a certain complacency as the tribute of
gratitude to his generosity. But, when she separated herself again from
his embrace, he was moved to ask a question that was calculated to be
somewhat disconcerting.
"What can you do?" he demanded.
"Oh, I don't know," Cicily answered, nonchalantly; "but something. I
shall do something big! You see, you've done so much. Now, I must do
something too--something big!"
[Illustration]
"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!"