For a few moments after the passing of the Civitas Society, Cicily
remained in her place, motionless, tense, her face whitely set. Then, of
a sudden, the rigidity of her pose relaxed. She moved swiftly to where
her aunt was sitting, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in the
old lady's lap. The dainty form was shaken by a storm of sobs.... Mrs.
Delancy, wise from years, attempted no word of comfort for the time
being--only stroked the shining brown tresses softly, and patted a
shoulder tenderly. So, the girl, for now she was no more than that, wept
out the first fury of her grief in this comforting, sheltering presence,
as so often she had done in the years before marriage claimed her.
Little by little, the fierceness of her emotion was worn out, until at
last she was able to raise a sorrow-stricken face, in which the clear
gold of the eyes still shone beautiful, though dimmed, through the veil
of tears. The scarlet lips were tremulous, and the notes of the musical
voice came brokenly as she spoke her despair.
"I've ruined him!" came the hopeless wail.
Mrs. Delancy misunderstood the final pronoun, for the articulation of
the girl, clogged by feeling, was none too distinct.
"Pooh!" she ejaculated, cheerfully. "For my part, I think you're well
rid of them."
"But you don't understand," Cicily almost moaned. "It's him--him! I've
ruined him, I tell you."
This time, Mrs. Delancy understood the pronoun, but she understood
nothing beyond that.
"Ruined him?" she repeated, wholly at a loss. "Whom have you ruined,
Cicily? What do you mean?"
Then, the young wife poured forth the tale of the disaster she had all
unwittingly wrought in the affairs of her husband. She explained her
high hopes of saving a dangerous situation by means of her own influence
over the women, who, in turn, controlled the leaders among the workmen
in the factory. Cicily was painfully aware of the mischief that must
result from the refusal of the Civitas Society to welcome into its
sacred circle the three candidates whom she had proposed. She knew the
sensitiveness of these women, knew that they would bitterly resent the
slight thus put upon them. Where she had meant to bind their friendship
for her, she had succeeded only in creating a situation by which they
might well come to detest her for having subjected them to needless
humiliation. With their hostility aroused against her, they would throw
their influence, which she believed dominant, to persuade the men
against any concessions in favor of their employer. With a full
perception of the catastrophe in which she had so innocently become
involved, the wife hurriedly recounted the facts to her aunt, bewailing
the evil destiny that had worked such dire havoc with her schemes for
good.
"Well, you did what you could," Mrs. Delancy suggested consolingly, when
at last the melancholy recital was ended.
"And I failed!" came the retort, in a voice of misery.
Certain utterances of the girl on a former occasion had rankled in the
bosom of the old lady, perhaps because she perceived a certain element
of justice in them, and by so much a measure of dereliction on her own
part in the regulating of affairs between herself and her husband. Now,
despite the kindliness of her nature and her real sympathy for the
suffering of the niece who knelt at her knees, she could not forbear a
mild reproof:
"Well, Cicily," she said gently, "it all comes of a woman fooling with
business. Why, if you'd only been content to work for the heathen--"
"I've just finished with the heathen!" was the quick interruption.
"Well, my dear," Mrs. Delancy commented drily, "if you'd only work for
the far-off heathen, you'd find it much more satisfactory. You might not
do any good, to be sure; but, anyhow, the bad results wouldn't affect
you."
Cicily got to her feet, without making any reply, and went to the mirror
at one end of the drawing-room. There, she busied herself after the
feminine fashion with concealing the more apparent ravages made by her
weeping. When she came back to face her aunt again, she was her usual
charming self, save for a lack of color in her cheeks, and a portentous
gravity in the drooping of the mouth.... Happily, she was not of the
majority, whose noses bloom redly when watered with tears.
"And now," she said, desolately, "I've got to tell them!" She nodded
toward the withdrawing-room, where the three candidates were waiting;
and Mrs. Delancy understood.
"Why don't you write it to them?" she advised. "Whenever I have anything
uncomfortable to tell anyone, I always write it. Then, I let your Uncle
Jim read the reply.... It's so much more satisfactory that way, and, you
know, he can say right out what I don't dare even to think."
But Cicily had courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not
shirk the consequences to herself of her own indiscretion.
"No, I'll tell them," she declared resolutely; but her heart was sick
within her at contemplation of the scene that waited.
Fortunately, perhaps, small time was given Cicily for dread
anticipations. Hardly had she ceased speaking when the door into the
withdrawing-room was cautiously opened, and the face of Mrs. McMahon was
made visible to the two women who had faced about at sound of the knob
turning. On perceiving that the room was empty save for the hostess and
Mrs. Delancy, the Irishwoman threw the door wide, and came forward.
"Faith, it was so quiet I was sure they'd gone," she announced, with
manifest pride in her deductive powers. There was, too, a general air of
elation in the woman's manner of carriage that struck a chill to
Cicily's heart. And the cold of it deepened as Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie
Ferguson followed into the drawing-room, each evidently in a state of
exaltation. The three ranged themselves in rude dignity before their
hostess. Mrs. McMahon constituted herself the spokeswoman.
"Well," she inquired genially, "now that we're members of the club, what
is it you'd be after having us to do?"
An interval of silence followed, under the influence of which the three
waiting candidates seemed visibly to droop, as if by a subtle instinct
they began to apprehend misfortune. When, finally, Cicily spoke, it was
in a colorless voice:
"I'm afraid there is nothing that any of us can do, now." The three
started, and exchanged glances in which was dawning alarm, "I mean," the
unhappy hostess went on, making her confession of failure by a mighty
effort of will, "that--that the election did not go as I had expected it
to."
Again, there was a painful silence, in which Sadie fidgeted and Mrs.
Schmidt seemed to grow more shrunken and faded than before. Mrs. McMahon
alone stood unmovingly erect, stiffly pugnacious on the instant.
"So, that's it!" she exclaimed, at last. Her big voice was raucous with
anger. "Sure, then, and we're not members, at all!"
As the bald truth was thus made known to Sadie, she flared into complete
forgetfulness of the ideal deportment of her heroines.
"Them cats turn us down!" she screeched.
Mrs. Schmidt uttered no word, for she was by nature given to profound
silences, almost unbroken for days. Perhaps, she believed the garrulity
of her husband ample for the entire family. Nevertheless, in this
critical moment, Mrs. Schmidt opened her mouth repeatedly, like a fish
out of water, as if she were striving her utmost to speak.
"And--and," Cicily added weakly, "I'm awfully sorry."
"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
damn fools we were!" And his two confreres nodded gloomy assent.
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 hell 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.
[Illustration]
"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 passed 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.