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 her posture 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?"
[Illustration]
"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 her instinct, 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,
preeminently 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 only to
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 it just 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 of the 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.