Making People Happy Part 24

"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 a.s.surance as she spoke, goaded the man to an a.s.sertion 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 att.i.tude 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 m.u.f.fled sobs.

CHAPTER XVII

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 fas.h.i.+on in which her husband held to his prerogative of sole control was merely typical. These other men of a humbler cla.s.s 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 the meantime 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 ma.s.ses 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, with such a manner of enthusiasm that it hoodwinked her hearers completely. They uttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns 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 a.s.sociate.

"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? Next to 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sumed 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 navete 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.