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 confrÈres 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.

"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.