The week that followed was to Cicily the most strenuous and the most exciting that she had ever experienced in the brief span of her years. She steadfastly maintained her pose as a woman who had renounced her husband; yet, she remained in that husband's house, with a sublime disregard for the inconsistency of her conduct. She studiously avoided any discussion, of the status she had established. What her future course would be was left wholly to conjecture. She presided at the table with inimitable grace and self-possession, taking care to treat her husband with every consideration, but always with a trace of formality that was significant of the changed relation. Hamilton, on his part, was inclined to regard his wife's dramatic renunciation of him as a passing whim, which it were wiser to ignore until such time as it should have worn itself out. In the meantime, he was so much absorbed by the struggle over his business difficulties that, he had little time or disposition to make researches into feminine psychology, even that of his wife. He had an optimistic theory that, in the end, his domestic troubles would adjust themselves by some process of natural evolution. He was confident, too, that his assertion of mastery must eventually be accepted by his wife. So, he smiled pleasantly on Cicily, when he was not too busy to notice her presence, and betimes he felt the little packet that he carried in the inner pocket of his waistcoat, and was fondly content, wondering when the dear girl would again slip the bond of servitude willingly on the finger whence she had removed it with such magnificent disdain.

It was that wedding-ring, thus cherished by Hamilton, which caused the wife more concern than aught else in her domestic entanglement. She had regarded the symbol as something splendidly sacred, and she now bitterly regretted the impulse that had led her to discard it so needlessly. Indeed, the very night on which she defied her husband, she had crept down to the library when all the house was quiet, and had there made sure that it was not still lying disregarded on the table where she had cast it down in resentment. Now, she hoped and believed that her husband had locked it away in some drawer where at least it would be safe. Only, she wished that she had saved it as a souvenir of mingled happiness and sorrow.

Apart from this matter of the ring, Cicily had no remorse. She regretted the course of action thrust on her by malign fate, but her conscience was clear of reproach. Perhaps, in some subtle, unconfessed recess of her heart, she nourished a hope that ultimately joy would return to her life. But her openly expressed conviction to herself was that she was done with the life of love. Yet, a curious personal ambition urged her on to make good the declaration to her husband that she would save him in spite of himself. To this end, she bent all her energies. As she reflected on the circumstances under which she had so ignominiously failed, she decided that she must have recourse again to the means by which she had so nearly attained success in her plans for her husband's welfare, only to fail miserably on account of the obstinacy of the Civitas Society. So, she sought out the women whom she had unhappily offered as candidates to the club, and set herself with all the art that was in her to win back their favor. She was sure that by alliance with them she could mold circumstance to her will, and ultimately triumph gloriously over the erring man who had flouted her ambition to help in a business struggle.

Cicily made a full confession of her marital disaster to Mrs. Delancy, who by turns scolded and cried over the wilful girl. The old lady disapproved strongly of her niece's conduct, which was without any excuse whatsoever according to her own notions of conventional requirements. But, since she loved this child whom she had mothered, she forgave her, and by degrees came to feel a certain sympathy for her, which reacted mildly in her own attitude toward her husband.... It was on one of her visits to her aunt that Cicily encountered Mr. Delancy, who was already aware of the unfortunate position of affairs, and now felt himself called on to protest. He expressed himself with some severity, and concluded with a hope that she was not determined to persevere in her folly.

"I was never more determined in my whole life, Uncle Jim," was the emphatic answer.

Mr. Delancy resisted a temptation to snatch up one of the teacups from the exquisite SÈvres service over which his wife and his niece were sitting, and to hurl it into the fireplace, for the sake of relieving his choler. He refrained from any overt act, however, by a great effort of will, and perforce contented himself with an explicit statement of his opinion:

"You were never more bull-headed in your life," he snorted, stopping short in his agitated pacing of the drawing-room, to face his niece with a scowl; "and that's saying a great deal—a very great deal!"

"James!" Mrs. Delancy exclaimed, in mild remonstrance.

But Cicily was not to be suppressed by this man who typified the evils against which she had fought.

"Would you have me give up my principles?" she questioned, scornfully.

Once again, Mr. Delancy snorted contemptuously.

"You haven't got any principles," he declared, baldly. "No woman has."

At this brutal statement on the part of her husband, Mrs. Delancy stiffened, and an exclamation of shocked amazement burst from her. Cicily smiled cynically, as she addressed her aunt:

"Well, Aunt Emma," she said amusedly, "you see now what your attitude has led to. You began with no backbone. So, now, you have no principles. Oh, you nice, sweet-faced, gray-headed, deceiving old-lady reprobate, you!"

But Mrs. Delancy refused to see any element of humor in the situation. Indeed, she was on the verge of tears over the wantonly injurious statement made by the husband whom she had cherished for a lifetime.

"James, how could you!" she cried out, in a voice broken by emotion. "To say such things to your wife—oh!"

Too late, the irascible husband realized that he had committed a serious fault, had in fact been guilty of a gross injustice, which was hardly less than an insult, to the woman whom he thoroughly respected.

"Emma—" he began, appealingly.

But Mrs. Delancy had changed in an instant from tearful reproach to righteous indignation.

"No, don't speak to me!" she commanded; and she deliberately turned her back on the culprit.

Under the goad of this treatment, Delancy addressed his niece in a tone that was almost ferocious.

"So," he snarled, "not content with breaking up your own home, you'd try to ruin mine, would you! You should apologize to your Aunt Emma, at once."

"Dear Auntie," Cicily exclaimed without a moment's hesitation, in a voice of contrition, "I beg you to let me apologize to you very humbly for what Uncle James said."

"What the—!" stormed the badgered old gentleman. "Now, look here, Cicily. You think you're very smart. But do you know what your attitude has led to?—Scandal!"

Mrs. Delancy forgot for the moment her own subject for complaint.

"Yes," she agreed, turning to her niece, "it's a scandal to live in a house with a strange man—you know, that's what you yourself called Charles."

"It's a worse scandal," Delancy amended, "not to live with him."

"Oh, I see," Cicily remarked, meditatively. "I must have a chaperon. But, on the other hand, now, Charles is, or rather he was, my husband. That seems, somehow, to make a difference. At least, we are well acquainted, although strangers at present, in a sense. And, besides, I have the kindliest feeling for Charles, and that's more than lots of women have for their husbands. As to that, you know, since he's not my husband now, there is really no reason why I should not have the very kindliest of feelings for him."

"Well, you claim to renounce your husband," Delancy argued angrily, "and yet you continue to live with him in the same house. It's a monstrous state of affairs. Will you tell me, please, madam, when this scandalous situation is to end?"

"Would you have me desert Charles in a crisis?" Cicily demanded, haughtily. "No, I'll give no one an opportunity to accuse me of desertion in the face of the enemy."

"Oh, Lord!" Delancy exclaimed; and his tone was eloquent. "Oh, no, you haven't deserted him!"

"I don't see what that has to do with it," Cicily objected, flushing painfully. "Charles and I have merely—that is, we've—broken off diplomatic relations."

At this extraordinary statement of the case, Mrs. Delancy, in her turn, flushed a dainty pink, which was wondrously becoming to her waxen cheeks, not unduly wrinkled despite her burden of years. Delancy himself forgot indignation for the moment, and laughed outright, as he regarded his wife to observe the manner in which she received the surprising information. His eyes took on a kindlier expression as he saw the change that gave her a wondrously younger look, and a rush of memories caused him to smile reminiscently, half-sadly, half-tenderly. The effect on him was apparent in the pleasanter voice with which he next addressed his niece, playfully:

"My, my! She'd be sending him home to his mother, I expect, if only he had a mother."

Cicily, still suffering in the throes of a painful embarrassment, retorted hotly:

"Uncle Jim, I'd just like to shake you!"

"Oh, don't mind my gray hairs," Delancy scoffed. "And, when you're done with me, you might spank your Aunt Emma."

That good woman shook her head dolorously, as the flush died from her face.

"I don't know what we're coming to," she mourned.

"Anarchy!" was her husband's prompt answer, as he mounted again on his favorite hobby. "Once women begin to believe that they have intelligence, anarchy will be the natural, the inevitable result. God never made them to think." In his excitement, he had forgotten the manner in which he had already once offended his wife.

"Then, why did God give women brains?" Cicily demanded.

"I can't waste my time in arguing with a woman," Delancy answered loftily, and, turning away, tugged superciliously at a wisp of whisker.

"That's it! Oh, yes, that's it!" Cicily exclaimed, with rising indignation. Her embarrassment had passed, but a flush remained in her cheeks, and her radiant eyes were alight with the battle-lust. "You think women haven't any intelligence. You can't waste your time arguing with them! Very well, then, I tell you that it's you who haven't the intelligence to recognize a new point of view—a new force in the world; the force of women's brains—until it shall hit you in the face. That's why I'm holding out against Charles, fighting him, to save him, to keep him from growing into a narrow-minded, hard-headed, ignorant old fossil!" The application of this explicit description was not far to seek. It was evident that Delancy took it to himself, for he, in his turn at last, colored rosily. But he did not choose to accept a personal reference, and contented himself with a bit of repartee:

"Huh, no fear! He won't live to be a fossil. His troubles will kill him off early, or I lose my guess.... So, that's your excuse for ruining him, is it?"

"I'd help him, if he'd let me," Cicily answered, sadly, forgetful of her indignation against the sex.

"You help him!" Delancy exclaimed, mockingly. "Why, you brought on the strike."

"But—" Cicily would have protested, only to be interrupted by the indignant old gentleman, who shook an accusing forefinger at her.

"You can't tell me! Yes, you did, with your impertinent interference. Huh! When women get to fooling with business, we shall all go to the dogs. Why, if it hadn't been for you and for what you did with your precious 'helping,' Charles would have had a chance to make good money. Now, Morton and Carrington are charging the independent dealers twenty-two cents a box. But for this strike, Charles might have induced those old pirates to raise their price to him a little, and let him make some money.... Help him—oh, piffle!"

"Well," Cicily declared, not a whit abashed, "if I were Charles, I'd start up again, pay wages, and sell to the independents."

The seriousness with which the young woman spoke for a moment betrayed Delancy into discussing business with one of the unintelligent sex.

"But his contracts!" he objected.

"What are contracts," Cicily interrupted serenely, "when the workmen are hungry?"

"There, Emma!" Delancy cried, in deep disgust. "Do you hear? Now, isn't that just like a woman?"

"Yes, James," Mrs. Delancy answered meekly; "I know that you're right. But, somehow, I think Cicily, too, is right."

At this paradoxical pronouncement, Delancy stared fixedly at his wife in stark amazement.

"What!" he gasped. "What! After forty years, you say that to me! You question my business judgment! Emma, you, my wife!" He struggled wildly for a few seconds to gain control of his emotions. "No," he continued bitterly; "I deserve it for forgetting myself. I beg my own pardon for mentioning a word of business to a woman.... I'm going to Charles—poor fellow!" After a long, resentful stare directed against his former ward, he marched out of the room.

"See what you've made me do!" Mrs. Delancy said accusingly to her niece, as the two were left alone together. "Why, I've actually appeared rebellious to James."

"You ought to have been so years ago," Cicily rejoined, stubbornly.

But Mrs. Delancy could only shake her head morosely in negation of this audacious idea. Then, her thoughts reverted to the young woman's doubtful position.

"How is it all going to end?" was her despondent query.

"You mean, when are Charles and I going to make public the true state of affairs? When are we going to part before the world?" The old lady nodded acquiescence. "Well, that will be when the strike is over, and Charles's business troubles are settled—not before."

"If this sort of thing keeps on," Mrs. Delancy announced, with another access of self-pity, "your Uncle Jim and I probably will be parted by that time, too!"

"Nonsense!" Cicily jeered, smitten to sudden compunction for her part in causing distress of mind to the woman whom she really loved and honored. "Why, Auntie, if you were to leave Uncle Jim, whom would he have to bully? Pooh, dear, you and he'll never part."

Again, the old lady's thoughts veered from herself.

"But, Cicily," she ventured, "you're doing your best to prolong the strike. You're actually giving those women money, I know. Yesterday, when I called to see you, I saw the stub in your chequebook, which was lying open on the desk in your boudoir. I didn't mean to pry, but I couldn't help seeing it."

"Well, I'm not letting them starve," was the unashamed admission.

"Cicily," Mrs. Delancy said, with an abrupt transition from one phase of the subject under consideration to another, "about this matter of you and Charles separating, I have a suspicion that you are very much like that highly improper young woman in the French story, who was going to live with her lover as long as the geranium lasted. And you're going to live in the house with Charles while his troubles continue. And that improper young woman used to get up in the night, every night, to water the geranium, secretly. And you are providing the strikers with food, to prolong the strike. Humph! You don't want to go." Cicily blushed a little, but attempted no reply. "You're in love with him—you know you are!"

The young wife's reserve broke down a little before the keen glance that accompanied the words.

"I—oh, I'm interested in his spiritual development," she stammered, weakly. "Anyhow," she added defensively, "he—doesn't know it!"

"Thank heaven, you're still moral!" Mrs. Delancy ejaculated, in accents of huge relief.

"I think I must be," was the low-spoken admission, "because—because I'm so unhappy!" The scarlet lips drooped to a tremulous pathos, as she went on speaking in a voice of poignant feeling. "Oh, Aunt Emma, when I see Charles so harassed, so tired, so troubled in every way, I just long to throw my arms around his neck, and to kiss all those hard lines away from his dear face, and to tell him how much I love him, and how sorry I am, and how much I want to help him."

"Heaven bless you, child!" Mrs. Delancy exclaimed, surprised and delighted. "Why don't you, then?"

"Because," came the gloomy explanation, "if I did, I'd be like you."

The old lady was not gratified by this candid defense.

"Humph! Well, you might do worse, if I do say so myself," she declared, with a toss of her head.

"Of course, you old dear," Cicily agreed, with an air of humility, "in lots and lots of ways—but—"

"You're obstinate!" came the tart rebuke. "If you're really in love with him, give in!"

"That's just the trouble," the young wife said. "Because I'm so much in love with him, I can't give in in this particular. I love him too much to be content with just the bits of him that are left over from the other things. I want a partnership. Marriage has changed since your day, Auntie. Real marriage to-day must be a partnership in all things. I must have that, a full share in my husband's life—or nothing! I tell you, there is too much of men and women swearing before God to become as one, and walking away to begin life and to live it ever after as two. It was all very well when the women had the house to keep, and didn't think; but nowadays most of them have no house to keep, and they are beginning to think."

"But," Mrs. Delancy objected, much discomposed by this tirade against matrimony as she knew it, "you're upsetting all the holy things. To look up to your husband—that's love."

"That's lonesomeness and a crick in the neck!" was the flippant denial. "My woman would stand where her brains entitle her to stand, beside her husband, looking into his eyes, working for him, working with him, being together with him straight through everything. That's love; that's real marriage!"

"Cicily," Mrs. Delancy protested, totally bemused by her niece's fiery eloquence, "I think you're wrong, but I—I feel that you're right."

"Deep down in your heart, dear," the young woman asserted with profound conviction, "you know that I'm right, because you're a real woman. The men don't know it—poor things!—but the ruling passion of a woman's life is usefulness. And isn't it much nicer to work for a husband whom you love than for the heathen?"

Before her aunt could frame an adequate answer to this very pertinent inquiry, Cicily sprung up, with the graceful animation that was usual with her.

"And, now, I must hurry home," she announced, "to receive Mrs. McMahon and Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie Ferguson, who are coming to call."

"Merciful providence!" Mrs. Delancy ejaculated, in genuine horror. "You don't mean to tell me that those women come to your house now?"

"Oh, yes," was the nonchalant assent. "Why shouldn't they? You know, we're friends again now. I've organized them into a club."

"Well, I do not think it's at all proper," the old lady said, with severe decisiveness.

But Cicily only laughed under the reproof, bestowed a hasty kiss on her aunt's cheek, and swept buoyantly from the room.