At this statement, Hamilton shifted uneasily. He turned an indignant stare on his wife, wondering dismally what new imbroglio had been precipitated by her lack of restraint. "Oh, you needn't look at me in that fashion," Cicily objected, with a pout. "I didn't say anything this time, either. I only told them about our winning the strike, and--" "What!" Hamilton brought out the word like a pistol-shot. "Surely, you couldn't mind my telling them that," Cicily said, in a voice suspiciously demure. "And that's all I told them, except--" "Except what?" Hamilton fairly shouted. "Why, except about the contracts to do the work for the independents at fifteen cents--that's all." "You--you told them that!" the astounded husband gasped. He whirled toward Morton. "Why, it isn't so, Mr. Morton--not a word of it! You must realize that it isn't--that it couldn't be so." Morton, however, was not convinced by the earnestness of the young man's repudiation. Instead, he looked his host up and down with a sneering scrutiny that was infinitely galling. [Illustration] "I see," he said harshly, "that you're just like your father before you. He could always manage to contrive some way by which to accomplish his ends, without being over-troubled with scruples. Only, he would never have confided his business secrets to a woman." Hamilton turned reproachful eyes on his wife. "Cicily," he cried entreatingly, "I want you to tell Mr. Morton--" But that resourceful woman interrupted him. Her face showed a shocked amazement, as she spoke swiftly: "Charles, do you mean that you want me to--?" She did not finish the sentence; but the inference was so plain that Morton did not hesitate to make use of it. "Trying to make your wife lie for you won't do any good, Hamilton," he advised, disagreeably. But, if Hamilton had been perplexed before, he was now suddenly dazed by the inexplicable conduct of Delancy, who advanced nimbly from the tea-table, caught Hamilton by the arm, and drew him apart a little. He spoke hurriedly, in a low voice, but intentionally pitched so that Morton could overhear. "It's no good, my boy," he declared, warningly. "You see, the fact of the matter is, you're caught--caught with the goods on, as the police say. And, when you're caught with the goods, don't waste time in lying. It makes a bad business worse, that's all." Having uttered these extraordinary words of advice to his marveling nephew, the old gentleman turned jauntily on the seething Morton. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" he demanded, composedly. Morton, frantic over the trickery that, as he believed, had been attempted against him, made no pretense of suavity in this emergency. In his vindictiveness, he spoke with a candor unusual to him in his business dealings.