"What do you want me to do, dear?" he questioned. "I told you that you could help me. I let you help." Cicily seated herself again before she replied. When, at last, she spoke, her voice was listless: "Yes; you let me spend some of my own money for luxuries. It seems that I could have used it to better advantage in helping to pay the men their wages, and thus save you from a possible strike." "No," was the serious response. "At best, that would have been only a makeshift--putting off the evil day. No; this thing must be fought out, once for all. We are running at a loss. To take money from you would be merely to waste it. Let me tell you, too, that there isn't a chance in the world for the Hamilton factory in the event of a strike." Cicily seized on the admission as favoring her side of the argument. "Then, you must not cut the wages," she declared, with spirit. "You must fight Morton and Carrington." "How can one man fight the trust?" Hamilton questioned, in return. "No, I'm caught between the two millstones: Morton, Carrington, the trust, above; the men, labor, below. To live, I must cut into the men. That's business." "Now, I know it isn't right," Cicily exclaimed. "Tell me," she continued, bending forward in her eagerness, until he could watch the beating pulse of her round throat, "if I were to give you all my money, couldn't you fight, and yet keep up the wages? I have quite a lot, you know. It was accumulating, uncle said, all the time while I was growing up." She refused to be convinced by her husband's shake of the head in negation. "I've met a lot of their women and children, in these last few weeks, while I have been--playing at being in business. None of the families have any more than enough for their needs--I know! Some of them have barely that. A cut in wages will be something awful in its effects. Why, Charles, some of the families have six or seven children." "I know," the harassed employer acknowledged, with a sigh that was almost a groan. "But, Cicily, my dear, unless there is a cut, I shall be ruined. That is the long and the short of the matter. Unless I make the men suffer a little now, the factory must be closed down; all Dad's work must go for nothing. It's either I or them. If they don't take the cut for the time being, they'll soon be without any wages at all. Now, if you really want to help me, in a way to count, just do all you possibly can to prevent a strike. Then, you'll be helping me, and, too, you'll be helping them as well. Of course, you understand that I shall put back the wages as soon as ever I can."