"I'm thinking that it's a pleasant talk we'll be having together, this night," Mrs. McMahon remarked judicially, after the departure of the committee. "So, it's thinking I am that we'd better start early, and then we'll have time a plenty to thrash it out with the boys. Good-by, Mrs. Hamilton.... And please to remember that the next meeting of the club is to be on the Thursday." "I'll surely be there," Cicily promised. The adieux were quickly spoken, and the women took their departure, leaving husband and wife alone together, standing silently. CHAPTER XVI Hamilton stirred presently, turned, and threw himself heavily into the nearest chair, whence he stared curiously at his wife with morose eyes of resentment. Cicily felt the scrutiny, but she did not lift her gaze to his. She was not shirking the conflict between them, which seemed inevitable after this last episode; but she was minded to let her husband begin the attack. In her turn, she sought a chair, into which she sank gracefully, and rested in a pose of languid indifference that was fascinating in itself, but at this moment for some inexplicable reason peculiarly aggravating to the man. It may be that her apparent ease at a critical period in their fortunes appealed to him as hatefully incongruous; it may be that the gracious femininity of her, her desirability as a woman, thus revealed by the lissome lassitude of her body, emphasized the fact that she was a creature created for joy and dalliance, not for the rasping stratagems of the market-place. Whatever the cause, it is certain that the lazy abandon of her posture irritated him, and it was with an attempt to veil his chagrin that at last he spoke: "Well," he exclaimed petulantly, "some more of your work, I see!" Cicily, however, disguised the fact that she winced under the contempt in his tone. "Yes," she answered eagerly. "Now, don't you see that I was right?" The device did not suffice to divert Hamilton from his purpose of rebuke. "So," he went on, speaking roughly, "not content with forgetting your duty, not satisfied with your dreary failure as a wife, you've turned traitor, too." "You seem to forget that it was yourself who failed in your duty--not I," Cicily retorted. "Is that trumped up, farcical idea, your excuse for fighting me?" "I'm not making any excuses," Cicily replied, stiffly. "And for the simple and very sufficient reason that I am not fighting you." "Then, what under heaven do you call it?" Hamilton demanded, with a sneer. "Is it by any chance saving me?" [Illustration] "Yes, I'd do that," came the courageous statement, "if only you'd let me." "And your manner of doing it," Hamilton went on, still in a tone of sneering contempt, "I suppose would be by going on the way you have been going--giving money to my enemies, and so prolonging the strike, and so ruining me!"