"My dear," Hamilton remarked dryly, as his wife paused, "you have omitted one salient qualification of the modern woman: she is, preeminently an orator. Why, you, yourself, are a feminine Demosthenes--nothing less." But he abandoned, his tone of raillery, as he continued: "And so, what you've been doing--that's your idea of partnership, is it?" "Yes," Cicily declared, spiritedly. "When one partner makes a mistake, it's the duty of the other to set things straight." "By ruining him!" the husband ejaculated, in savage distrust. "Have I ruined you?" There was a flame of indignation in the amber eyes, and the curving lips were turned scornfully; but there was a restrained timbre of triumph in the music of her voice. "No! Why, let me tell you something: Those women are for you, already. They are helping me against their husbands. You'll win in the end--in spite of all the damage you tried to do to-day with your colossal blundering. But they're loyal to me, and they'll forgive you for my sake, and they'll give you the victory in the fight.... Just wait and see!" "Nonsense!" Hamilton mocked. He considered his wife's assertions as merely the maunderings of an extravagant enthusiast. She was sincere--more the pity!--but she knew absolutely nothing of the problems with which she insisted on entangling herself so futilely. "I promise you," Cicily persisted, undismayed by her husband's jeering attitude of scepticism, "that you will win in the end. Yes, you will; because it is right: that you should. I am doing my part, not only to help you; but, too, because it is right. We owe a duty not only to ourselves, but to those people as well.... Even you must see that!" "Well, I don't," Hamilton maintained, consistently. But he winced involuntarily under the expression of pity for his ignorance that now showed in his wife's face. "Well, it only serves to illustrate what I said," Cicily went on, with a complacency that annoyed the man almost beyond endurance. "The woman has the clearer visions nowadays. That's where we differ from our dear departed grandmothers, from our mothers even. They had a personal conscience that stopped short at the front and back doors of the home. We women of to-day have a bigger conscience, which takes in the bigger family. It's a social conscience, and that it is which makes us different from those women of the earlier generations. Don't you see, Charles, that you and I are really a sort of big brother and sister to those in our employ? So, let us help them, even if we have to do it against their own mistaken efforts of resistance." "Of course," Hamilton suggested, still sneeringly, "Morton and Carrington, too, are our dear brothers." For an instant, Cicily was nonplused by the question; but, of a sudden, she received one of those inspirations on which she usually relied for escape from a predicament.