:

"So, Mrs. Hamilton has been helping the wives of the men?"

"'Tis that same she's been doing--the saints preserve her!" Mrs. McMahon
answered, with pious fervor. "Faith, if the women could vote, it's
president they'd make her, so it is."

Cicily could not resist a temptation to appeal.

"Charles," she urged, "if only you'll have a little patience, you'll
find that they can be of service--of great service!"

Still, Hamilton ignored his wife utterly, while he addressed the three
women impersonally.

"I did not know that the men were in the habit of using their wives in a
strike like this." His manner was designedly offensive.

Again, it was Sadie who was first to retort, which she did with a manner
that aped his own insolence.

"Well, if Mrs. Hamilton can butt into it, it's a cinch we can!"

The man's face darkened with wrath. His voice, when he spoke, sounded
dangerously low and controlled.

"Mrs. Hamilton has nothing whatever to do with my business affairs," he
declared, explicitly. "She has nothing whatever to do with this strike.
If you women come from the men, go back and tell them that I'm not
dealing with women--neither now nor in the future. If they want anything
at any time, let them come for it themselves."

"Can you beat it?" Sadie demanded wonderingly, of the universe at large.

But the Irishwoman took it on herself to answer, with an explicitness
equal to Hamilton's own:

"Faith, and we didn't come to see you, as you know very well, I'm
thinking. If it wasn't for Mrs. Hamilton--God bless her--we wouldn't be
here at all.... And 'tis sorry I am we are."

"Then, you'd better go, and relieve your feelings," was the tart
rejoinder. "And you will please remember one thing: Mrs. Hamilton has
absolutely no influence of any kind in this strike. I do not know in the
least what she may have been doing; but, whatever it is, it's entirely
apart from me."

"Charles, please--" Cicily would have protested. It seemed to her a
vicious violation of good taste thus to air their marital disagreements
in the presence of others. There was a perilous fire in the golden eyes;
but Hamilton had no heed just now for niceties of conduct. He went on
speaking, ruthlessly breaking in on his wife's attempted plea:

"Whatever Mrs. Hamilton has accomplished has been done without my
consent and with her own money--entirely apart from me.... Good-day!"

Now, at last, Hamilton moved from the position he had steadily
mainta