und of muffled sobs.

CHAPTER XVII

In the days that followed, Cicily found herself on the very verge of
despair. She had pinned the hope of success for her husband on a
restored influence with the wives of the leaders in the strike. She had
felt confident that, with them fighting in her behalf, she would achieve
victory. She had not doubted that these women could mold the men to
their will. Now, however, she had, to a great extent, lost faith in the
efficacy of this method. She had seen and heard those husbands defy
their womankind openly. They, too, were obstinate in their belief that
women should not obtrude into business affairs. She realized that she
was combating one of the most tangible and potent factors in human
affairs, the pride of the male in his dominion over the female--an
hereditary endowment, a thing of natural instinct, the last and most
resistant to yield before the presentations of reason. The resolute
fashion in which her husband held to his prerogative of sole control was
merely typical. These other men of a humbler class were like unto him.
Evidently, then, she must contrive some other strategy, if she would
save her husband from the pit he had digged for himself by yielding to
the specious processes of Morton and Carrington. Yet, she could imagine
no scheme that offered any promise of success.... She grew thinner, so
that her loveliness took on an ethereal quality. Her nights were well
nigh sleepless; her days became long hours of harrowing anxiety.

She was sitting in her boudoir late one afternoon, still revolving the
round of failure in her plans. She had dressed to go out; but, at the
last moment, a wave of discouragement had swept over her, and she had
sunk down on a couch, moodily feeling that any exertion whatsoever were
a thing altogether useless. She was disturbed from her morbid
reflections by the entrance of a servant, who announced the presence of
Mr. Morton and Mr. Carrington in the drawing-room, who had called to see
Mr. Hamilton. In sheer desperation, with no precise idea as to her
course, Cicily resolved to interview these callers, since her husband
had not yet returned home. So, she bade the servant inform the gentlemen
that Mr. Hamilton was expected to return very soon, and that in the
meantime she would be glad to give them a cup of tea. As soon as the
servant had left the room, she regarded herself minutely in the mirror,
made some adjustments to the masses of her gol