"You know how the trust will take care of them," Cicily retorted, with a touch of bitterness. "It will pay them a starvation wage--no more!"
"But you"re jealous of business!" Hamilton objected, raising his head to gaze curiously at this most paradoxical person. "And, now, you are urging me to keep at it. I don"t understand."
Cicily laughed aloud, in genuine enjoyment. Her eyes were alight with the fires of victory.
"I used to be jealous of it," she admitted, joyously. "I"m not any longer--because I"ve beaten it. Your offer just now proves that, doesn"t it?... But, now that I have won a triumph over my old rival, why, we"ve got to go forward."
"Together?" There was a tender, half-fearful doubt in the husband"s voice as he asked the question that meant so much to him, for he loved this variable wife of his in this moment more than he had ever dreamed that he could love a woman.
The wife"s head drooped shyly, and her face flamed. Her word came very softly spoken, but it rang a peal of happiness in the heart of her husband.
"Yes."
The man rose from his chair, and went to his wife"s side, where he stooped, and took her face in his hands, and raised it until he could look deep into the eyes of gold.
"You will care again, as you used to care?"
And she answered bravely, although a gentle confusion held her all a-tremble:
"I will care because--because I"ve never stopped caring!"
"Thank G.o.d!" Hamilton said reverently, and gathered her into his arms.
Afterward, the twain lovers talked of many things, as lovers will, of things grave and gay, of things silly and profound. They talked of business affairs, into which Cicily might on occasion flash the light of intuition to clear the way for grosser reason. They discussed the mutuality of interests that would be theirs, a lesson of supreme worth to a conventional world. They arranged philanthropic schemes for the betterment of conditions for the little brothers and sisters who gained a sustenance by toil at their behest. But, most of all, they talked those divine absurdities that are the privilege of all true lovers. The husband bewailed the incredible stupidity that had led him into neglect of the most adorable being in the universe; the wife mourned over the stern necessity that had driven her to sacrifice ineffable happiness on the altar of conscience.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
They drew apart a little, when Delancy came bustling in from his conversation over the telephone; but they scarcely had ears for his jubilant announcement of victory.
"Johnson thinks it"s great!" the old gentleman cried, triumphantly.
"He"s coming right up here in his machine, with a lawyer, to draw the papers.... And I"ve "phoned for our attorney to get here as fast as he can. My boy, we"ve got "em! Hooray!"
Hamilton responded with a perfunctory enthusiasm, but his eyes never left his wife"s face.
As for Cicily, she sat silent, her eyes veiled, reveling in the glad riot of her thoughts. Through her brain went echoing the words spoken by her Aunt Emma, which had served in a measure to guide her course of action, and she smiled in perfect content as she mused on their meaning in her life. She had sought "to make other people happy." She had striven valiantly in behalf of the workers in the factory; she had struggled for her husband. Well, she had succeeded for them--surely, she had made other people happy; and out of her labors for those others she had won the supreme happiness for herself.
But it was after Delancy had left them that Hamilton reached into the inner pocket of his waistcoat, and plucked forth a little packet of tissue paper, which he unrolled with a touch that was half-caressing. Of a sudden, Cicily, watching, uttered a cry of delight.
"You cared--so much?" she questioned, with shy eagerness, as she put out her left hand.
The husband slipped the wedding-ring to its place.
"I cared so much," he said softly; "and infinitely more!"
The amber eyes of the wife were veiled with tears, as she lifted them to his.
"Oh, thank G.o.d, it is back again!" she whispered.
THE END