United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The preliminary conference with Morton and Carrington, which had so fatally interfered with Cicily's anniversary plans, proved totally unsatisfactory from the standpoint of Charles Hamilton. As a matter of fact, a crisis had arisen in his business affairs. He was threatened with disaster, and as yet he was unable to see clearly any way out.
It's this way: These men are getting more money than they ought to get. Charles can't make a penny profit, running his business this way. That's all there is to it he's got to cut them ten per cent. I've advised it, myself." Cicily's charming nose was now distinctly tip-tilted, whatever might be its normal line. "Yes, I'd expect you to advise it, Uncle Jim," she remarked, dryly.
She revealed something of her mind and heart to her aunt on the afternoon of the day following the singular session of the Civitas Society. The two women were together in Cicily's boudoir, a delightful room, all paneled in rose silk, with furniture Louis Quatorze, and Dresden ornaments.... It was an hour yet before time for the dressing-bell.
The magnetism of her presence penetrated to him by subtle degrees.... He looked up at her, with no recognition in his eyes. "They've gone, dear?" She spoke the words very softly, for she understood instinctively something as to the trance in which he was held. Hamilton's abstraction was dissipated as the familiar music of Cicily's voice beat gently on his ears. "Yes oh, yes, they've gone."
That she had failed utterly in her efforts to make an impression on the heart of Charles Hamilton did not mitigate the offense in the estimation of the bride. So strong was Cicily's feeling, indeed, and so impulsive her temperament, that the aunt was really alarmed for fear of an open rupture between the two young women, for Helen Johnson had a venomous tongue, and a liking for its employment.
In this mistake he was perhaps less blamable than are some, inasmuch as he was fettered by a great ignorance of feminine nature. From earliest boyhood, he had been Cicily's abject worshiper. That devotion had held him aloof from other women.
For a time, I was lonesome very lonesome oh, so lonesome!... And, then, I began to make a life for myself outside the home as he had already by his business. I tried in my humble way to do something for others. That's the best way to down a heartache, my dear try making someone else happy." The words arrested Cicily's heed.
Hamilton spoke the single word with an air of blank astonishment. It needed no more to make clear the fact that he had no guess as to the importance of this especial day in the calendar of their wedded lives. Cicily's spirits sank to the lowest deeps of discouragement before this confession of her husband's inadvertence to that which she regarded as of vital import in the scheme of happiness.
Cicily's head with the coronal of dark brown hair, usually poised so proudly, now drooped dejectedly; there was no hopefulness in her tones as she replied: "I don't know I am afraid. Why, since the tobacco trust bought out that Carrington box factory five months ago, and began fighting Charles, he talks tobacco boxes in his sleep." "Don't take it so seriously," the aunt argued.
There was, too, a general air of elation in the woman's manner of carriage that struck a chill to Cicily's heart. And the cold of it deepened as Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie Ferguson followed into the drawing-room, each evidently in a state of exaltation. The three ranged themselves in rude dignity before their hostess. Mrs. McMahon constituted herself the spokeswoman.
Word Of The Day