"Yes, I know them," came the uncompromising answer. The grimness of his face did not relax. He had had a day of tedious worries, and the sight of the women here in his own home exasperated him almost beyond the point of endurance. "An unexpected pleasure!" he added, with an inflection that was unmistakable.
"Oh, we didn't come to see you, Mr. Hamilton," Sadie declared resentfully, in answer to that inflection. "We came to see your wife."
"These are the officers of our new woman's club," Cicily interposed, hastily. "Do sit down for a moment, Charles." She returned to her own chair; but Hamilton made no movement to obey her request. Instead, he addressed the visitors in a tone even more unpleasant than that which he had used hitherto.
"Oh, you came to get something from Mrs. Hamilton," he sneered.
"Indeed, and we did not!" the Irishwoman retorted roughly, furious at the insinuation. But her anger melted as she caught Cicily's pleading eyes. There was a grateful softness in the brogue as she added: "Sure, she's given too much already, and that's the truth."
There was no hint of relaxing in the tense severity of Hamilton's face, as he replied, without a glance toward his wife:
"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.