"Yes," he declared, with surly spitefulness. "I have been in a dozen strikes, and this is the first time any employer ever attacked me in my affections—through my Frieda." The German's narrow eyes were alight with venomous resentment, as he glowered at Hamilton.
Astounded by this attack, Hamilton forgot rage in stark bewilderment.
"What on earth do you—can you—mean?" he stormed.
"It is not right," was the stolid asseveration of the German. "The home is sacred." The speaker's tone was so malevolent that Hamilton was impressed, in spite of himself. And then, suddenly, a suspicion upreared itself in his brain—a suspicion so monstrous, so absurd, so baseless, so extravagantly impossible, that he would have laughed aloud, but for the sincerity of the feeling manifested in the faces of the men before him. His eyes roved from Schmidt to the faded woman who was the man's wife. He saw her shrinking behind the ample bulk of Mrs. McMahon, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as if in a wordless soliloquy. Then, again, his eyes returned to the man who had just uttered the preposterous accusation, and he beheld the usually jocund face distorted by a spasm of jealous fury, the insensate fury of the male in the loathed presence of a rival. No, here was no room for laughter. However ludicrous the mistake in its essence, its fruits were too serious for mirth. He turned his gaze on McMahon, and saw there the like virile detestation of himself. He ventured a glance toward the Amazon, who loomed over-buxom and stalwart. Again, he was tempted to amusement; but, again, a look toward the husband checked any inclination toward lightness of mood. Finally, he regarded Ferguson, and there, too, he beheld a passionate reproach. He did not trouble to stare at the girl. He remembered perfectly her cheap prettiness, her mincing manner, her flamboyant smartness of apparel from Grand Street emporiums of fashion. The strain of a false situation gripped him evilly, so that for the moment he faltered before it, uncertain as to his course. Denial, he felt, must be almost hopeless, since how could men capable of such crude stupidity digest reason? He hesitated visibly, and in that hesitation his accusers read guilt.
It was evident from a sudden, flaming red that suffused Mrs. McMahon's expansive countenance that she was beginning to grasp the purport of the accusations against Hamilton. She started toward her husband with a demeanor that augured ill for peaceful conference, when she was stayed by Cicily's grasp on her arm.
"Wait!" came the command, in a soothing voice. "Let me speak to these foolish men. You'll only stir them up, and make them worse." The Amazon yielded reluctantly, for she loved as well as honored the woman who had won her friendship by so much endeavor; but there was dire warning of things to come in the gaze she fixed on her suspicious husband.
"I'll not listen to this foolishness any longer," Cicily declared, dearly, in a cold voice that held the attention of all. "You men are too utterly absurd. There's no love lost between your wives and my husband, I assure you. If you had chanced in a few minutes earlier, you would have been well aware of the fact." Her statement was corroborated by the vehement nods of the women and the glances of disdainful aversion that they cast on the master of the house at this reference as to the status of their mutual affection. "Your wives and daughters," Cicily concluded haughtily, with a level look at the three husbands, which was not wanting in its effect, "are my friends."
But Ferguson was not dismayed by the reproof.
"Yes, Mrs. Hamilton," he answered, with bitter emphasis, "you're the one—we know that! You're the cat's-paw, with your clubs and your benefits." He turned to Hamilton, and went on speaking with even greater virulence. "It's through her that you're fighting; it's through her that you're attacking us in our homes; it's through her that you're turning our wives and our daughters against us until our lives are miserable with them, morning, noon and night. They're forever talking against the strike, trying to make us come back to you, and to take the cut. And it ain't fair, I tell you! No honest employer would fight that way from behind a woman's petticoats. Women haven't got any place in business, according to our way of thinking. We didn't mind your wife's butting in with bath-tubs and gymnasiums and libraries, and such foolish truck as that; but, when it comes to mixing up in the strike, and organizing our wives and daughters against us, why, we kick. That's the long and the short of it, Mr. Hamilton. No real man would stoop to that sort of work. It's a woman's trick, that's what it is—and women have no place in business." Schmidt and McMahon, almost in unison, rumbled assent.
At last, the badgered employer felt himself sure of his ground.