"You bet we have!" Cicily answered on the instant, inelegantly, but with convincing emphasis.
A faint ray of illumination stole into the mental blackness of Hamilton. Under its influence, he addressed Morton with a half-sneer:
"Do you think any man would have the nerve to try bluffing on a thing like that?" In his thoughts there was a forceful emphasis on the word "man," but he carefully avoided letting it appear in the spoken word.
There followed a lengthy and acrimonious debate among the men, to which Cicily listened with an air of half-amused, half-bored tolerance. She was, in fact, thrilling with delight over her inspiration, which had at last come after such long waiting. She felt an intuitive conviction that her ruse would win the battle for her husband's success. She need worry no more over the powerlessness of her women allies to bend the husbands to their will. Hereafter, she would retain the friendship of those worthy women, but without any ulterior object beyond their own welfare. It appealed to her as vastly more fitting that triumph should come from duping these men, who were her husband's enemies, who would have ruined him by their schemes, but for her intervention with a woman's wiles where man's vaunted sagacity had proved itself utterly at fault. The sincerity of her belief had sufficed in a minute to win the coöperation of Uncle Jim, that most determined opponent to woman's intrusion on business affairs. He had listened to her suggestion at the tea-table, at first with scornful displeasure over her venturing an opinion of any sort on business. Then, as he comprehended the purport of her scheme, his instinct for finesse had caused him to seize on it impetuously, to act upon it immediately.... Surely, Cicily thought, since Uncle Jim had been won over, there remained only the working out of details to insure a glorious victory—her victory for Charles!
She aroused herself from her abstraction with a start of alarm as she heard Morton crying out defiance.
"I tell you," he was saying heatedly, "those independent people have contracts with us. All this plotting of yours is just damned foolishness—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hamilton." The enraged capitalist flushed with new annoyance, for he prided himself greatly on the elegance of his manners, and it horrified him that he should have so far forgotten himself as to swear in the presence of a lady. "But they've no place in business anyhow!" he thought to himself consolingly.
"Oh, don't mention it!" Cicily answered, with an air of unconcern. To herself, she was reflecting amusedly on how much greater than the offender knew was his discourtesy toward herself, since she it was who was the author of that "damned foolishness" to which he had so feelingly referred.
But Delancy had no time to fritter away on niceties of etiquette.
"Oh, no, Morton!" he scoffed. "Johnson of the independents told me that you never gave them contracts, except for each lot. You see, that's how we got in on the deal."
"Yes, that's how we got in," Cicily echoed, in a gentle murmur. There was an infinity of satisfaction in her voice.