"Yes, I can fight a rival who is a woman, Charles, and I can win. But this other rival, this fascinating monstrous, evil goddess—ah!"
Hamilton held his wife away from him by the shoulders, mid regarded her in bewilderment.
"Evil goddess!" he repeated, half in doubt as to her meaning.
"Surely, she must be that," Cicily declared, firmly; "this spirit who is the goddess of modern business, whom I feel absorbing you day by day, taking from me more and ever more of your thoughts, of your heart, of your soul, changing you in every vital way, and doing it in spite of all that I can do, though I fight against her with all my strength! Oh, it's terrible, the hopelessness of it all! Some day all of you will be gone, forever!"
"Swallowed up by the evil spirit?" Hamilton asked, quizzically, with a smile.
"Yes!" The answer was given with a seriousness that rebuked his levity in the presence of possible catastrophe.
The husband repeated his threadbare argument.
"But, dear," he urged gently, "you know that I love you just the same."
There was a curious, cynical sadness in the wife's voice as she replied: