The answer was slow in coming; but it came, none the less—came firmly, unhesitatingly, unequivocally.
"If there were to be a strike, I could not let those women and those children suffer without doing something to help them."
At this candid statement as to what her course would be, the husband stiffened in his chair. His expression grew severe, minatory.
"What?" he ejaculated, harshly. "You'd use your money to help them? My wife use her money to fight me?" His frown was savage.
Cicily preserved her appearance of calm confidence, although she was woefully minded to cower back, and to cover her eyes from the menace in his. She was a woman of strongly fixed principles, however chimerical her ideas in some directions, and now her conscience drove her on, when love would have bade her retreat.
"I'd use my money to keep women and children from starving to death," she said, in a low voice, which trembled despite her will.
Hamilton smothered an angry imprecation. He strove to master his wrath as he spoke again, very sternly:
"Cicily, you are my wife. You have said that you were my partner. As either, as both, you have responsibilities toward my welfare that must be respected."
"I'm a woman, with responsibilities as a human being first of all," was the undaunted retort. "I wouldn't be fit to be a wife, if I were to let women and children starve without trying to help."