"Oh, I don't—can't believe it!" she cried, with sudden fierceness. With the words, she snatched up the box, which Mrs. Flynn had deposited on the table, and poured out the balls. She stared at them affrightedly for a moment. There could be no mistake: They were two white and eight black! Cicily regarded the incontrovertible evidence of defeat for a minute with dilated eyes. Then, abruptly, she laughed hardily, straightened up from her scrutiny of the balls, and gazed wrathfully out upon her fellow club-members. When she spoke, her tone was of ice. Her utterance was made with the utmost of deliberation.
"So," she said, while her amber eyes flashed fire, "you are a set of empty-headed, silly women with nothing to do, after all!"
"Cicily!" Mrs. Delancy exclaimed, aghast, while the others could only gasp in horror before this unparalleled vituperation.
"I mean it—every word of it!" Cicily repeated, hotly. But the impetuosity of her mood was checked as she beheld the general consternation consequent on her attack; for now all the others were on their feet, moving hurriedly and muttering excitedly.
"I suppose this is parliamentary law as it is understood in America," the militant suffragette made sarcastic comment, in a shrill voice. "I prefer the English fashion of doing things, for my part."
Cicily realized, with an increase of misery, how intolerable had been her conduct. With that swift changefulness that was distinctive of her nature, she sought to make amends as best she could, although she understood that the task was well-nigh a hopeless one.
"I beg your pardon," she said, with as much humility as she could summon. "But, oh, you don't know what you are doing. You can't know! Don't you realize that you are spoiling our one chance for doing good—spoiling our chance to make this a genuine club to help women actually, not just merely making a joke by pretending?"
Mrs. Morton voiced the general sentiment of disagreement succinctly:
"I fail to see how association with such persons could be anything but distasteful, even disgusting."
"Exactly!" Mrs. Carrington agreed.