erence to her ideals; and she up-turned her great
eyes toward the ceiling.

Mrs. Flynn, curiously enough, was opposed to the idealist in this
instance.

"Yes," she said, "I fear that it's quite true. The professional working
woman thinks more of her salary and a comfortable living than of our
great cause."

Cicily herself disposed of the matter with a blithesome nonchalance that
was beautiful to behold.

"Oh, don't bother," was her way of cutting the Gordian knot. "I'll make
my husband's stenographer do the work."

"I move that we adjourn," the militant suffragette repeated in a most
businesslike manner.

Mrs. Carrington was determined that her rival should not outdistance her
at the finish. She spoke with her most forcible dignity:

"I second the motion."

The motion was put and carried.... Thus ended the first session of that
epoch-marking organization: The Civitas Society for the Uplift of Woman
and for Encouraging the Spread of Social Equality among the Masses.

CHAPTER II

Cicily Hamilton, bride of a year, was seemingly as fortunate a young
woman as the city of New York could offer to an envious world. Her house
in the East Sixties, just off the Avenue, was a charming home, dainty,
luxurious, in the best of taste, with a certain individuality in its
arrangement and ornamentation that spoke agreeably of the personality of
its mistress. Her husband, Charles Hamilton, was a handsome man of
twenty-six, who adored his wife, although recently, in the months since
the waning of the honeymoon, he had been so absorbed in business cares
that he had rather neglected those acts of tenderness so vital to a
woman's happiness. Some difficulties that disturbed him downtown
rendered him often preoccupied when at home, and the effect on his wife
was unwholesome. Little by little, the girl-woman felt a certain
discontent growing within her, indeterminate in a great measure, but
none the less forceful in its influence on her moods day by day.

The statements that Cicily had made in her inaugural speech to the
Civitas Society exhibited, albeit crudely, some of the facts breeding
revolt in her. In very truth, she found herself without sufficient
occupation to hold her thoughts from fanciful flights that led to no
satisfactory result in action. An excellent housekeeper, who was far
wiser in matters of menage than she could ever be, held admirable sway
over the domestic machinery. The servants, thus directed, were as