vehemently, as Mrs. Delancy's lips parted. "I guess that's why you're
wrong.... Anyhow, it isn't as it was intended. For the matter of that,
which was first, marriage or business? Did Adam have a business when he
married? Huh! There! No man could answer that!" Cicily paused in
triumph, and, in the elation wrought by developing a successful
argument, turned luminous eyes on her aunt, while her red lips bent
into the daintiest of smiles.

Mrs. Delancy was not to be beguiled from the fixed habits of thoughts
carried through scores of years by the winsome blandishments of her
whilom ward. She had no answering gentleness for the gladness in the
girl's face. When she spoke, it was with an emphasis of acute
disapproval:

"Do you mean that you are going to make your husband choose between you
and his business, Cicily?"

Something in the tone disturbed the young wife's serenity. The direct
question itself was sufficient to destroy the momentary equanimity
evolved out of a mental achievement such as the argument from Adam. She
realized, on the instant, that her desire must be defeated by the facts
of life.

"No," she admitted, after a brief period of hesitancy, "of course not.
Charles chooses business first--any man would."

The inexorable question followed:

"Well, what are you going to do?" Then, as no answer came: "I beg of
you, Cicily, not to be rash. Don't do anything that will cause you
regret after you have come into a calmer mood. Of course, once on a
time, marriage was first with men, and I think that it should be first
now--I know that it should. But it is the truth that business has now
come to be first in the lives of our American men. And, my dear, you
can't overcome conditions all by yourself. At heart, Charles loves you,
Cicily. I'm sure of that, even though he does seem, wrapt up in his
business affairs. Yet, he loves you, just the same. That's the one thing
we older women learn to cling to, to solace ourselves with: that, deep
down in their hearts, our husbands do love us, no matter how indifferent
they may seem. When a woman once loses faith in that, why, she just
can't go on, that's all. Oh, I beg you, Cicily, don't ever lose that
faith. It means shipwreck!"

The young wife shook her head slowly--doubtfully; then
quickly--determinedly.

"No, I won't put up with just that," she asserted, morosely, "I want
more. I'll have more, or--" She checked herself abruptly, and once again
the arch of her dark b