nd a sheaf
of papers. Charles Hamilton was a large, dark man, remarkably
good-looking in a boyish, clean-shaven, typically American, businesslike
fashion. Still short of the thirties, he had nevertheless formed those
habits of urgent industry that characterize the successful in the
metropolis. Already, he had become enslaved by the business man's worst
habit--that most dangerous to domestic happiness--the taking of mutual
love between him and his wife as something conceded once for all, not
requiring exhibition or culture or protection or nourishment of any
sort. In this mistake he was perhaps less blamable than are some,
inasmuch as he was fettered by a great ignorance of feminine nature.
From earliest boyhood, he had been Cicily's abject worshiper. That
devotion had held him aloof from other women. In consequence, he had
missed the variety of experiences through which many men pass, from
which, perforce, they garner stores of wisdom, to be used for good or
ill as may be. Hamilton, unfortunately, knew nothing concerning woman's
foibles. He had no least suspicion as to her constant craving for the
expression of affection, her heart-hunger for the murmured words of
endearment, her poignant yearning for gentle, tender caresses day by
day. They loved; they were safely married: those blessed facts to him
were sufficient. There was no need to talk about it. In fact, in his
estimation, there was not time. There was business to be managed--no
dillydallying in this day and generation, unless one would join the
down-and-out club! Such was the point of view from which this bridegroom
of a year surveyed his domestic life. It was a point of view
established almost of necessity from the environment in which he found
himself established. He was in no wise unique: he was typical of his
class. He was clean and wholesome, industrious, energetic, clever--but
he knew nothing of woman.... So, now, he immediately rushed up to Mrs.
Delancy, without so much as a glance toward the wife who had studied
long and anxiously to make the delight of his eyes.

"Hello, Aunt Emma!" he exclaimed gaily, and kissed her. "I am glad you
stayed over to cheer up the little girl, while husband was away grubbing
the money for her."

"Oh, do you think, then, that she needs cheering?" There was a world of
significance in the manner with which the old lady put the pertinent
question; but the absorbed business man was deaf to the implication.

Cicily, however, s