Making People Happy

"There's no such thing as going backward in life, Charles," she declared, intently. "We must go forward – only forward!"

"No," Hamilton answered, gravely. "That would never do. The old struggle would come up again. You were right in your argument, Cicily, and I see it now. I recognize the existence of that modern triangle, as you described it. One must choose, inevitably. It's either you or business. I chose once, and I went wrong. Now, let me choose again, dear. Oh, you must believe me, sweetheart. You are the dearer – infinitely the dearer to me! It is you I love – only you!" There was genuine passion in the man's voice. It rang heavenly harmonies in the soul of the wife. For the moment, she was half-inclined to throw away the troubles begotten of ambition, the strivings engendered by ideals, to rest content with the happiness of love's transports. She fought the temptation stoutly, but it was almost beyond her woman's strength to resist. She feinted for time by haphazard questioning, voiced in broken, uncertain tones while she strove to maintain her purpose:

"What are you going to do, Charles? How will you prove that I am dearer to you, after all, than is this hateful business?"

"How am I going to prove it?" Hamilton repeated, with immense self-satisfaction. "Why, I'm going to sell out to Morton, to-morrow."

At this explicit statement of his purpose, Cicily was swiftly recalled from her temporary mood of yielding.

"You're going to quit?" she demanded, sharply. "Is that what you mean, Charles?"

"Yes," came the complacent answer, firm in the intensity of sudden resolve. "I have it all planned out, already. We'll take a steamer the last of the week for another – a better, wiser – honeymoon. We'll go to the Italian lakes, to Switzerland. Then, afterward, we'll drop down to that little village in the south of France. You remember the place, don't you, dearest?"

"Yes," Cicily answered, very softly. Her cheeks were flushed with tender memories of that embowered nook which had given lotos-eating pause to their wedding-journey. Her eyes were dreamy with fond reminiscence, as she imagined again the quaint beauties of that lover's paradise. But, by a fierce effort of will, she threw off the spell that threatened to defeat her most cherished ambition; and she spoke with an accent of supreme determination, in a voice become suddenly vibrant with new energy. "But I won't go!" Her face, too, had lost the delicate, yielding lines of the woman wooed and won, rejoicing in submission; it was again alert, set to fixedness of plan that would brook no denial. At sight of the change in her, Hamilton stared in dismay. He could not understand this development in her. He had humiliated himself in vain. He had offered the abandonment of all that could offend her, yet she remained obdurate, discontented, defiant of his every desire. He almost groaned, as he cast himself disconsolately into a chair, and buried his head in his hands, despairing of any understanding as to the whims of a woman.

"Don't you see, dear," Cicily went on, gently persuasive, "that we can't – we just can't! – quit? Why, Charles, being a quitter is the one thing that you've most hated all your life. And I, too, have hated it. No, you can't quit, because you're held here by duty – by duty to yourself, by duty to those men and women, our little brothers and sisters, who depend on you for their livelihood."

"The trust will take care of them," Hamilton declared mechanically, without lifting his face from his hands.

"You know how the trust will take care of them," Cicily retorted, with a touch of bitterness. "It will pay them a starvation wage – no more!"

"But you're jealous of business!" Hamilton objected, raising his head to gaze curiously at this most paradoxical person. "And, now, you are urging me to keep at it. I don't understand."

Cicily laughed aloud, in genuine enjoyment. Her eyes were alight with the fires of victory.

"I used to be jealous of it," she admitted, joyously. "I'm not any longer – because I've beaten it. Your offer just now proves that, doesn't it?.. But, now that I have won a triumph over my old rival, why, we've got to go forward."

"Together?" There was a tender, half-fearful doubt in the husband's voice as he asked the question that meant so much to him, for he loved this variable wife of his in this moment more than he had ever dreamed that he could love a woman.

The wife's head drooped shyly, and her face flamed. Her word came very softly spoken, but it rang a peal of happiness in the heart of her husband.

"Yes."

The man rose from his chair, and went to his wife's side, where he stooped, and took her face in his hands, and raised it until he could look deep into the eyes of gold.

"You will care again, as you used to care?"

And she answered bravely, although a gentle confusion held her all a-tremble:

"I will care because – because I've never stopped caring!"

"Thank God!" Hamilton said reverently, and gathered her into his arms.

Afterward, the twain lovers talked of many things, as lovers will, of things grave and gay, of things silly and profound. They talked of business affairs, into which Cicily might on occasion flash the light of intuition to clear the way for grosser reason. They discussed the mutuality of interests that would be theirs, a lesson of supreme worth to a conventional world. They arranged philanthropic schemes for the betterment of conditions for the little brothers and sisters who gained a sustenance by toil at their behest. But, most of all, they talked those divine absurdities that are the privilege of all true lovers. The husband bewailed the incredible stupidity that had led him into neglect of the most adorable being in the universe; the wife mourned over the stern necessity that had driven her to sacrifice ineffable happiness on the altar of conscience.

They drew apart a little, when Delancy came bustling in from his conversation over the telephone; but they scarcely had ears for his jubilant announcement of victory.

"Johnson thinks it's great!" the old gentleman cried, triumphantly. "He's coming right up here in his machine, with a lawyer, to draw the papers… And I've 'phoned for our attorney to get here as fast as he can. My boy, we've got 'em! Hooray!"

Hamilton responded with a perfunctory enthusiasm, but his eyes never left his wife's face.

As for Cicily, she sat silent, her eyes veiled, reveling in the glad riot of her thoughts. Through her brain went echoing the words spoken by her Aunt Emma, which had served in a measure to guide her course of action, and she smiled in perfect content as she mused on their meaning in her life. She had sought "to make other people happy." She had striven valiantly in behalf of the workers in the factory; she had struggled for her husband. Well, she had succeeded for them – surely, she had made other people happy; and out of her labors for those others she had won the supreme happiness for herself.

But it was after Delancy had left them that Hamilton reached into the inner pocket of his waistcoat, and plucked forth a little packet of tissue paper, which he unrolled with a touch that was half-caressing. Of a sudden, Cicily, watching, uttered a cry of delight.

"You cared – so much?" she questioned, with shy eagerness, as she put out her left hand.

The husband slipped the wedding-ring to its place.

"I cared so much," he said softly; "and infinitely more!"

The amber eyes of the wife were veiled with tears, as she lifted them to his.

"Oh, thank God, it is back again!" she whispered.