Part 21 (1/2)

”I wonder,” she said, ”if all monopolists go through the same thing--first, they get such a wonderful scheme that they hardly dare to go to bed for fear they'll talk in their sleep: then they're crazy for fear it won't work; then it _does_ work, and they think they're the Lord's anointed; and bye-and-bye they look around and feel--sort of apologetic.”

”Oh. Do _you_ feel apologetic?”

”I'm looking around, anyway.”

”You'd better save your energy. Mix's amendment's coming up pretty soon, and even if it doesn't pa.s.s, I don't see how we're going to compete with this weather. It's so abominably beautiful that it's--sickening.”

”Oh--Mix!” she said, scornfully. ”It gives me the creeps just to hear his name! He's a nasty hypocrite, and a sneak, and a--How long do you suppose he'll be hurrying around with that pious air after he gets his money? Why, he won't even stay in the League!”

Henry grimaced. ”You're wrong. If he gets his money, he _will_ stay in the League, and I'll bet on it.”

There was a short silence. ”Henry,” she burst out, ”everything considered, I believe he wants your uncle's money more than we do!”

”Whichever one of us gets it,--” said Henry grimly, ”--He'll _earn_ it!”

When he recalled his previous years of irresponsibility, he was staggered to realize how little a fifty dollar bill had meant to him.

It had meant a casual request across the breakfast table; now, it meant that seventy-five or a hundred people were willing to pay him a few cents apiece for the result of his headaches; and the absence of those people, and the failure of those receipts, meant the difference between achievement and bitter downfall.

He had risked everything on his monopoly, and added six thousand dollars to his quota. For two months, he had carried the double load, and beaten his schedule; in early May, he was falling behind at the rate of fifty dollars a week. With twelve weeks ahead, he faced a deficit of a paltry six hundred dollars--and the Mix amendment was peeping over the horizon.

He shaved down his expenses to the uttermost penny; he ruthlessly discarded the last fraction of his cla.s.s pride, and in emergency, to save the cost of a subst.i.tute, acted in place of his own doorman. He rearranged the lighting of the auditorium to save half a dollar a day.

When the regular pianist was ill, he permitted Anna, for an entire fortnight, to play in his stead; and during that fortnight they ate three meals a day in a quick-lunch restaurant. There was no economy so trivial that he wouldn't embrace it; and yet his receipts hung steadily, maddeningly, just below the important average. Meanwhile, the subject of reform crept out again to the front page of the morning papers.

For nine months, Mr. Mix and Henry had occupied, mentally, the end seats on a see-saw, and as Henry's mood went down, Mr. Mix's mood went up. By strict fidelity to his own affairs, Mr. Mix had kept himself in the public eye as a reformer of the best and broadest type, and he had done this by winning first Mirabelle, and then the rest of the League, to his theory that organization must come before attack. Needless to say, he had found many impediments in the way of organization; Mirabelle had often betrayed impatience, but Mr. Mix had been able, so far, to hold her in check. He had realized very clearly, however, that Mirabelle wasn't to be put off indefinitely; and he had been glad that he had a readymade ruse which he could employ as a blinder whenever she began to fidget. This ruse was his amendment; and although he could no longer see any value in it for the purposes of his private feud, yet he was pa.s.sing it for two reasons; Mirabelle was one, and the public was the other. Even a reformer must occasionally justify his t.i.tle; and besides, it wasn't the sort of thing which could injure the majesty of his reputation.

On this, then, Mr. Mix had laboured with unceasing diligence, and he had spent Mirabelle's money so craftily that thirty five hundred dollars had done the work of five thousand (and the balance had gone into his own pocket, and thence into a disastrous speculation in cotton), but as the year came into June, he told himself cheerfully that amendment or no amendment, he was justified in buying Mirabelle a wedding-ring. And when a belated epidemic of influenza rode into town, on the wings of an untimely spell of weather, and the Health Department closed all theatres for five days, Mr. Mix told himself, further, that the end of his career as a reformer was in sight, and that the beginning of his career of statecraft was just over the hill.

Once the minister had said ”Amen,” and once his bride had made him her treasurer, and helped him into the Mayor's chair, the Reform League was at liberty to go to the devil.

Mirabelle had persisted in keeping the wedding-journey a surprise from him. She had hinted at a trip which would dazzle him, and also at a wedding gift which would stun him by its magnificence; Mr. Mix had visions on the one hand, of Narragansett, Alaska or the Canadian Rockies, and on the other hand, of a double fistful of government bonds. Mr. Mix didn't dare to tease her about the gift, but he did dare to tease her about the journey, and eventually she relented.

”I'll tell you,” said Mirabelle, archly. ”We're going to the convention.”

Mr. Mix looked blank. ”Convention?”

She nodded proudly. ”The national convention of reform clubs, in Chicago. Aren't you surprised?”

Mr. Mix swallowed, and made himself smile, but it was a hazardous undertaking. ”Surprised? I--I'm--I'm knocked endways!”

”You see,” she said, ”we'll be married on the fourth and be in Chicago on the sixth and be home again on the fourteenth and the Council won't vote on the amendment until the sixteenth. Could anything have been nicer? Now, Theodore, you _had_n't guessed it, had you?”

”Guessed it?” he stammered. ”I should say not. I don't see how you ever thought of it. It's--why, I'm paralyzed!”

”You could be a little more enthusiastic without hurting yourself any,” she said suspiciously.

”I was thinking. I used to fancy I was pretty good at making plans myself, but this beats _me_. The way those dates all dovetail like the tiles on a roof. I never heard of anything like it. Only--well, if you _will_ be so quick at reading my mind, I was wondering if we ought to leave town before the Council meets.”

”That's mighty unselfish of you, Theodore, but you said only a couple of days ago you'd done all you could. And the Exhibitors'll still be working--”