Rope Part 21

"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--"

"I don't believe they'll work any too hard. It's taken too long to get under way. If the amendment pa.s.ses, you see they'll only have the advantage of six weeks of fair compet.i.tion. I mean, Henry'd lose only six weeks of his _un_fair compet.i.tion. And then we've got to see about getting new quarters for the League, when our Masonic Hall lease runs out, and--"

"But our advertising'll be running just the same, and the League'll still have its public meetings, and all. And everywhere I go I hear the same thing; the people really want this pa.s.sed. And _any_body can find us a new hall. I'll appoint somebody. No, you're just as unselfish as you can be, but we'll be back in time. Truly, Theodore, didn't you guess?"

Much of the jauntiness had gone out of Mr. Mix, but he consoled himself with the certainty that in another two months, he would be in a position to become masterful. The week in Chicago would bore him excessively, but after all, it was only a small part of a lifetime. He reflected that to any prisoner, the last few days before release, and freedom, are probably the hardest.

"How could I, my dear?"

"No, you must have thought I'd want you to traipse off on some perfectly aimless, nonsensical trip like a pair of sentimental idiots."

"Oh, you know me better than that," he murmured.

"Yes, but I didn't know how well you knew _me_. Sometimes I've been afraid you think I'm too--gus.h.i.+ng."

"Oh, Mirabelle!"

"Just because I chatter along to you as any innocent young girl might--"

She continued to chatter for some minutes, but Mr. Mix was absent-minded.

He had chewed the cud of his own virtue for too long a time, and it had given him a sour stomach. He was thinking that if her gift to him were in money (and from her hints he rather expected it) he might even manage to find, in Chicago, a type of unascetic diversion which would remove the taste of the convention from his spirit. But it was better to be safe than sorry, and therefore Mr. Mix decided to make a flying trip to New York, for his bachelor celebration.

To Mirabelle he said that he was going to confer with his friend, the head of the Watch-and-Ward Society. Mirabelle promptly volunteered to go along too, but Mr. Mix told her, as delicately as he could, that it wouldn't look proper, and Mirabelle, who wors.h.i.+pped propriety as all G.o.ds in one, withdrew the suggestion.

"But before you go," she said, "You've _got_ to do something about the state-wide campaign. You've got to write the literature, anyway."

Mr. Mix felt that he was protected by the calendar, and promised.

Before he went to New York, he wrote three pamphlets which were marvels of circ.u.mlocution, as far as reform was concerned, and masterpieces of political writing, as far as his own interests were concerned. He had borrowed freely, and without credit, from the speeches of every orator from Everett to Choate, and when he delivered the ma.n.u.scripts to Mirabelle, and went off on his solitary junket, he was convinced that he had helped his own personal cause, and satisfied the League, without risking the smallest part of his reputation.

On his return, he stopped first at the Citizens Club, and when he came into the great living-room he was aware that several members looked up at him and smiled. Over in a corner, Henry Devereux and Judge Barklay had been conversing in undertones; but they, too, had glanced up, and their smiles were among the broadest.

Mr. Mix had an uncomfortable intuition that something had blown. Could he have been spotted, in New York, by any one from home?

"What's the joke?" he inquired of the nearest member.

"Got a new name for you--Pitchfork Mix." Mr. Mix spread a thin smile over his lips. "Supposed to be funny, is it?"

"Some folks think so."

"Where'd it originate? Let me in on the joke."

"Where _would_ it originate? You're some strenuous author--aren't you?

Didn't know you had that much acid in your system."

"Author? Author?"