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 class pride, and in emergency, to save the cost of a substitute, 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 242 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 passing it for two reasons; Mirabelle was one, and the public was the other. Even a reformer must occasionally justify his 243 title; 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 244 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 hadn’t guessed it, had you?”