“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 247 me. Sometimes I’ve been afraid you think I’m too––gushing.”
“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 worshipped propriety 248 as all gods 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.