Anna was horrified. “You didn’t think we’d spend what we make, did you?”
“Why not? Uncle John didn’t say we had to show them ten thousand in coin at the end of the year; he said I had to make it––on the books. We can spend every kopeck of it, if we want to. And I was about to say that with six thousand dollars left over from the mortgage money, we’ll have a maid after all. Yea, verily, even a cook.”
Anna glanced at her hands––slim, beautiful hands they were––and shook her head obstinately. “No, dear. Because what we save now might be our only capital later.”
“But we’re going to win. We’re going to exert our resistless wills to the utmost. What’s the use of being tightwads?”
“But if we shouldn’t win, look where we’d be! No, dear, we’re going to save our pennies. That’s why I picked out this apartment; that’s why I’m doing as much as I can with it myself. It’s the only safe way. And just look around––haven’t I done wonders with almost nothing at all?”
Henry looked around, not that his memory was at fault, but because he was perpetually dumbfounded by her genius. Originally, this living-room had been a dolorous cave with varnished yellow-pine woodwork, gas-logs, yellow wall-paper to induce toothache, and a stark chandelier with two anemic legs kicking out at vacancy. She had caused the Orpheum electrician to remove the chandelier; with her own hands, she had painted the woodwork a deep, 109 rich cream-colour; she had ripped out the gas-logs and found what no one had ever suspected––a practicable flue; and she had put in a basket grate which in the later season would glow with cheerful coals. Over the wall-paper she had laid a tint which was a somewhat deeper cream than the woodwork. She had made that cave attractive with a soft, dull-blue rug, and wicker furniture, with hangings of cretonne in sunny gold and an echo of the blue rug, with brass bowls which held the bulbs she had tended on the kitchen window-sill, with bookshelves, and pictures from her own home. Especially by candle-light, it was charming; and her greatest joy, and Henry’s unending marvel, was that it had cost so little, and that so much of it was her own handiwork.
“Yes, but pause and reflect a minute,” said Henry. “I’ve sold the big car and bought a tin-plated runabout. I’ve sold my horse. I’ve sold ten tons of old clothes and priceless jewels. Financially speaking, I’m as liquid as a pellucid pool in a primeval forest. And there’s another grand thing to consider; I’m keeping 110 my own books, so nobody’s going to crack the till, the way they did with grandfather. Can’t we even have a cook?”
“No, dear. Nobody but me. We’ve got to play safe. It’s all part of the game. Don’t you see it is?”
Eventually, he agreed with her, and went back to the Orpheum, where a score of workmen were busy remodelling the interior, and patching up the façade. He stood for a moment to watch the loading of a truck with broken-seats, jig-saw decorations, and the remains of a battered old projector; he looked up, presently to the huge sign over the entrance: “Closed During Alterations, Grand Opening Sunday Afternoon, August 20th. Souvenirs.” There was no disputing the fact that all his eggs were in one basket, and that if the Reform League started to throw stones at it, they would find it a broad mark. But Henry had plenty of assurances that he didn’t need to worry, and so he sponged away the last of his doubts, and set to work to learn his business with all possible speed.