Rope Part 17

"I--I've been seeing it all afternoon. When can we start?"

"Right away. _Now._" He stopped, rigid. "No, we won't either. No we _won't_. First, we've got to see the Judge--we've got to make sure there's no flaw in it. And _then_--we won't _let_ anybody copy us!"

"But how can you stop them?"

Henry was electric. "What's a movie theatre worth on Sunday? When they can't give a show anyway? I'll rent every house in town for every Sunday from now 'till August! I'll have to go slow, so n.o.body'll suspect. It may take a month, or _two_ months, but what do we care?

We'll play it sure. It won't cost too much, and we've got the cash in the bank. We've--" He paused again, and looked down at her, and his voice fell a semi-tone. "I don't know where I get all this _we_ stuff.

_I_'d have spent two-thirds of it by this time. You're the one that's saved it--and earned it too, by gosh!" He lifted her hands, and while she watched him, with shining eyes, he deliberately kissed the tip of each of her ten fingers. "_That's_ where the money's come from," said Henry, clearing his throat. "Out of dish-water. Only tonight we're going out to a restaurant and eat ourselves logy, and you won't wash a d.a.m.n dish. It's my party."

CHAPTER XI

Miss Mirabelle Starkweather lifted up her cup of tea, and with the little finger of her right hand stiffly extended to Mr. Mix's good health. Mr. Mix, sitting upright in a gilded chair which was three sizes too small for him, bowed with a courtliness which belonged to the same historical period as the chair, and also drank. Over the rim of his cup, his eyes met Mirabelle's.

"Seems to me you've got on some kind of a new costume, haven't you?"

asked Mr. Mix gallantly. "Looks very festive to me--very."

For the first time since bustles went out of fashion, Miss Starkweather blushed; and when she blushed, she was quite as uncompromising about it as she was about everything else. It wasn't that she had a grain of romance in her, but that she was confused to be caught in the act of flagging a beau; to hide her confusion, she rose, and went over to the furthest window and flung it wide open. The month was February, and the air was chill and raw, but Mirabelle could think of no other pretext for turning her back and cooling her cheeks. And yet, although she would have perjured herself a thousand times before she would admit it, she felt a certain strange, spring-like pleasure to know that Mr. Mix was only pretending to be deceived.

"Oh, my, no," she said over her shoulder. "I've had this since the Flood."

Mr. Mix had also risen, to hand her back to her seat, and now he stood looking down at her. She was wearing a gown of rustling, plum-coloured taffeta, with cut-steel b.u.t.tons; and at her belt there was a Dutch silver chatelaine which had been ultra-smart when she had last worn it. Vaguely, she supposed that it was ultra-smart today, and that was the reason she had attached it to her. From the chatelaine depended a silver pencil, a gold watch, a vinaigrette with gold-enamelled top, and a silver-mesh change-purse. At her throat, she had a cameo, and on her left hand, an amethyst set in tiny pearls. Mr. Mix, finishing the inventory, seated himself and began to tap one foot on the floor, reflectively. He was a man of perception, and he knew warpaint when he saw it.

"Makes you look so much younger," said Mr. Mix, and sighed a little.

"Don't be a fool," said Miss Starkweather, and to dissemble her pleasure, she put an extra-sharp edge on her voice. "I don't wear clothes to make me look younger; I wear 'em to cover me up."

"That's more than I can say for the present generation."

"Ugh!" said Miss Starkweather. "Don't speak of it! Shameless little trollops! But the _worst_ comment you could make about this present day is that men _like_ it. They _like_ to see those disgraceful get-ups. They _marry_ those girls. Beyond _me_."

Mr. Mix sneezed unexpectedly. There was a cold draught on the back of his neck, but as Mirabelle said nothing about closing the window, he hesitated to ask permission. "I've always wondered what effect it would have had on your--public career--if you hadn't preferred to remain single."

"My opinions aren't annuals, Mr. Mix. They're hardy perennials."

"I know, but do you think a married woman ought to devote herself entirely to public affairs? Shouldn't she consider marriage almost a profession in itself?"

"Well, I don't know about that. Duty's duty."

"Oh, to be sure. But would marriage have interfered with your career?

Would you have let it? Or is marriage really the higher duty of the two?"

"There's something in that, Mr. Mix. I never did believe a married woman ought to be in the road _all_ the time."

"It _was_ a question of your career, then?"

Mirabelle put down her cup. "Humph! No, it wasn't. Right man never asked me."

Mr. Mix's mind was on tiptoe. "But your standards are so lofty--naturally, they _would_ be." He paused. "I wonder what your standard really is. Is it--unapproachable? Or do you see some good in most of us?"

Mirabelle sat primly erect, but her voice had an unusual overtone.

"Oh, no, I'm not a ninny. But good husbands don't grow on goose-berry bushes. If I'd ever found a man that had the right principles, and the respect of everybody, and not too much tom-foolishness--a good, solid, earnest citizen I could be proud of--"

Mr. Mix interpolated a wary comment. "You didn't mention money."

She sniffed. "Do I look like the kind of a woman that would marry for money?"

"And in all these--I mean to say, haven't you ever met a man who complied with these conditions?"

She made no intelligible response, but as Mr. Mix watched her, he was desperately aware that his moment had come. His next sentence would define his future.

He was absolutely convinced, through his private source of information, that Henry was due to fall short of his quota by four or five thousand dollars; nothing but a miracle could save him, and Mr. Mix was a sceptic in regard to miracles. He was positive that in a brief six months Miss Starkweather would receive at least a half million; and Mr. Mix, at fifty-five, wasn't the type of man who could expect to have lovely and plutocratic debutantes thrown at his head. He believed--and his belief was cousin to a prayer--that Mirabelle was absorbed in reform only because no one was absorbed in Mirabelle.

Indeed, she had implied, a few moments ago, that marriage would cramp her activities; but it was significant that she hadn't belittled the inst.i.tution. Perhaps if she were skilfully managed, she might even be modernized. Certainly she had been content, so far, to be guided by Mr. Mix's conservatism. He hoped that he was right, and he trusted in his own strategy even if he were wrong. And every day that he continued moderate in his public utterances, and in his actions, he was a day nearer to the golden ambition of an elective office.

He was threatened with vertigo but he mastered himself, and drew a long, long breath in farewell to his bachelorhood.

"You have heartened me more than you know," said Mr. Mix, with ecclesiastical soberness. "Because--it has been my poverty--which has kept me silent." He bent forward. "Mirabelle, am _I_ the right man?"

Almost by sheer will-power, he rose and came to her, and took her hand. She shrank away, in maiden modesty, but her fingers remained quiescent. Mr. Mix sneezed again, and stooped to kiss her cheek, but Mirabelle avoided him.

"No," she said, with a short laugh. "That don't signify--I don't approve of it much." She wavered, and relented. "Still, I guess it's customary--Theodore."

Before he left her, they had staged their first altercation--it could hardly be called a quarrel, because it was too one-sided.

Mirabelle had asked him without the slightest trace of shyness, to telephone the glad tidings to the _Herald_; and of a sudden, Mr.

Mix was afflicted with self-consciousness. Unfortunately, he couldn't give a valid reason for it; he couldn't tell her that illogically, but instinctively, he wanted to keep the matter as a locked secret--and especially to keep it locked from Henry Devereux--until the minister had said: Amen. He admitted to himself that this was probably a foolish whim, a needless precaution, but nevertheless it obsessed him, so that he tried to argue Mirabelle away from the _Herald_. His most cogent argument was that the announcement might weaken their position in the League--the League might be too much interested in watching the romance to pay strict attention to reform.

"Humph!" said Mirabelle. "_I_'m not ashamed of being congratulated.

Are you? But if you're so finicky about it, I'll do the telephoning myself."

Whereupon Mr. Mix went back to his room, and drank two highb.a.l.l.s, and communed with himself until long past midnight.

In the morning, with emotions which puzzled him, he turned to the society column of the _Herald_; and when he saw the flattering paragraph in type,--with the veiled hint that he might be the next candidate for Mayor, on a reform ticket--he sat very still for a moment or two, while his hand shook slightly. No backward step, now!

His head was in the noose. He wondered, with a fresh burst of self-effacement, what people would say about it. One thing--they wouldn't accuse him of the truth. n.o.body but Mr. Mix himself knew the whole truth--unless perhaps it were Henry Devereux. Henry had developed a knowing eye. But Henry didn't count--Henry was beaten already. Still, if Henry should actually come out and accuse Mr. Mix of--why, what _could_ Henry accuse him of? Simply marrying for money?

If it didn't make any difference to Mirabelle, it certainly didn't to Mr. Mix. And what booted the rest of the world? Why should he concern himself with all the petty spite and gossip of a town which wasn't even progressive enough to have an art museum or a flying field, to say nothing of a good fight-club? Let 'em gossip.... But just the same, he wished that Mirabelle had been willing to keep the engagement a secret. Mr. Mix was sure to encounter Henry, once in a while, at the Citizens Club, and he didn't like to visualize Henry's smile.

He was in the act of tossing away the paper when his attention was s.n.a.t.c.hed back by a half-page advertis.e.m.e.nt; in which the name of the Orpheum Theatre stood out like a red flag. Mr. Mix glanced at it, superciliously, but a moment later, his whole soul was strung on it.

THE ORPHEUM Educational Motion Pictures FREE! FREE! FREE!

Every Sunday afternoon and evening ESPECIALLY HIGH-CLa.s.s ENTERTAINMENT of instructive and educational features With Sacred Music ABSOLUTELY FREE

to all those who present at the door ticket-stubs from the previous week's performances (bargain matinees excepted) showing a total expenditure of Three Dollars.

IN OTHER WORDS

Two people coming twice during the week, in 75 cent seats, come FREE Sunday