is 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
institution. 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
ob