ing was calling to him, but Henry had to discipline his ears.
His working hours were from eleven in the morning until midnight; he
sat, day after day, in his constricted office, and glued his mind upon
his problems. The Orpheum was still a sporting proposition to him, but
even in sport, there come periods in which the last atom of nerve and
will-power are barely sufficient to keep the brain in motion. Henry's
nerves were fagged, his muscles were twitching, the inside of his head
felt curiously heavy and red-hot; the spring was calling him, but he
didn't dare to listen. The spirit of his Uncle John Starkweather was
waiting to see if he came to the tape with his head down, and Henry
was going to finish on his nerve.

As a matter of fact, he could easily have spared an hour of two each
day for exercise and recreation, but he wouldn't believe it. He
wouldn't yield to Anna when she implored him to get out of doors, to
freshen his mind and tame his muscles.

The atmosphere of his office almost nauseated him; the endless parade
of petty details was almost unbearably irksome; the book-keeping part
of it alone was soul-disintegrating; but to Henry, ambition had become
a monomania, and to it he was ready to make every conceivable
sacrifice, including--if necessary--his health. There were days when
he told himself that he would pay a thousand dollars merely to have
green turf under his feet, blue sky above, and no worries in his
soul--but he wouldn't sacrifice an hour of supervision over his
theatre. There were days when he felt that he would give up his chance
of salvation if only he could go away with Anna, up into the wooded
country, for a week's vacation--but he wouldn't sacrifice a week from
the Orpheum guardianship. The spring was calling him--the golf course,
the bridle-paths, the lake, the polo--but Henry had put himself in
high speed forward, and there was no reverse. Then, too, he was
constantly thinking of Anna, who without the daily stimulus that
Henry had, was cheerfully performing the function of a domestic
drudge. One of his most frequently repeated slogans was that if Anna
could stick it out, he could.

While the winter favoured it, his monopoly had brought him a splendid
return, but the first warm days had signalled a serious loss of
patronage, and Henry couldn't successfully combat the weather. The
weather was too glorious; it called away Henry's audiences, just
as it tried in vain to inveigle Henry. And then