"But I've told you so often, dear, I'm _glad_ to do it if it helps you."
"It helped a lot. If you hadn't done it in the first place, I wouldn't have had the cash on hand to tie up the rest of the picture houses. But that time's gone by. I don't see why in thunder you won't hire some servants. And at least you could pike up into the country for a week. Why don't you?"
She hesitated, for temptation was strong, and she was really very tired. "Maybe it's just because I want to play the game out, too. It's only two months more."
"And after that," he said firmly, "we're going to move. I'll have enough to buy a young bungle-house up on the hill, even if I don't get anything from Archer. And then I'm going to make up to you for this year--see if I don't."
"Sell it!" he echoed. "I'd sell it so quick you'd think it was a fake oil-well! I could, too. Bob Standish sends me a proposition from somebody about once a week."
"Don't you believe there's any chance of our catching up, then?"
"Looks pretty black," he admitted. "They've got us eight down and nine to go, but if this amendment holds off we've still got eight weeks left to think up some wild scheme."
She squeezed his arm. "I'm not afraid of the future, no matter what happens. We can take care of ourselves."
"Sure we can," he said, easily. "Maybe I could get a job keeping the books for the League!... Seriously, though, I've had two or three different propositions put up to me over at the Club ... but Lord! how I hate to be licked! Well--let's train our gigantic intellects on the job, and finish out the heat, anyway."
She went back to her hated housekeeping, and Henry went back to his hated theater, and for another week they labored and pinched and saved, each in a specific purpose, and each in desperate support of the other's loyalty and sacrifice.
He brought her, then, the morning edition of the _Herald_, and pointed out a telegraphic item on the first page. "They must think it's a sure thing," he said, "and the devil of it is that I guess they're pretty nearly right."
Anna glanced at the headlines, and gasped. "Mix elected second vice-president of the national organization--and pledges twenty-five thousand dollars to the national campaign fund! Oh!... I _wish_ I could say what I think!"