Mr. Mix looked puzzled; he thought she had a cold. But he said no more; he went home to his bachelor apartment, and after he had helped himself to three full fingers of meditation, together with a little seltzer, he smiled faintly, and told himself that there was no use in debating the point--a man with brains is predestined to make progress. But he couldn't help reflecting that now, more than ever, if any echo of his New York escapades, or any rumour of his guarded habits got to Mirabelle's ears--or, for that matter, to anybody's ears at all--his dreams would float away in vapour. Perhaps it would be wise to explain to Mirabelle that he had once been a sinner. She would probably forgive him, and appreciate him all the more. Women do.... It was curious that she had mentioned him as a possible Mayor. It had been his dearest ambition. He wondered if, with his present reputation, and then with the League behind him, there were a ghost of a chance.... CHAPTER VII There was probably no power on the face of the earth which could have driven Henry Devereux to the operation of a picture theatre, strictly as a business venture; but when he once got it into his head that the Orpheum wasn't so much a business as a sporting proposition, he couldn't have been stopped by anything short of an injunction. Immediately, his attitude was normal, and from the moment that he resolved to take possession of his property, and operate it, he was indifferent to the public estimate of him. The thing was a game, a game with a great stake, and set rules, and Henry took it as he once had taken his golf and his billiards and his polo--joyously, resiliently, determinedly, and without the slightest self-consciousness, and with never an eye for the gallery. He was inspirited, moreover, by the attitude of his friends. To be sure, they laughed, but in their laughter there was no trace of the ridicule he had feared. They took the situation as a very good joke on Henry, but at the same time, because gossip had already begun to build up a theory to explain that situation, there were several of them who wished that a similar joke, with a similar nubbin, might be played on themselves. They told this to Henry, they urged him to go ahead and become a strictly moral Wallingford, they slapped him on the back and assured him that if there was justice in the Sunday-school books, he was certain to finish in the money; and Henry, who had provided himself with several air-tight alibis, found them dead stock on his hands. He had known, of course, that he could count on Bob Standish, and a few of his other intimates, but the hearty fellowship of the whole circle overwhelmed him. He knew that even when they waxed facetious, they were rooting for him; and this knowledge multiplied his confidence, and gave him fresh courage.