He shook his head. "No, because that's just what Mix and Aunt Mirabelle expect me to do. This campaign of theirs is impersonal towards everybody else, but it's slightly personal towards me. I mean, Aunt Mirabelle's sore on general principles, and Mix is sore because I wouldn't come up and eat out of his hand and get myself sheared. We won't fight. We'll outwit 'em." "But _how_?" "Now that question," he said reproachfully, "was mighty tactless. _I_ don't know how. But I know I'm not going to stick my head over the ramparts for 'em to shoot at. I'm no African Dodger--I'm an impresario. Maybe they'll hit me in the eye, all right, but I'm not going to give 'em a good cigar for it." "I know, dear, but how are we going to make up all that tremendous loss?" "Sheer brilliance," said Henry, easily. "Which is what I haven't got nothing but, of. So I'm banking on you.... And in the meantime, let's go ahead with the orgy of lamb chops you were talking about. I'm hungry." They spent the evening in a cheerful discussion of ways and means, during which she was continually impressed by Henry's attitude. From earlier circumstances she had gathered that when he was under fire, his rash impulsiveness would remain constant, and that only his jocular manner would disappear; furthermore, she knew that in spite of that manner, he was a borrower of trouble. And yet Henry, who had a pretty legitimate reason to be bristling with rancour, sat and talked away as assuredly as though this hadn't been his doomsday. She left him, once, to answer the telephone, and when she came back, she caught him off guard, and saw his face in repose. Henry wasn't aware of it; and when he heard her footsteps, he looked up with an instantaneous re-arrangement of his features. But Anna had seen, and Anna had understood; she sensed that Henry, for a generous purpose, had merely adopted a pose. Secretly, he was quite as tormented, quite as desperate, as she had expected him to be. Her heart contracted, but for Henry's sake, she closed her eyes to the revelation, and resumed the discourse in the same key which Henry had set for it. Far into the night they exchanged ideas, and half-blown inspirations, but when Henry finally arose, with the remark that it was time to wind the clock and put out the cat, they had come to no conclusion except that something would certainly have to be done about it. "Oh, well," said Henry, indulgently, "a pleasant evening was reported as having been had by all, and nothing was settled--so it was just as valuable as a Cabinet Meeting." The sight of the silver tea-service, however, sent him to bed with renewed determination.