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 the monopoly had been double-edged; it had been a good risk--and without it, he wouldn't have had the slightest chance against the requirements--but it had been _too_ perfect, too prominent. In the beginning, everybody had hailed him as a Napoleon because he had vanquished his little world of competitors; but now that his laurel was old enough to wilt, he was receiving the natural back-lash of criticism. Naturally, his personal friends were still delighted, the older men at the club were still congratulating him for foresight and ingenuity, and Mr. Archer was still complimentary and confident: but the great mass of theatre-goers, and the mass of self-appointed arbiters of business ethics, were pointing to him as a follower of the gods of grasp and gripe. More disquieting than that, however, were the indications of a new crusade, led by Mr. Mix, and directed against the Council. The Mix amendment, which was so sweeping that it prohibited even Sunday shows for charity, would automatically checkmate Henry; and the worst of it was that money was being spent with some effectiveness. Of course, the amendment wouldn't ever be adopted _in toto_--it was too sweeping, too drastic--but even a compromise on the subject of Sunday entertainments would be fatal.