elieve in enforcing the laws, and I won't argue with him--I couldn't
count on his sincerity."

"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like you," she said. "I wonder if
you agree with our other ideals. Er--what do you think about
dancing?"

He had a good phrase which he had been saving up for six weeks.
"Dancing," he said, "is popular because it's so conspicuously
innocent, and so warmly satisfactory to the guilty."

"Good! _Good!_ How about tobacco?"

This, too, he side-stepped. "It's a poison, so the doctors say. Who am
I to put any opinion against theirs?"

She was regarding him earnestly, and a little perplexedly.

"How is it, when in spirit you're one of us, you've never joined the
League?"

"I-I've never been invited," said Mr. Mix, somewhat taken aback.

"Then _I_ invite you," she said, promptly. "And I know you'll accept.
It's men like you we need--men with some backbone; prominent, useful
citizens. You sit right there. I've got an application blank in my
desk. Read it over when you get home, and sign it and mail it to me."

"I appreciate the distinction of your asking me," said Mr. Mix, with
supreme deference. "And if you have time, I wish you'd tell me what
your aims are. I am very deeply interested."

He stayed another half hour, and the conversation never swerved from
the entertaining subject of reform. Mr. Mix was insufferably bored,
and cumulatively restless, but he was convinced that he was making
headway, so that he kept his mind relentlessly on the topic, and
dispensed honey by the shovelful. When he prepared to leave, he tested
out his conviction, and reminded her gently: "Now, in regard to that
note--"

Mirabelle was blinded by her own visionings, and deafened by her own
eloquence. "Well, we'll have to take that up again--But you come to
the meeting Tuesday, anyhow. And here's one of our pamphlets for you
to look at in the meantime."

As he went down the steps, she was watching him, from the ambush of
lace window-curtains, and she was saying to herself: "Such a nice
man--so influential, too.... Now if I could get _him_ persuaded
over--"

Mr. Mix, strolling nonchalantly downtown, was also talking to himself,
and his conclusions would have astonished her. "What I've got to do,"
said Mr. Mix, thoughtfully, "is to string the old dame along until I
can raise five thousand bucks. But where's it coming from?"

Then, squarely in front of the Orpheum Theatre, he met Henry
Devereux.