After Jarvis had departed on his conquering way Bambi turned her attention to herself. She made a most careful toilette. When she was hatted, and veiled, and gloved, she tripped up and down before her mirror, trying herself out, as it were. She made several entrances into editorial sanctums. Once she entered haltingly, drawn to her full five-feet-one; once she bounced in, confidently, but she vetoed that, and decided upon a dignified but cordial entrance. One more trip to the mirror for a close inspection.
"Oh, you pretty thing!" she nodded to herself.
She set forth, as Jarvis had done, with the address on the publisher's letter clasped in her hand. She marched uptown with a singing heart. She saw everything and everybody. She wondered how many of them carried happy secrets, like hers, in their thoughts—how many of them were going toward thrilling experiences. She shot her imagination, like a boomerang, at every passing face, in the hope of getting back secrets that lay behind the masks. She was unaware how her direct gaze riveted attention to her own eager face. She thought the people who smiled at her were friendly, and she tossed them back as good as they gave. Even when a waxed and fashionable old dandy remarked, "Good morning, my dear," she only laughed. Naturally, he misunderstood, and fell in step beside her.
"Are you alone?" he asked, coyly.
She gave him a direct glance and answered seriously.
"No. I am walking with my five little brothers and sisters." He looked at her in such utter amazement that she laughed again. This time he understood.
"Good day," said he, and right-about-faced.
She knew she had plenty of time, so she sauntered into a bookshop and turned over the new books, thinking that maybe some day she would come into such a shop and ask for her own books, or Jarvis's published plays. She chatted with a clerk for a few minutes, then went back to the avenue, like a needle to a magnet.
In and out of shops she went. She looked at hats and frocks, and touched with envious fingers soft stuffs and laces.
"Some day," she hummed, "some day!"
She even turned in at Tiffany's seductive door. Colour was a madness with her, and her little cries of delight over a sapphire encouraged a young clerk to take it out of the case and lay it on the velvet square.
"Oh, it's so beautiful it hurts!" Bambi exclaimed.
He smiled at her sympathetically.
"Magnificent, isn't it? Are you interested in jewels?" he added.
"I am interested, but I am not a buyer," she admitted to him. "I adore colour."
"Let me show you some things," he said.
"Oh, no. I mustn't take up your time."
"That's all right. I have nothing else to do just now."
So he laid before her enraptured gaze the wealth of the Indies—the treasure baubles of a hundred queens—blue and green, and red and yellow, they gleamed at her. In an instinctive gesture she put out her hand, then drew it back quickly.
"Mustn't touch?" she asked, so like a child that he laughed.
"Take it up if you like."
She took the superb emerald. "Do you suppose it knows how beautiful it is?"
"It takes a fine colour on your hand. Some people kill stones, you know. You ought to wear them."
He told her some of the history of the jewels he showed her. He explained how stones were judged. He described the precautions necessary when famous jewels were to be taken from one place to another. Bambi sat hypnotized, and listened. She might have spent the entire day there if the man had not been called by an important customer. "I have been here hours, haven't I? I feel as if I ought to buy something. Could you show me something about $1.55?" The man laughed so spontaneously and Bambi joined him so gayly, that they felt most friendly.
"Come in next week. I'll show you a most gorgeous string of pearls which is coming to be restrung," he said.
"Oh, thank you. I have had such a good time."
He took her to the door as if she were a Vanderbilt, and bowed her out. The carriage man bowed, too, and Bambi felt that she was getting on.
This time she loitered no longer. She inspected her address for the hundredth time, and went to the magazine office, where she was to find the golden egg. She was impressed by the elegance of the busy reception room, with its mahogany and good pictures. She sent her card to the editor and waited fifteen minutes, then the card bearer returned. She was sorry, but the editor was extremely occupied this morning. Was there anything she could do for Mrs. Jocelyn? Bambi's face registered her disappointment.
"Would it do any good for me to wait?"
"Have you a letter of introduction? Mr. Strong seemed not to know your name."
"He told me to come."
"Told you? How do you mean?"
Bambi offered the letter to her. As she read it her face changed.
"Oh, are you the girl who won the prize?" Bambi nodded.
"You are?" she protested her amazement.
"I'm just as surprised as you are," Bambi assured her.
"Of course Mr. Strong will see you. He didn't understand." She was off in great haste, and back in a jiffy.
"Come right in," she invited.
Bambi wanted to run. Her breath came in little, short gasps. She wished she could take hold of the other girl's hand and hold on tight. A door stood open into an outside office, and several clerks stared at her. The sanctum door was open.
"Mr. Strong, this is Mrs. Jocelyn," said her guide, and the door closed behind her. A tall, pleasant-faced young man rose and tried to cover his surprise.
"How do you do?" he said cordially, with outstretched hand.
Bambi laid hers in it.
"I'm frightened to death," she answered.
"Frightened—of me?"
"Well, not you, exactly, but editorism." He laughed.
"I can match amazement with your terror, then. You are a surprise."
"You are disappointed in me," she said quickly.
"I expected a—a—well, a bigger woman, and older."
"I see. You didn't expect a half portion?"
"Exactly," he smiled. "Well, we were extremely interested in your story."
"I am so glad."
"What else have you done?"
"Nothing."
"That your first story?"
"Yes."
"How did you happen to write it, Mrs. Jocelyn?"
"I am looking for a career," she began, but his surprised glance stopped her. "You see I ought to dance. That's what the Lord intended me to do. I can dance."
"I can imagine that."
"But dancing would take me away from home so much, and the 'Heavenly Twins' need me so."
"Twins? You haven't twins!"
"Yes. Oh, no, not real ones, but my father and Jarvis."
"Jarvis?"
"Jarvis is a poet and a dreamer."
"Is Jarvis a friend?"
"Oh, no, I am married to him. They are both so helpless. My father is a mathematician. I have to take care of them both, you see."
"You mean in a financial way?"
"My father makes a fair income, and of course Jarvis may sell his plays, but when I married him I expected to support him."
"He is delicate, I suppose?"
She laughed.
"He's six feet and over, wide and strong as a battleship."
"And he expects you to support him?"
"No. He protests, but you see I took a sort of advantage of him when I married him. He didn't want to marry me."
"You are a most extraordinary young woman," remarked Mr. Strong.
"Oh, no, I am usual enough. I help Jarvis with his plays, and what I say seems to have sense. Do you know?"
"I do."
"So just for fun I wrote the story, and just for fun I sent it to your contest."
"Well, just for fun we gave you the prize."
She laughed.
"We want a whole series of tales about that girl. She's new."
"How many is a series?"
"Oh, eight or ten, if you have material enough."
"Oh, yes, I live—I mean I get material all the time."
"What do you want for them?"
"Oh, I'd like a lot for them. New York is full of things I want."
He laughed again.
"We could give you $150 a story. That would be $1,500 for the ten. Then, eventually, we would make a book of them, and you would get 10 per cent. on that."
"A book? A book, with illustrations, and covers, and all?"
He nodded. "Are those terms satisfactory?"
"Oh, mercy, yes. It sounds like a fortune!"
"When could you begin, Mrs. Jocelyn?"
"Right away, to-day!"
"Well, that will hardly be necessary. If you send copy to us by the fifth, that will be soon enough."
"All right. Jarvis is selling a play to-day, so probably we will be rich shortly."
"To whom is Mr. Jocelyn selling his play?"
"Belasco."
"So! That's fine! You'll never have to support him, at that rate."
"He doesn't know about my getting the prize and coming to see you, and all. I want to keep it a secret for a time."
"I understand."
"It would be rather awful for me to be famous first."
"I don't know about that. It would be selfish of your husband to stand in your way."
"Oh, Jarvis is selfish. He's utterly, absorbedly selfish, but not just that way. He'd never stand in my way."
"I'd like to meet Jarvis."
"Well, when the secret is out I'll bring him here. He's unusual, Jarvis is. Some day he'll be great."
"He is in luck to be Mr. to your Mrs."
She flushed furiously.
"Yes, I think he is," she admitted, as she rose.
"How long are you to be in New York?"
"As long as your five hundred holds out."
"You must come in again. If I can be of any use to you, while you are here, give you letters to anybody, have you meet people, I'll be delighted to do so."
"You're a very nice man," said she. "You have removed the ban from the whole tribe of editors in twenty minutes' talk."
"That's a tribute worth living for. It has been a delightful twenty minutes. Come in again."
Out in the office, and in the impressive reception room, interested faces turned toward her. The girl who had acted sponsor for her nodded. She tasted the first fruits of success, and they were sweet. The only imperfection was the fact she could not tell Jarvis. She could not brag of her triumphs nor repeat the friendly chat with Mr. Strong. It would be such fun to see his surprise at the news—he had so lately patronized her. "You are not the stuff of which creative artists are made, of course."
Tra-la-la! She'd make him eat those words.
Then she began at once to do the next story of the series, and by the time she reached the club she had it all thought out. It was then that Jarvis's telephone message came to her, and she decided that he was even now reading his play aloud to Belasco; that he, too, had found a golden key.
She worked on the new story all the afternoon, and waited for Jarvis's triumphant return, in a seventh heaven of joyous anticipation.
Jarvis marshalled his reluctant feet into "Forward, March!" down the hall, and trod softly in the hope that he could get past Bambi's door; but at his first step on the corridor it was flung open, and the small figure silhouetted against the light of the room behind.
"You read him the play?"
He led her gently into the room, closed the door, and faced her.
"Jarvis, he refused it?" she cried.
"I have spent seven hours sitting in an anteroom with a blond steno, waiting. Nobody has been near, all day, excepting fat old girls and Billy boys, looking for jobs."
"Belasco didn't come?"
"He did not. What's more, he sometimes does not come for days."
"Couldn't they send him word you were there?"
Even Jarvis smiled at this.
"My dear, they treated me with the same consideration afforded the janitor. It occurred to me, during those seven hours of enforced thought, that our ideas of the simplicity of selling a play were a trifle arrogant. It seems to have unforeseen complications."
Bambi sat down on the bed, her brow knitted.
"Seven hours sitting? That's awful!"
"The blond young woman suggested a letter of introduction or an appointment, but I don't know any one to give me a letter. I doubt if he will give me the appointment without it."
"I can get it for you!" she said.
"You can? Where? How?"
"I know a way. Never you mind."
"I was afraid you would be so disappointed I was tempted not to come back at all," he remarked.
"Disappointed? Not I! Why, we can wait seven years, if need be. In the end we will win."
"You are a very good sport, Miss Mite."
"I are," laughed she. "I am a very able woman, Jarvis. Some day you will be proud of me."
"You are a terrible egotist," he objected.
"If I didn't believe in myself, where would I be? You and father scarcely notice me."
"I'm beginning to notice you," Jarvis interrupted. "I was really surprised to find how concerned I was not to disappoint you."
"That was nice of you, Jarvis," she beamed at him.
"Don't do that," he said sharply.
"Do what?"
"Smile like a cat at a mouse," he said.
"I intended that for a grateful smile."
"It didn't turn out that. It was possessive. If I can't be friendly with you without your over-occupying my thoughts, I shall ignore you."
"You mustn't worry about liking me, Jarvis. It's inevitable. People always like me. I become a necessity, like salt and pepper. Just accept me cheerfully, for here I am."
He looked at her, frowning.
"Yes, there you are."
"That scowl is very becoming to you. You look like an angry viking."
"I am in no good mood to play."
"Oh, very well, Grandfather Grunt. I had such a nice day. Why don't you ask me about it?"
"I should be interested to hear what you did."
"Your manners are painful but impeccable," she laughed. "Well, I flittered and fluttered up and down the avenue, like a distracted butterfly. I spent a few hours in Tiffany's with such a pleasant man."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know. He was a clerk there. I went in to look at jewels."
"What for?"
"Just for the joy of it."
"And a clerk spent two hours with you?"
She nodded.
"But why?"
"Because I'm so charming, stupid. He asked me to come in next week to see some famous pearls. I also inspected a bookshop. I asked about the sale of published plays. I thought we might make your things into a book."
"If Broadway doesn't want them?"
"Better still if Broadway does."
"Do you always go about making acquaintances?" he inquired.
"Always. People like to talk to me. I look so inoffensive."
He smiled at her saucy, tip-tilted face.
"Any more adventures?"
"Oh, yes. A gay old man asked me if I was alone?"
"What?" he exploded.
"He did. He liked my looks enormously. I could see it."
"Did you call a policeman?"
"Not I. Do you think I am a 'bitty-lum'?"
"A what?" he asked.
"Once a pig molicepan,Saw a bitty-lum,Sitting on a surbcone,Chewing gubber rum.Hi, said the molicepan,Will you sim me gome?Tinny on your nintype,Said the bitty-lum."
"How oldareyou?" inquired Jarvis.
"Well, I've got all my teeth."
"What did you do with the old masher?"
"I squelched him."
"Did he go away?"
She nodded.
"You must be more careful on the streets, Bambi. People misunderstand you."
"Well, I can always explain myself," she added, laughing.
"Then what did you do?"
"More or less directly, I came here, and lunched, in the conviction that you were closeted with Belasco. Did you have any lunch?"
"Yes. The blond one drove me out for half an hour."
"I should have gone with you."
"Why?"
"I would never sit anywhere seven hours."
"What would you have done?"
"Gone to Belasco's house, or telephoned something startling that would have brought him down quickly."
"For instance?"
"Well, that the theatre was on fire."
"But when he got there?"
"I'd have made him see it was a joke."
"Maybe he hasn't that kind of a sense of humour?"
"Then I should have perished bravely."
So the incidents of their first day's careering ended jocularly.
Bambi called Mr. Strong on the wire next day, and told him of Jarvis's unprofitable sitting. Could he get her a letter to Belasco? Or to any other leading manager? He laughed, said he did not know Belasco, but thought he could arrange it for her. He promised to send a letter to the club.
With this assurance to fall back upon, she persuaded Jarvis to go to the office of one of the newer managers who seemed to be of an open mind in regard to untried playwrights. She showed him a magazine article about this "live wire," named over his productions, and repeated his cordial invitation to new writers.
Jarvis set forth reluctantly. He liked salesman work as little as he had expected to. But he felt he owed some effort to Bambi, since he was her guest, and her mind was so set on his success.
This time the cheeky-faced office boy admitted that the manager was in. He accepted and scrutinized Jarvis's card with disdain, but on his return from the inner office he ejaculated, "Wait!" So Jarvis sat down for his second endurance feat. The same Johnnies and Billies and Fays came to this office in their endless seeking. He began to vision the great, ceaseless army of them "making the rounds," as they call it, often hungry and tired. They were most of them uneducated, you could tell by their speech, for all their long "a's" and short "r's." That they were physically unadapted to the profession was obvious enough in many cases. They were probably badly trained. How did they live? Where did they go? They began to haunt him.
He was interrupted by hearing his name called. He rose mechanically, and followed the boy into a very large and ornate office. A fat Jewish man, in loud clothes, a brown derby hat, and a cigar, sat at a desk, dictating.
"H'are ye?" he ejaculated as Jarvis entered. He went on dictating and smoking, until Jarvis finally interrupted him, saying he wanted to see the manager. The fat man glared at him.
"Sit down until I get through!" he shouted. "I'm the manager."
Jarvis took a chair and looked at the man closely. What would such a creature find in his play, with its roots in a modern condition, no more grasped by this man than by Professor Parkhurst? The absurdity of the idea struck Jarvis so forcibly that he laughed out loud.
"Let's have it, if it's any good," said the fat man.
"I beg your pardon," Jarvis replied.
The manager dismissed the stenographer, took up Jarvis's card, looked at it, and then at his victim.
"Jarvis Jocelyn," he read. "Good stage name. What's your line, Jarvis?"
"I've come to see you about a play."
"Oh, you're a writer? What have you done?"
"Several plays, and some poetry."
"Nix on the poetry. Who brought out the plays?"
"Nobody yet. I am just beginning to offer them."
"What sort of stuff is it?"
"It's a dramatic handling of the feminist movement."
"What's that?"
"The emancipation of woman."
"I hadn't heard about it. Is your stuff funny?"
"No. It is a serious presentation of an unique revolution——"
"WELL, BELIEVE ME, THAT HIGH-BROW STUFF IS ON THE TOBOGGAN."
"WELL, BELIEVE ME, THAT HIGH-BROW STUFF IS ON THE TOBOGGAN."
"Well, believe me, that high-brow stuff is on the toboggan. I knew it couldn't last. I gave it to them when they demanded it, but I am cutting it out now. Haven't you got a good melodrama, or a funny show?"
"I have not," superbly.
"Say, do you know any Jews? I got a great idea for a Jew play that would take like the measles if some fellow would work it up. Pile of money in it."
Jarvis rose, furious.
"It is so apparent that we have nothing to say to each other that I'll bid you good morning."
"If you fellows who come in here from the country to run Broadway could putyourselvesin a show, it would be the scream of the town," said the fat man in Jarvis's wake.
"I'd rather starve than endure a pig like you!" cried Jarvis, as he fled.
The fat man's laugh followed him to the street. He hated himself, and the whole situation. It galled him to think he had deliberately submitted himself to such treatment. Even Bambi could not expect it of him,—to set him to sell his dreams in such a market. He charged down Broadway, clearing a wake as wide as a battleship in action. He saw red. He was unconscious of people. He only felt the animus of the atmosphere, the sense of things tugging at him, which had to be cast off. Why was he here? He wanted the quiet, the open stretches, and his own free thoughts. What turn of the wheel had brought him into this maelstrom? Bambi! The old story, Samson and Delilah! He had visioned great things. She had shorn him, and pushed him into a net of circumstances. He would not endure it. He would sweep her out of his life, and be about his work.
He was disappointed to find her out when he returned to the club. He had his opening speech all ready and it was annoying to have his scene delayed. He raged about, to keep his wrath hot, until she came. "Greeting," she began; then saw his face, and added, "Jungle beast!"
"I'll not stay here another day!" he cried.
"You saw the manager?"
"He asked me if the stuff was funny! He invited me to write a Jew play, and make a pot of money! He said 'Nix on the high-brow stuff,' and never heard of the feminist movement," he blurted out in one breath.
She sat down under the onslaught, trying to arrange her rebellious features.
" 'Nix on the high-brow stuff.' To me!" he repeated.
Bambi gave up. She rolled on the bed, and laughed.
Jarvis raged the room up and down. There was no gleam of humour in it for him. When her paroxysm had passed, she sat up and looked at him.
"Poor old Knight with the Broken Lance," she said. "It's tough, but it had to be done."
"What had to be done?"
"This morning's work. It was part of your training. You must know just what the situation is here, in the market-place."
"But there is no place for me here."
"After two days' failure, you give up?"
"I told you I couldn't sell my things. They are too good."
"That's rubbish. Nothing you, nor I, nor any other human can think, is too good. If we have big thoughts, and want to tell them to our brothers who speak another tongue, if we have the brains, we must learn their tongue, not hope for them to acquire ours. That is what I hoped you would see."
"You think I've got to learn the Broadway lingo?"
"I do. If you have anything to say, Broadway needs it."
"I can't translate what I want to say into that speech."
"But you can. It will mean hard work, hard work and heartache, and disappointment, but you can do it, because you have the soul stuff of a great man."
Her eyes shone now, misted with feeling. He saw again his multitudes flocking to him in the wilderness. He saw them aroused, revived, triumphant over life through him.
"Will you help me?" he cried to her. It was his first uttered need of her, and her heart beat high in response.
"I will, if you will let me, Jack o' Dreams."
"Don't let me give up! Don't let me lose heart!"
"No, I won't. I'll push, or haul you, to the top!"
"I came to scoff, and I stay to pray," said Jarvis, cryptically. "God bless you, Bambi!" he added, as he left her.
No letter from Mr. Strong arrived in the morning's mail, so Bambi induced Jarvis to go over to the Cubist show, by himself, on the plea that she had a headache. He went, most willingly, anywhere, except Broadway.
The minute he was out of the way her languid, headachey manner changed to one of brisk energy. She donned her smartest frock and hat. She was more earnest in her effort to allure the eye than she was on the day of her own conquest. "You must look your best, you little old Bambi, you, and see what you can do for big Jarvis!"
After the last nod of approval at her reflected self, she tucked Jarvis's manuscript under her arm, and started forth. She had made a close study of all the theatrical columns of the papers and magazines since their arrival in New York, so she was beginning to have a formal bowing acquaintance with the names of the leading managers.
In spite of her cheerful acceptance of Jarvis's mood of despair, the day before, she was really deeply touched by it, and appealed to by his helplessness to cope with the situation. She remembered her words to her father, "He cannot accommodate himself to the commercial standards of the times." It was so true. And was she right in submitting him to them so ruthlessly? Was she blunting something fine in him by this ugly picture she was holding up for him to see, of a thoroughly commercialized drama, the laws and restrictions of which he must know and conquer, or be silenced? All the mother in her hated to have him hurt, but the sensible helpmeet part of her knew that it must be done. Of course he could not be expected to know how to approach managers, all at once. He was probably very tactless. He admitted that he had called the enemy of yesterday a "pig." Naturally that was no way to help his cause. Perhaps, after this experience, and his new cognizance of conditions, it would be better for him to write in quiet and solitude, while she acted as salesman.
"I'm just plain adventuress enough to love the fight of it," she admitted to herself as she approached the office she had selected for her first try. She tripped in, confidently, and addressed the office boy.
"Mr. Claghorn in?" she asked.
"Nope."
"When do you expect him?"
"Oh, any time. He's in and out."
"I'll wait."
"Probably won't be back until after lunch."
A railing shut off the hall where she stood from the office proper, where the boy was on guard. Doors opened off this central room into the private offices. There were no chairs in this hall, and the boy made no move to open the railing.
"Is that large armchair in there rented for the day?" Bambi inquired.
"Not so far as I know," he grinned.
"Does this thing open, or do I have to jump it?" she smiled.
"Where are you goin'?"
"To the large armchair."
"Welcome to our city," said he, as he lifted the rail. "Nobody allowed in here except by appointment."
"That's all right. I understand that," she said nonchalantly, and sank into the haven of the chair.
All the details of the office, which bored Jarvis, or which he entirely failed to see, fascinated Bambi. She set herself to the subjection of the office boy, by a request for the baseball score.
"Say, are you a fan?" he asked.
"Can't you see it in my eye?"
He was launched. He gave her a minute biographical sketch of every player on the team, his past and future possibilities. He went over all the games of the past season, while Bambi turned an enraptured face upon him.
He was frequently interrupted by actors and actresses who came by appointment, or otherwise, and he gave her all the racy details concerning them at his disposal. By indirection she obtained a description of Claghorn, so that he might not escape her if he came in.
All the actors looked at her with interest, the actresses with disdain. One whispered to the boy, who shook his head.
"Say, what you wid?" he asked her later.
"I don't understand you."
His look became suspicious. "What show you with?"
"With 'Success,' " she answered hastily, patting the manuscript.
"Roadshow?"
"No."
"Playing New York?"
"Not yet."
"Gimme two pasteboards when you come to town. I'd like to see you."
"All right. What's your name?"
"Robert Mantell Moses. I'm going on, in comic opera, some day."
"So?" said Bambi.
"Song and dance. Are you a dancer?"
"I am."
"Toe or Tango?"
"I beg pardon."
"Toe dancer, or Tango artist?"
"Oh, I do them both."
"Do you do the Kitchen Sink? And the Wash Tub?"
Bambi thought fast. "Yes. And the One-legged Smelt. Also the Jabberwock Jig."
He inspected her suspiciously.
"Say, those are new ones on me." "Really?"
She was thoroughly enjoying herself when the brazen-mouthed clock twanged twelve.
"Goodness! Is it as late as that? Claghorn's ins are mostly outs."
"Give me that again."
"You said he was in and out."
"Nix on the rough stuff."
"What a lovely phrase! I must tell that to Jarvis."
"Who's Jarvis? Your steady?"
"No. He's a—relative by marriage."
"Nix on the 'in-laws' for me."
He suddenly straightened up to attention as a big, fierce-looking man plunged in, nearly demolished the railing in passage, and made for a door marked "Private."
"Any mail?" he shouted.
"No. Lady to see you, sir," the boy replied.
Bambi rose to meet the foe, who never glanced at her. He jerked open the door, but he was not quick enough for the originator of the Jabberwock Jig. Her small foot was slid into the space between the door and the threshold. It was at the risk of losing a valuable member, but she was so angry at being ignored that she never thought of it. When the gentleman found that the door would not close, he stuck his head out, and nearly kissed Bambi, whose smiling countenance happened to be in the way.
"Well?" he ejaculated.
"Quite well, thank you," she replied as she slid in the crack. He looked her over.
"Where did you come from?" he demanded.
"I was out there when you swept the horizon with your eye, but you must have missed me. I didn't run up a flag."
She was so little and so saucy that he had to smile.
"What do you want?" he asked directly.
"I want to talk with you, for about three minutes."
"I don't engage people for the shows."
"I don't want a job."
"Well, what do you want? Talk fast. My time is precious."
"I have here a very fine play, called 'Success,' which would be a good investment for you."
"Who wrote it?"
"My husband."
He glanced at her.
"I thought child marriage was prohibited in this state."
She dimpled back at him, deliciously.
"It is modern, dramatic."
"Comedy?"
"No."
"Nothing else has much chance. Leave it, and I will read it."
"When?"
"As soon as I can."
"But we have to go home next Thursday."
"You don't expect me to read it before then?"
"Couldn't you?"
"I wouldn't read Pinero's latest before then."
"How soon would you read it?"
"I've got nine productions to look after. I only read on trains. I'm going to Buffalo to-night."
"Then you could take it along to-night?" she cried happily.
"Say, who let you in here, anyhow?"
"You did."
"I've got no time to talk to anybody."
"I'm not anybody. I'm I. Just promise me you'll read it to-night and I'll go."
"Is this it? Name and address on it?"
She nodded.
"All right. To-night. Now get out!"
"Thanks. I've had such a nice call." As she reached the door he spoke.
"TELL YOUR HUSBAND TO PUT YOU IN A PLAY, AND I'LL PUT IT ON." "MUCH OBLIGED, I'LL TELL HIM. GOOD MORNING."
"TELL YOUR HUSBAND TO PUT YOU IN A PLAY, AND I'LL PUT IT ON." "MUCH OBLIGED, I'LL TELL HIM. GOOD MORNING."
"Tell your husband to put you in a play and I'll put it on."
"Much obliged. I'll tell him. Good morning."
She made her farewells to Robert Mantell Moses, went out and down the street. It was definitely settled in her mind that she was to market Jarvis's wares. She had a gift for it, a desperate courage in a crisis, that made her do anything to win her point and get what she came for. Jarvis would, no doubt, be sitting, still. He was waiting for her at the club.
"I was getting anxious about you. Did you go to a doctor?"
"Doctor?"
"For your head?"
"Oh, my head. I'd forgotten all about it. After you left, I felt so much better that I decided to go out."
"Looking for more adventures?"
"I never look for them. They—flock to my standard. No, I took the play and stormed a manager's office. I saw him, in spite of himself, and got him to promise to read the play to-night on the way to Buffalo."
"Who was he?"
"Claghorn."
"How did you get to him?"
"He ran through the big office into his private one, and was just about to pull up the drawbridge, when I sprang in after him."
"Just tell it to me in plain English, Bambi."
She described her entrance, with the subjection of the office boy, the ruse by which she got into the inner office, her interview with Claghorn, and his subsequent promise.
"You are a wonder!" he exclaimed. "I never could have thought of it."
"I should say you wouldn't. You'd have been sitting there yet."
"Did you tell him about the play?"
"In three minutes? I should say not! I had to cram my words in, like loading a rapid-fire gun. Pouf! Pouf! And out!"
"Did he seem intelligent?"
"Yes, rather. I have decided to see managers after this, Jarvis. It will be Jocelyn & Co. You do the work and I'll sell it. It's fun."
"It's wonderful how the gods look after me," he said.
"Gods nothing! It's wonderful how I look after you. You can burn incense to me."
"I do."
The play came back shortly, with a brief note from Claghorn. It had some good points, but it was too serious. Not dramatic enough. The third act was weak.
"All the silly asses want me to make them laugh," raged Jarvis.
"I am disappointed in my new friend, but the letter to Belasco is here now, so we'll have a talk with him. Will you go, or shall I?"
"I think I'd like to talk with him, and tell him my views," Jarvis said.
They sent in the letter, with a request for an interview. In the course of a few days a reply came saying that Mr. Belasco had gone West to see a new production, but if Mr. Jocelyn would send his play to the office it would receive the earliest possible attention. It was a blow to their hopes, but there was nothing else to do, so they dispatched it by messenger.
"I think, maybe, we had better plan to go back home to-morrow, and wait the decision there. The money is vanishing, and I am getting anxious about the Professor. He forgets to write anything of importance."
"All right. I'll be glad to go back."
"Let's go shop this afternoon, and take the morning train to-morrow."
"Good. Suits me."
"What shall I take the Professor? I've thought and thought. He's so hard to shop for."
"Get him an adding machine!"
Bambi withered him.
"He would disinherit me on the spot. That's like sending Paderewski a pianola."
"We must get something for Ardelia, too."
"I got her a red dress, a red hat, a salmon-pink waist, and handkerchiefs with a coloured border."
Once their thoughts turned toward the little house, and the arithmetical garden, they were anxious to get back. Their shopping tour was a gay affair, because it was their last outing.
"Don't you feel differently about New York?" she asked him as they walked back. "It seems to me like a fascinating new friend I have made. I am sorry to leave it."
"I'm not. I'm not made for cities. People interest me for a while, then I forget them, and they are always under foot, in places like this. I trip over them, and they interrupt my thoughts."
"I'm so glad you are true to type," she smiled up at him.
"I'm deeply grateful and appreciative of your bringing me here," he added awkwardly.
"That was out of character, Jarvis. A month ago you would have taken it as your right."
"I'm beginning to realize that others may have rights, that even you may have some, Miss Mite."
"Never fear. I'll protect mine," she boasted.
On the morrow they turned their faces toward home and the Professor.
"It looks very out-of-the-worldly, doesn't it?" Bambi said as they came in sight of home.
"It looks like Paradise to me," sighed Jarvis, holding open the gate for her.
"Enter Eve, dragging the serpent," she laughed as she passed in. "Eve never played in an arithmetical garden," she added. "If she had, there would probably have been no immortal fall."
"The number eights look tired," Jarvis commented, ignoring her witticism.
She spied the Professor afar sitting at work on the piazza. She flew along the path and burst in upon him.
"Daddy!" she cried, and enveloped him. His astonishment was poignant.
"My dear," he said, "my dear. Why, I must have forgotten that you were coming. I would have been at the station."
"I knew you'd forget, so I didn't bother you with it. How are you? Have you been lonesome? Did you miss us? Where's Ardelia?" all in a breath. The Professor smiled.
"Question one, I am well. Two, I cannot say that I have been lonesome. Three, I did not miss you. Four, Ardelia is in the kitchen. How are you, Jarvis?" he added as his son-in-law appeared.
"I am well, sir. I trust you are the same."
"Thank you. I enjoy good health."
"Stop it! Sounds like the first aid to manners. Here's Ardelia. Well, how do you do?"
Ardelia's face was decorated with a most expansive grin.
"Howdy, Miss Bambi? Howdy, Massa Jarvis? I sho'r am glad to see you folks home again." She shook hands with both of them.
"How's everything, Ardelia?"
"All right, Miss. Eberything is all right. We got 'long fine together, the Perfessor and me. We des went about forgettin' eberyting and habin' a mighty comfortable time. Did you all have a good time on your honeymoon?"
"Fine," said Bambi. "We brought you some presents, that will make your eyes ache, and, 'Delia, we're famished."
"Dog's foot! Heah I stan' a-gassin' and a-talkin' and you all hungry as wolfses." She hurried off, muttering.
Jarvis and Bambi sat down.
"Isn't there something you want to tell me? I can't just remember what you went to New York for?"
"We went to sell my play," Jarvis prompted.
"To be sure. It had escaped me for a moment. Were you successful?"
"We were not."
"Oh, Jarvis, how can you say that? We don't know yet. Belasco is considering it."
"What is this Belasco?"
Bambi looked at Jarvis, and they both laughed.
"Isn't he refreshing?" she remarked. "I've thought for two weeks in terms of managers. They fill the universe. They are the gods. Their nod is life or death, and now my nearest relative says, 'What is Belasco?' "
"It's a sort of meat sauce, isn't it?"
Consternation on both their faces, then an outburst from Bambi.
"No, no! That's tabasco, you dear, blessed innocent."
"Belasco is one of the leading managers in New York, Professor," explained Jarvis, patiently. "He is as well known as Pierpont Morgan or Theodore Roosevelt."
"Indeed! Well, I am not surprised at my ignorance. I have no interest in present-day drama. It is degenerate mush."
"Have you seen anything, since 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'?" Jarvis inquired.
"I have seen 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' " he replied conclusively.
"That was considered strong meat in its day, but now we have 'Damaged Goods,' " mused Jarvis.
"And what are 'Damaged Goods'?" inquired the Professor.
"What are Yonkers? Don't tell him, Jarvis—he's too young to know. It's an ugly modern play. We saw some things you might have enjoyed. Oh, I often wished for you."
"Thank you, my dear, but I have no desire to enter that cauldron of humanity."
"I agree with you, Professor Parkhurst."
"That is a rare occurrence, I may say," answered the Professor, with a twinkle.
"Thank goodness, you have me to prod you into life. You would both sit in your dens and figure and write until you blinked like owls in the night. I have stored up energy enough, from these two weeks in the cauldron, to run me for months. I didn't miss one thing, ugly or beautiful. I shall use it all."
"Use it? How use it, my dear?"
"In my thoughts, my opinions, my life."
"Dear me!" said her father, staring at her. "What odd things you say!"
"It's true, what she says," Jarvis ejaculated. "She rolled New York up on reels, like a moving-picture show, and I have no doubt she could give us a very good performance."
"I shall," quoth Bambi.
"It is rather a pity you waste your impressions, Bambi. Why don't you write them down?" Jarvis patronized.
"In a young lady's diary, I suppose. No, thanks."
"One author in a family is enough," commented the Professor, heartily.
"You ought to tell us your conclusion about your career. Did you settle it in your mind?"
"I did."
"A career?" anxiously, from Professor Parkhurst.
"Yes, wealth and fame are in my grasp."
"You haven't done anything rash, my dear?"
"Well, slightly rash, but not the rashest I could do."
"Is it dancing?" from Jarvis.
"Of a sort."
"Not public dancing?"
"No, private," she giggled.
"Will it take you away much?" Jarvis asked her.
"Oh, I'll go to New York occasionally."
"It is to be a secret, I take it?" the Professor said.
"It is, old Sherlock Holmes."
They slipped back into their routine of life as if it had never been broken. Jarvis, after two perturbed days of restlessness, went into a work fit over a new play. The Professor was busy with final examinations, so Bambi was left alone with plenty of leisure in which to do her next story.
She wisely decided to write herself—in other words, to dramatize her own experiences, to draw on her emotions, her own views of life. She must leave it to Jarvis to rouse and stir people. She would be content to amuse and charm them. So she boldly called her tale by her own name, "Francesca," and she shamelessly introduced the Professor and Jarvis, with a thin disguise, and chortled over their true likeness after she had dipped them in the solution of her imagination. She relied on the fact that neither of them ever looked between the covers of a magazine. Besides, even if they chanced upon the story, they would never recognize their own portraits.