Chapter 13

It was the first hint of disagreement that had ever occurred between them, and Bambi took the train to New York with a disagreeable taste in her mouth. She was going for a conference with Strong about the book, which had got a splendid start in the holiday sales. He had some plans to feature it in various conspicuous ways, so that it might advertise the play.

Arrived in Grand Central Station, she wired Jarvis, "Sorry was horrid about Strong," just to make her self-esteem less flat. Then she went to Strong's office. He greeted her in his cordial way, only his eyes admitting his joy at sight of her.

"It is good to see you," he said.

"You won't like me. I'm utterly detestable to-day. I was nasty to Jarvis, and cross with Ardelia."

"I can't imagine you either nasty or cross."

"Me? Oh, I scratch and spit and bite!"

"You are the most human person I ever encountered," he laughed.

"Be nice to me, and I may cheer up."

"I shall try. I have news about the sale of the book that ought to cheer a tombstone. I think we have a best-seller on our hands."

"I'm not a bit ashamed of it."

"Why should you be?"

"Aren't you a literary pariah, if you're a best-seller?"

He laughed.

"How is the play coming on?"

"Pretty well, I think. We're up to the climax of the second act. Jarvis is working on it to-day."

"Still no suspicion of you?"

"Not a grain. I think he's falling in love with the author of 'Francesca,' though."

"How?"

"Through their letters."

"You certainly have a talent for comedy," he laughed, and added, gravely, "I thought Jocelyn had always been in love with the author of 'Francesca'?"

"No-o."

"I have always known that the author of 'Francesca' cared about Jarvis."

"You must have dreamed that, Richard. Poor old Jarvis! Sometimes I think I will confess. Maybe I have no right to make game of him this way."

"Doesn't he suspect your style in your letters? I would know a letter from you, no matter what the circumstances."

"Oh, I don't write like myself. I write like an author. I found out what he thought she looked like, and I write tall, pale, sensitive-mouthed kind of letters, with a hint of sadness."

"You imp!" he laughed.

"Improves my style. You ought to be glad. Let's hear about the plans for the book."

They settled down to discussing advertising plans, which kept them busy until late afternoon. When the last detail was settled, Bambi rose with a sigh.

"Whew! That was a long siege. Like Corp in 'Sentimental Tommy,' it makes me sweat to think."

"I should not have kept it up so long. I forget you are not used to this drill," he apologized.

"I think I'll live. Remember the first time I came to see you?"

"Perfectly."

"Wasn't I scared?"

"Were you?"

"You were so kind and fatherly."

"Fatherly?" he said.

"What lots of things have happened to me since then," she mused.

"And to me," said Richard, under his breath.

"Heigho! Life is a bubble."

"You'll feel better after a cup of tea. Where shall we go?"

"Let's walk up to the Plaza."

"Done," said he, closing his desk.

It was a cold, crisp day, which stimulated the blood like a cocktail. Bambi breathed deep as she tried to fall in step with her companion.

"I can't keep step with you. I'm too little and my skirt's too tight."

"I'll keep step with you, my lady."

"Mercy, don't try. Jarvis says I hop along like a grasshopper."

"I resent that. Your free, swaying walk is one of your charms. You always make me think of a wind-blown flower."

She looked up at him, radiantly.

"Richard, you say the charmingest things!"

"Francesca, you do inspire them."

"I'm a vain little peacock, and Jarvis never notices how I look."

"Too bad to mate a peacock and an owl."

A brilliant sunset bathed the avenue in a red, gold light. The steady procession of motors, taxis, and hansom cabs made its slow way uptown. The shop windows blazed in their most seductive moments. The sidewalks were crowded with smart men; fashionable women swathed in magnificent furs; slim, little pink-cheeked girls. All of them made their way up the broad highroad toward home or tea, as the case might be.

"Oh, you blessed flesh-pots, how I adore you!"

"Referring to the men or the women?"

"Naughty Richard! I mean all the luxury and sensuousness which New York represents."

"You hungry little beggar, how you do eat up your sensations!"

"They give me indigestion sometimes."

The foyer of the Plaza was like a reception. The tea-room was a-clatter and a-clack with tongues.

"Like the clatter of sleek little squirrels," said Bambi, as she followed the head-waiter to their table.

Her comments on people about them, the nicknames she donated to them, convulsed Strong. He would never again see that pompous head-waiter except as "Papa Pouter!"

"Would you get tired of it if you were here all the time?"

"I suppose so. It is all so alike. The women all look alike, and the men, and the waiters. If you dropped through the ceiling, you could hardly tell whether you were in the Ritz, the Plaza, the Manhattan, or the Knickerbocker. You would know it was New York--that's all."

"What train do you take to-night, or shall you stay over?"

"I shall go on the 11:50, if you'll play with me until then."

He smiled at her affectation.

"Suppose we try another kind of crowd to-night, and dine at the Lafayette."

"Delighted! I've never been there."

"It's jolly. You'll like it, I think."

"Where is it?"

"Way downtown--University Place. What shall we do between now and dinner-time?"

"Let's walk down."

"Oh, that's a long walk."

"But I love to walk, unless it is too much for you."

"Sheer impudence!"

The walk was one never to be forgotten by Strong. To have Bambi all to himself, to look forward to hours of such bliss, to have her swinging along beside him, laughing and chattering, now and again laying her hand on his arm in confident friendliness--it was intoxicating.

By sheer force of will he kept his hand on the throttle of his emotions. One look, one false move, would ruin it all. He knew, without any doubts that she did not love him. He even told himself she loved Jocelyn. He knew that he must make himself a valuable friend and not an undesired lover, but his want of her was great, and his fury at Jarvis's indifference white hot. She caught his set look.

"Richard!"

He turned his eyes on her.

"You're tired of me. I won't talk any more."

He drew her hand through his arm, and held her there.

"Don't say that sort of thing, please; it isn't fair."

"Take it back."

The Lafayette filled her with excitement. They had a table on a raised balcony overlooking the main dining-room. Richard pointed out celebrities, bowed to many friends, talked charming personalities. A feast of Lucullus was served them. Music and wine and excitement bewitched Bambi. She sparkled and laughed. She capped his every sally with a quick retort. She was totally different from the girl-boy who had walked downtown beside him.

"What are you thinking about me?" she challenged him, her head tipped back provokingly.

"Daughter of Joy!"

"I have spent a very pleasant fortnight with you, Richard!"

"Has it seemed that long?"

"Since I left Sunnyside this morning? Quite."

"How many personalities have you been since then?"

"Oh, not nearly all my mes."

"Protean artist?"

"Headliner," she nodded.

They drank to the success of the play. Later, as he stood beside her in the car, a few minutes before she was to leave, she put her hand in his.

"I've had the loveliest time," she said. "You are the most accomplished playmate I ever had."

"It has been a happy day."

"Come to Sunnyside soon."

The train began to move out and he hurried to get off. She waved to him from the window. She was tired, so she went to bed at once, with never a dream of the emptiness her small presence left in New York for the "Playmate."

XXIV

"What luck did you have with the climax, yesterday?" she asked Jarvis, next day, as she came into the workroom.

"None at all. I worked all day, and tore it up last night."

"Oh, why did you do that?"

"It was hopeless. If you wanted to teach me how vital you are to this work, you did it."

"Such a thing never entered my mind."

"Shall we begin at it now?"

"Of course. I'm keen to get at it."

She plunged into the situation and swept all obstacles before her. The entire reaction from yesterday's pleasure and change went into her work. Lunch-time came as a shock, the morning had fled so fast. Jarvis sighed as he piled up the pages.

"You work like an electric dynamo," he remarked.

"I always work better after a happy vacation. Why don't you run off for a day, to get your breath, as it were?"

"Where would I run to?"

"You might go look up the author-lady you're so interested in," she remarked, wickedly.

He made no answer to that.

The noon mail brought Bambi's latest letter from Jarvis. All mail was brought immediately to her, so she had a chance to extract the telltale letters. Jarvis wrote:

"DEAR LADY: Your letters are fast becoming a necessity to me. I look for them as eagerly as a boy. I find myself more and more absorbed in the 'Francesca' of your fancy, whom I feel sure is the essence of you. Is it not so?

"I am bitterly unhappy these days--lonely, as I have never been before. The emotional side of life has always been a closed book to me, one I disdained to read. So once my heart begins to call attention to itself, I suppose the more poignant will be my experience.

"I have lately come back from a long exile spent in a hideous place. I brought with me the first hunger for love I had ever known. But I found no answering need in the heart I turned to. I have been thrown back on myself, to eat my heart out, because I know now that it is my own fault. If I had tried sooner to make myself a lover, I would not have to resign that place to another man.

"Why do I pour these personal sorrows upon you, my Lady of Sympathy? I am heartsick for comfort.

"Yours, "J."

Bambi laid her cheek against the poor, hurt letter, and cried.

"My poor, bungling Jarvis, how I must have hurt you!"

She read it again, and all at once light flooded in.

"Why, it's Richard, of course! He thinks I am in love with Richard! The dear old goose! He sees so little and sees that crooked."

She went in search of him, determined to tell the whole foolish story, to explain the imaginary obstacles that divided them. But he was not to be found, so the impulse died, and she determined to play the farce out to its end, and now, that she knew the core of the whole situation, she could make it count for their final readjustment.

She wrote him at once:

"MY DEAR JARVIS: At last I feel that there is truth between us. I have suspected that you were not happy in your love life. But I wanted not to pry into locked chambers. Now we can be glad of the bond that lies between us, for I, too, go heart hungry through the days.

"I have not spoken to you of my home, or my husband, but now that you have become such a part of my thought life, I feel no disloyalty in the truth.

"My husband is a man who has never felt the want of affection. He is so self-centred in his devotion to his work that I have always been shut out of his heart. At first this did not trouble me, for I was ambitious, too. But so many things have happened to develop me this last year, to awaken me to my full womanhood!

"I have had to face, as you do, the ache of an unwanted love, tossed back to eat its way like a corrosive acid. Once, not long ago, I thought, perhaps, things were going to change for me. I thought he wanted me. But now I have come to know that it is to another woman he turns for sympathy and understanding.

"So, you see, my dear, we two have the same heart history. No wonder we have felt our way through time and space, to clasp hands in such deep affinity. I lay my hands upon your head, Jarvis.

"YOUR LADY."

His reply came by the first mail.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, we have found each other at last, in all truth. It was meant from the beginning of time that it should be so. Let me come to you. I cannot bear to live another hour without the touch of your hand. To think that I do not know your name, or the colour of your kind eyes! Say that I may come?

"Devotedly, "JARVIS."

"JARVIS, MY BIG BOY: You may not come yet. It is part of a dream, cherished since you came to be the heart of me, that we should not come together until the night of the opening of our play. I know you will poohpooh this as sentimental nonsense. You may even call it theatrical. But let me have my way, this last one time. Afterward, my way shall be yours, beloved. Write me to say you will be patient with my foolishness!

"I am afraid of our meeting. Suppose I should fall short of your ideal of me? That you should think me ugly or old, I could not bear it. I have come to know all my happiness lies in the balance of that one night, toward which we walk, you and I, every minute of every day.

"YOUR LADY."

His answer came, special delivery:

"It shall be as you wish, dear heart. But if anything should happen to delay the opening of the play, I think I should ask you to remit the sentence of banishment. I live only to look into your eyes!

"How can you say that you may disappoint me? If you were old, humpbacked, ugly--what difference? You are mine! We must find freedom for ourselves and a new life. I adore you.

"JARVIS."

"I wouldn't have thought it of Jarvis," said Bambi as she read it. "He makes a very creditable lover."

"My DEAR ONE: I am as impatient as you are for our meeting. I gladly agree that we shall bring it about, at once, if anything happens to postpone the play opening.

"What you say about being indifferent to my looks makes me happy. I shall not try you too far, my lover. I'm quite pretty and young. Did you know I was young?

"You speak so confidently of freedom and a new life together. Are we to shed our old mates, like Nautilus shells? My new coming into love makes me pitiful. Must we be ruthless?

"YOUR OWN."

"DEAR, GENTLE HEART: I do not wish to seem ruthless to you, much less to be so. But has our suffering not entitled us to some joy? I know my wife to be absorbed in another man; you say your husband turns to another woman. We represent to them stumbling-blocks between them and their happiness. Surely it is only right that we should all be freed to find our true mates.

"I find it daily more of a burden to carry this secret in my heart, when knowledge of it would lighten my wife's unhappiness. Shall we not confess the situation, and discuss plans for separation? I owe this girl who bears my name more than I can ever pay. I would not do anything to hurt her pride. Tell me what you think about it, dear one?

"YOUR JARVIS."

"JARVIS DEAR: Again I must seem to oppose you. Please let us keep our secrets to ourselves until our meeting. Suppose that something should happen even yet? Suppose we should not wish to take this step when the time comes? I do not want you to hurt your wife. I respect and love you for your sense of obligation to her. How can she help loving you, my Jarvis?

"When the day comes for me to prove my devotion, may you say about me that you owe me more than you can ever pay.

"I live only for the completion of the play.

"YOUR LOVE."

XXV

Bambi felt the renewed vigour with which Jarvis attacked the final problems of their task. He was working toward the goal of his affections, a meeting with his lady. She, too, felt the strain of the situation, and keyed herself up to a final burst of speed. The middle of February came, bringing the day which ended their labours.

"Well, I believe that is the best we can do with it," Jarvis said.

"Yes, our best best. For my part, I feel quite fatuously satisfied. I think it is perfectly charming."

"I hope the author will be pleased," he said earnestly.

"I'm much more concerned with Mr. Frohman's satisfaction. If he likes it, hang the author!"

"But I want to please her more than I can say."

"You have a great interest in that woman, Jarvis. What is it about her that has caught your attention?"

"It is difficult to say. As I have grown into her book, so that it has become a part of my thought, I have been more and more absorbed in the personality of the woman."

"You told me the heroine was like me--once."

"Did I?" in surprise.

"You've changed your mind, evidently?"

"No-o. Her brilliance is like you."

"But not her other qualities?"

"She seems softer, more appealingly feminine to me, than you do. You have so much more executive ability----"

"You think I'm not feminine?"

"I didn't say that," he evaded.

"Why do you insist upon thinking the author and heroine to be one person?"

"Just a fancy, I suppose. But the book is so intimate that I feel consciously, or otherwise, the woman has written herself into 'Francesca.'"

"You may be approaching an awful shock, my dear Jarvis, when you meet her."

"I think not."

"These author folk! She'll be a middle-aged dowd, mark my words."

He rose indignantly, and put the last sheets of the manuscript away. She watched him, smiling.

"Shall you go to New York to-morrow?"

"Yes, if I can get an appointment by wire. I am going to see about it now."

"I do hope he will be sensible enough to put it on right away."

"He told me to rush it. I think he means an immediate production."

"The end of our work together," mused Bambi.

He turned to her quickly.

"You care?"

"Don't you?"

"It has really been your work, Bambi."

It was her turn to be startled, but evidently he had no ulterior meaning.

"Not at all. I think it is wonderful how well we work together, considering----"

"Considering?" he insisted.

"Oh, our difference in point of view, and, oh, everything!" she added.

"It would disappoint you if it were our last work together?"

"What an idea, Jarvis! I look forward to years and years of annual success by the Jocelyns."

He frowned uncomfortably, as if to speak, thought better of it, and kept silence.

"I'll go send my wire," he said. She kissed her finger tips to his receding back. Later, too, she went to the telegraph office and sent the following wire.

"_Mr. Charles Frohman:_

"See Jarvis, if possible, to-morrow. Play finished. Sure success.

"FRANCESCA JOCELYN."

The secretary answered Jarvis's wire at once, making the appointment at eleven o'clock on the morrow.

"It seems incredible that anything could run as smoothly as this for me," said Jarvis, as he read the dispatch.

"That's because I'm in it," boasted Bambi, with a touch of her old impudence. "I'm your mascot."

"That must be it."

"It means a midnight train for you, to make it comfortably. Do you suppose you will stay more than a day?"

"I should think not. I don't know."

Ardelia came in with a yellow envelope.

"Sumpin' doin' roun' dis heah house. Telegram boy des' a-ringin' at de' do' bell stiddy."

"For me?" said Bambi.

"_Mrs. Jarvis Jocelyn, Sunny side, New York._

"Mr. Frohman will see you at three o'clock to-morrow."

Bambi gazed at it a moment, a bit dazed, then she laughed.

"Anything the matter?" Jarvis inquired.

"No-o. Oh, no."

This was how it happened that Mr. Jarvis Jocelyn took the midnight train to New York, while Mrs. Jarvis Jocelyn followed on an early morning one.

"But why, if you both have to go to that city of abominations, do you not go together?" inquired the Professor.

"Part of the secret," she reminded him.

"Dear me, I had forgotten we were living in a plot. How is it coming out?"

"I will know to-day, definitely, just how, when, and where it is coming out."

Jarvis presented himself at the theatre at eleven sharp, and felt a thrill of righteous pride when he was ushered into the private office without delay. His vow that he would enter without so much as a calling-card had come true sooner than he had hoped.

Mr. Frohman smiled in his friendly way, and shook hands.

"How's my friend, the ex-Jehu?" he laughed.

"Fine! I hope you are well."

"I'm all right. How's the play?"

"I have it here. It is good."

"Good, is it?" Mr. Frohman's eyes twinkled.

"Yes. My--Mrs. Jocelyn worked at it with me, and I have to admit that the success, if it is one, is largely due to her."

"She is a writer, too?"

"No, but she has a keen dramatic sense. She understands character, too."

"So? Lucky for you. Does she want her name on the bills?"

"She has never spoken of it, but I wish her to go on as co-dramatist."

"All right. Clever wife is an asset. Now we've got just two hours. Go ahead--read me what you've got there."

Jarvis unpacked the manuscript and began. He had worked over the scenes so often with Bambi that he fell into her dramatic way of "doing" the scenes. Once or twice the manager chuckled as he recognized her touch and intonation on a line. Certainly Jarvis had never read so well. He was encouraged by frequent laughs from his audience. There were interruptions now and then, criticisms and suggestions. As he read and laid down the last page, Mr. Frohman nodded his head.

"Pretty clever work for amateurs," he said.

"You think it will go?"

"With some changes and rearrangements. Yes, I should say so."

"Are you thinking of producing it soon?"

"Yes, if I can make satisfactory arrangements with the author I'll put it in rehearsal right away."

"I think the author will be satisfied."

The manager looked a question.

"We have been corresponding during my work on it," Jarvis explained.

Mr. Frohman stared, then laughed.

"We can soon find out whether she's pleased. She is due here at three o'clock to-day."

"She is coming here to-day?" Jarvis exclaimed.

"Yes."

"Could I talk to her then--there is so much----"

"Sorry. I promised there would be no one here. Some crazy idea about keeping her name a secret."

"Of course. I would not intrude," said Jarvis, hastily. "She wrote me that she would leave rehearsals to you and me."

"Did she? Will your wife want to come to rehearsals?"

"I think so. Would there be any objections?"

"Not if she is co-author."

"She is very clever."

"I don't doubt it. You leave that copy here. I'll go over it, in part, with the author, and let her take it to look over. I will wire you what day I want to get the company together for a reading."

"All right, sir."

"If the author is satisfied with this, I'll have a contract made out to submit to you and your wife. In the meantime, do you want an advance?"

"No, thanks."

"All right. You'll hear from me. You've done surprisingly well with this, Jocelyn--you, or your wife."

"Thank you. Good-day."

"Good-day."

At three o'clock the other member of the Jocelyn family arrived.

"You are good to see me. I would have burst with curiosity before Jarvis got back," she began the minute she got inside the door.

"I naturally wanted to consult the author before I accepted the play."

"Is it any good? Are you going to take it?"

"What do you think about it? Are you satisfied?"

"Yes. I think it's a love of a play."

He laughed.

"How much of it did Jarvis do?"

"Oh, a great deal!"

"Not enough to spoil it, eh?"

"He has worked very hard," she said seriously.

"He tells me he has corresponded with the author during his work, and he begged to be here for this meeting."

"Did he? Bless his heart! It has been so funny--that correspondence! He's crazy about that author-lady."

"Either you are very clever, or he's very stupid, which is it?"

"Both."

"When are you going to tell him the truth?"

"The opening night."

"Upon my word, you _have_ got a dramatic sense. Blaze of success, outbursts of applause, husband finds wife is the centre and cause of it. That sort of thing, eh?"

"Yes, but don't say it like that. It sounds silly and cheap."

"Husband will be mad as fury at the whole thing."

"You don't think that, do you? That would spoil the whole thing so entirely," she said in concern.

"You're the dramatist, I'm only the manager," he laughed.

They talked about the cast, the sets, and other practical details.