Bambi Part 58

"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 sh.e.l.ls? 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 ent.i.tled 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 ma.n.u.script 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?"