Part 14 (1/2)

”Oh, no. Life is such ecstasy,” she threw back at him, as the cab drew up to the clubhouse door.

V

Bambi was out of bed and at her window the next morning early. Her room faced on Gramercy Park, and the early morning sun fell across the little square so sacred to the memory of past glories, and bathed the trees in their new green drapery with a soft, impressionistic colour. Her eyes swept around the square, hastening over the great white apartment buildings, our modern atrocities, to linger over the old houses, which her swift imagination peopled with the fas.h.i.+on and pomp of another day.

”Spring in the city!” breathed Bambi. ”Spring in New York!”

She was tempted to run to Jarvis's door and tap him awake, to drink it in too, but she remembered that Jarvis did not care for the flesh-pots, so she enjoyed her early hour alone. It was very quiet in the Park; only an occasional milk wagon rattled down the street. There is a sort of hush that comes at that hour, even in New York. The early traffic is out of the way. The day's work is not yet begun. There comes a pause before the opening gun is fired in the warfare of the day.

Many a gay-hearted girl has sat, as Bambi sat, looking off over the housetops in this ”City of Beautiful Nonsense,” dreaming her dreams of conquest and success. Youth makes no compromise with life. It demands all, pa.s.sionately; loses all, or wins, with anguish of spirit. So it was with Bambi, the high-handed, imperious little mite. She willed Fame and Fortune for Jarvis and herself in full measure. She wanted to count in this great maelstrom of a city. She wanted two pedestals--one for Jarvis and one for herself--to lift them above the crowd. If all the young things who think such thoughts as these, in hall bedrooms and attic chambers, could mount their visioned pedestals, the traffic police would be powerless, and all the road to Albany lined like a Hall of Fame.

But, fortunately, our practical heroine took no account of failure. She planned a campaign for Jarvis. She would go first to Belasco with his play. Mr. Belasco would receive him at once, recognize a master mind, and accept the play after an immediate hearing. Of course Jarvis would insist on reading his play aloud, so that Mr. Belasco might get the points clearly. He would come away with a thousand dollars advance royalty in his pocket, and then would come the delicious excitement of rehearsals, in which she would help. She saw Jarvis before the curtain making a first-night's speech. A brilliant series of pictures followed, with the Jarvis Jocelyns as central figures, surrounded by the wealth and brains of New York, London, Paris!

While Jarvis was mounting like a meteor, she was making a reputation as a writer. When her place in the literary ranks was so a.s.sured that the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ accepted her stories without so much as reading them; when everybody was asking ”Who is this brilliant writer?--this combination of O. Henry, Edith Wharton, and W.D. Howells?” then, and only then, would she come out from behind her _nom-de-plume_ and a.s.sume her position as Mrs. Jarvis Jocelyn, wife of the famous playwright.

So absorbed was she in her moving pictures that Jarvis's rap sounded to her like a cannon shot.

”Yes? Who is it?” she called.

”Jarvis,” he answered. ”Are you ready for breakfast?”

”Just a minute,” she prevaricated. ”Wait for me in the library.”

She plunged into her tub and donned her clothes in record time.

Fortunately, Jarvis did not fret over her tardiness. He was lost in an article on the drama in a current magazine.

”Good morrow, my liege lord,” quoth Bambi, radiant, fresh, bewitching.

”This man has no standards at all,” he replied, out of the magazine.

She quietly closed it and took it from him.

”I prefer to test the breakfast standards of this club,” she laughed.

”Did you sleep?” she added.

”I always sleep.”

”Let's play to-day,” she added, over the coffee cups.

”Play?”

”Yes. We've never been anywhere together before. I've put aside an appropriation for amus.e.m.e.nt. I say we draw on that to-day.”

”All right. Where shall we go?”

”Let's go on top of the stage to Claremont for lunch, and then we might see some pictures this afternoon, dine here, and the theatre to-night.”

”Had it all thought out, did you?”

”What would you plan?” she inquired.