Bambi Part 5

"You will be wanting food and clothes no doubt, and you will expect me to provide them."

"Oh, never! You don't think I would take such an advantage of you, Jarvis, as to marry you when you were in a work fit and then expect you to support me?"

The Professor shook his head in despair, and arose.

"It's beyond me, all this modern madness. I wash my hands of the whole affair."

"That's right, Professor Parkhurst. I married him, you know; you didn't."

"Well, keep him out of my study," he warned.

Then he gathered up his scattered belongings, and turned his absent gaze on Bambi.

"What is it I want? Oh, yes. Call Ardelia."

Bambi rang, and Ardelia answered the summons.

"Ardelia, did I ask you to remind me of anything this morning?"

She scratched her head in deep thought.

"No, sah, not's as I recolleck. It was yistiddy you tol' me to remin'

you, and I done forgot what it was."

"Ardelia, you are not entirely reliable," he remarked, as he pa.s.sed her.

"No, sah. I ain't jes' what you call----" she muttered, following him out.

Bambi brought up the rear, chuckling over this daily controversy, which never failed to amuse her.

When the front door slammed, she came back to where Jarvis sat, his untouched luncheon before him. He watched her closely as she flashed into the room, like some swift, vivid bird perching opposite him.

"I spoiled your luncheon," she laughed.

"Bambi, why did you do this thing?"

"Good heavens, I don't know. I did it because I'm I, I suppose."

"You wanted to marry me?" he persisted.

"I thought I ought to. Somebody had to look after you, and I am used to looking after father. I like helpless men."

"So you were sorry for me? It was pity----"

"Rubbish. I believe in you. If you have a chance to work out your salvation you will be a big man. If you are hectored to death, you will kill yourself, or compromise, and that will be the end of you."

"You see that--you understand----"

He pushed back his chair and came to her.

"You think that little you can stand between me and these things that I must compromise with?"

She nodded at him, brightly. He leaned over, took her two small hands, and leaned his face against them.

"Thank you," he said, simply; "but I won't have it."

"Why not?"

"Because I am not worth it. You saw me in a work fit. I'm a devil. I'm like one possessed. I swear and rave if I am interrupted. I can't eat nor sleep till I get the madness out of me. I am not human. I am not normal. I am not fit to live with."

"Very well, we will build a cage at the top of the house, and when you feel a fit coming on you can go up there. I'll slip you food through a wire door so you can't bite me, and I'll exhibit you for a fee as the wildest genius in captivity."

"Bambi, be serious. This is no joke. This is awful!"

"You consider it awful to be married to me?"

"I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking of you. You have got yourself into a pretty mess, and I've got to get you out of it."

"How?"

"I'll divorce you."

"You've got no grounds. I've been a kind, dutiful wife to you. I haven't been near you since I married you, except to give you food."

"How do you expect we are to live? n.o.body wants my plays."

"How do you know? You never try to sell them. You told me so yourself.

You feel so superior to managers and audiences that you never offer them."

"I know. I occasionally go to the theatre, by mistake, and I see what they want."

"That's no criterion. We won't condemn even a Broadway manager until he proves himself such a dummy as not to want your plays."

"Broadway? Think of a play of mine on Broadway! Think of the fat swine who waddle into those theatres!"

"My dear, there are men of brains writing for the theatre to-day who do not scorn those swine."

"Men of brains? Who, who, I ask you?"

"Bernard Shaw."

"Showman, trickster."

"Barrie."

"Well, maybe."

"Pinero?"