Bambi Part 67

"Good-evening. If you are as well as you look, you're all right," he smiled at her.

"I feel like a loaded mine about to blow to pieces," she answered.

"Hold on for a couple of hours more. Does Jarvis know yet?"

"Not yet."

He laughed and went on. Bambi returned to the box, where she sat far back in the corner. The house was filling fast now. More than a little interest was evinced in the strange box party of big Jarvis, the Professor, and Ardelia. Richard Strong nodded and smiled from a nearby seat.

"We should have come in late, just as the curtain rose," whispered Bambi. "We must not be so green again."

"Why so, daughter?"

"Then we wouldn't be stared at."

"Are we stared at? By whom?"

The overture interrupted her reply. The seats were full now as high as the eye could reach the balconies. Bambi scanned the faces eagerly.

Would they like the play? If they only knew what it meant to Jarvis and to her to have them like it!

The curtain rose. For two full moments she could not breathe. The act started off briskly, and little by little her tension relaxed. She laid her hand on Jarvis's knee and it was stiff with nervous concentration.

The first genuine laugh came to both of them like manna from heaven.

"It's all right," Bambi whispered to Jarvis. He nodded, his eyes glued to the stage. Of all kinds of creative work, dramatic writing can be the most poignant or the most satisfactory. It is the keenest pleasure to see characters whom you have invented given life and personality if the actors are clever. The Jocelyns had the aid of practically a perfect cast. The sense of power that comes with the laughter or the tears of an audience aroused by your thoughts is a very real experience. Bambi "ate up her sensations," as Strong had said. As the curtain descended after the first act the applause was instantaneous and long.

"They like it," Bambi said with a sigh.

"Yes, thank G.o.d!" from Jarvis.

"You told me not to take this seriously, Jarvis," she reminded him.

"Does anybody know who wrote this book?" the Professor inquired.

"Not yet. We are to know to-night. I wonder where she is?" Jarvis added to Bambi.

"I've thought that fat old one in the opposite box," she said wickedly.

"Why did you ask, father?"

"It is a diverting idea. The girl is like you, or maybe it is the similarity of the names that suggests it."

"What do you think about the play, Ardelia?"

"Law, honey, 'tain't no play-actin' to me. It's jes' lak' bein' home wid yo' an' de' Perfessor and Ma.r.s.e Jarvis. Dose folkses is jes' lak yo' all."

Bambi laughed outright. Ardelia was the only one who guessed.

"I trust you do not compare me to that impractical old fiddling man,"

the Professor protested to Ardelia.

"s.h.!.+ Here's the curtain!" warned Bambi.

The second act went like a breeze. Laughter and applause punctuated its progress. The house was warming up. Bambi slipped her hand into Jarvis's, and he held it so tight that she could feel his heart beat through his palm. There was no doubt about it at the end of the second act. It was going. The company took repeated curtain calls, smiling at the Jocelyns.

"I'm grinning so I shall never get my face straight again," Bambi said to Richard, who came to the box to congratulate them.

"Looks like a go," he said, cordially.

Even Jarvis unbent to him, and insisted upon his sitting with them for the third act. Bambi added a smiling second. She had explained to Richard, in advance, why she did not invite him to share the box.

"I am having a most unexpectedly good time," the Professor admitted to them all.

Jarvis's state of mind was painful as the last act began. In the next thirty minutes he was to meet the woman he thought he loved. Since his confession to Bambi the night before, a doubt had raised its head to stare at him as to the real depth of his feeling for his unknown inamorata. Had he really been moved by love, or was it only a need of sympathy for his hurt pride that had driven him to her? Bambi's strange behaviour, her admission that she did not love Strong, most of all those moments when she lay in his arms--they had upset all his convictions and emotions. He paid no attention to the act at all, torn as he was as to what the night would bring him.

He was aroused by storms of applause. The curtain went up again, and again; the company bowed solo and in a group. Then calls of "Author!

Author!" were heard all over the house. Bambi clutched Jarvis's sleeve and drew him back of the box.

"Go on! You've got to go out and bow. You do it alone, Jarvis----"

In answer he took her arm and propelled her in front of him, back on the stage.

"Here they are! give them full stage!" said the stage manager, ringing up the curtain. "Now, go ahead, right out there!"

He opened a door in the set and Jarvis and Bambi went on. There was a hush for a second, then a big round of applause. Bambi laughed and waved her hand. There was a hush of expectancy.

"Now, Jarvis, go on!" she prompted him.

Jarvis, cold as death, began to speak. He thanked everybody in the prescribed way, beginning with the audience, ending with the company. He said he was happy that they liked the play, but that he was making the speech under false pretenses. All the credit for the success must go to two women, his wife and collaborator----Here he turned to include Bambi, but to his astonishment she was gone. The audience laughed at his discomfiture, but he turned it off wittily. The other woman, the one to whom most of the credit was due, was the author of the book. She had so far hidden behind an anonymity, but he believed she was in the house to-night, and it was to her that their congratulations should be offered.

Cries of "Author! Author of the book!" with much clapping of hands.

Jarvis stood there, scarcely breathing, cold sweat on his brow, waiting for her to come. The applause became a clamour. The door opened and Bambi floated in. She did not see the audience, her eyes were fixed on Jarvis's face, and the strange expression she saw there. She came to him, put her hand in his, and smiled. He was so obviously nonplussed that the people grasped a new situation and were suddenly still. Bambi smiled at him and spoke:

"Dear People: If you have had as much fun to-night as I have, we owe each other nothing! And the most fun of all is the astonishment of Mr.

Jarvis Jocelyn, who discovers himself to be a bigamist. He's married to the co-dramatist and the author, and he never knew it! That I wrote the book has been a secret until this minute. If you hadn't liked the play, I never _would_ have admitted that I wrote it. You're the very nicest first-nighters I ever met, and we are both most grateful to you, the bigamist and I."

There was wild applause, flowers were tossed from the boxes, calls of "Brava!" greeted the little bowing figure clinging tightly to the big man's hand. They finally made their escape to the wings, and Bambi turned to Jarvis for what was to her the real climax of the evening.

He looked at her so strangely that she laid her hand on his arm.

"You aren't glad?" she questioned, anxiously.

Some members of the company surrounded them with congratulations, and when they were free they had to hurry out to rescue the rest of the family.

"What did you think of the secret, Daddy?"

"My child, I am past all thought. I wish to be taken home, put to bed, and allowed to recover slowly. I have had a shock of surprise that would kill a less vigorous man."

"But you liked it? You were glad I did it?"

"I am so proud of you that I am imbecile. Let us go home."