Bambi (Cooke)/Chapter 23
XXIII
FFROM the day of her resolve absolute impersonality characterized their relations during Work hours. Sometimes they walked together; sometimes Bambi went alone or made visits to her friends. Jarvis felt more and more her withdrawal from him. He attributed it to her increased affection for Strong and a consequent abhorrence of her husband’s presence.
One morning she announced that she was going to New York for the day.
“But we were to work on the big climax to-day,” Jarvis protested.
“You work at it. You can do it without me,” she said, airily.
“You are as tired of the play as you are of me,” said Jarvis earnestly.
“Absurd. I am much interested in the play and I am not tired of you.”
“Shall you see Strong?”
“Yes. I shall spend part of the day with him. Did you wish to send him a message?”
“It wouldn’t be fit for you to carry,” he answered, fiercely.
“Richard is not your favourite companion, is he?” she tantalized.
“He is not!”
“Sorry. I am very fond of him.”
“That does not need saying.”
“I have never tried to disguise it.”
“No, I should say you were both frank about it.”
“Why shouldn’t we be, Jarvis?” said Bambi with irritation.
“Exactly. Why shouldn’t you be?”
“You naturally cannot expect to regulate or choose my friends.”
“I expect nothing.”
“Then I would be obliged to you if you made your dislike of my friend a trifle less conspicuous.”
“If you will let me know when he is expected, I will always go elsewhere.”
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.”