After Jarvis had departed on his conquering way Bambi turned her
attention to herself. She made a most careful toilette. When she was
hatted, and veiled, and gloved, she tripped up and down before her
mirror, trying herself out, as it were. She made several entrances into
editorial sanctums. Once she entered haltingly, drawn to her full
five-feet-one; once she bounced in, confidently, but she vetoed that,
and decided upon a dignified but cordial entrance. One more trip to the
mirror for a close inspection.
"Oh, you pretty thing!" she nodded to herself.
She set forth, as Jarvis had done, with the address on the publisher's
letter clasped in her hand. She marched uptown with a singing heart. She
saw everything and everybody. She wondered how many of them carried
happy secrets, like hers, in their thoughts--how many of them were going
toward thrilling experiences. She shot her imagination, like a
boomerang, at every passing face, in the hope of getting back secrets
that lay behind the masks. She was unaware how her direct gaze riveted
attention to her own eager face. She thought the people who smiled at
her were friendly, and she tossed them back as good as they gave. Even
when a waxed and fashionable old dandy remarked, "Good morning, my
dear," she only laughed. Naturally, he misunderstood, and fell in step
beside her.
"Are you alone?" he asked, coyly.
She gave him a direct glance and answered seriously.
"No. I am walking with my five little brothers and sisters." He looked
at her in such utter amazement that she laughed again. This time he
understood.
"Good day," said he, and right-about-faced.
She knew she had plenty of time, so she sauntered into a bookshop and
turned over the new books, thinking that maybe some day she would come
into such a shop and ask for her own books, or Jarvis's published plays.
She chatted with a clerk for a few minutes, then went back to the
avenue, like a needle to a magnet.
In and out of shops she went. She looked at hats and frocks, and touched
with envious fingers soft stuffs and laces.
"Some day," she hummed, "some day!"
She even turned in at Tiffany's seductive door. Colour was a madness
with her, and her little cries of delight over a sapphire encouraged a
young clerk to take it out of the case and lay it on the velvet square.
"Oh, it's so beautiful it hurts!" Bambi exclaimed.
He smiled at her sympathetically.
"Magnificent, isn't it? Are you interested in jewels?" he added.
"I am interested, but I am not a buyer," she admitted to him. "I adore
colour."
"Let me show you some things," he said.
"Oh, no. I mustn't take up your time."
"That's all right. I have nothing else to do just now."
So he laid before her enraptured gaze the wealth of the Indies--the
treasure baubles of a hundred queens--blue and green, and red and
yellow, they gleamed at her. In an instinctive gesture she put out her
hand, then drew it back quickly.
"Mustn't touch?" she asked, so like a child that he laughed.
"Take it up if you like."
She took the superb emerald. "Do you suppose it knows how beautiful it
is?"
"It takes a fine colour on your hand. Some people kill stones, you know.
You ought to wear them."
He told her some of the history of the jewels he showed her. He
explained how stones were judged. He described the precautions necessary
when famous jewels were to be taken from one place to another. Bambi sat
hypnotized, and listened. She might have spent the entire day there if
the man had not been called by an important customer. "I have been here
hours, haven't I? I feel as if I ought to buy something. Could you show
me something about $1.55?" The man laughed so spontaneously and Bambi
joined him so gayly, that they felt most friendly.
"Come in next week. I'll show you a most gorgeous string of pearls which
is coming to be restrung," he said.
"Oh, thank you. I have had such a good time."
He took her to the door as if she were a Vanderbilt, and bowed her out.
The carriage man bowed, too, and Bambi felt that she was getting on.
This time she loitered no longer. She inspected her address for the
hundredth time, and went to the magazine office, where she was to find
the golden egg. She was impressed by the elegance of the busy reception
room, with its mahogany and good pictures. She sent her card to the
editor and waited fifteen minutes, then the card bearer returned. She
was sorry, but the editor was extremely occupied this morning. Was there
anything she could do for Mrs. Jocelyn? Bambi's face registered her
disappointment.
"Would it do any good for me to wait?"
"Have you a letter of introduction? Mr. Strong seemed not to know your
name."
"He told me to come."
"Told you? How do you mean?"
Bambi offered the letter to her. As she read it her face changed.
"Oh, are you the girl who won the prize?" Bambi nodded.
"You are?" she protested her amazement.
"I'm just as surprised as you are," Bambi assured her.
"Of course Mr. Strong will see you. He didn't understand." She was off
in great haste, and back in a jiffy.
"Come right in," she invited.
Bambi wanted to run. Her breath came in little, short gasps. She wished
she could take hold of the other girl's hand and hold on tight. A door
stood open into an outside office, and several clerks stared at her. The
sanctum door was open.
"Mr. Strong, this is Mrs. Jocelyn," said her guide, and the door closed
behind her. A tall, pleasant-faced young man rose and tried to cover
his surprise.
"How do you do?" he said cordially, with outstretched hand.
Bambi laid hers in it.
"I'm frightened to death," she answered.
"Frightened--of me?"
"Well, not you, exactly, but editorism." He laughed.
"I can match amazement with your terror, then. You are a surprise."
"You are disappointed in me," she said quickly.
"I expected a--a--well, a bigger woman, and older."
"I see. You didn't expect a half portion?"
"Exactly," he smiled. "Well, we were extremely interested in your
story."
"I am so glad."
"What else have you done?"
"Nothing."
"That your first story?"
"Yes."
"How did you happen to write it, Mrs. Jocelyn?"
"I am looking for a career," she began, but his surprised glance stopped
her. "You see I ought to dance. That's what the Lord intended me to do.
I can dance."
"I can imagine that."
"But dancing would take me away from home so much, and the 'Heavenly
Twins' need me so."
"Twins? You haven't twins!"
"Yes. Oh, no, not real ones, but my father and Jarvis."
"Jarvis?"
"Jarvis is a poet and a dreamer."
"Is Jarvis a friend?"
"Oh, no, I am married to him. They are both so helpless. My father is a
mathematician. I have to take care of them both, you see."
"You mean in a financial way?"
"My father makes a fair income, and of course Jarvis may sell his plays,
but when I married him I expected to support him."
"He is delicate, I suppose?"
She laughed.
"He's six feet and over, wide and strong as a battleship."
"And he expects you to support him?"
"No. He protests, but you see I took a sort of advantage of him when I
married him. He didn't want to marry me."
"You are a most extraordinary young woman," remarked Mr. Strong.
"Oh, no, I am usual enough. I help Jarvis with his plays, and what I say
seems to have sense. Do you know?"
"I do."
"So just for fun I wrote the story, and just for fun I sent it to your
contest."
"Well, just for fun we gave you the prize."
She laughed.
"We want a whole series of tales about that girl. She's new."
"How many is a series?"
"Oh, eight or ten, if you have material enough."
"Oh, yes, I live--I mean I get material all the time."
"What do you want for them?"
"Oh, I'd like a lot for them. New York is full of things I want."
He laughed again.
"We could give you $150 a story. That would be $1,500 for the ten. Then,
eventually, we would make a book of them, and you would get 10 per
cent. on that."
"A book? A book, with illustrations, and covers, and all?"