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 passed 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? Nobody 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?"

"Pinero knows his trade," he admitted.

"Galsworthy, Brieux."

"Galsworthy is a pamphleteer. Brieux is no artist. He is a surgeon. They have nothing to say to Broadway. Broadway swallows the pills they offer because of their names, but they might just as well give them the sugar drip they want, for all the good it does."

"Well, they get heard, anyhow. What's the use of writing a play if it isn't acted? Of course we'll sell your plays."

"But if we don't, where will you be?"

"Oh, I'll be all right. I mean to support myself, anyhow, and you, too, if the plays don't go."

He laughed.

"You are an amusing mite. Queer I never noticed you before."

"You'll like me, if you continue to be aware of me. I'm nice," she laughed up at him, and he smiled back.

"How do you intend to make this fortune, may I ask?"

"I haven't decided yet. Of course I can dance. If worst came to worst, I can make a big salary dancing."

"Dancing?" he exploded.

"Yes, didn't you ever hear of it? With the feet, you know, and the body, and the eyes, and the arms. So!"

She twirled about him in a circle, like a gay little figurine. He watched her, fascinated.

"You can dance, can't you?"

"I can. At times I am quite inspired. Now, if you and the Professor will be sensible, and let me go to New York and take a job, I could support us all in luxury. You could write and he could figure."

"I don't see that it is any business of ours what you do, but I certainly won't let you support me."

"Do you really mean it isn't your business?"

"Why should it be?"

"Well, if I am your wife, and his daughter, some people would think that it was distantly related to your business."

"Why New York? Why not here?"

"In this town they think I am crazy now. But if I burst out as a professional dancer——Wow!"

"That's so. It's a mean little town, but it's quiet. That's why I stay. It's quiet."

"You wouldn't mind my being away, if I went to New York, would you?"

"Oh, no. I'd be busy."

"That's good. I really think you are almost ideal."

"Ideal?"

"As a husband. They are usually so exacting and interfering."

"I've not decided yet to be your husband."

"But you are it."

"Suppose you should fall in love with somebody else?"

"I'm much more apt to fall in love with you."

"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, and came to her side quickly. "Bambi, promise me that no matter what happens you will not do that. You will not fall in love with me."

She looked at him a minute, and then laughed contagiously.

"I am serious about this. My work is everything to me. Nothing matters but just that, and it might be a dreadful interruption if you fell in love with me."

"I don't see why, unless you fell in love with me."

"No danger of that," said he, and at her laugh turned to her again. "If ever you see any signs of my being such a fool as that, you warn me, will you?"

"And what will you do then?"

"I'll run away. I will go to the ends of the earth. That particular madness is death to creative genius."

"All right. I'll warn you."

"I've got to begin to polish my first draft to-day, so I'll go upstairs and get at it."

"Will you be gone two days this trip?"

He turned to smile at her.

"Some people would think you were eccentric," he said.

"They might," she responded.

"I am almost sane when I polish," he laughed. "It's only when I create that I am crazy."

"It's all right then, is it? We go on?"

"Go on?"

"Being married?"

"Well, I have no objection, if you insist, but you'd better think over what I told you. I think you have made a mistake; and you shall never support me."

"I never think over my mistakes," said Bambi. "I just live up to them."

"I agree with your father that you risk a good deal."

"Risks are exciting."

"If you don't like it, you can divorce me the next time I am in a work fit. I'll never know it, so it will be painless."

"Jarvis, that's unfair."

He came back quickly.

"That was intended for humour," he explained.

"I so