w, without words, she seemed to emanate responsiveness and
understanding.

"Well?" he said.

"Let's wait until you have finished to discuss it," she said.

"Is it any good?"

"In spots it's great. In other spots it is incredibly rotten."

"My child," protested the Professor.

"Go on!" she ordered.

The second act began well, mounted halfway to its climax, and fell flat.
Some of the lines, embodying the new individualistic philosophy of
woman, roused the Professor to protest.

"Rubbish, sir!" he cried. "Impossible rubbish! No woman ever thought
such things."

"Take your nose out of your calculus, and look about you, Professor,"
retorted Jarvis. "You haven't looked around since the stone age."

Bambi gurgled with laughter, then looked serious.

"He's fallen on an idea just the same, Jarvis. Your woman isn't
convincing."

"But she's true," he protested.

"We don't care a fig whether she's true, unless she's true to us," she
answered him. "Go on with your last act."

"You don't like it--what's the use?"

"Don't be silly. I am deeply interested. Go on!"

He began a little hopelessly, feeling the atmosphere, by that subtle
sense that makes the creative artist like a sensitive plant where his
work is at stake. The third act failed to ascend, or to resolve the
situation. He merely carried it as far as it interested him, and then
dropped it. As he closed the manuscript Bambi reached out her hand
for it.

"Give it to me, in my hand!" she ordered. He obeyed, questioningly.

"I feel as if it was such a big thing, mangled and bleeding. I want to
hold it and help it."

"Mangled?"

"Yes. Don't you feel it? She isn't a woman! She's a monster. You don't
believe her. You won't believe her, because you hate her."

"But she's true. She lives to-day. She is the woman of now," he
repeated.

"No, no, no! Woman may approximate this, but she doesn't reason it out.
Let her be fine, and big, and righteously ambitious. Make us sympathize
with her."

"But I am preaching against her."

"All the better. Make her a tragedy. Show the futility of it all. She
didn't kill herself. You killed her."

"Do you write plays?" he asked her.

"No, but I feel drama. This is big, but it is all man psychology. You
don't know your woman."

"I should hope not," said the Professor. "You needn't tell me there are
such women in the world. She is worse than Lucretia Borgia."

"Of course she is in the world, Father Professor. You have