ns,
followed by shop talk, unintelligible to Jarvis. One youth said that he
had been to this office ten successive mornings without getting an
appointment. The others laughed, and one woman boasted that she had the
record, for she had gone twenty-eight times before she saw Frohman, the
last engagement she sought.

"But he engaged me the 29th," she laughed.

They impressed Jarvis as the lightest-hearted set he had ever
encountered. They laughed over everything and nothing. By one o'clock
Jarvis and the cheerful one were again in sole possession.

"Don't you ever eat?" she asked him.

"Oh, is it lunch time?" he inquired.

"Come out of the trance."

She went through the entire performance before the mirror, in putting on
her hat.

"Shall I bring you anything, dearie?" she asked him, as she completed
her toilette.

"I'm going, too," he said. "I'll be back."

He plunged down the stairs. When he reached the street he thought of
Bambi's face when he returned with the announcement of his futile
morning. He went into a shop, telephoned the club that he had been
detained and would not be back to lunch. Then he foraged for food and
went back to his sitting on the top floor of the Belasco.

"Well, little stranger," said the cheerful one, on her return.

His interest in the afternoon callers waned. At five o'clock he gave it
up. He arranged with his new friend to call her up in the morning to see
if she had any news from the front. Then he slowly turned his footsteps
toward the club. He was irritated at the long delay, and for the first
time aware that there might be more difficulty in seeing managers than
he had anticipated. He had thought the condescension all on his part,
but eight hours of airing his heels in the outer purlieus had altered
his viewpoint a trifle.

His main concern was Bambi's disappointment. She had sent him out with
such high hopes--she would receive him back with his Big Chief feathers
drooping. He was sorrier than he would admit to drown the shine in her
eyes. He walked downtown to postpone the evil hour, but in the end it
had to be faced.

VIII

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-f