Bambi | Page 5

this? I don't seem to get you."
Bambi's laugh bubbled over.
"You get me, all right."
"For goodness' sake, talk sense."
"You came here, three days ago, in a trance, and announced that you had been bounced from the boarding-house, and that you needed paper to blot up the big ideas--the Niagara ideas----"
"Did I?"
"So I took you in, redeemed your clothes for you----"
"It was you who planted me upstairs in that heavenly quiet place, and brought black coffee?"
She nodded.
"God bless you for it."
"I did something else, too."
"Did you? What?"
"I married you."
He looked at her, dazed, and then at the Professor.
"What's the joke?" he asked.
"There is no joke," said the Professor sternly. "She did it. I tried to stop her, but she never listens to me."
"Do you mean, Bambi----" he began.
"I mean you told me to go ahead, so I got a license and a minister, and married you."
"But where was I when you did it?"
"You were there, I thought, but it didn't seem to take. Can't you remember anything at all about it, Jarvis?"
"Not a thing. Word of honour! How long have we been married?"
"Three days. You couldn't come out of the play, so I dragged you upstairs, fed you at stated periods, and let you alone."
He looked at her as if for the first time.
"Why, Bambi," he said, "you are a wonderful person."
"I have known it all along," she replied, sweetly.
"But why, in God's name, did you do it?"
"That's what I say," interpolated the Professor.
"Oh, it just came to me when I saw you needed looking after----"
"Don't you believe it. She intended to do it all along," said her father, grimly. "I tried to dissuade her. I told her you were a dreamer, penniless, and always would be, but she wouldn't listen to my practical talk."
"I seem to get a pretty definite idea of your opinion of me, sir. Why didn't you wake me up, so I could prevent this catastrophe?"
"I supposed you were awake. I didn't know you worked in a cataleptic fit."
"Catastrophe!" echoed Bambina.
"Certainly. Why don't you look at it in a practical way, as your father says? I never had any money. I probably never will. I hate the stuff. It's the curse of the age."
"I know all that."
"You will be wanting food and clothes no doubt, and you will expect me to provide them."
"Oh, never! You don't think I would take such an advantage of you, Jarvis, as to marry you when you were in a work fit and then expect you to support me?"
The Professor 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